Baldman Games & WotC On All Access Issues At Gen Con

There were a lot of complaints about the D&D All Access gaming at Gen Con this year. Charles Akins over at Dyvers Campaign has a great summary, so I won't repeat it here - but if you're interested, check that out. WotC and Baldman Games (who run the D&D events at Gen Con) appear to have heard those complaints, because they are taking action to address them - to the extent that they're giving All Access badge holders a free copy of the upcoming hardcover Out of the Abyss, and a free copy of Sword Coast Legends video game!

You need to fill out a form to get your goodies.

"I first want to thank everyone for the excellent feedback so far. We are gathering comments and discussing ways to improve all Baldman Games’ offerings going forward. We will have further posts this Fall asking for more specific feedback.

Baldman Games and Wizards of the Coast realize that we did not meet your expectations with our All-Access Program at Gen Con this year. The way production schedules lined up, it was difficult for us to provide the new products that had been offered in previous years. But have no fear! We want to make things right. We value your support of D&D and our programs at Gen Con and other shows. To that end, we have some stuff to offer to everyone who played in the All-Access program at Gen Con 2015.

Here’s what you’ll get:

One hard copy of Out of the Abyss, the TRPG adventure in the Rage of Demons story, before it hits store shelves, mailed directly to you
One code for a digital copy of Sword Coast Legends, the party-based RPG coming out on PC, Mac and Linux, on September 29th, sent to the email you provide.

If you are an All-Access player from Gen Con, please make sure to fill in the form below completely. The information provided will only be used to ship the book to you, send the code, and/or contact you if we have a problem doing so. It will be destroyed once shipping is completed.

Once again, we apologize for not meeting the expectations of the program this year, and we will work hard in the coming months to build a bigger, stronger, and more transparent program in 2016 and beyond.

David Christ
Baldman Games"

 

[skraig1]

Dave does not like to do "on the fly" organizing. I don't blame him. Once you start along that path, it can cause a LOT of problems. He allocates the DMs he has to events before the Con even starts. Which means that there will be X number of DMs dedicated to running the Intro Adventures during that slot. If he runs out, he runs out. If a bunch of players didn't show to a different adventure he MIGHT have an extra DM that he can get to run another table. But it's unlikely.

That's why all of the events are ticketed and available for order pre-GenCon. To make sure everyone who wants to play gets a chance to and to not provide false hope to people when they go beyond the number of tables they have or the number of DMs they have.

Dave is also very picky about who he allows to DM at his conventions. Anyone who has DMed for him in the past knows that his rules are strict(but fair). If you get a lot of complaints about your DMing, you will not be allowed to volunteer again next year. If you are late for your games, you will not be allowed to volunteer again and so forth.

This is why he doesn't just let anyone who walks up and asks to DM grab a table and run a game. He wants to vet people. He wants all of their information well in advance and wants them to read through his e-mail of convention rules and get written confirmation from them that they agree to follow them before they can run. This way he also knows where to contact them for various other reasons.

DMing at GenCon is serious business and Dave treats it that way. People are paying to play and he wants them to get their money's worth.

Though, I'm guessing that this year the number of first year volunteers might have been greater than in previous years. With first year volunteers, Dave doesn't know what to expect since there's not a lot you can do to verify how good of a DM someone is.


The DM had to follow the rules of Adventurer's League in terms of how much they can scale the encounter. If you haven't ran one before, this is the way it works:
The adventure says at the beginning that it is designed for Level X characters. So, for example, level 6. It then has a chart that says if the Average Party Level is above 6, then play the game at "Hard" difficulty. If there are 7 people and the Average Party Level is above the level the adventure is designed for, then play at Very Hard.

All of the encounters in the adventure have a side bar that says something like "Very Hard: The monster has 180 hp instead and his attack bonus is +7 instead of +6"

Beyond that, you need to run the adventure as written. Though you are allowed to add or remove enemies from an encounter if you feel it is too easy or too hard. But the monsters need to come from the encounter itself. For instance, if there are 5 Orcs in an encounter you can add or remove Orcs but you can't add a Dragon.

However, figuring out when to use your ability to add or remove monsters can be very difficult. Some encounters are much more deadly than others and figuring out which are which on the fly can be difficult. Not only that but encounters that one group can breeze past can be extremely difficult for another simply because of the composition of classes or spell choices...and sometimes by pure luck.

Once monsters have been described and are in the encounter it can be difficult to remove them. You need to have them run away or make them start taking useless actions in combat. Adding monsters can be a little bit easier but how they show up still needs to be explained logically. Not only that but if the encounter is against ONE really powerful creature then all you can do is add a second one. Which could possibly be enough to completely kill everyone.

Sometimes, you just need to run that anti-climactic encounter and watch the PCs win without any problem.

OK I get your point. It seems too bad that there isn't more flexibility. I am fairly sure we played "very hard" as our track for the epic. Maybe they need another track added on to the end. 5-10 is a broad category. I am not boasting about our party being "kick but" we were just too high level for the encounters. At the final epic our six characters included three L9s, an L8 and two L7. We were also highly suited to the encounter type. (no spoilers)

As to the level of caution for throwing unknown DMs into the mix. Alright. I understand, I just wish that every potential new D&D player or old one coming back was given a good experience.

Maybe next year I will volunteer to DM a couple of the intro games. I will have to check into how to do it.

Skraig1

 

[AriochQ]

Gen Con's on a substantial growth curve right now, so I don't think it has anything to do with the convention needing huge injections of cash. I think it has a lot more to do with nobody really making D&D at Gen Con a priority any more. There are more comfortable places for them to run D&D events than the concrete floor of the open convention hall that I'm sure someone like WotC could wrangle if they were interested in doing so.

I went to a local gaming convention this year (FOGCon, Pekin IL). I think it cost a total of $6 to get in, no game fees. I played 2 4 hour RPG's with good GM's and a session of Artemis. I enjoy going to Gen Con for the 'big con experience' but I am beginning to wonder whether it is worth gaming there.

My biggest gripe...I have partial hearing loss from time in the military. When there is background noise, I have a very hard time hearing what people are saying. I sat right next to the GM this year, so I could generally hear him, but I heard nothing from any of the other players opposite me

 

[Mistwell]

I went to a local gaming convention this year (FOGCon, Pekin IL). I think it cost a total of $6 to get in, no game fees. I played 2 4 hour RPG's with good GM's and a session of Artemis. I enjoy going to Gen Con for the 'big con experience' but I am beginning to wonder whether it is worth gaming there.

My biggest gripe...I have partial hearing loss from time in the military. When there is background noise, I have a very hard time hearing what people are saying. I sat right next to the GM this year, so I could generally hear him, but I heard nothing from any of the other players opposite me

The best games at GenCon, in my experience, are private ones run in the hotels surrounding the convention, run by your fellow EnWorld (and CircvsMaximvs) GMs right here. Generally speaking if you want to join them you can, by grabbing a spot when the games are announced here in a convention gaming thread. They're some of the best GMs in the world. And the atmosphere is quieter in those hotels (by far). And friendly, and fun. You come away with more respect and appreciation for the people here too.

 

[Jester David]

One classy move? Basically, these people paid $150 and got the same thing as the people who paid $40 (who didn't sound real impressed). To give them a book (MSRP $50) and video game (MSRP $60) is just paying back their $110 in a manner cheaper then cash to WotC and less convenient to the customer. It should silence some grumbling, but it's a fairly basic response, not extraordinary customer service.

Well, they could have done nothing. Show was over, it's a small percentage of fans. It would have been super easy to dismiss the problem with a "Sorry, we hear your complaints, and will look into improving things next year."
I don't think that kind of response would have surprised anyone.
But they didn't.

They could have also just given out the Sword Coast codes. That's cheap as they just need to send an email, and can handle that through GenCon's records of who bought the passes. There's no distribution costs (i.e. shipping) and limited loss of sales.
After all, last year people paid the same price and only got a $50 book, so the $60 game is better.

But they're also giving the book. That's big. The book and the game means there's significantly more value than people received last year, meaning the value is much higher.

But that's not the full reason it's a classy move. It was Baldman Games that provided the poor service and didn't provide rewards equal to the value of the tickets. They run WotC's organized play games at major conventions, and I believe they've been doing so for a decade. It would have been easy for WotC (and N-Space) to shrug and say "not my problem". But they're stepping in and offering their own money to help.
That's what makes it classy.

 

[Blue]

This feels more like damage control than class act. Especially after the early post-Gencon communications from Baldwin games that tried to spin this that were just a few gamers dissatisfied because they didn't get 'stuff'. I'm glad for the people who paid $150 that they will get something above those $40, but that's minimum fairness. The $90 difference could purchase these at retail price, but at least it's something.

The experience itself sounded flawed compared to previous years, and while I'm sure the this damage control will blunt the misgivings, it was still a bad showing by Baldwin Games in the first place. They will need to be more forthcoming ahead of time next year if they expect to rebuild trust.

 

[Timothy Stack II]

I heard (thus second hand information) that they were not allowed to have a microphone. Now a number of these limitations are because they no longer are a sponsor of Gen Con. If they (WOTC) did step up and sponsor, then I believe they could offer a better experience. In one post the number $75,000 was mentioned for them to upgrade their sponsorship and thus get better perks, location, etc from Gen Con. Seemed like the person knew what they were talking about, but I can't confirm the validity of that number.

Actually, BaldmanGames WAS one of the sponsors of GenCon this year.

 

[Coredump]

Actually, BaldmanGames WAS one of the sponsors of GenCon this year.

But not the same level that WotC was last year.

 

[Malikai2000]

Actually, BaldmanGames WAS one of the sponsors of GenCon this year.

Actually they were not a sponsor. They were an 'Event Partner'. Last year I believe WOTC was a sponsor. That subtle difference appears to have had a significant impact.

 

[EternalDungeonMaster]

I heard (thus second hand information) that they were not allowed to have a microphone. Now a number of these limitations are because they no longer are a sponsor of Gen Con. If they (WOTC) did step up and sponsor, then I believe they could offer a better experience. In one post the number $75,000 was mentioned for them to upgrade their sponsorship and thus get better perks, location, etc from Gen Con. Seemed like the person knew what they were talking about, but I can't confirm the validity of that number.

The costs are freely available. Just Google "Gen Con Sponsorship & Marketing Kit". The top three hits are the 2013, 2014, and 2015 kit PDFs with all the costs and benefits of the various tiers of sponsorship.

 

[Matt James]

Dave Christ (Baldman) is one of the best guys in the industry.