Thursday 3 July 2014

A note around the table: On being a player at a convention

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...