Best and worst con' practices

[Walking Paradox]

The summer convention season will be upon us very soon. Aside from all the big ones like Gen Con, Origins, and so on, there will be many local cons too. I've been to a few of them and they range from slap-dash affairs that take place in one room to cool operations that run like well-oiled machines. What are some of the best, and worst things that you have seen con' organizers do when putting together a local convention with gaming?

For my part, I saw a poster near the sign-up table for a convention that had the wrong date on it. I pointed this out to the guy who was stamping hands and he panicked, not having realized that somebody hung up the poster for last year's convention. I've seen some organizers schedule more RPGs in the same time slot than there were roleplayers (one of whom played in an RPG and in a board game at the same time, going to the RPG table between turns to be "in-character" -- to this day I am not sure how he did it), and the sign-up desk being run by someone from a local store, who dutifully steered every comer over to "sanctioned" events in support of a particular product that she was really pushing hard to sell; at the expense of every other event in the same time slot.

I'd love to hear some of your stories!

 

[Mark Chance]

My PBTs* related to conventions:

How My Giant Son Became a Bounty Hunter

More Convention Gaming, or How to Not Run an Event

* Previously Blogged Thoughts

 

[Wycen]

Maybe a poster after me will jog my memory when I come back to read this later, but most bad con practices in my opinion come from the visitors themselves, but that is another thread.

One thing Dundracon was infamous for in the 90's was a crap game placement program. You'd sign up for 4 games in a particular time slot and get none of them. Then you'd do it again and maybe the same thing would happen. Yeah, this may happen at any con I think, though I suspect cons were you pay to get into games, instead of just for the badge, may be different.

One of the funnest sessions I ever played was when a bunch of us signed up for a game that the DM never showed up for and somebody pulled out a homebrew adventure they ran for friends.

 

[Mark Chance]

Maybe a poster after me will jog my memory when I come back to read this later, but most bad con practices in my opinion come from the visitors themselves, but that is another thread.

I don't hit as many cons as I used to, so I've not bumped into problem con-goers that much recently. IME, however, those folks are the lesser issue when compared to poorly run cons. Of course, I have rather thick skin combined with a paradoxical ability to put up with a lot of nonsense while at the same time not being unable to tell obnoxious people to knock it off.

It also perhaps helps I have anosmia.

One thing Dundracon was infamous for in the 90's was a crap game placement program. You'd sign up for 4 games in a particular time slot and get none of them. Then you'd do it again and maybe the same thing would happen. Yeah, this may happen at any con I think, though I suspect cons were you pay to get into games, instead of just for the badge, may be different.

One of the funnest sessions I ever played was when a bunch of us signed up for a game that the DM never showed up for and somebody pulled out a homebrew adventure they ran for friends.

These things bug me much more than obnoxious con-goers. It was several years ago that these thing happened: con organizers were wrong about the airport hotel validating parking for attendees (which we found out after paying double-digit dollars for parking) and the GMs for two out of three events we signed up for were no-shows. I volunteered at the last minute to run the second event, and we just left when we found out about the third one. We also walked out of a very poorly managed demo game run by Gary Gygax. All in all, a tremendously disappointing con.

Around that same time, a smaller con at San Jacinto consistently screwed up slots for scheduled games. Every game I'd signed up for was over-booked. At one event, we had nearly twice as many players as their were pre-gen PCs. A con rep said it would be a good idea to roll d20s to eliminate people until only the proper number remained. No one quite knew what to do about my refusal to accept this compromise.

"You all roll. I signed up in the top six, and I'm not leaving the table until the game is over."

"But, um, that's not fair. Rolling dice is fair."

"No, people getting shafted because someone let ten people sign up for a six-player event is the a screw up, and I don't feel like paying for both convention attendance and for someone else's screw up."

I got to play, but also got a rather humorous amount of dirty looks from people for the rest of the day.

 

[Piratecat]

At an organized con I want and expect good organization of games and judges. That means selling the right number of spots for a game and recruiting the right number of judges (or not selling tickets for tables that there aren't enough judges to fill.) I expect the facility to be clean, have water set out, and have enough trash cans.

I love it when there's enough space to spread out, or to have tables that aren't right on top of one another. Small rooms get loud fast! That's not always possible, though.

At smaller cons I generally expect that admission for people who are purely GMing is wholly or partially comped. That's pretty standard, though.

On the other side, as a GM I expect to be on time. I make sure I have the adventure ready, my prep work done, and that I'm set to bring my A game. If some poor sucker player is going to game with me, I want to make sure they have fun!

 

[jasper]

A strong judge for non-game ruling. One small con my friend was in charge of had 2 Star Trek battles 1 hour games under con rules. He came to me a guest to ask how to judge the scencio ending. If he had read the rules and had balls to tell one his friends the hour was up and he lost.
Clear security badges or ban on former con security badges. I was ask to do a demo on mail making. Midway thru nature called. I look up a saw a security guy. Ask was he was security. Had him watch the table. Came to get chew out because the goober had wore all his badges where he worked a cons. And the one leaders who at my table sided with the goober.

 

[The_Baldman]

People ask me for advice about shows all the time for obvious reasons. What I tell them is pretty simple but most screw it up.

1 - Don't bite off more then you can chew. It is better to do two things really really well then five things crappy.

2 - People want to sign-up to play games with their friends. They expect (and rightfully so) to show up, have the game run when it said it was supposed to, with a judge that is prepared, and with the people they wanted to play with.

That's it. It's not rocket science. If a show gets a reputation of being run well and a tight ship overall then players feel safe spending their money and vacation time to go to it. Once a show gets a reputation of being a circus run by monkeys then you are on your way out the door.

 

[the Jester]

My worst experience with a con was a couple years ago at ConQuest Sacramento.

I had emailed their rpg coordinator to set up a game to run at the con. Typically, at least at ConQuest, if you run 8 hours of game you get in free.

So everything was fine until I showed up, at which point it developed that nobody had heard of me. I had spent a great deal of time and effort (and some money) setting up some awesome game action, props and everything- and... DISS.

It turns out the rpg coordinator had either been fired or quit (it wasn't really clear from talking to anyone) and nobody had bothered to pick up the slack. Nobody had even looked at his stuff- so god knows how many other dms got screwed. I ended up having to pay to get in, not having a designated slot and having put in a bunch of work, essentially so I could get the runaround and have the con folks act like it was MY fault that they hadn't followed up on rpg coordinator dude's work. Aargh.

I ended up running my game as a pickup and it was awesome, but it left enough of a bad taste in my mouth that I haven't gone back. Granted, I now live about two and a half hours away instead of half an hour, but I would have made the effort (if nothing else, I'd get to game with some of my old friends!) if I hadn't been dealt with in such a crappy way. I mean, I understand the situation, but the attitude I got was very discouraging.

 

[The_Baldman]

Any judges who have a bad time at a show are more then welcome to join our ranks. I use over 250 judges a year for various shows around the country (the big three being D&D Experience, Origins, and oh ya Gencon). If you know 4th edition D&D then we have a use for you. We provide free badges, hotel rooms, and stacks of swiggity-swag at the end (plus just a great group of people to work with to start). Just check out the website in the signature. Once you've done a show run right you'll never go back.

 

[the Jester]

Any judges who have a bad time at a show are more then welcome to join our ranks. I use over 250 judges a year for various shows around the country (the big three being D&D Experience, Origins, and oh ya Gencon). If you know 4th edition D&D then we have a use for you. We provide free badges, hotel rooms, and stacks of swiggity-swag at the end (plus just a great group of people to work with to start). Just check out the website in the signature. Once you've done a show run right you'll never go back.

By "judge" do you mean "DM"? Because I would be totally down for that if I got to run an adventure or two.