Gen Con Questions        Posted by:  R. H.
8/12/99    02:02 AM

Alright everybody, I know that some of you went to Gen Con this year. So how did it go? Did anyone get to meet? What were the most interesting things at the con for you?

I didn't get to go this year, so I want to live vicariously through everyone else.

Hoping to hear from someone,
R.
 
 

re:Gen Con        Posted by:  A. M. in response to Gen Con Questions
8/14/99    09:28 PM
 
I had lots of fun! Except I came home with a horrible cold that I may finally be getting over. I played a few AD&D games (fun!) and Monopoly (ok, not rpg, but still fun) and I worked as a volunteer. I met lots of cool people doing this and am going to do it again next year. If you volunteer and/or judge 16 hours (non-RPGA), you get your badge refunded. I was working at volunteer/judge HQ and will be again next year. The exhibit hall had lots of stuff, but I think every year I go, I lose more interest in it. I think at first I was just awed at all that gaming stuff in one huge hall. Plus all the different games and stuff available. Anyhow, I'd go even if I didn't play any games, cuz I like Milwaukee and any excuse to take time off is a good one :)

Hope you're feeling better        Posted by:  R. H. in response to re:Gen Con
8/18/99    06:12 PM

Well, I do hope the cold is getting better. I sounds like you had lots of fun. If you worked in volunteer/judge HQ, you must have met some friends of mine. Did you meet a tall lady named Cheryl, while working in HQ?

Thanks for the reply!

About Gen Con...        Posted by:   G. R. in response to Hope you're feeling better
8/30/99    06:59 PM
 
I've been on holidays and just read all the comments. I believe there is another convention for RPG called 'Dragon' or something like that... Is that true? Have you ever been there?
And a few more questions (I live in Argentina and never been in Gen Con)... All this 'preregistration' stuff...  Do you have to pay in advance to take part in a RPG? How are you supposed to know which games are going to be? How much do you have to pay?
I was thinking about going, next year or in 2001, but.. don't know now... I think I'll wait and see how it is next year...
Thanks for answering!
G.

Dragon*Con        Posted by:  K. B. in response to About Gen Con...
9/1/99    01:41 PM

>>I believe there is another convention for RPG called 'Dragon' or something like that<<

I think you may be thinking of Dragon*Con, which takes place in Atlanta, Georgie every June/July. D*C (last time I was there, a few years ago) is actually a sci-fi/fantasy convention with very little, if any, emphasis on gaming. Although, they do bill it as for 'fans of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, Comics and Art, Games and Computers, Animation, Science, Music, Television and Films.'

That said, D*C is a great con to visit and can be huge fun. They always have a good line-up of authors, actors, screenwriters, etc. It also appears that they're adding a ton of gaming for 2000.

Check out their site at http://www.dragoncon.org/ is you're interested.
 

Thanks!        Posted by:  G. R. in response to Dragon*Con
9/1/99    04:56 PM

I'll do!!! Thank you for answering!!!
Greetings from the south of the world

G. R.
Buenos Aires
Argentina

Preregistration        Posted by:  A. M. in response to About Gen Con...
9/7/99    11:13 AM

Well, the way it works (more or less), is that the group running the convention starts collecting GM registrations (including event descriptions) well in advance of the convention. Then, a few months before the convention, they publish a 'preregistration book.' GenCon's was available on paper and via the web. The book contains a list of all of the events that the organizers expect to have going on with some information about them (GM, duration, system, difficulty level, etc.).

People who plan to attend the convention can use the preregistration materials to plan their schedules.  When you send in your basic registration, you also send in a list of the events you want and a list of alternates and the money to pay for those events. If you don't get everything you wanted, you'll get money back. Since popular events often fill quickly, preregistering early makes it more likely that you'll get at least some of the events you wanted.

Also, at the convention, they'll only sell tickets to events at certain times, so you can't just show up at the convention, plan your schedule and buy your tickets. You keep having to get in line over and over again with no guarantee that they'll have what you want. (Since I use a motorized chair for getting around at conventions, I find this particularly difficult.)
 

Untitled        Posted by:  A. M. in response to Gen Con Questions
8/16/99    12:36 PM

Well, GenCon was interesting. I had fun, but I also got very frustrated with a lot of the things that were going on.

The on-site book was nearly useless. It didn't give a lot of information about the events being run, so people who hadn't preregistered couldn't locate interesting events. I'd pretty much filled my schedule by preregistering, so that aspect didn't cause me problems, but I know people who got very frustrated because they'd based their plans on being able to get into interesting sounding events with generics.

I did experience the problem from the GM side, however. If people who preregistered didn't show up for the event, I couldn't fill in the spots with people who had generics (It was especially bad because the LARP events were in a different building than the rest of the role playing, so I couldn't even go out into the hall and waylay people).

Most of the role playing events that I attended were run by the game publishers and involved attempts to create enthusiasm for the game mechanics more than fun scenarios. Most of them wasted precious time by having us generate characters at the table rather than using pregens.  Since I loathe character creation, that tended to be a big turn off.

I got the impression that Andon's policies regarding refunds for GMs drove a lot of people away from running anything. Since you didn't get anything unless you ran at least 16 hours of games, there were a lot of GMs running the same scenario four times in the course of the convention and very few people running for the fun of running.

I've got more comments, but I've got to get back to work now.

Wow!        Posted by:  R. H. in response to Untitled by A. M.
8/18/99    06:16 PM

Gosh, it sounds like you had kind of a mixed bag then. It seems interesting to me that you make that comment about Andon. It seems like more and more people are having similar oppinions. :) When you talk about not being able to get enough people to fill the slots, are you speaking as a judge or as one of the game marshals? Did you do one of those two jobs?

GM        Posted by:  A. M. in response to Wow!
8/24/99    10:17 AM

I GMed two LARPs. They were both intended for between 15 and 20 players. I had to run the first with only 12-13 players and my husband filling in an important role. 18 tickets had sold in preregistration, but only 9 of those people actually showed up. The second game, we managed to get 17 players. That game had completely sold out in preregistration, but I still had to fill in several slots with people who had generic tickets. I'm just happy that they were able to find the event...
 

It's not really Andon, it's WotC!        Posted by:  S. A. R. in response to Wow!
8/30/99    01:03 PM
 
It's also useful to note that Andon was recently bought by WotC. If you look closely, you see WotC's name on a lot of the convention materials (like the questionnaire). Remember, WotC makes almost all of its money on collectible card games, not tabletop and LARPs. And boy! does the bias show!

I was also distressed by a lot of what went on at GenCon. It's not just that the onsite book was useless (for role-players, that is - it was okay for the card gamers). They added a layer of bureacracy to the refund policy.  You not only had to collect tickets and report back (which is normal), you had to go find a manager and have then *sign* *off* on every event you ran, and only then would they give you *instructions* on how to obtain a refund (not even the refund itself).

I also began to get the distinct impression that, as a role-player, I was a second-class citizen at the con. Card Game tournament players were cut through the registration line at least once that I saw. Also, read that onsite questionnaire carefully - they as much as asked outright 'would you really mind if we got rid of tabletop roleplaying?' and 'can't we please move the con to another city, maybe closer to Seattle?'. As much as we all used to like to TSR-bash, WotC is starting to compare unfavorably. Did you know that many of the convention workers are actually area homeless? TSR used to not only pay them, but give them one meal a day. The meals have been discontinued.

I suspect A. is right that the change from a 12-hour refund requirement to a 16-hour is part of why fewer individuals are running. I think also it was harder this year to get a game in. I don't even remember getting a form for that in the mail (I used the online system) and I heard from a few frustrated GMs who didn't make it into the pre-reg book because Andon changed the deadline without notifying anyone. To be fair to Andon, they moved offices quite a distance in December and January, which can excuse some, though not all, of the bureaucratic mishaps.

Incidentally, I found out that the convention is kinder to clubs than indivisuals as far as counting hours for refunds. You can register all of your games as being run by a 'club' and then list your GMS and then the total for everyone gets summed up (and you can actually put in fewer hours per capita for the same refund). I think I'll be finding some other GMs and forming a coalition for next year. (I'd offer to start a 'Female Judge's' group, but I have at least one male GM I want to invite.)
 

GM 'Club'        Posted by:  A. M. in respose to It's not really Andon, it's WotC!
9/7/99    11:04 AM

If you do decide to do something like that, please let me know. My husband and I'd like to be involved.  We'll be running 12 hours of stuff anyway, but it'd be nice to get something for it.

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