I see that there are some great RPG's showing up on the list already. I have another question regarding the length of these games. Are most of the RPG's played at conventions just a small chunk of the bigger adventure or are there some that are played completely from start to finish? I realize that it would be impossible to finish a Megadungeon in a 6 hour time slot but I'm not sure if that is the exception or the norm. Are any tournament style games offered (one shots?) that are played in their entirety? And, if so, how can someone discern which ones are which from the descriptions? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I believe the general trend is to try to fit the entirety of the adventure into the time slot. Some GMs run megadungeons where the point is to see how much the players can accomplish in the time given, but that should be the exception, not the rule. As for tournaments, there is a Castles & Crusades tournament adventure that is labeled as the C&C tournament in the event description. I believe there is usually a 1E tournament as well.
All of my events are designed to run from start to finish in the 3 1/2 hour time slot I requested, and that way, if we run a few minutes long, nobody needs to worry about missing the start of the next group of events.
Same here - all of mine are set to run in one session. I have considered spacing an adventure across multiple sessions but it does not seem very feasible. The one campaign that I know of that can span multiple sessions as well as keep continuity through the years of Gary Con is the Living Adventure. Keep an eye out for that. This will be my 3rd year attending Gary Con and I hope my 3rd year of participating in the Living Adventure.
Thanks all!!! I will assume that they are all one shots then unless otherwise stated in the discription. That Living Adventure sounds like it would be a blast! (I posted another ? on that thread before I read this one) Can anyone give me a quick summery on how the Tournament events actually work? Thanks again for all the help on this stuff!!! (I hope I dont sound like a total ignoramus) :?: :| :?:
I can only speak to the C&C tournament which I played in last year. The adventure writer established point values for accomplishing various things in the adventure. The team with the highest point total won the tournament. The tournament adventure was run several times over the course of the con. I use "team" to refer to the group playing in each session. Each session also had an MVP elected by the players in each session. I believe the GM decided the MVP in the case of a tie. For the C&C tournament, Troll Lord Games gave out merchandise as prizes to the winning team.
Ok then, I will keep asking them untill someone tells me to shut-up. :mrgreen: Oh, ok. So the multiple listings are seperate games with different groups? For some reason I thought it was the same group doing a multiple session game. I assume that these must be pretty popular too then?
1) There are games that are complete single-session adventures. Success or failure, you're getting closure when it ends. 2) There are sequential "Living Campaign"/multi-part style games of varying types. The adventures may all be offered in the same year, or may span across years. 3) There are also ones where you just play as far as you can, then it picks up where you left off next year (mostly with the same players, but usually not exactly). 4) There are tournaments of various styles (single/multi round, team/player advancement). 5) There are ones where you play as far as you can, but there is not going to be any 'finish' and it doesn't continue at a later time. (Sometimes the GM knows and intends that there's more than you could ever possibly do in the time allotted, although sometimes not...) 1 is by far the most common. There are generally just a few each of 2-5. Since (1) is the norm - GMs, it's really helpful if you make it clear in the game description when an event falls into categories 2-5. Generally, types 2-4 are pretty recognizable from the descriptions. Type 5s are the ones where there is sometimes no clue from the description that it's a 5 and not a 1.
BTW - I moved this thread to the General Discussion section (for all Gary Con talk) The RPG section is for non-Gary Con RPG (or board game) talk and the 3rd section is for (friendly, non-controversial) miscellaneous
Ok, thanks mordrin! (still trying to learn the do's and don'ts on here) Thanks for all the great information as well!
Yes it is one stand-alone con adventuere run straight through with separate tables.... only need to participate in one
When I run a game at a con the adventure is a self-contained adventure, designed to fit neatly into the time-slot. I usually do 4 hour time slots but usually use only 3-3.5 hours of it so people can get to their next event without having to quit early or rush.
I've run con games since the mid-2000's when I first started attending cons regularly. For the first several years, I stuck to adventures that could be (more or less) completed in the std 4-hour time slot. But since 2009 or so (at least, maybe earlier), my personal interests in dungeon adventures have changed to where I much prefer megadungeons and campaign-dungeons to adventures that can be completed in one to three sessions, whether for regular campaign play or for convention play. As you mentioned in the OP, "...it would be impossible to _finish_ a Megadungeon in a 6 hour time slot..." [emphasis added]. And that isn't my objective for using megadungeons or campaign-dungeons for convention play. I usually try to define one or more session objectives or 'missions' for the group to work toward during the time slot, and which _may_ be completable in the time for which I set the game. OTOH, maybe the objective is simply exploration of the site. There are some reasons why my interests have migrated away from the convention format for games (four hour time slots) and moved to be more in favor of larger, more expansive formats and settings (longer game sessions and much larger environs). I'll save that discussion for the GC after hours tavern talk.
Yup, that's me! :lol: (I was supposed to be working and I thought that's a pretty heady topic to try and discuss in my itty-bitty iPad mini, while pretending to work.)
This is how I usually run my Castle Greyhawk events---there's no possible way to explore any but the smallest of my Castle Greyhawk dungeon levels in full during even a 6 hour event slot, but I do create a guiding mission for the background of each session, so that the players (and PCs) aren't wandering around aimlessly for hours at a time. I use pregen PCs, and I often also give individual PCs personal goals or special knowledge/rumors unique to that PC, and if the player chooses to run with these (they are optional), that's something that the player can latch onto and try to accomplish in addition to their group/team goal, if they're interested. I don't know of any good way to flag this in the event metadata that we have available today, but I think that reading the event descriptions will usually give you a sense of the scope and objectives for each session.
Allan, your event synopsis are fantastic and IHO do a terrific job of drawing players into the event setting! As a DM, I find your event descriptions very inspiring! As a potential player, I find myself licking my chops after reading the game you have in store for Gary Con.
