"Advice for running great convention games?" Topic

I like running games at cons. Some are a lot of fun, some not so much. What are your secrets for running a really, great,fun game.

Great looking terrain and miniatures – covers up a lot of sins.

Easy to learn, simple rules.

Lots of action and decision points.

Limiting the number of players involved in the game, so it isn't too unwieldy.

Mako 11 pretty much nailed it.

Take a very simple ruleset and then further trim it down to the bare minimum. I also like to go over the top with minis and terrain. Here's my event from Adepticon.
link
Giant Mechs, simple rules and lots of fun.

Mako has hit a lot of the high points…

Be prepared and try to make sure everyone understands the primary goal is to have a good time.

Play test, play test, play test!

Have fun yourself
Be interested in the scenario
Leave out as much fluff and grand tactical as you can
Keep the flow moving
Make sure everyone has something to do and not just go where someone tells them to

Remember the mantra.

" If it worth doing, it worth overdoing!!! "

Run a game because you want to do it and make sure you & your Players are all having fun.

Know your rules.
Effective QRS
Game Aids to minimize looking up data
Make sure each player makes his own decisions
Minimize special troops and terrain
Don't over complicate the scenario
Keep it moving and don't worry about minor rules mistakes.

Be set up and ready – don't make your players wait an hour watching set up.

Keep it simple.

Everything takes longer than you think.

Focus on the players and keep it moving.

Don't stop to talk to gawkers and passersby – your players signed up to play, so don't waste their time pitching your event to others.

Did I mention be set up and ready?

Great looking terrain and miniatures – covers up a lot of sins.

Some, but not all. I've joined games that looked fantastic yet were completely miserable experiences due to lack of foresight by the GMs.

Ever sign up for a 4 hour game and ended up watching because by the time the allotted time has passed your troops haven't even arrived on the board yet? I have, and its not fun at all. In fact, I was quite annoyed, and so were some of the others who were in the same boat as me, playing the same large game.

Keep it simple.

Everything takes longer than you think.

Focus on the players and keep it moving.

This, this, THIS. followed by….

Play test, play test, play test!

Its okay to tweak a historical scenario to "even things up" a little so everyone can have fun. Its more difficult than people realize to find truly fair fights in strictly historical engagements, and you have to remember its a game and people play to have fun.

Resist the urge to allow too many players. Most convention games I have played were good games, but spoiled by too many players watering down the experience and dragging out the down time.

Get everyone involved from the start.
Guilford Courthouse is NOT a good convention scenario if you expect the guy in the third line to behave historically.

Don't give the players too many troops or too much to do if you only have 4 hours to set up, play and take down your game.

I have but two rules:
Everybody is shooting no later than the third turn AND I provide appropriate hats:

Never, ever stop to look up a rule. Just make something up but express your decision with confidence so everyone assumes that must be the correct rule.

WOW! I really appreciate the excellent responses from the Hive. All good stuff that makes perfect sense. I've committed some sins to repent for!

Mike

Perhaps the most important piece of advice would be to remember that you as the GM are the most important factor for a fun experience. Think of yourself as a circus ringmaster and have fun. If the GM is having fun, then the gamers will to, if not…

Think most have nailed it. For me, when I started as a GM, the hardest lesson was to make sure it was a fun scenario that can be fought to completion, or at least an obvious decision point, well within the time allotted for the scenario. Nothing is more frustrating then to be reaching a games climax only to have to break the game down for the next session. Remember when you dry run the game you are usually dry running with your usual group or friends and they usually know the rules pretty well.

As to keeping the game moving along nicely I run my games like battle problems with all the players on one side. Several GMs who know the rules well and have already planned out their moves based on the actual battle really keeps the players in the game and almost constantly involved.

To piggyback on what Nashville said, everyone should be doing something within about five or ten minutes of the time everyone is assembles and the GM says, "OK. This is a game representing …"

Here's what I consider my rules. (It may look a little lengthy but it's mostly common sense stuff)…

I've broken it down into:
A: Before the Convention.
B: Before running at the Convention.
C: At the Convention.
D: After the Convention.

BEFORE RUNNING AT THE CONVENTION:

1: Figure out what you want to run and what you will require. This will mean, rules, figures, terrain, scenery, and any of the little "special stuff" that you will need (pencils, dice, tape measures).

2: Figure out the scenario you want to run. # of players, complexity, objectives, time to run it. (Add an hour for set up and take down).

3: PLAY TEST, PLAY TEST, PLAY TEST. (Try running it with different people vs your standard group.) I've found out that after a while, a standard group can fall into a "they're gonna do this" action mentality. New people and new groups will find the weaknesses and problems in the game that the standard group won't.

4: KEEP THE RULES SIMPLE AND FUN. Don't give them a history lesson before and after every turn. They are there for a game, not a lecture.

5: Watch your play-testers. When I say "Watch them", I mean, "Watch what they are doing during the game." See if they show interest in what they are doing, or what the other players are doing. Watch their face to make sure that the most common expression isn't either confusion or boredom.

6: Take notes of everything that the players have problems with. 6 out of 7 of your players have trouble figuring out the morale phase? Go back and see what you can do to make it easier.

BEFORE RUNNING AT THE CONVENTION:

1: Check with the con on your schedule. Make sure they are still okay with it.

2: Inventory your items. Figures, rules, scenery, terrain. The last thing you want to find out is that you drove four hundred miles and accidentally packed your wife's identical bead box instead of your box of artillery and cavalry.

3: Make sure you have everything you need and loaded and packed the day BEFORE you head out to the con. Packing your game stuff the morning you are leaving is a disaster and item #2 above, just waiting to happen. We always oversleep, miss our trip departure times, etc…Be prepared.

4: Give yourself plenty of time to get to the con, and don't rush it. It's a game convention; not the Indy 500. Be prepared for detours, traffic jams, construction issues, that little old lady doing 45 in the 70 lane, that 18 wheeler driver that doesn't know what lane he wants to be in, weather, bathroom breaks, the need for food, and of course the piece of farm equipment driving down the road towards the soy bean field that is 15 miles away and he's doing 30 and you can't pass…

AT THE CONVENTION

1: Show up early, as in EARLY to the convention to make sure that your table is still a "go" and hasn't been A: Moved, B: Claimed for another game, C: Trashed out, or D: That the organizers have dropped the ball on your game.

2: Check your area before you set up. Make sure it's clear of trash and what you have requested. If you need 2 rectangle tables and they give you 1 round one…there's a problem. Being early will make sure this is taken care of.

3:Make sure your scheduled game is still scheduled for when you have it scheduled.

4: Make sure you have the right amount of chairs for players, etc.

5: Don't show up to run a game at the convention p*ssed off about something else. Being made at your neighbor because you caught his dog dropping a steamer in your yard again or getting into a fight with the S.O. and having it eat on you at the con is not a good way to run a game and it will show.

6: Don't be mad at anyone because "You have to run a game at a convention." No one put a gun to your head and forced you to sign up to run one.

7: Make sure you set up your table EXACTLY the way you have accepted the setup in play-tests. To do otherwise is folly.

8: Make sure that the players have ALL the charts, figures, dice, etc that they need and will require.

9: Be on time to run the game. If the game is supposed to be four hours, don't take an hour of that time to still be setting up your terrain. You have just ripped off your players.

10: Remember that you are running the game. It's not a "You vs them" mentality. You are not there to "win".

11: Be open, smile, have fun.

12; Don't tolerate blatant, purposeful rudeness that will spoil everyone else's fun. Don't tolerate cheating.

13: Run the spirit of the game and not the rules. If the rules don't cover something, be ready to improvise. There is no rule system that will cover everything a player can think of.

14: Make sure you can play to completion, or at least a point where it's obvious of victory. Trying to run the battle of Waterloo at battalion level in 3 hours is imbecility. Be realistic.

15: Don't add so many extra players that you can't effectively and smoothly run the game. Adding eight more players to a sixteen player game with one GM is already a disaster waiting to happen.

14: Most of all: "HAVE A FUN GAME"

AFTER THE CONVENTION:

1: Thank your players and let them know how appreciative you were of them.

2: Clean up your table area.

3: Make sure you are properly packed.

4: If possible, get names and emails of anyone interested in gaming with you further. Send them an email 1-2 days later thanking them once again and inviting them for more play (if they are local). You get a lot of new players and friends that way.

5: Let the con organizers know that you are done, your area is clean, and thank them. Also send them a thank you email withing 2-3 days. A simple thank you, goes 100 miles for folks to work cons.

6: Look over what you did and think about if you want to do it again at the next con. If so, start planning asap, and use what you learned to build on.

Hope this helps.

Dispense with minor variations in the game.

For example, each side should have troops of just one morale level. So they know all their troops pass on a 7+ or roll a D12. Same with weapons: they are all the same for the line troops – a gun is a gun. HMGs or cannon are obvious exceptions. Same for missile troops: all longbow on one side or all crossbow but not both. All commanders are "Competent." And so on……

This prevents a lot of slow down later in the game as players have memorized most major factors/stats by turn 2 or 3.

Lots of good comments above. The top things for me are: simplify, prepare, and playtest.

All the guys and especially Murphy pretty much sums it all up nicely. That being said, I have run many successful games at cons and the local stores so I will gently disagree with a few comments here:

"Take a very simple ruleset and then further trim it down to the bare minimum. "

I never change much, if anything, of the rules. They were written that way for a reason, and gamers at conventions are overall a smart, savvy bunch. They can absorb most anything you throw at them.

"Don't stop to talk to gawkers and passersby – your players signed up to play, so don't waste their time pitching your event to others."

True at the beginning of a game, then a turn or two in when the players are effectively running the game themselves you can chat freely with passerby who ask questions. I absolutely hate it when a GM is surly and/or refuses to talk to anybody during an event (although I won't ever bother them when they are engaged and busy). This is, after all, a social hobby. I love interacting with others when I am GMing. I do do things to make it easier, though-- I have a pile of print-outs with the company and websites who produce all the items I use in my game.

"Never, ever stop to look up a rule. "

Nope. Although you should know the rules well enough to not look anything up, the few times it might happen will not slow things up enough to make doing it WRONG okay. You'll get slowed up more by the guys who know the game questioning why you did something "the wrong way". I would say knowing where to find things in the rulebook is far more important.

Lots of good info here. I agree with Nazrat that a super simple game is not strictly necessary. More complex games are fine with player aides and some clear instruction.

Don't neglect the playtesting. I've seen a lot of games where the effort went into the terrain and the figures but the scenario or game itself is unplayable for a convention setting.

another thing we can do is post a preview of the game as sort of a jumpstart so those who desire can get into the thing early. Does require a bit of work. here is a example for Nashcon

link

Yes, everybody that has said PLAYTEST! has hit on the #1 most important thing. I always have done so except once, when I just ran out of time. I got together Thursday night at the con with all my con friends and ran the Tarawa scenario. Two and a half hours in we were still on the first turn and these were aficionados of the system I was using (Arc of Fire). One even commented jokingly, "Well, at least it LOOKS great!" I was mortified and sick at heart seeing all the work I put it on the game potentially wasted. I called the author of the scenario and we worked out a number of quick revisions on the order of battle and a few scenario rules. Thankfully all went well the next day-- we finished in the scheduled four hours, everybody had a great time, and either side could have won at the last as the VP totals were one or two apart. The Saturday session yielded similar results, although the Japanese won this time. But I vowed that playtesting would always, ALWAYS happen in the future. I never want to go through that sort of awful situation again!

Another thing I'd mention is that no matter how many times you run a game at home in preparation for a convention once you get to the event and your players there get stuck in they will ALWAYS do something that no previous playtesters has done, or even considered. It never fails, and is one of the joys (and pains, sometimes) of running a convention game.

Great thread everyone! I just started hosting games at cons last fall and while I haven't made any catastrophic errors, I have had to fine tune things after every experience, though some of that is just obsessing over things no one else noticed.

I've been running skirmish games which have the potential to end quickly, so I also provide some basic tactical tips at the beginning ("Don't get your leader killed!!!") to minimize the odds of that and have a back-up plan if somebody really screws up.

I've also been lucky with good players, I haven't had to deal with a guy thinking he's Napoleon when he's just got a squad of hungry Voltigeurs to command in 1812 Russia.

And Nashville, I'm not sure it was fair to post those hat pictures without a link to your source :-) Where is this Hats-R-Us???