This time last week, I was just winding down Longcon, and I
normally like to take a few days after I finish a convention to put my thoughts
in order. There’s so many things going
on that I’ve not had chance till today to write everything up. Still, if I’m honest, I could sum it up in a
single sentence...
It was awesome...
But that wouldn’t explain why, so here’s the rest of it...
I knew that many of those attending would be attending the night before
to catch up with their friends. If I hadn’t been doing last minute
preparations, I’d have been down there with them, because at the heart of it,
this convention was about taking the time to have fun and play games with
friends.
So when I arrived in the morning, I wasn’t the first one through the
door, but all the things that needed to be organised already had been, so for
once, I wasn’t worried about all the things that could have gone wrong, because
all the preparation was on me, and this convention wasn’t anywhere near the size
of the other conventions that I do, so there wasn’t as much to worry about.
Four games running on the first day, two of them the first day of a two
day scenario, two of them single day scenarios only running on that day.
The two day scenarios were a Dresden files
based game being run by Neil Gow
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| Why, Yes, Neil did duck every photo we aimed at him... |
A One ring mini campaign being run by
Paul Mitchener.
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| More fun than Elrond at his secret meetings... |
The single day scenarios
were an OSRIC scenario that had been previously run at Garycon by Simon Todd
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| Because having your own kids at the table is a challenge most would not take on... |
Finally a game that put the Firefly cast into the film of Alien Resurrection
being run by Darran Sims.
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| Of course he's grinning, he knows what's coming next... |
All implausible?
Many of those playing had been planning these games for several weeks,
they’d got their characters in place, given the GM time to prepare a good
scenario, and got to know each others characters, so when the scenario started,
they all knew where they were.
Everyone started drifting in around ten of the morning, some earlier,
some later, but I hadn’t specified slots that people had to start by,
deliberately so. If there’s one thing
that I’ve learned stresses GMs, it’s having to rush to get there on time, and
then have to rush to make the second slot and so on, so the whole point of this
was to make sure that the GM’s didn’t have that pressure on them. It was down to each group to choose their
hours, all I was doing was giving everyone a space to be in. With so little for me to organise (compared
to cons like Expo), I had time to catch a game myself, and so put myself in the
Osric game to get a little old fashioned THAC0 going.
Good scenario, Simon had clearly put the time in on it, images that he
drew himself and maps to work with, betrayal and confusion were the order of
the day, and with players ranging from those in their early teens to those in
their mid forties, the stage was set for a grand game.
Across from us, the Firefly team were beginning to realise just what a
problem they’d signed up for. I’d seen the NPC list early in the day, and to
give you the idea, ED209 was at one end of the scale, and Grant Mitchell from
Eastenders was at the other...
Through day one, people came and went, the Dresden game started later,
broke in the middle of the day and early evening, and were still playing when I
went home for the night.
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| Where did everyone go? Someone said food... |
The One ring
game relocated to the veranda (it was a nice day), had two breaks through the
day and were still playing when I went home for the night.
Day two, and the single day scenarios for this day were the Cyberpunk
2020 game I was running
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| Don't be deceived by the calm exterior... |
Then the D&D 5th retelling of Ravenloft 2
run by Martin Tideswell with a number of 9th level characters
heroically provided at very short notice when I got a last minute request for
more players in the game.
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| On a map so large it needed four tables... |
Again a calm day, relaxed and easy, taking
breaks when we wanted to, and as Saturday had been a long day, those breaks
were more often and lasted a little longer.
My game ended up with Simon “Rock God” Burley getting his followers to
lynch one of the other PC’s who’d sold out to “The Man”, and a promise that I’d
run the follow up to the game in the next Longcon.
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| Note the conspicuous absence of one player.... |
Most games broke up around five of the afternoon, with the last game to
finish being Ravenloft and everyone meeting in the bar downstairs for drinks
and reflection upon the convention. The
overwhelming thought in both players and GM’s heads was how relaxing the convention
had been. Because it was only one game
being played, no one had to reorient their heads to play a different character,
and the GM’s didn’t have to bring notes and books for all the other games they
were running. Paul Mitcheners comment at
the end was that he was tired because he’d been running for two days solid, but
he wasn’t broken as he would have been had he offered five slots at Expo over
two days...
The players reported back that the games had been a great success,
mainly because there had been time to get into the games (even the one day
scenarios), go through every option, work through the plans of the enemy,
investigate red herrings, and most importantly, not have to suddenly rush when
the time hit three and a half hours to get to the end...
I’ve already got sixteen of the twenty two people who came this year
wanting to sign up for next years Longcon, and I’ve now had time to put
together a list of the things that I’ve learned over the course of the weekend.
In no particular order...
Don’t hold the convention at the same time as any other major
convention...
You don’t need to be experienced at long games to have an excellent
time with long games, of the players in the one day scenarios, none of them had
ever played an all day game, all of them had an excellent time and many are
wanting to come back next year...
Timing is very important, next years convention will be later in the
month, because later in the month and we’re into the summer holidays and all
those working as teachers (and you’d be surprised how many of us do) find it a
lot easier to get time...
Equal spread of two day and one day games required, but no dungeon
crawls, and anything with Cthulhu in it will have to be something suitably
cerebral...
Given the nature of the games played and the players who turned up,
there was a lot of interest from those who are GMs wanting to get in on the
whole weekend of playing, I’m going to be putting the call out for GMs a lot earlier
next year because of the number of GMs who wanted to play over the normal
onslaught I get when asking for GMs at a con...
It’s not just a good GM that makes the games here, the reason why the
games worked so very well were because there was advance preparation in almost
every game, no worries about character creation on the day, and everyone could
get straight into it. As an approach to
games, I’d like to do it more at the other conventions I run, but I recognise
that this (Presently) is a niche convention, it’ll be bigger next year, and as
more people enjoy it, so more will come along, of that I have neither doubt nor
reservation...
The Venue was excellent, but I’m wary of putting many more games in there,
the number that we could have been expanded on, but not by much without
starting to get noise overlap, and it’s very important in a long game that the
atmosphere is maintained throughout...
I’ll be bringing short games and board games next year as well, because
some of the games broke up earlier than others and left those who were staying
over with not as much to do as I would have liked. An easy fix to be sure, but certainly a
lesson learned and one to rectify...
Any event relies on the
assistance of others, never let anyone say otherwise, and Longcon would
certainly not have been possible without the assistance of a very select bunch
of individuals, in particular, the GMs who gave up their time and effort to
come down and run games for no more reward than a drink in the bar, so in no order at all, my deepest thanks to...
Paul Mitchener, Neil Gow, Simon Todd, Martin Tideswell, Darran Sims, Simon
Burley
I may have built Longcon, but you guys were holding the walls up for
me, and any con you find me at (Whether I’m running it or not), it’s a drink on
me every time...
So here’s looking to next year...
