Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 2032985" data-attributes="member: 10201">Out of order: 2: hotels fill fairly quickly. If i were you, i'd buy a badge right now, and get a hotel room right now.1: Some games fill up really quickly. Others never do. If you're trying to get into the Latest Cool Thing, you want to register early--Living Dungeon fills up pretty quickly, last year the V:tR demos filled up almost instantly. If you *must* play a particular GM's session of some game, then you want to register early--most games only accommodate 6 people, after all, so it doesn't take very many people being interested in it to fill it up. If you really want to play some obscure game that you never get to play at home, you'll want to register early--last year, i believe there were two games of Everway, total, so only the first dozen interested parties got to play, frex. But if you merely want to play a good game of D&D, or something else equally common, you don't even need to pre-register.Also, keep in mind that, if you really want to get into a game, but it's full, you still have a chance. Show up 10-15min early, with generic tickets in hand, and see if there's an opening. Some GMs can accommodate an extra player. And, IME, almost never does everyone who's registered for a game actually show up, so there are often openings. I've run games with 6 people pre-registered, and had only 2 of them actually show up. In fact, its rare enough in my experience, that it is noteworthy and sticks in my mind the only time that 6 out of 6 registered gamers showed up for a game. (I've frequently had exactly the right number of people show up--but because 2 people showed with generics, and 2 who were pre-reg'd never showed.)As for picking games, here's my advice:1: Play that game you've always wanted to play. Whether that means a particular system, or a type of scenario, or with a GM you've always wanted to play with.2: If that doesn't fill your schedule, play games that you've never heard of. You can play D&D, or V:tM, or ShadowRun, or whatever, any time at home. Take advantage of the convention to play games that are more obscure, or that your friends refuse to play, or that are new--or all of the above.3: Keep in mind that, while most games at GenCon will be good, there's no guarantee. You're playing with an unfamiliar group, and any one of them (including the GM) could be a dud, or even ruin the game for you. Which is a large part of why i focus on (2), and to a lesser extent (1), when picking games. There's not much point, IMHO, in playing a potentially-marginal session of D&D3E with strangers--i can play D&D3E at home, with a group that i know is fun. But if it's a game that i can't play at home, then there's a definite positive to offset the potential negative (which, in most cases, never materializes--but every now and then...).Also, don't over-book. Try and estimate about how many games you'll actually want to play, and sign up for that many, no more, maybe a little less. Every time you sign up for a game and then don't show up, you're (1) preventing someone else who wants to play that game from getting in and (2) possibly ruining the game for everyone. [Last year, one of the sessions that we had to cancel had 6 people signed up for it. One of them showed. And he had come from Australia for GenCon, and had been specifically looking forward to trying out this new game system (i knew him from online). I know *I* wouldn't want to be part of the reason that somebody who came from another continent didn't get to play a game they'd been looking forward to. (And, yes, we did what we could with only one player, but it just wasn't set up to accommodate only one, and it wouldn't have been much fun for him, solo.)] All that said, it's not earth-shattering if you overbook. Everybody does it. Just be realistic--if you find out you're beat after your 5th game, and can't make the 6th, that's understandable. And you should be there to have fun, so have fun. Though, even swinging by the table and letting the GM know, so she knows that there's at least that one opening for someone with a generic ticket, is great. Just don't sign up for 15 games, figuring you'll actually go to 5, and figure out which ones when the time comes. That's just rude.Oh, and finally, you don't need to pre-reg at all. I've never pre-reg'd for a game at GenCon in a dozen years of attending. I've never had a problem finding cool, fun games to play. I haven't always gotten into every game i wanted to, but i've gotten into plenty. And, besides, i find there're usually multiple games going on at any given time that i want to play. So simply eliminating the full ones makes my decision easier. So, another option is to plan to do most, or all, of your gaming on-the-fly, with generic tickets, figuring out what you're in the mood for when the time comes. The dowwnside, like i said, is you'll have fewer choices (though keep in mind that a "full" game might not be). The upside is that you can game whenever you want. Decide at teh last minute that you'd rather spend more time shopping, or take a leisurely dinner, or take a nap, or keep chatting with a new friend? No problem: finish your dinner, see what time it is, and see what games are about to start that you're interested in.3: Never really done pick-up games, so no input.</blockquote>

Verification