"American Convention Games" Topic

Got a question from across the pond for my american experts.
The British convention participation game seem to have an obsession with being approx 30 mins to 1 hour in length (sweeping generalisation ).
As I am trying to put on something different on the UK circuit more along the lines of participation by invitation or application, or interest ,not ending up as the creche!!

To my co gamers how long would you expect a game at one of your conventions to last?
Thanks for any replys
Guy T
Taylors Crew

Mine are usually three hours in actual game play with an hour for set up and an hour for pick up after. Three to four hours seem to be the norm, but there are those that are shorter and longer at the US cons.

Allen

My games seem to run 2+ to 4+ hours per session . However if our conventions ran like yours ( one day ) I may cut them back to 2+ hours if your goal is to try to give a lot of folks a shot at gaming .

Most of those I've played at Cold Wars and Fall-In fall into the 4-hour category.
I am also attracted by the "walk up" game, usually presented to demonstrate a game's processes, that give a prospective buyer s chance to test-drive it. These are often short and energetic to allow a steady flow of gamers to be hands-on with it.

As others have already said above, many if not most American convention games range from 2 to 4 hours, depending on their size and scope. However, there are usually at least a few "Epic" games that last longer, sometimes much longer. Often this works by having the Epic game play across 2 or 3 different "sessions" or blocks of time, which many conventions divide their days up into, for ease of Game Master and Player scheduling. Sometimes the roster of players in these Epic games will change as game goes on, but if things are working well, many of the original players will still be around, cheering victory or cursing defeat when the game ends.

The down-side of such Epic games is they may preclude players from sampling a wider selection of different rules, scenarios, armies, terrain layouts, etc., but when done well they often provide the highlight experience of an entire convention. That's usually the case for me, both as a player and a Game Master.

At both our conventions (RECON and HURRICON) we have three 4 hour sessions Friday and Saturday with breaks between for set up (we also have a Thursday night session and two sessions Sunday). Our sessions are 9-1, 2-6 and 8-12. We open our facility at 8 in the morning for GMs to set up for the first session. We expect the table to be cleared at the end of the session allowing the next GM set up time. As mentioned we do have some multi-session games and some repeat a scenario on the same table. As mentioned above most of the games tend to go for 2-4 hours.

At Historicon they start sessions on each hour and most appear to last for 4.

My games and most that I've noticed last three to five hours, depending on slot. The slot times are determined by the convention event coordinator, but he's pretty flexible so you can have longer games.

Games longer than six hours generally suffer battle fatigue and games of up to 8 have been known, but most can't summon the stamina for that.

Games of less than an hour and a half generally aren't given.

The vast majority of games here in America also USUALLY require not even a notional familiarity with the rules, and complete novices are welcome. Some require previous experience. These notoriously never get off the ground.

The RESPONSE to this is all across the board. Sometimes you will put on a game and it will be a complete now show. Four hours later or earlier when you put it on, you've got more players than you can fit.

It's a complete crap shoot.

One other point. Players have no problem with simply walking away in mid-game if they have something else to do or they aren't wildly excited about the game. Players will sign up for a four hour game knowing full well they have another game in an hour and a half and they just want to be entertained while waiting.

When you put on a game at an American convention, go into it expecting a complete no-show-wash-out. Anything after that is then a plus.