Help on setting up a Gameday - Business Plan needed!

[Mixmaster]

To the ones who have set up a Gameday:

I would like to set up a Gameday in New Jersey. I've got the FLGS lined up, and I would like information to set up a business plan to present him.

Any and all ideas will be much obliged. An existing plan for me to use as a template will be greatly appreciated.

I thank all of you in advance for your time in this matter. If you have anything to send me, my email is mixmaster15 AT mail DOT com.

 

[guedo79]

Hmmm, a business plan? I didn't approach it that way so I'm not 100% sure. It has been a few years since I've taken any business classes.

My main focus was getting a non-conflicting date with cons, store events and other odd things that may distract possible players/dms. (this I could have done better)

Then I looked for reliable dms to run games that people would like to play. Even to the point of seeing if I could get someone to run the 'local flavor'. In other words I, with the back up of a few willing players, attempted to get an rpg designed by the local store/company ran.

Finally I looked at Advertising. Enworld thread, web site, flyers, and now a banner ad. I did my best to advertise to the local people as well as the internet audience without putting out uninterested people.

 

[Mixmaster]

Thank you, Albany!!

I'd like to hear from our Chicago/Ohio/NC contingents. Or any other city I might have missed. Or anyone else who sent out feelers in their area.

I'm changing the topic name to game plan instead of business plan, but if one of the existing cities do have a business plan, or scraps of a plan, I'm still all for looking at it for ideas.

 

[Piratecat]

In Boston, we've been a lot more casual than that. Of course, we're not dealing with a gaming store. In the past, I've:

- posted a date
- recruited a few people who want to run games
- when those games look filled, add more games

You can always ask publishers for product donations as well. You may want to advertise on RPGA email lists if you're running Living Greyhawk and don't have enough EN Worlders. I prefer to keep these "in the family" when I run one, but both approaches work depending on the desired size.

 

[Rel]

I guess I'm to blame for the NC Game Days.

We don't play at a game store. We have been using space at a local university student center. We're able to obtain this space for free thanks to some of our attendees being students there and we are now solidifying ties to a student organization that will be able to obtain this space on an ongoing basis.

You can go look at any of the NC Game Day threads to see how we organized things for the first three iterations. Last time, at NCGDIII, we hooked up with the folks involved with a local con and established a relationship with them. The guy who heads up that group (who posts here as Morgenes) made an amazing web site that we're using to coordinate our events going forward.

I'm not sure how we would do things differently if we were holding our game days in a store. I'm sure it would be heavily dependant on the store owner. I think one important thing you might want to do (if you haven't already) is to take a poll here on the boards to determine the general level of interest in your area. That should give you an idea as to how large an event you are looking at and this will lead to other considerations such as how long your slots need to be, how many games you need to run at a time and so forth.

I'll also note that we have made an effort to set up time outside the confines of the Game Day proper in order to meet and socialize. We usually schedule a dinner on the Friday night before the Game Day and then have dinner the night of the Game Day itself (Saturday). This is nice because you get to chat about stuff including, but not limited to, gaming and do so while you're not under the time constraints that the gaming slots dictate.

I'm not sure what else to tell you but if you have specific questions, I'll answer them as best I can.

 

[Morpheus]

In Boston, we've been a lot more casual than that. Of course, we're not dealing with a gaming store. In the past, I've:

- posted a date
- recruited a few people who want to run games
- when those games look filled, add more games

You can always ask publishers for product donations as well. You may want to advertise on RPGA email lists if you're running Living Greyhawk and don't have enough EN Worlders. I prefer to keep these "in the family" when I run one, but both approaches work depending on the desired size.

This is basically what we did for the 2 Tampa Game Days we have done. The first one was more successful than the second one, though. It also helps to have publishers who will give away some free product. If you solicit on the Publishers board, I bet a few of them would be willing to donate some free product. Then, you coud give it away at the Game Day. Good luck!

 

[jmucchiello]

I thought the point of the gamedays was to get ENWorlders to meet each other. Not to hold a convention.

An informal ENWorlder get together in NJ interests me greatly. A generic come-one, come-all convention I can go to any time.

If an ENWorlder get together comes together I'll bring an adventure to playtest (er, run).

 

[Mixmaster]

To all who've replied so far, Thank you!

I thought the point of the gamedays was to get ENWorlders to meet each other. Not to hold a convention.

An informal ENWorlder get together in NJ interests me greatly. A generic come-one, come-all convention I can go to any time.

If an ENWorlder get together comes together I'll bring an adventure to playtest (er, run).

That's exactly what I'm looking for: An ENWorlders gameday for NJ'ers (with NY, PA, DE, CT etc. inclusive). And if it can give good PR for ENWorld for other NJ RPG'ers, so much the better.

 

[guedo79]

That's exactly what I'm looking for: An ENWorlders gameday for NJ'ers (with NY, PA, DE, CT etc. inclusive). And if it can give good PR for ENWorld for other NJ RPG'ers, so much the better.

Thats easy. Just post a thread with a title like "NJ area Game Day." And they will come. Having information like a date and place helps but isn't required. You may have to bump it once or twice to get people to notice your thread but after that things should start flowing.

 

[Rel]

I thought the point of the gamedays was to get ENWorlders to meet each other. Not to hold a convention.

An informal ENWorlder get together in NJ interests me greatly. A generic come-one, come-all convention I can go to any time.

About that, let me say this:

When we posted our first NC Game Day thread, it was here and only here. I had not given much thought as to how to handle "outsiders". But of course there were ENWorlders who saw it and told their friends. Some of these friends came to ENWorld and registered and posted in the thread saying, "I'd love to come." You could look over at their post count and see that it said "1".

Now, is that person an ENWorlder? Of course they are (in my opinion).

Some of these folks went on to become regular posters here and some didn't. They tended to hear about the game days when they cropped up and would pop into the appropriate thread to sign up. They still had single digit post counts and you could see that the only posts they made were in the Game Day threads.

Additionally, there was another group of people who didn't even post on the boards but who had friends or family here that signed them up. "I'm coming to the game day and so is my wife. Sign her up for the X slot in Y game please!" Those people had never posted even once at ENWorld.

Regardless, I have no inclination whatsoever to try and exclude these people from the Game Day. The fact is that they have been, without exception, nice, interesting, fun-to-game-with folks.

When I was approached by the folks at Trinocon, I (and a number of others who had attended the previous game days) asked the question, "Should we be broadening our invite to people who are not posters at ENWorld?" Then I asked myself, "What is the difference between them and the others who have never posted but who are friends and family of those who do?" The only answer I could come up with was "Very little." I made a command decision to open the game day up to the folks affiliated with Trinocon.

I stand by that decision. We had a great time at the last game day. The Trinocon folks brought a lot to the table including an area for computer games, board games and a big auction. If any of the ENWorlders there didn't like their involvement, I've yet to hear about it. My intention is to partner with Trinocon whenever our schedules allow it.

That said, I wish to make two things clear:

1) Nobody elected me "King of the NC Game Days" and I've made it abundantly clear that if others feel that the game days should be going in a different direction, I'm only too happy to abdicate. It doesn't pay as well as you might think.

2) Other groups in other areas might have very different ideas about who they want to include and who they don't. We are fortunate to have a very large amount of space available and we've never had to turn anybody away because of that. If we were up against space constraints (such as if we were using a game store or somebody's house), we'd likely have to be more selective. My point here is that I'm not saying my way is the right way.

While I don't contend that you should do things the way I have, I do think you should address how you intend to handle this issue. It is bound to crop up sooner or later.