"What games are popular at conventions? Why do I pick a game?" Topic

What games are popular at conventions? Why do I chose A vs. B game?
Having been at conventions for years I am thinking about what games are "popular" at conventions. And by this I do not mean Moderns or Fantasy or WW II? I think I mean small games vs. large games. Or perhaps games where the player controls a single ship or plane instead of a brigade of 30 stands . I suspect that small scale tactical games are perhaps more popular if only because the rules may be seen as less complex or that the game will move faster. Are we seeing speed war gaming where a player wants virtually instant immersion and a game where he or she is at a low tactical level for a quick game? Perhaps the days of giant cast of hundreds games are no longer popular. At Nashcon I didn't see much Napoleonic (War of 1812 looked great) but there were a lot of games with single planes, single ships and small squads in abundance. The huge armies seemed to have few players. Is this my imagination? What is going on here?

Over time I have learned that the huge spectacle games tend to be great to look at, crap to play. Because for most players you're wedged in between the other 8 guys on your side, so all you can do is charge. All the interesting moves have already been made. There's just no *room* to do anything. Now that may actually be really realistic. But it is boring,

It depends… if I'm worn out I choose a game that I know the rules for, if I'm full of energy I'll try a new set of rules, particularly if it's in a period I'm interested in.

Rules that take more than 15 minutes to learn are tough to use at cons. Lots of great games that are a bit complicated only do well at cons when they have a dedicated group of players. I'm thinking of games like JR3 here. If you play it at East cons you'll play w/ the same guys almost every time.
I chose games that I want to learn or try the rules first, then games I know I like. When you only have time for three games at a con you choose carefully.

I pick games that have time periods or rules I want to try out, or time periods I am interested in. Simple is better, nor do I care of mega-games. As noted by Extra Crispy, I was at a con a few years ago and figs were lined from edge to edge on both side of the table. No thanks.

I recently had an experience similar to Extra Crispy's. Although my knowledge of historical tactics *did* help out side our a little, if I do say so myself: many gamers like to blow stuff up, particularly at convention games, and thus neglect to use smoke properly.

When I was young, I wanted to play in the biggest, prettiest games, put on by "Names" in the hobby. Now, I choose games that use rules I like and that have a scenario that seems manageable in the allotted time. And I never play on a game that requires the wearing of hats.

Interesting discussion but kind of an apples or oranges answer. If you are into the big games that take all day then that is your thing. Me, I am pretty much done either game mastering or playing after four hours, and then I need a break. I am attracted either to the period/genre, a rule system I know, or one that I am thinking of buying. However, sometimes I will just play in a game that looks interesting and different just for the heck of it.

I'm usually looking for games that I don't play with my local group, not into tournaments, or 'monster' games. There are a few GMs that I always try to game with (Wupwet for Wuitainia)

I love hats.

What draws me to a game more than anything is theme. Second is the potential for fun play or something different. Thus, your pirate game pictured above was a real draw for me (I'm there, but I'm hidden by the guy in the pirate hat, if I have the orientation of the picture correctly. Or maybe by that point I had sailed "around the world" and popped up on the other end of the table? In any case, the theme, spectacle, and sheer promise of loony fun drew me to the game. And I had a great time with it.

Historical games tend to be less of a draw for me, unless I'm already familiar with the rules. Partly this is because if I'm not well-informed about the period, that means I'm typically at a big disadvantage against a player who knows the period or the rules exceptionally well. Thus, I might make a move which appears tactically sound, only to be hit by a (to me) obscurity of fact or play of which I was not (and could not have been) aware. And, yes, this has happened to me before. Of course, it's also happened in popular SF games, based on rules and unit idiosyncrasies, so that may be more of a factor than anything inherent to historical games.

I'm also wary of too complicated a scenario, particularly one with a "built in" script— that is, which the scenario designer has created to produce a certain pattern of events leading up to a "big turn" or "big surprise." I've played in more than one game where I was expected to do absolutely nothing with my assigned forces (aside from lose them to enemy range fire) for the early portion of the game, or worse prevented from doing anything by scenario restrictions which I was informed of only after I had chosen the forces. That's boring. The game master has to be prepared to accept that no scenario design survives contact with the players, and should allow the players to make holy havoc of his expectations. If they want to move and attack on turn one, they should be able to do so, no matter what you've assumed (or history did).

^^^ I played in a con game in which the GM was furious that the players did not do what he wanted them to do as was scripted out in his mind, thereby ruining his game for him. He was livid; everyone else seemed to have a good time.

There has to be something to catch my eye, but I also look at the group (if there is one) dynamic. Are these people having fun, do they look like someone I might enjoy getting to know? Any two yeses out of the three – eye candy game, fun group, solid people – is enough to get me in.

I tend to gravitate to games in periods which are already passions or are which are completely novel; terra nova.

From a GM point of view nothing expresses the "reception" of a game at a convention than a random number between 1 and 10. I have seem games all across the board from simple clunky stuff to vast almost diorama quality games, from skirmish games to grand games, and the odds that the game will be a well attended success or a no -show completely undeterminable. Time of day given, subject, theme, execution all seems to give no reliable barometer.

The only pattern I see is that people who like XXXX's games(XXXX being the GM) tend to seek out his games. I see the same people queing up at the same tables time after time. Then again-- they often aren't.

My rules take only about 10 minutes to explain, this I do through a little floor-show and make it easy to learn and nurse them through one or two turns, after which they can manage quite well on their own.

79th PA has a point that when you're a GM at a con you have to leave the script behind. The gamers will take it where they want to go with it, and trying to force them into behaving well in a script is doomed to failure.

Parzival also has a point that you cannot consign a player to oblivion by scenario. That generally guarantees someone never comes back

though……

I was once assigned to that in one of the games at the club I was at. I was assigned to a refused flank, allegedly there to counter a much larger force when it came on later in the game on turn 8.

LITERAL TRANSLATION- "You are going to do nothing and sit here all day because each turn takes about an hour to o play and we can only stay here siz hours."

So I decided that rather than just sitting there mooning across the table top or reading some book on the hosts shelves, I was going to IE (Industrial Engineer) the game.

"Industrial Engineer" isn't as high-falutin as you think. It's mostly time studies of production lines to determine the efficiency, analyzing work stations to balance the line, analyze down-time and productive time and find ways to reduce the former and increase the latter. I wore a watch in those days with a stopwatch as a feature and so for the next 10 hours (and no turn 8 never came even in that time, we stayed late) I did this.

At the end of the session when everyone was congratulating themselves on a great game, I said "This game Sucks!" When they observed that I felt that because I didn't get to play I said. "No, look here-- I did time and motion studies on this game and I found that we spent 83% of the time on non-productive things. That is, we were arguing, reading rules, ferreting out charts, making complicated calculations. The 17% of productive time was spent in rolling dice, debating strategy, and moving troops-- that is ACTUALLY pushing lead and rolling die. Laughing, Joking, and making comments were counted as production time. If you had turned in an 17% efficiency in any plant at days end-- you would be fired, especially if you let the people sit there and do nothing (that is, in game terms, not moved them to another game).

This occurred almost 30 years ago and turned me on the course of evaluating the games we were playing and designing a game that maximuized "productive time" by tossing out anything that interefered with it. This mean't most rule systems. We stripped it down to the basics to get the system and then added crome up to the point when we started getting productive time below 85%. Once we did that we got out the red pen and cut.

So we now have a really great set that works well in conventions and can be taught in 15 minutes. But it took a LONG time.

BUT AGAIN! That's no guarantee that those rules (Oh God! Anything but a Six" will draw a full crowd or be a no-show at any given convention.

OSchmit, you may have just completely changed the way I run games at conventions. Sadly I do not have the time to create rules as that is why I buy rule systems. I am running two different games at the up coming Historicon. One that I will run at least twice is a pulp-like game with an African Jungle setting using a variant of Brother against Brother which is a fairly beer and pretzels type game system. The other is a 15 mm Science Fiction game using Tomorrow's War which is not so beer and pretzels but is a great game I think because the mechanics keep pretty much all the players engaged. However, as I do my playtesting before the convention I will pay attention to IE.

Following up on OScmidt, I loath "I go and everyone else waits" rules for exactly his point. I sit at a game to "play" not to sit. I don't expect 100% action but it danged well better be above 60%, preferably above 75% for me to walk away and feel like I had a good time – versus someone wasted my time (that always es me off, gaming or not). Having said that, I also realize it is one hell of a challenge to achieve that golden point. So O, any chance of having a closer look at your rules, sound intriquing?

Dear Whitemanticore

I hope my words helped.

You don't have to make your own rules, and can use purchased ones with no problem PROVIDED you say in the write up and emphasize at the start that "This Game is a Variation of "Umpires, Egos and Liars" and make it plain it's an abridgement/modification/ elaboration of that.

Once you make it clear it's stripped down for convention play most gamers will be OK with it, and those that aren't ? well the odds are that 90% of the time they will be nothing but troublemakers anyway and you're better off without them.

Remember that in a convention you're there for two things, the first is to have fun yourself putting on a game and being the GM and the second is the enjoyment of the players. Most of the gamers there are there for the enjoyment and once you tell them that you will more or less nurse-maid them through the thing, they'll be happy to be so nurse-maided.

As for the specifics, I always found that it's best to put down a general scenario, put the troops on the table, give the troop assignments and let them have at it. DO NOT, unless you are dealing with very experienced players who you personally know, let them organize themselves. They don't know what they are doing. You have to guide them, so detail to each player what troops you want them to command otherwise you'll have guys who want to handle ALL the artillery, or ALL the cavalry, or just roll the die, or all sorts of screwy arrangements. You will get cliques forming where three guys who are from the same group will largely ignore the other two guys on a side, or will play footsy with their buddies on the other side.

The other caution I make is to watch out when the newbie to the rules (often to the hobby) is next to an expert who may be inclined to be pushy and push the guy around, even to the point of moving his troops for him and just taking over, and especially the sharpie who's trying to be overbearing on the kid on the other side.

Other than that, just let the gamers go with what they want to do and you should be fine. Always remember, it's a wargame, there's nothing decided here and we're doing it for a few hours of easy fun.

Dear Early Morning Writer

You and me both! I have constantly fought against the worst features of IGOYUGO and have gotten rid of most of them, I think. I despise games where each player has to sit there and wait for the next guy (ON HIS OWN SIDE!) to move, and even worse where he has to wait for some dumb card to come up, while the enemy flanks him and chews him to bits. I still use IGOYUGO in the games, but the part where you're sitting is down to a few minutes, never more than 5, and even then there are things you can do. I even have a simultaneous movement idea I am testing out for "Oh God! Anything but a six" (all other phases are completely simultaneous. Even with the IGOYUGO on "Oh God! Anything But a Six" lots of things happen while the other guy is going and everyone pays attention because the "goer" often flubs it badly.

Anyway, in the Modern Game "The Shattered Century" It's an IGOYUGO, with nothing happening simultaneously, but the guy who'se "not going" is busier than a one-armed paper-hanger and has lots to do to actively aid in his own defence and the game seems almost simultaneous.

Anyway I'll send you a copy of the rules for free. NOTE NOTE NOTE! To get a copy you have to send me your postal delivery address at sigurd@eclipse.net. Nothing is done electronically as there are cards and pieces of equipment that go with the game you can't make, and are essential to its understanding. I'll send you two copies of rules, two sets of combat results cards, (printed special by moi) and an event deck (which is not necessary to the play of the game). This is NOT A CARD DRIVEN GAME like Maurice or Longstreet but the cards are neutral more like the chance cards in Monopoly. These events toss the IGOYUGO once again and make it less predictable.

Remember, I do nothing by "E" I can't even send you these in E format as they are in Corel Draw, and unless you have Corel Draw 11 or latter, you couldn't open them.

You don't see the big grand Napoleonic, SYW type games, because they are a lot of trouble to put on. It is a lot of work dragging all that stuff and setting it up and tearing it down for only a two hour game.

Sometimes your set up and tear down is part of that two hours. I have gotten to where if I don't get an extra hour to set up and tear down then I am not putting on a game.

The games and battles the OP is talking about take all day or more to play, longer if you have to teach the rules. Not to mention all the work you put in long before the convention. It is also harder on your figures and terrain, that is more opportunities for them to get damaged.

If it is a local convention you will probably end up playing with the same guys you play with anyway. So why go to a convention and see the same faces you see twice a month or so.

I do smaller ACW, FPW, AWI, Napoleonic and other historical games. I like to use simpler rules in the first place but something like JR3 or AOE I try to use my own simpler version. It also helps to have a friend help you run the game.

When choosing a game to play in, I guess I buck the trend. I go by:

Looks – If it looks good it plays good. Not always but in my experience more often than not.

Period – I sometimes want a period I am interested in or I want to try something new.

Rules – There are a few rules that I will not play.

About players and GMs. I do not like it when the GM runs two turns and then disappears. That IMHO is the main reason players stand around doing nothing. It is the GMs job to move the game along. Run charts, speed people up, stay engaged. People are not going to know the rules in two turns. For me this is more of GM problem rather than a rules problem.

Players who disappear or are distracted. Too bad, now someone else move his unit and lets get this game moving. I find this to be more of a attention span problem rather than a rules or GM problem.

It might take five to ten minutes before it's your sides turn. During that time you should be paying attention to the game! Good grief, take a pill and settle down. Cut back on the coffee. Short attention spans and no patience.

OSchmidt, I will be sending you an email. And you've really hit it on how to keep the gamers active, in my opinion, by ensuring that even the players on 'defense' during a turn are somehow engaged in the action.

----

Here is a rule I like to use at all the games I run – no dice roll counts unless either the GM sees it in person as it is rolled or an opponent sees it as it is rolled, if not seen then the dice roll didn't happen – no matter how bad or good the roll was. This rule came to me after having an otherwise good player but one I came to know used loaded dice (also why I generally only allow the dice I provide to be used in a game). Unfortunately, said player disappeared from our group before (hopefully) he matured out of such behavior.

I know, many will say he should have just been booted, permanently, but he was young and had a rough back ground. I expect most of us have had some difficult spots and some questionable judgement calls in our lives, doesn't mean there should be permanent ostracision. Sometimes it makes all the difference if someone looks past the ill behavior and sees the worthy elements within someone. Can cause someone to take a careful reassessment of self and, with good fortune and a lot of fortitude, change their ways for the better.