Northeast Wars X

As part of August’s RPG Carnival, a communal blogging topic, NiTessine, Master of Game Masters for Ropecon, a Finnish gaming convention, imparts more than a few good ideas for convention game masters to keep in mind. For example, on the topic of promoting your event to attract like-minded players:

Second, write up a decent description of your game. Nobody will sign up for a game that’s only billed as “D&D 3.5″ without any information as to the actual content. You want to grab your players’ attention with it. Tell them what the game is like, not about what your ruleset is (though it is a good idea to mention that, too – I would be most unhappy if I found myself at a 4E table by accident). This should also get you the kind of players you want – the people playing RPGs at conventions are a myriad bunch, and the wrong sort of player in the wrong sort of game can lead to disaster. A Nordic-style immersionist in a Living Greyhawk table or a hack & slashy D&D player in a World of Darkness game are unlikely to lead to good gaming.

It’s a good rundown of good practices for GMs running games in the convention environment. You can read it in full at Worlds in a Handful of Dice.

Every month, members of the RPG Bloggers Network participate in the RPG Carnival, which is a way to collect a lot of different viewpoints on a particular topic. This month of August, the topic was conventions. The links are collected on Chgowiz’s Old Guy RPG Blog.

One carnival post in particular by Johnn Four lists a number of articles from Roleplaying Tips. If you’re looking for a jumping off point in finding new techniques and tips for running games in a convention environment, this is a fine place to start.

Gareth Hanrahan, contributor to a number of roleplaying game lines  — including Traveller, RuneQuest and Paranoia – has a five part series on his blog Figures of Text describing his methods for writing convention scenarios. The first article, “How to write convention scenarios the Gar Hanrahan way,” is here.

He notes that his experiences are largely of Irish gaming conventions, namely Warpcon and Gaelcon, which use a different process than most American conventions for screening and presenting adventures, so his advice tends to be oriented towards that style. Aside from that, most of Gareth’s advice on creating characters, generating core scenes and tying everything up in a finale can easily be utilized in any roleplaying situation with a set time limit, whether it’s at a convention or a one-shot with the regular gaming group.

The Colonial Angle is a website dedicated to “the hobby of collecting, painting, and playing games with tiny but perfect miniature figures of Victorian soldiers and their savage opponents.” Among the resources offered is an article entitled How to Run a Great Convention Game, focusing on techniques for miniatures and wargames. It covers twenty point for “setting up a game that will excite the players and keep observers interested on the sidelines.” For example:

Assign victory conditions, and make sure players understand them.

A game will be a lot more fun if players have an objective beyond kicking the enemy’s butt. The battle should have a goal, a reason for being fought. That may be to seize the crossroads, to delay the enemy’s advance, to hold the village, or even to inflict casualties. Players will make better plans, and you will get a better game, if the operations are oriented toward a realistic goal.

Sound advice like that can go a long way to enhancing your next tabletop skirmish or battle royale When considering what system or battle to make your next convention offering, don’t forget the Colonial Angle’s advice.

Matt McFarland is a long-time writer and developer for White Wolf’s roleplaying games. In addition to contributing to a number of game lines — including Changeling: The Lost, to name one — Matt helped design Werewolf: The Forsaken and served as developer for the Dark Ages line in the days of the original World of Darkness.

Over the years, Matt’s also run a lot of games, as well. So he’s built a fair store of experience and advice that GMs can draw on. Lucky for those GMs who against scooping out delicious brains to absorb their knowledge the old-fashioned way, Matt has posted a series of essays to his website about gamemastering in general, as well as for specific games. Of especial note to the discerning convention-goer is Con Artistry, Matt’s essay on tailoring the roleplaying experience and one’s GM style to fit the convention environment.

Wil Wheaton, actor, podcaster, novelist and nerd, has blogged about running a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition game for his son and friends. In this post, he talks about leading the group up to the beginning of The Keep on the Shadowfell module.

In addition to talking about how the game itself went, Wil goes on to enumerate elements of good gamemastering, like “Whenever you can, say yes,” and “Everything is important to the PCs.” There’s good advice there, much of which has been heard before, but it’s timeless and widely applicable enough that it bears restating, particularly from such a prominent spokesman for geek culture.

A few episodes back on All Games Considered, host Mags the Axe began a discussion on the hows and whys of running a game at a convention. While Mags’ background is that of a roleplayer, much of what her advice is broadly applicable to all kinds of games. The Le Havre enthusiast and Warhammer tournament organizer both have to deal with no-show players, fitting into established time slots, explaining rules to newcomers and all that. Plus, All Games Considered is an all around entertaining show; give it a try.

The series spans three segments:

• Episode 99: know your convention’s format and plan accordingly.
• Episode 102: structuring your game for the convention environment.
• Episode 103: scheduling and advertising your game, GM niceties.

With episode 103, the hosts announced that the Mags the Axe School of Game Mastering will become a recurring segment, so keep an eye on future episodes as the various faculty members elaborate on weighty topics.

There comes a moment in every game when one player is shifting antsily in their chair, one or more’s gaze has begun wandering around the room and perhaps a stomach gurgles, as well. Or maybe the GM just needs a smoke. Such moments are clearly time for a five minute break from the game.

For such occasions, the Geek Heretic brings you GM Hold Music. Your players will thrill to neutral background music as anonymous dulcet tones reassure them that yes, their game is important to you and imparts such pearls of wisdom as, “Don’t sweat the small stuff. Gnomes, for example.”

Still not sure about the finer points of running a convention game? The podcast Fear the Boot recently posted an episode all about different takes and methods of customizing your game for a convention setting. Moreover, they recorded the episode live at the close of their own convention, Fear the Con, so you can hear from GMs themselves coming fresh from their experiences that weekend.

Once you’ve listened to that sage advice, hustle over to the Event Submission page. We’re taking events right up to April 3rd, and there’s still time to get into the official convention book.

It’s part of the life cycle of the conventioneer. The first year or two, the excitement of a weekend devoted to nerdery overwhelms. It’s an adrenaline rush fueled by learning new games and reveling in the clatter of dice — or wooden resource cubes, depending on your tastes. As the novice conventioneer becomes more experienced, they want to get more out of their weekend. Or maybe the rest of the year, they explore new games on their own and want to share them with their convention friends.

Then the big question hits: how do I run a convention game? Well, over at Roleplaying Tips, Johnn Four offers some advice on the topic, and collects advice from readers as well, in How to Game Master at Conventions. The advice centers around roleplaying games, but the key points — preparation, working within a set time frame, soliciting feedback for next year — apply equally well to any other kind of game.

And once you’ve read all that good advice, you can send in your events for Northeast Wars using our handy form.