What to do for D&D in Hobby Convention ?

[questing gm]

There is a hobby convention going to happen in my city and they've offer a table/booth for Dungeons and Dragons. Seeing that tabletop roleplaying is almost unknown among the other hobbies (there would be booths promoting cosplaying, comics/manga, Magic:The Gathering and Warhammer), this is a great opportunity for me to promote the game.

What do you think I should do with the space given ? Do I run a demo-game but how am I going to cater everyone that drops by our table and ask to play a game ? What are the most effective ways to promote the game ?

Would really appreciate any advice or ideas given guys, this is a great opportunity not to be missed to grow the D&D hobby in this part of the world.

 

[Rackhir]

Definitely use miniatures. They provide visual feedback and if you use the the right ones they can be very eye catching.

I would probably set up something very simple and tactically oriented. Defending a castle from a horde of Orcs or something along those lines. If you have people who stick around for a while, level up their characters after an hour of playing or something like that. Perhaps have a "boss" monster with a particularly eye catching miniature show up every hour. If people's characters die, just hand them a new pre-generated character.

Make ABSOLUTELY sure you know the rules well. Especially for anything funky that might come up like Attacks of Opportunity, Grappling, etc...

Keep everything as simple as possible.

 

[Dragon Snack]

Do you have the Basic box set? It's probably more geared towards introducing people to the game (although I've heard mixed messages about how good it actually is).

Are you familiar with any other RPGs? A more rules-lite system may be easier to run with completely new players (although I'll bet the M:tG and WH players are more familiar with RPGs than you give them credit for). Alternately, just ignore the rules and run something fun that gets them rolling dice...

 

[questing gm]

The D&D community has been very small and we don't have a LGS to provide us with supplies.
So that means we don't have miniatures (and battlemats) and the Basic Box set.

What we're trying to do for this convention is to introduce the game to a wider public so that we can draw in more players and more people to be interested in tabletop roleplaying. Unfortunately, I'm (who have been given the table) not familiar with other rules-lite game (except if you include D20 Modern) so i guess this would turn out to be a purely D&D table.

 

[pogre]

The D&D community has been very small and we don't have a LGS to provide us with supplies.
So that means we don't have miniatures (and battlemats) and the Basic Box set.

So, I guess that rules out my original suggestion of setting up a massive 3d dungeon with master maze and hirst arts stuff - jammed to the brim with monsters and a few ready to go character sheets is right out...

Could you draw a dungeon out on a big piece of paper and use something to approximate monsters and PCs?

 

[Quartz]

Consider running Paranoia instead. Any time any clone dies, the next person waiting takes their place.

 

[questing gm]

I don't know what is this Paranoia concept you speak of.

 

[Quartz]

The Computer is your friend, citizen. .

Only a commie mutant traitor would fail to recognise the superiority of the Computer.

The books are hilarious. I've little sense of humour and less sense of comic timing so I can't GM it to save my life, but it is screamingly funny.

 

[Festivus]

Do you have the Basic box set? It's probably more geared towards introducing people to the game (although I've heard mixed messages about how good it actually is).

Are you familiar with any other RPGs? A more rules-lite system may be easier to run with completely new players (although I'll bet the M:tG and WH players are more familiar with RPGs than you give them credit for). Alternately, just ignore the rules and run something fun that gets them rolling dice...

I suggest the Black Dragon edition of the basic set. The Blue Dragon edition the player sheets aren't nearly as clear for new players. I have no idea why they skimped on the second version of this. The basic game is great for teaching new players how to play, however it takes several hours to complete. Not sure how much time you will have but you could just run a few rooms from the adventure.

 

[Kaladhan]

Miniatures would have been the way to go. Paizo has a good dungeon that you can play at GenCon. You have to select a character and you have 15 minutes to go the fartest in the dungeon. After that, you can tell them that D&D has more social aspects than this demo.

If miniatures are really not an option, then I'm not sure what you can do. Can you organize a gaming day in your city and have the booth promote that? One table at the hobby convention is not enough to do actual gaming there. You could promise that the gaming day would include introductory scenarios for newbies.