The second article covers something that few people engaged in the
convention building scene actually get to do.
Be a player...
It doesn’t sound too hard, after all, wasn’t it playing that got us
here in the first place, isn’t playing what we do all the time?
Actually...?
No it isn’t...
Not convention playing, there’s about as much similarity between
playing a game at a convention and playing at home as there is between driving
a prototype le mans car around Laguna Seca because you managed it on the
playstation...
This is where there is a particular divide between what those who run
conventions and those who go to conventions think makes for a good time.
I’ll put a little background in on this set of thoughts, last year I
decided to go around every convention that I could make to see what made them
different to Expo (beyond size), and given that I work weekends, I put a good
chunk (read:All) of my holiday entitlement into going to the different
conventions, ran a convention in the middle of the family holiday, and got as
much feedback as I possibly could on what it’s like to be a player, what it’s
like to go to a convention rather
than run one.
I have to say it was a bit of an eye opener...
I went to a few of the English RPG only conventions, some of the
multi-genre English Conventions, and then to Gencon Indy to round it all off to
see how they do things on the other side of the water. At the RPG only events,
it was very apparent that they were as much a social event as anything else,
with many of the people there already knowing everyone else. Not so much of a problem for the most part,
but something to consider if you’re one of the ones going to the convention for
the first time and you actually don’t know anyone there.
I went to one of the conventions with Tony Hyams, one of the directors
at Expo, who knows everyone to do with the organisation of conventions, and
actually no one from the GM and social scenes.
As it turns out, the insight that he had was one of the thing that made
me change how we do things at Expo.
He didn’t know everyone, and the only reason he was included in many of
the things was because he was with me and I know everyone. The problem here was that even though he’s an
evangelist by trade and not shy in any way, he found it a problem to be the
only person who doesn’t know everyone in the room, and that brings into play
the first rule of being a convention player...
Be Forwards...
I’m not saying push in on things or be an overloud, overbearing idiot,
but if you’re someone who keeps to themselves and doesn’t say much, you may
find that in convention games, you’ll find yourself at the back of the table
and not saying much. This may be to your
liking, but if you’re one of the people who likes to be involved in the game,
you’ll have to find a voice and not be afraid about using it. The point of roleplaying games in general is
to be someone other than you normally are, and this can be used when first
attending a convention. You’re one sort
of person at home, there are expectations for what you do and those who’ve
played with you for years may have every move you make before you make it, but
when you’re in new ground, you can be anything at all, so try new games, new
styles, and don’t worry about what the world thinks.
At the English conventions, a lot of the veterans had already staked
out what they wanted to play in advance, a lot of the games are discussed on
various forums and a great number of games were already booked out before the
sign up sheet even went up. From the
point of view of a person who’d not been to too many conventions, this was a
bit of a problem. I knew the people
there and knew whose game I wanted to play in, but because I wasn’t familiar
with all the pre-con activity, all the game that I’d wanted to play were
already out and I was left going after any game that was present, just so the
holidays I’d taken hadn’t been wasted.
This brings me to the second rules of being a player at a convention...
Do your Homework...
Check the forums about that convention, see what games are on offer,
find out which GM is running what, get in touch with them, get a place put
aside. Don’t hope that you’ll get what
you want on the day, because even at a convention the size of Gencon, most if
not all of the good games have already been taken before the convention doors
even open. For players, a convention
isn’t something you should turn up to and hope
that they’ve got the game you wanted. If
you can prebook, prebook, if you can reserve yourself a seat at the tables you
want, do it, because if you don’t, you’ll be taking what you can where you can
from who you can, and while variety is the spice of life, we all know what too
many spices do...
Of course, all this presumes that you’re the sort of gamer who already
has a list of games that they want to play and they don’t want to play anything
else. In the case of the more popular games, there are whole conventions booked
out with nothing but that game available for the people to play to their hearts
content. At Gencon Indy, I saw the
Pathfinder room, large enough to fit almost all the expo games in at the same
time, and so full of people that some tables had mobile PA systems on the table
so that everyone could hear each other over the roar of the rest of the hall. While
I understand devotion to a single system and all the things that come out for
it, having had time to see the myriad of thing out there, it’s at conventions
where you can see these things going on without ever having to think about
whether or not you’d actually like the game and want to buy it.
So for all those who want to see if something plays well, the best
place to check it out is at a convention when you don’t know any of the people
there, and no one knows anything of anyone, if there’s ever going to be a
better way to pressure test a game, I’ve not yet seen it...
And that brings me to another thing about conventions, GM’s aren’t the
only ones who have to do prep for them, Players aren’t exempt from having to
make sure they’ve got everything as well.
I already have a convention kit, pens, paper, dice, spare dice, backup
dice, and a pack to hold them all in (see the All Rolled Up Review for my usual
convention kit now), but as I sat to the table at some of the conventions, I
saw that some people had turned up with no dice, no paper, no prep at all, and
were completely relying on the GM to provide everything. Now while my own proclivities regarding what
GM’s should have at conventions are well documented (http://millionwordman.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/a-note-around-table-running-games-at.html)
to be precise, it remains a fact that many GM’s don’t follow those rules and
you don’t want to be the person at the table who’s constantly borrowing other
peoples things. Most gamers at
conventions are veterans and have a kit, but at one of the tables at Gencon, I
was one of only two people who turned up with kit (and the other one wasn’t the
GM), and while I didn’t mind, the other guy did, so we were sharing my kit
between five others, and that brings me to the next rule of being a player at a
convention.
Bring your own kit...
But don’t bring the things that you can’t replace, don’t bring anything
that you’re unwilling to lose, because while most convention players are people
of excellent character, occasionally you get yourself a b******, and all your
lovely shiny things can be gone in the blink of any eye. If you’re bringing enough for everyone, make
sure that the stuff you’re bringing can be replaced without thought.
And that brings me to perhaps the most important thing about being a
player at a convention...
Sustenance
It’s a poor convention organiser who hasn’t thought of how to feed the
masses of people coming in through the door, and even the smaller conventions
are at least aware that there will be requirements at some point in the day and
place themselves accordingly or at least make sure that they’ve got something
on hand to satisfy those in need of a sugar fix.
However...
What most places fail to cope with is the amount that most gamers can
eat and drink, it’s not uncommon for bars to be drunk dry, food courts picked
clean like an invading locust (biblical, not gears of war) horde, and then the
cry of “But where has the food gone?” to issue forth. However, from one veteran
of conventions, be sure to bring at least enough to keep yourself going and if
you have spare pack space, carry a little extra for the dual purpose of bribing
the GM and other players if nothing else.
The other thing about gaming at a convention is that it’s also a chance
to hold up a mirror to your own playing style.
Those who never play with anyone else except the group they’ve known
since year one may never want to play with another group, they may be happy
doing what they’re doing and never look for anything else, and if that’s the
case, they’re reading this going “But I don’t go to conventions for that
reason” and that’s fine. For the rest of
us, when you’re getting in on a game with five strangers, you’ll find out if
you’re overbearing or understated, exuberant or withdrawn, and from that, you
can learn new ways to play, and armed with that knowledge, you can return home
and use that knowledge to make your own games better.
And making games better is never a bad thing...
