"What makes for a bad convention game?" Topic

1. The gamesmaster is not familiar with the rules.

2. The deck is stacked against one side, but the players don't know. The GM had predetermined the outcome.

3. The objective is for one player to traverse a distance that would take 12 turns without opposition, but the game will only last 8 turns.

Cheaters and rules lawyers.

Oh, I like all of those. But don't forget "the GM is showing off every casting he ever painted, so there can be no maneuver" and "the rules are 60 pages long, and he doesn't have an extra copy anyway. Just go ahead and he'll stop you when you do something wrong." And who could forget "you're the refused flank?"

That said, even the bad games represent a lot of money and effort on someone's part, and they're bad because someone didn't think things through a dozen times for every time one's bad because someone had ill intent.

Is it time for another checklist article?

Diorama games.

Me? I'm still learning how to run wargames at a convention, I'm still dialing in one scenarios where I think I over compensated for a mistake and swung too far in the other direction.

I'm not a fan of victory conditions that include one side during as slow as possible while getting their buts kicked by an overwhelming opponent. Yes it's historical but I hate it and feel like walking away from the table when there is no chance of actually 'winning' as we normally think about it. Those types of games should be played against a games master or a volunteer who fully knows the odds and knows they can't win.

4. Given a command that will come in at a predetermined time which never comes. Game ends before the player gets to move

5. GM that takes two hours to explain the history of the battle for a three hour time slot.

6 Players that don't read or pay attention to the victory conditions.

Too many players. You get a set of rules which, like most games, is designed for one to one play, then someone tries to run it with eight or more players. Everyone says "the rules are rubbish", but in fact the GM has turned it into a train crash before the game began. Seen it loads of times.

Rules with too many modifiers. Every die roll takes 5 minutes of looking at six charts to determine the applicable factors.

Special rules that force some unit to repeat their historical maneuver in the actual battle.

Some encouragement is okay, but forcing it seems to take away from the replay portion of the game.

2. It can be unavoidable for some scenarios like Camerone,Teutoberg Forest or Carrhae. I always try to be upfront at the beginning of the game. "We all know how this will end, right?" You just need to set victory conditions for varying lengths of survival, casualties inflicted etc

3. I see this all the time and not just at conventions. It's an easy calculation if you just take a minute to think about it.

Some roles in the game inherently suck: You are assigned a pinning corps on the extreme left that just has to attract the attention of the enemy while the actual action takes place in the center.

3 and 4 are some that I've been victim of.

As for trying to do it right here are a couple of guidelines I use.

Each player need @ 3 feet of table edge

Each player should control no more than 12 "things"

Count out how many turns it will take at half speed to reach objectives, then add half of that to estimate how long to make the game.

5. Painfully slow

I once played in Liebereolkwirz game where 2 hours into the game not one unit had contacted another. The table didn't really look much different than it did on turn one.

I agree with Don Manser, 5) painfully slow, either because the GM does not know the rules, too many players, rules have too many charts.

Only ever been to 1 convention in the USA, but I played a number of games because I was interested in the rules and wanted to see how they worked. I game I was trying was set up making it very difficult for players to succeed in any objectives. So I would say games where the GM is more interested in winning than letting the players play the game.

Bad rules/scenarios – I played in a computer moderated King's Mountain game. Combat results were ridiculously skewed regardless of the odds, both sides got reinforcements, at least one side had cavalry. It was a total waste of time. Even the owning player wasn't told the state of his units until they were destroyed and removed from the table. I also played in a home-grown WWII North Africa game. With panzerfausts and PIATs and it was just ridiculous. A convention isn't the place to playtest new rules, unless they've already been played a good bit and the ridiculous bits have been ironed out. Also, don't bill your game as historical unless you actually know the history and apply it to your game.

Sore losers – played in an ironclads game in which I was the only one of the four players to meet his objective. My opponents both voted me the best player without hesitation, but my supposed "teammate", who wasted his time trying to sink enemy ships instead of trying to meet his objective (and ended up losing his own ships as a result) whined to the GM that I shouldn't get the reward because "we all did our best". I already had the reward, so it wasn't a big deal to give it up to him, but it was just the fact that he was an idiot. Had the same thing happen in an Old West game – the half drunk idiot next to me charged into battle with an unknown force and got his butt handed to him, then whined to the GM that I didn't bail him out while my own guys were in their own skirmish.

Activation based games should ensure that everyone activates. I didn't have a problem with this, but a friend's son played a game in which he had SS against conscripts and he didn't activate once. Just sat there for four hours watching everyone else play. Not much fun, and certainly not worth the cost of admission.

7. The gamester's group play-tested the scenario, then the gamester changed the game conditions for "balance." Anyone familiar with statistical control realizes the easiest way to throw a series out of control is to adjust to compensate for the latest result.

8. The gamester has no clue how to scale a scenario up for more players than expected, or down for fewer players than expected.

Rick

not being up together with the rules
too big a game
too many figures/vehicles on the table (wall to wall tigers)
too slow a set of rules
too many players that know the rules better than you
putting on a game at half -cock not ready or totally prepared
bad aesthetics
lack of knowledge of the period /ruleset for dealing with any rules lawyers and hecklers.

remember the mantra only you know whats not on the table(not finished on time or left behind)

Having run a fair share as meantioned already overly complicated rules that move slower that molasses, games with more than 6 players and games that should take 6 hours run in a 4 hour time slot. Unless there is a signup requirement that players already know the rules such rules and their nuances should be explainable in 5 minutes or less.

I have found however that the biggest reason for a bad convention game and the bane of any GM is one or more bad players. You can playtest a game till kingdom come only to be turned into an unmitigated disaster by a doo-fus.

Lack of playtesting!

GM bias if you play it "the wrong way"

games that are too large for the time slot

I say again, we are not all as appreciative as we should be of the time and effort which goes into even bad convention games. No one sets out to havea train wreck.

That said, I think Bill's right--lack of play testing, but a true playtest would involve roping in more strangers than most of us have handy.
A lot is basic math failures--how many turns to the objective, how many players per foot of table, and how many units per foot and per player.
And a lot is an unwillingness to simplify or dumb down Jschutt is right: either the players know the rules or the rules are explainable in five minutes. (My goal is two-page rules, and every player gets a copy.) And you MUST calculate on more time per turn than you get at you home table.

Easy for us to say. Terribly, terribly difficult to do sometimes.

9: Having the GM call himself "God" is usually a red flag right there.

10: Having a GM tell you "No" for everything you want to do…

11: Having a GM tell you that "you aren't playing your forces properly", even after everything you've wanted to do, he tells you "no".

12: Having a GM change the odds in favor of the scantily dressed girl at the table winning. He likes her and maybe if he lets her win, she'll like him too….

(Yes I've seen all of these…actually been at the tables where this happened).

Thou shalt choose rules and scenarios with care, as not all are suitable for convention gaming;

Thou shalt playtest thy scenario at least three times before the convention to ensure adequacy;

Thou shalt ensure that every player has something worthwhile to do from the get-go;

Thou shalt provide satisfactory play aids and cheat sheets when appropriate;

Thou shalt keep the action moving along;

Thou shalt be prepared to adapt to somewhat more or fewer players than thou expect; for convention attendees are finicky and quick to change their plans;

Thou shalt remember the purpose of thy event is for Others to have a good time, not necessarily Thee.

Activation-based games. Good for two players, terrible for eight players because everyone has to sit around waiting for the player who is activating. IGO-UGO is much faster and more engaging with many players.

When some players have no decisions to make. Supreme commander: "OK, you two are in the middle of the board. We'll bombard with artillery for two turns, then you will both March directly forward and engage the enemy."

Players who don't follow their briefings.

Too many figures.

Tries to be fun but isn't.

… and as above … not play tested … activation system that leaves players mostly with nothing to do.

Phil

From games I've seen and a few I've played:

A: GM doesn't know the rules and can't improvise well.

B: One army is clearly the GM's love and pride and the deck is stacked heavily towards them.

C: One of the players is a friend of the GM and the deck is stacked towards them.

D: The scenario relies on a stupid "gotcha" moment that a reasonable player has no chance to predict.

E: GM states the game is "all ages", then has a huffy fit when a kid shows up.

F: GM has a nerd-breakdown when a girl shows up to play. (Even more annoying at RPG conventions where statistically, the players should have encountered a female human before)

G: Specific to RPG games: When you realize one (or all) of the NPC's are actually player characters from the GM's own campaign and will be doing everything remotely cool in the scenario.

1. Unfriendly people running the game. The single worst feature of a bad game.

2. Static diorama games or demo games that make no effort to reach out to passers by. They just take up space.

3. Arbitrary referees who are blatantly unfair and make it more about them instead of the players. Those referees who drop random curveballs that seem out of place into the game and chuckle to themselves.

…and in RPG convention games:

1. A game clearly designed around someone's existing home or club campaign which will be largely unfathomable or uninteresting to convention goers.

2. Games where you have no chance of winning "and you all die. Good news, the NPC you were helping completed the mission and you all get great funerals."

Finding out too late that this is a "dice-rolling contest" without any decisions to be made.
Many GMs are collectors want to put their toys on the table and see them "dance", without any thought to the "contest of wills" that I think is the heart of wargaming.
As I get older and grumpier, I have less patience with the "move forward and roll dice" type of play.

1) GMs who don't know the rules.
2) GMs who favor all dice and made up rules for their friends/members of their game club.
3) GMs who punish you for trying to play the game, when YOU ACTUALLY KNOW THE RULES, and they are getting it all wrong.
4) GMs who change the rules on the fly to give an advantage to their friends/game club.
5) GMs who tell you "When we made this scenario, you needed to do X, so you MUST do X".
6) GMs who walk off to look at other tables or to talk to friends.

I've been in games where all of this happened.

1). Hopeless battle for one side unless there are victory conditions for the underdog that are achievable (hold a position for X number of turns etc.)

2). Too big a game, has gamers standing around waiting for other side to finish their turn.

3). Wall to wall minis – on the count of 3 everyone shove your commands straight forward.

4). Having reinforcements coming in very late in game where they make no difference.

5). Designing a scenario for 6 gamers and letting in 3 more to be good guy. Kills the fun of having a command.

6). Allowing the never ending charge as a single unit goes the length of the table incurring no loses & routing an entire battle line.