[Rant] the RPGA

[Thanee]

Geez, that sounds horrifying!

I can only hope, that this was an exception to the rule and is not the standard experience you get from an RPGA con event!

One question: You are paying money to play a game at a con?

Here, you pay (and not exactly much) for entering the con, but that's about it. The DM's are there because they want to have fun (and they get free entry to the con), some want to show newbies how cool gaming is, some just like DM'ing, but noone is there to make money. While there are certainly some bad DM's, too, most con games I have taken part in, have been quite good, altho I prefer to play selfmade characters in longer running campaigns, not the usual con one-shots with prepared characters (which makes sense for cons, of course)!

Maybe fun is just a better incentive than money!

Bye
Thanee

 

[WizarDru]

It might not be, but I'm not sure I have the intenstinal fortitude to find out. I've only played one RPGA game in my life, at Shorecon 2001, and it soured me enough that I might not try again.

I can forgive a DM who's rushed and doesn't know the rules as well as I do. I can forgive a module that's linear and has mistakes. But I can't forgive my not having fun. As the main DM for my group (and for the last three years, up until this previous Saturday, the ONLY DM), I don't get to play much, so I covet the time I get. There was a non-RPGA game running at the same time as mine, and several of my friends (not being RPGA members) opted for this game, instead. I stubbornly insisted on playing the scenario because: a) I had joined the RPGA, durn it, and I wanted to play an RPGA scenario and b) I'd already registered for it, and gone to some effort to join it.

The end result? I spent fivehours playing "Brendigund's Blood", a horrible, misconcieved core module for LG, in which we accomplished NOTHING. We were ambushed, failed miserably, and saved by an NPC. We didn't follow some obscure clue, and stalled in the module....a good chunk of which was taken up by one player having his dwarf smoke a bong, and then accuse our patron of being evil and trying to kill him. The guards arrived and took him away. I got voted best player at the table...for getting another person's character thrown in jail, pending a review by some RPGA board.

Meanwhile, my friends were having the times of their lives, smacking down Frost Giants, Winter Wolves and a Lich. They show up while I'm still playing and ask "man, why is it so dead at your table? are you guys even remotely having fun?"

My playing time is a little too precious to risk that kind of experience again, despite claims I've heard to the contrary.

 

[Piratecat]

I've run or played about 300 RPGA games at cons, and you're right: a few are stinkers, a few are fantastic, and most are solid and good. When I hit one of those that is a bad game made worse by a poor DM, I just shudder and hope it doesn't happen again any time soon. I think that's why I started running games at cons; you guarantee yourself fun, and you can help make it fun for the other players.

 

[Tewligan]

Zhure, I apologize if I misunderstood. Whether from your wording or my willingness to assume the worst, I was picturing the kind of thing I've seen a few too many times from adult players who behaved like spoiled sixth graders. My bad for jumping to conclusions.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I've run or played about 300 RPGA games at cons, and you're right: a few are stinkers, a few are fantastic, and most are solid and good. When I hit one of those that is a bad game made worse by a poor DM, I just shudder and hope it doesn't happen again any time soon. I think that's why I started running games at cons; you guarantee yourself fun, and you can help make it fun for the other players.

When I was in the RPGA (too long ago to mention without revealing that I'm in my 30's -ooops! )this is the same attitude I tried to have when running games. I only DMed RPGA events - when I play games at a con I rarely play games I already know - I am far more interested to try out new games (and there always seem to be a few).

I tried my best even with lackluster material (and some players who really couldn't seem to take the initiative in some circumstances).

My most 'embarassing' experience as a DM came when i was asked to DM a table for a Red Steel RPGA event only 20 minutes before it was due to start. I quickly read the module and glanced at the characters (Red Steel was a high seas swashbuckling world - or at least that's what the RPGA offical told me as he handed me the module & charatcers). The PCs started out in a prison and were required to bust out, get their gear from an inn , fight a duel in the inn, get to their ship and chase down some renegade Djinn. Well they managed to get out of the prison and to the inn and then we ran out of time. Despite repeated and blantant attempts by me to get them to snatch the key ring from the guard while he was either alseep or thoroughly distracted by the another PC noone would just make a grab for it. Instead they start throwing punches through the bars of their cells at the guard as he brings the last person in the cell block theor bread and water (this was the plan they came up with after over 2 hours of discussion and my trying desperately to get them to just grab the keys - at one point I flat out told a player "The guard seems completely distracted by 'Bob's' antics - the key ring is within easy reach for you to try and grab it - you think you can do it with no difficulty" and the player refused saying he didn't have any skill picking pockets! ).

Anyway sorry to gone on so long at the end though they all thought it was great adventure and marked me with 4' and 5's for my DM skills and setting knowledge! I left the table just stunned and thinking - well at least they had fun!

 

[Zhure]

No problem, Tewligan. Character is hard to convey via the Internet.

Greg

 

[wighair]

unless it's an ASCII character of course! ;-)

 

[sigfried]

RPGA (often better than not)

I've played in a fair number of RPGA games and a fair number of not-RPGA. I'm here in Seattle and RPGA is very popular these days so we may have a better quality of folks running the events.

Anywhow, Ive been in some stinky RPGA adventures, mostly because the module was trying for some wierd concept or trying to be funny. In one game there was a "Donkey Kong" room, another had 1000 terrasks (SP) running around and gama world space ships. In most the players or the GM managed to salvage a few fun moments but the adventure was crap. But most of the ones I've been in were average adventures with above agerage GMs.

On the other hand, non RPGA games are usualy an abject lesson in how to be the worst GM possible. Either the GM dosn't know any of the rules of the game, they just want to run 4 hours of boring combat, they see a game as an excuse to tell you about all their own cool characters that show up as unstopable NPC protaganists that complete the adventure for you, they are psyco nutcases that cry and scream and throw fits, etc etc... Id say one in 5 is decent and one in 10 is realy good, as where with RPGA its at least 50/50.

Personaly I've taken to writing down the names of both the good and bad GMs in my area and I only play with people on the good list or ones I've heard good things about.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I too played in "The Big One" at GenConUK. I have a feeling that the people that were scheduled to DM had read it before the Con...because neither of them turned up!

We had to draft in some other DM's to run the two versions of it. It's a disastrous stinker of a module. We were railroaded into not being able to cast any spells...ack you heard it all in the other post. The replacement DM we did have made a great job of entertaining us with a depressed xorn that was very Eeyore in character (it started fighting other creatures for us, we could hear it echoing down the corridor..."I'm going to kill you...in about five minutes...here it comes...are you ready...") and generally keeping a group of exhausted sleep deprived players occupied at 2am. Hats off to him, whoever he was.

But the module was dire.

My con experience is quite balanced. Only a few of the games at this years GenCon had been below a decent standard, and S'mons game and my brothers game were very enjoyable! So it can be a mixed bag, but you hit a bad game, ooo boy it can be really bad...

 

[d20Dwarf]

I've had nothing but bad experiences playing in RPGA games at conventions as well, although I think the only ones I've played are the D&D Open and whatever the Origins tournament is. The modules are usually terrible (which is sad considering they are the biggest tournaments of the year), and the DMs are most often subpar. I didn't play in the Open this year at Gencon, and I must say it gave me more time for good experiences.