Over in NZ and other places, they have a concept call “Games on Demand”. Now frankly I’m not too sure how it works over there as I’ve never done it, but the feeling I get is that anyone who isn’t playing in a session can wander over to a Games on Demand room and play a pick up of something interesting. Which sounds fine in theory, until you study it a little. What happens if an odd number of people turn up (seven, nine, thirteen)? What happens if people turn up after play has commenced (15 – 20 mins late)? What happens if people wander over there, only to have no interest in the games being offered?
At Pheno, if I were to offer a games on demand room, I see all of the above problems with an extra couple:
- Because everything is pre-booked, people disappear when they don’t have session on.
- I can’t run anything all con.
- This would be a trialist thing (see my comments on blurb writing for an explanation of the four roleplaying groups), so I doubt there would be excessive interest).
- Firstly, I talk to my friends and see if there anyone who might be interested in helping me run one or two sessions (so I know how many teams this thing could take).
- Next, pick a four or five indie systems those GMs know or might be willing to learn over the next year (I’m thinking maybe one better know system like Fate or Houses of the Blooded and a few quick and dirty systems, with an emphasis on those easy to pick up.
- Sketch out a characters, premise or plot for those systems that need it (not all will I suspect).
- Figure out what to call it – will calling it Games on Demand confuse people who know what that is given this is a variation?
- Get the thing prescheduled, write up a blurb explaining what this is and gather teams online and Friday night as normal.
- For every X number of players, make certain I have a GM (I’m thinking I GM per 4 players given the variability of ratios in Indie games). I’m aiming at a maximum of 40 players (although I doubt this would get that many. Over two sessions that’s four friends, more if people only want to run one session.
- Get a large room off the con organisers. At the start of the session, find out who wants to play what. Divide the players into teams and send them off with a GM. We can all play in the one large room I hope.
- The end
Do you reckon this will work? If not, what can I do to fix the hole?
I'm unclear as to exactly what you are hoping to achieve with this.
ReplyDeleteThe advantage of Games On Demand generally is that it picks up the players standing around with nothing to do. It means that nobody needs be bored at the con, the con collects a few extra session fees, and less people just wander off to go shopping or nap or whatever.
Whereas you seem to be hoping to get people to pre-register for GOD (on the Friday night if not earlier) and just pick what they play at the session.
Without knowing where you see the advantages here, it is very hard to predict whether those advantages will be realised. I'm not saying there isn't something to it, of course, just that I don't know what you are hoping for.
On the subject of games to offer, though, I'll point out that there are a number of little indie games which actually require a lack of pre-planning to work. Prime-Time Adventures is a classic example (though frankly I don't think the system itself really adds much to play if you aren't playing something like five sessions, because the good bit of the game is the way it controls the flow of a season). There'd be nothing wrong with having some pre-planned games to offer, but having a three or six systems of the no-planning variety on hand means you can have a lot of variety without a lot of extra work.
The advantages I see are:
ReplyDeleteI (and the other GMs) don’t have to run all con
We know how many ppl want to play in advance (and can solicit on Friday to make up numbers)
We don’t get extra ppl 15 mins late to the session
It’s easy for the orgs to schedule, cause all they need do is schedule us as a freeform
Players can try a new system in a ‘safe’ enviroment, with people who are familiar with the system
The GMs get to showcase systems they feel are interesting without the commitment of a full schedule
I can’t run all con and I don’t think enough people will want to randomly turn up to a games on demand thing over the course of the entire con for it to be viable as a true games on demand. Instead of running one game per session, I’m thinking of making it a many GM thing, with many games in one session.
I’m thinking of changing the name so that people aren’t confused in their expectations.
Does that make sense?
Howdy all,
ReplyDeleteFirstly let me start with good luck, and assuming I'm around, I'm more than happy to help get into the GMing of this.
Secondly, lets throw in a few issues that were highlighted when Games on Demand (GoD) appeared on the NZ con circuit.
* Why not just schedule one or two games of a fixed module/system than attempt to prepare 4-5 games that people select?
* How are you going to run the selection process for the game to play this session?
* How are you going to address the "Fear" of players who end up afraid they are going to end up in a game that they do not like?
* How are you going to address the fact that the rest of Pheno is scheduled, yet this session appears to be a con within a con? (so you are not sure what you are going to play)
* Who would pre-register for a chance of playing one in five games (and missing out on the one they _really_ wanted to play)?
* It seems you are directing towards a "filler" session for the 'con overflow. My understanding was there was not much of an overflow this year round - so what do you do when you only have 2 players show up?
I'll come with answers to the above at the next post, as well as some suggestions for your questions :)
Love the idea! Especially the part where the GM's get to have a more relaxed 'con (you guys over there totally need to union-ise to stop those atrocious conditions ; ).
ReplyDeleteStrongly suggest advertising games on demand, before the 'con, with flyers on Friday etc. providing a short blurb for the games you might offer in advance. Also like the idea of stacking things a little with friends - that's how the first year got started over here, so there was always a game going on.
My experience of games on demand is that the games tend to be much shorter, say 1-1.5 horus so you can sually fit 2 diufferent games into one slot which keeps most people happy.
Fianlly, with the right advertising you'll likely lure in a lot of players who would most likely not show up to Pheno, try some great new games, build on the creativity of others and have a great time!
Rock On!
Oh, I think I see. Instead of running one game per session for 11 sessions, you want to run 11 games in one session (or, rather, most likely less than that since you probably aren't expecting 40 players to sign up).
ReplyDeleteI guess doing it that way, if you get a decent number of signups, you'll have a few different games running, and it becomes more likely that each player can find a game to his or her liking in that session.
However, given the resources this requires (you'd need to organise a half-dozen GMs) I'm not sure you'd be getting the best value out of those resources.
Scheduling the big events tends to be tricky, and you will often lose players because the orgs just can't make the schedule work right. You'd suffer from that effect with this.
And then there are the people who would be interested in playing several different GOD games.
If you allowed your GMs to be split between sessions, you may make things easier for the schedulers and get a few more players in. The trade-off is that you can't offer as many different games in each session (or maybe you can, given the prep-light nature of a lot of indie games, but not as many of them would actually run in a session).
It may be that somewhere in the middle is optimal - say, six GMs available, split between two sessions appropriately, rather than six GMs all in the one session. And that's still not to say that you have to GM two sessions yourself. If you can trust your minions to run a game, surely you can trust your minions to run a game while you are elsewhere, right?
Also, if you are hoping to offer something to the system-only players who aren't interested in a con full of systemless games, you probably aren't going to tempt them to come along with an opportunity to play only one session of systemed stuff. Even if you split into two, that's unlikely to do it. If you want to attract such people to the con, I doubt anything like your format is going to have a serious effect. (Unless, maybe, you can get a few of them to come along as GMs. Some might be willing to come to try to persuade us heathens as to the virtues of their ways, when that doesn't involve paying for any sessions.)
To your questions
ReplyDelete"What happens if an odd number of people turn up (seven, nine, thirteen)?"
Usually not a problem, some games require a set number of people but most are variable - and some games are as many as you can fit (see 3:16) without degrading the experience of the game.
"What happens if people turn up after play has commenced (15 – 20 mins late)?"
This one is a bit tricky, but I would not be too concerned about it. If they turn up 15-20 mins late chances are they have missed the game selection and would not get into a game. In saying this, there are some games that run short (especially indie games) and there may be opportunities for the late comers to join a game in about an hour (no guarantees however)
"What happens if people wander over there, only to have no interest in the games being offered?"
Similar question to what I have offered. And simply you have to be up-front about the games on offer (put it in the blurb - also here in NZ the games on offer are available between times - on a table for everyone to review and thumb through).
"Because everything is pre-booked, people disappear when they don’t have session on."
Yep - hence my question about being a "filler" or taking care of overflow. In both cases you are going to have people who are undecided on what game to play and hence may not be fully engaged. Its up to the GMs to run the best game that they can.
"I can’t run anything all con."
Fair enough, as a kiwi at Pheno I totally understand - I'm in the same boat - it is very difficult for me to run the same game over and over again. Its not something we deal with in NZ (see the ideological differences below).
"Firstly, I talk to my friends and see if there anyone who might be interested in helping me run one or two sessions."
Good idea
"Next, pick a four or five indie systems those GMs know or might be willing to learn over the next year"
Absolutely, I can not emphasise enough that the GMs will need to know those systems thoroughly and be able to run the session quickly and efficiently. Stick to a small group of systems, evaluate how many players you will be able to accomodate and set the limit on number of registered to that number. One of the issues in NZ (now) is that there are too many going to Games on Demand making filling the demand difficult.
"Sketch out a characters, premise or plot for those systems that need it (not all will I suspect)."
This part is not necessary, your individual GMs should have sorted (or have an idea) about what they can do and what they are comfortable doing. Each GM should have 1-2 ideas per system they are comfortable with ready to go.
"Figure out what to call it – will calling it Games on Demand confuse people who know what that is given this is a variation?"
I doubt that it will confuse people, GoD is not a common gaming idea in Australia in my experience (again - back to ideologies)
"Get the thing prescheduled, write up a blurb explaining what this is and gather teams online and Friday night as normal."
Yep.
"For every X number of players, make certain I have a GM"
Yep, remember the GMs may wish to play (sooo screwing up the pay by session idea for the Orgs though), so 1-2 less than you want can be filled by unemployed GMs if necessary.
"Get a large room off the con organisers. At the start of the session, find out who wants to play what. Divide the players into teams and send them off with a GM. We can all play in the one large room I hope."
I would suggest going for two rooms to be honest, next to each other (like the Reid/McMahon/Littleton groups).
My questions (yes, bad form to answer your own questions but 'meh)
ReplyDelete"Why not just schedule one or two games of a fixed module/system than attempt to prepare 4-5 games that people select?"
One of the attractions of Games on Demand is that you get the chance to vote (or select) a game you may not have played before, and you don't know what that game is beforehand.
You will look at the blurb and go - well, Ive heard of that game, and not heard anything about this game - and at selection time have at least one person who is advocating the game and lo, behold! willing to run that game for you _right now_.
"How are you going to run the selection process for the game to play this session?"
Not sure on this question, the NZ style is to list the games available (from the GMs available) on a white board and gets the GMs to say a short spiel about the game and system. Then it is simply a show of hands - Mike may be able to give you a better idea here.
"How are you going to address the "Fear" of players who end up afraid they are going to end up in a game that they do not like?"
This and the prevalent feeling that you may just have the "dregs" of the Pheno registered are going to be your biggest challenges I suspect. And these are nasty inhibitors to players getting into the game. Your GMs will need to be aware, prepared and ready to tackle these sorts of players and be able to aleviate the concerns of the players. In fact they will have to be part cheerleaders in order to get the best out of the experience.
"How are you going to address the fact that the rest of Pheno is scheduled, yet this session appears to be a con within a con? (so you are not sure what you are going to play)"
Big change for Australian (or rather particularly Canberran) auidence. I have run a few short one-dayer things in Canberra with a similar to GoD theme & style and its a challenge to get people enthused and get the idea across. What I do? Bluff it.
"Who would pre-register for a chance of playing one in five games (and missing out on the one they _really_ wanted to play)?"
This is more of a long term solution - But the games that you are going to offer need to be known - or at least heard of. Which means you need to be the advocate of the games you offer (or will offer) and generate some groundswell for people - ie, people need to read/see/be told something about the games on offer to be tempted to try the lottery to play that game.
"It seems you are directing towards a "filler" session for the 'con overflow. My understanding was there was not much of an overflow this year round - so what do you do when you only have 2 players show up?"
Play a smaller game (Best friends, Silver Kiss of the Magicial Twilight of the Moon). Keep the enthusiam up - try again next session.
Ideology problem:
ReplyDeleteSomething I thought about on the bus on the way home, something that works in the favour of the NZ Games on Demand is that Kapcon is a very different con to Pheno. Kapcon only expects GMs to run 1 session (more if they like), which means for the players that to get into that game you want you need to schedule yourself very carefully as you have really only a single chance - and there is a chance you won't get into that game. What this means is that the Kapcon attendees don't expect to get all of their first choices and therefore are more willing to "try something out" while they wait for their next set of games. Pheno doesn't have this - as the Pheno GMs run their game each and every session (or most) there is more of a chance for the player to get into the game that they really want to play.
Games on Demand in Kapcon fills a need for a "filler" session, and while some of the attendees are coming to GoD as a second choice (less so now) - they still come with the expectation to have a good game. The Pheno style may cause the feeling that the GoD sessions are simply just a way to keep you at the con or waste the players time while they are waiting to get into there "real" game.
Games on Demand does not appear to be common in Australian 'cons, so its going to be a new thing for most of the attendees - and somewhat daunting. The game selection process at the start of the session will need to accomodate the possibility that your players just may not know what to do next.
Hi, Mike Sands here, veteran of Kapcon games on demand. Most of what Dan has said is good advice, but here's some more that might be handy.
ReplyDeleteWe run as a stream throughout the whole convention (Saturday and Sunday for us), and pretty much run things as you plan to, except for picking the games. We get each GM to bring along 3-5 games that they are really excited to run, and know well enough to run them (the GM excitement generates player interest in a game).
Selecting games to play once everyone gets there can be a problem. Currently our best solution is to ask if anyone has requests, then supplement these with one game from each GM (or mention if a GM wants to run one that was requested). We then get a show of hands for each game and groups go and start play as enough people are found. This got a bit strained this year with 20-30 people a couple of rounds, but it works well the rest of the time.
We also tend to get a few people every session who didn't sign up (maybe they missed their chance, or the games they wanted were full, etc).
Getting some very new and talked about games is a good idea too. These get a lot of attention at Kapcon, just too see what all the fuss is about.
Let me know if you have any more specific questions about how we do things.
I think it's worth mentioning that next year is the first part of the plan - I would hope that the concept gets sufficient buy-in that we'd be able to schedule more sessions in 2013. I don't imagine that it's ever going to be an every session thing, but I think that if, say, the after-lunch session becomes known as the "try new things" slot, there'll be sufficient interest to make it self-sustaining.
ReplyDeleteThe GoD concept has strong and obvious merit; we're looking at ways to make it something that's part of the Phenomenon experience.
Stu.
@Dale – interesting idea with the flyers on Friday night. Showing people these games (whatever they end up being) are cool is one of the key things, more so than for a normal game I think
ReplyDelete@Travis – I think you may have the right of it, the idea of running two sessions of the thing. Less load on the GMs, more opportunity for players to get a game (or even two)
@Dan – I’m nodding in agreement as I read your comments. I have a question on this bit –
“"Sketch out a characters, premise or plot for those systems that need it (not all will I suspect)."
This part is not necessary, your individual GMs should have sorted (or have an idea) about what they can do and what they are comfortable doing. Each GM should have 1-2 ideas per system they are comfortable with ready to go.”
I think this might be a philosophical difference thing. I don’t want to load the GMs up too much and it never occurred to me to have them run different scenarios. I think I’ll keep it in mind – talk it over with the GMs and see which way they would like to go.
I’m thinking about your comments on ‘filler’ or ‘overfill’. I think by prescheduleing I might get around that, but I might get that sort of player on Friday night. As well as making the GMs aware, I might focus the blurb on it as a sampler or something… Not sure how to get ppl engaged in it. They might well make it 2nd choice on Friday night. Have to think more.
@Mike – your ideas seem sound. I’m a bit confused by the game selection thing. By the sounds of it, Kapcon is presenting as many games as GMs come along with? Have I understood you right?
If I am only presenting 4 games, but have something like 6 GMs (each knowing 3ish of the systems offered), would that get around the problems you seem to describe with gathering players and filling games?
I like your point about new and talked about games, that makes sense to me.
Why not just schedule one or two games of a fixed module/system than attempt to prepare 4-5 games that people select?
ReplyDeleteCause I don’t know the demand for any one system. I might think people want to play X, but they want to play Y. Given the GMs and I know both X and Y, I can offer both this way.
* How are you going to run the selection process for the game to play this session?
Um, by a show of hands at the start of the session? I’m expecting between 2 to 20 players, running it twice. Given what people are saying here, I’m thinking of capping the numbers at 20.
* How are you going to address the "Fear" of players who end up afraid they are going to end up in a game that they do not like?
If all my GMs can run all the games, the players will get the game they want? There are twos fear I think players might have. Firstly, that there less than a team of people wanting to play Y. I suspect then I’ll end up gathering ppl from rego like the freeforms do. The other issue might be players unwilling to game with another. I reckon my only solution is to get GMs who are able to bring it to the table…. OTOH, this is a risk any partial team get when registering at Pheno and it doesn’t seem to stop anyone.
* How are you going to address the fact that the rest of Pheno is scheduled, yet this session appears to be a con within a con? (so you are not sure what you are going to play)
I reckon people would be willing to roll with it, especially as this is a new thing. (putting it as a new thing is a good idea on the blurb)
* Who would pre-register for a chance of playing one in five games (and missing out on the one they _really_ wanted to play)?
The GMs being able to run many of the games I would hope make this is less likely. Again though, putting information on the blurb to this point would be good I think.
* It seems you are directing towards a "filler" session for the 'con overflow. My understanding was there was not much of an overflow this year round - so what do you do when you only have 2 players show up?
I hope it won’t all be filler, given that people will preregister for it, along with all the other games.
Actually, Jacinta, I wasn't trying to push you into two sessions over one. Rather, my point is that maintaining flexibility is of benefit. The schedule might work out such that it all fits into one session better, or maybe two, or maybe even three or more. You just need to identify your resources accurately (as in "I, Jacinta, will run only one session," if that's what you personally can commit to, and so on and so forth for all the other GMs) and let the schedulers do their job.
ReplyDeleteOn the "partial teams" worry, there's quite a few light, low-prep systems around these days that really work very well for small groups. (I like a group of three players for Dogs In the Vineyard, for example, and I'm pretty sure a few of the indie games would work really well with only two players.) When you've got games available for such small groups, partial teams aren't likely to be such a big deal. There's only so "partial" you can get and still have somebody playing.
BTW, we had a game at Conquest run with only a single player. It was Into the Battleground by Martin Ludwell, one of the first of The Thunder Egg Prophecy (along with Willowbark and Shedding Silver Tears, which ran at Pheno). At rego we were chatting about how to run the game for a partial team if that happened, and we thought a little and quickly worked out how to do it with only two players. Then Martin said he reckoned he could do it with just one. Sure enough, he had exactly one player in one session, so they gave it a go, and it worked very well. The game hadn't even been designed with undersized teams in mind, so presumably it should be possible to design games to shrink from five players down to one if you care to.
"I don’t want to load the GMs up too much and it never occurred to me to have them run different scenarios."
ReplyDeleteThis bit hurts my head. And maybe we are running into Aust / NZ differences here, but maybe not.
A lot of the indie games that I run are very much "on-the-fly" games, because they are designed that way (Grey Ranks and 3:16, in fact 3:16 has an adventure generator at the back, which works really well for 3:16), and other games do not have a GM (best friends, Fiasco) - so its not something that a GM can prepare a scenario for.
I guess that was what I was putting across, get your GMs to be proficient in the system + a few ideas on how to get the game running. Actually building scenarios might not be necessary for your GMs as a fair bit of work is going to be done by the players at the table, on the day.
Hi Jacinta,
ReplyDeleteSteve here (I'm one of the facilitators in the Kapcon games on demand stream). Here are some other thoughts that Mike, I and the rest of the team had after our debrief this year.
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PROVIDE GM'LESS OR 'LEARN AS YOU GO' GAMES
Possibly have a game available for leftovers to play - potentially with one of the left-over people taking on the GMing role. Ideally, these would be games that can basically be run out of the box, games like:
+ Parsely
+ S/Lay w/ Me
+ A Penny for My Thoughts
+ Zombie Cinema
+ Fiasco
+ 44 (maybe)
--- ---
INDICATING UPCOMING GAMES
Some indication of what games the GMs would like to run in the upcoming round might be useful. This means that potential players can study the games that will be on offer a bit more closely.
This could simply involve attaching a post-it note to each book, which indicates which GMs are able to run the game (and you write on a convenient whiteboard which GMs available in that round).
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COMFORT GAMES
What I've found works best with Games on Demand is for each GM to offer games they're totally comfortable running, games that they feel relaxed about. Once each GM has one or two of those, then they can add in games they're really excited about or games they're unfamiliar (to whatever level they're comfortable with).
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STREAMLINING GAME SELECTION
I like it when each GM pitches one game, and we assign players based on their enthusiasm for it.
That means we've used a system where players only get to vote for one game they want to play, and once that game is filled, they head off to a table to prep.
We're pretty flexible about that, though: if someone has signed up for a game, but hears about something else (usually Apocalypse World) that they *have* to play, we're fine about letting them sway.
If no-one responds to the game a GM has just pitched, they just pitch another one.
--- ---
Happy to try and answer any other questions about how we do it. Hope the con goes well!
Regarding game selection, everyone in the Kapcon Games on Demand team brings along what they want. So there's no attempt to have one overall selection, or have every GM able to run every game.
ReplyDeleteAnd, like Dan and Steve said, we emphasize games that you can sit down, make characters and play with no extra GM prep. That seems to be what people who turn up want to play, in my experience.
By the way, I am interested in this if only for the possibility of running small-player-group games. I have a back catalogue of very good two and three player scenarios, many of which run in under an hour (letting you fit two or more in a standard con slot) and this is pretty much the only way I can see them ever running at a convention.
ReplyDeleteLet me know if you end up doing this in a manner that may occasionally require two or three player games.
thanks everyone for your suggestions and advice on this.
ReplyDelete