Do you run at cons, nudge nudge, knowwhatImean? What's it like?

[Teflon Billy]

With one notable exception, my GM'ing at Cons experiences have been uniformly bad.

A combination of GURPS Space and GURPS Cyberpunk being the worst of the lot.

Picture one guy getting a piece of information that is necessary for the party to finish the adventure, and immediately conceaaling it and never mentioning it again. For no reason anyone could figure out.

His friend at the table, when asked to describe his character to the rest of the players stared at his sheet for awhile and grunted out "Um..er..I..uh...like to wink" (he had the "punctuates sentences by winking" quirk on his charqacter sheet...apparently he considered this defining)

Then there's the guy who, for no reason anyone could figure out, could not stop laughing any time he was asked a question.

Don't even get me started on the smelly guys

 

[Nail]

D'oh! I don't know if it's online, and really I probably shouldn't go into details on it. I mentioned it only because I misunderstood something Krug said to me about running "The Big One," and I'd been talking about an adventure with just this name last night. I realized after posting that the adventure's author is conceivably hanging around here, and since I don't know whether the adventure was intrinsically bad or simply screwed up by our drunken baboon of a DM, I don't want to go insulting it further.

Insulting the drunken baboon, however, I got no problems with .

Daniel

Heh.

I'd like to hear about it.

Reading about "poor Dming attempts" often can be quite revealing. And as I've been recently writing my own home-brew adventures, I like to see what mis-steps are out there when designing a module.

Post it somewhere!

 

[Pielorinho]

As a player, I've had mixed experiences:

1) My first con game ever was one of the most thrilling sessions I've ever played in. People were more-or-less in-character, the DM was flexible enough to allow roleplaying scenes to bypass some combats, while making other combats inevitable (thus satisfying the roleplayers and the combatmonsters both), injected humor where appropriate, understood the rules, and ramped up the tension masterfully. At the end of the session's climactic fight, we all actually stood up and cheered. It was fantastic.
2) my second Con game was mediocre to bad. The adventure was built around a mystery that most of us had solved in the first five minutes of the game, but we had to jump through all the hoops before we could get to the official solution. The pregen characters had little reason to cooperate. The DM wasn't particularly good and was obviously nervous and unconfident. I kinda had fun, but not that much.
3) My third Con game? Holy crap, it was awful. Players showing up late, DM explicitly not wanting to be there, not the best adventure ever. Gah!

I ran a pickup game, though, that was pretty fun, and I get the impression that the DM in large part determines how fun the session will be. I did that in part by paying more attention to the good gamers (including the guy who played a wis 9 PC to hilarious effect) and less attention to the bad gamers (including the guy who kept referring to his female elven sorceress as "the elf bitch").

I'm hoping that by running games with a broad range of players I can, as Piratecat suggested, improving my DMing skills. The wis 9 PC-player, in particular, led to a major change in how I approach gaming; I hope for similar experiences at GenCon.

Daniel

 

[der_kluge]

A game I ran at a con a couple of years ago, went quite well, but there was this mentally unstable kid that was cracking some lame jokes, and being real weird, and then 30 minutes into the game blurted out, quite seriously, "Unless someone starts laughing at my jokes, I'm just going to leave". Damn, that was strange. Oddly enough, the guy playing the cleric talked him down, and told him that we needed his battle axe to help defeat some zombies that the party was currently attacking. That seemed to calm him down enough for us to continue the game.

 

[Nail]

I've only been a player at Gen Con.

Of the sessions I had there, 2 were outstanding. The first was a murder mystery in a thieves guild, and I was playing a clever mercenary dwarf. All of us role-played really well, and within
an hour or so we'd found out the bad guy's plans and were moving to stop him. The DM showed alot of flexibility, especially as we came up with a way to circumvent the intended final conflict completely: we surprised the BBEG on the street and sapped him.

The other great session I was in was good because of pacing and preparation. This DM had his girl-friend and a buddy help him with props, maps, and playing the NPCs. The miniture maps and such were even laminated! Eeeesh! Pretty well coordinated....my only complaint was that several of my fellow players were not good battle tacticians....that is to say, they just charged at things alot and got mulched. Still, it was fun.

Piel, you gonna laminate yer maps?

 

[Pielorinho]

A game I ran at a con a couple of years ago, went quite well, but there was this mentally unstable kid that was cracking some lame jokes, and being real weird, and then 30 minutes into the game blurted out, quite seriously, "Unless someone starts laughing at my jokes, I'm just going to leave". Damn, that was strange. Oddly enough, the guy playing the cleric talked him down, and told him that we needed his battle axe to help defeat some zombies that the party was currently attacking. That seemed to calm him down enough for us to continue the game.

We dealt with the elf-bitch player differently. In addition to his casual misogyny, he had a squeaky-toy that he kept squeezing and squeaking throughout the session, even after I told him to put it away. At some point during the session, he said he had to go meet his girlfriend real quick, and could we pause the game for him?

After wincing in sympathy for his girlfriend, I said nope, we had to keep the game moving, I'd pass his character on to someone else, and thanks for playing!

Kicked his heiny out of there. Shoulda done it fifteen minutes after he joined.

Daniel

 

[ced1106]

1) They give you adventures to run, right?

No, unless it's an RPGA sorta thing. Modules are looked down upon, but if you run your own adventure, you should playtest it first.

2) Do you run the same adventure over and over, or do you run different ones? Or do you get to choose?

You get to choose, unless it's an RPGA or other organized event.

3) Do you get to choose from several adventures to run, or do you just take whichever one they give you, and too bad for you if it sucks?

As I understand it, if it's an RPGA event, the organizers may decide what adventure to run, and its often run multiple times at a con. This is so that attendees can play the same adventure at their convenience.

4) If you get an adventure that's putrid and awful to run, do you have some leeway in changing it around? How much leeway?

None.

5) Do games generally run the full 4.5 hour slot, or do they usually end early? I've played three games at DragonCon; only one lasted most of the allotted time, but I dunno if this is typical.

Varies.

6) What else should we know about running con games?

RPGA games are ready to play. If you're running your own game:

* Pregenerated characters

* Prepare for newbies. Summarize the rules of the game. If a "rules light" version of the game exists, make photocopies.

* Multiple redundancy. Some players will drop out midway through the session, especially if they overdid it the previous night. Some players are only physically there. Make sure your adventure is playable if people drop out, vanish, or are, well, clueless!

* Some players will act politely as guests, others will treat you like some manservant. Still others don't realize there are other people in the room or what system they're playing.


You might edit your question since RPGA events are different from those you run yourself. Another option for your friends is to run a "beer and pretzels" card or board game. MUCH easier.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[ced1106]

The search engine is down (or something), but you might want to look up running (non-RPGA) "games at conventions" on RPGnet:

http://forum.rpg.net/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=3


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[Kugar]

I almost forgot!

Many of the RPGA games will run a "Slot Zero" Slot Zeros are games run for the jugdes before the Convention but under the reporting for the Con. Slot zeros are very popular among "Living" campaign judges so they do not eat (judge but never get to play) the scenarios.

I know that the RPGA is looking to sign up judges now, but they don't have the schedule nailed down yet so there is plenty of time.

Another thing about some of the RPGA judging.
In many cases, while the players are marshalling (being sorted to tables) the judges get a briefing on the modual. One last chance to go over any questions before you are thrown to the wolves. At least that is how the Open was run - and from the people I talked to I'm pretty sure LG was run this way also.

Kugar