"Tips for running games at conventions" Topic

Over on MCM, I took a very deep dive into tips about running demo and participation games at conventions. Although the post is Frostgrave specific, the tips within are good for pretty much good for any system.

The tips include getting into the right mind-set, be mindful of the presentation, speed is more important than getting the rules 100% right and a general checklist of what to pack. You can read the article at… link

Article at… link

Some good tips. I would add, get people moving figures as soon as possible -- no more than 10 or 15 minutes after your start time. No one wants a 30 minute preamble of the battle and, if your rules are too complicated to get folks pushing figures quickly, find another set of rules.

Great tip 79thPA. Thanks for reading and the extra tip.

Don't get too many players where they spend most of the time waiting for someone else to move. You want folks actively engaged…not moving 6 inches an hour.

Lol… that's right Long.Valley Gamer. Speed of play is very important!

I've been running Frostgrave at HMGS cons for about 3 years now. What I've learned is…

1. Make sure every wizard has the heal spell so they can at least attempt to recover a bit when things eventually hit the fan (and they will with the wild swings of a D20 system). If a wizard doesn't have access to heal because they are an opposed school, I toss their warband a few heal potions to make up for it. We have found heal to be just that powerful a spell. It helps prevent someone's night from ending way too early in a 4h time block for the convention game.

2. In larger games of 6-8 people, having 2 sides of allied warbands makes things run faster as it is less player vs player combat in the beginning.

3. When doing initiative, when no war bands are in range of each other I let all the players do each phase simultaneously to speed up play, as it can bog down when a bunch of people are in combat in large games.

4. If you're going to have lots of creatures that need magical weapons to hit, its best if you give each war band 1 magic weapon at the start of the game so at least 1 member of the band can fight them.

A few things I do:
However I only put on historical games.

1. Playing aids, tapes, rulers, laser light, charts and QRC.
2. Explain the basic rules, movement, shooting and turn sequence.
3. Explain each sides forces.
4. On occasion I will give the gamers a small gift.
5. Shake their hand after the game and thank them for playing.

As you say ask what they thought of the game?

Keep the Rules and/or QRS to less than one page. Get things moving as fast as possible.