Post/Author/DateTime	Post
larytw 10-30-07, 10:40 AM	Now that every region will be open to everyone. Why don't local cons each specialize in a different region. I would still be willing to drive to a con if they had all the west coast mods for example. Lary Wesley
Koushiro 10-31-07, 06:07 PM	I think we might want to wait until a little bit later to see how things are going to be set up before we get too worried about our local cons. Though I'm a bit worried that ours will fall off /before/ the coming of LFR....
qstor 11-05-07, 03:35 PM	I think what might happen is some of the mods can only be played in region while the vast majority will be playable anywhere. Mike
Surgebuster 11-05-07, 05:54 PM	Of course, many many modules will only be playable at conventions for a couple of months, not to mention that 'local' regional mods will premiere earlier at a con within the region. Oh and special adventures and interactives will be at local cons. Why isn't that enough reason? Joe
PCI_StatMonkey 11-07-07, 05:55 PM	Why isn't that enough reason? Because, why would I spend cash on driving, hotel, and convention badge when I can just wait and play the convention at home? Regional LG conventions do well because for everyone outside the region, every mod is a “LG special”. At GenCon and Origins many people just play the LG specials because they can just play the other core mods at home. Same with our Arcanis special events, many people show up and play the LARP and Battle Interactive because you can't play them at home. LFR will not allow local conventions drawing out of town players... Now if you are right about regions having speical events and interactives... maybe thay will draw people, but they better be amazing in scope.
tombollis 11-07-07, 06:25 PM	Because, why would I spend cash on driving, hotel, and convention badge when I can just wait and play the convention at home? Regional LG conventions do well because for everyone outside the region, every mod is a “LG special”. At GenCon and Origins many people just play the LG specials because they can just play the other core mods at home. Same with our Arcanis special events, many people show up and play the LARP and Battle Interactive because you can't play them at home. LFR will not allow local conventions drawing out of town players... Now if you are right about regions having speical events and interactives... maybe thay will draw people, but they better be amazing in scope. Your reasoning only applies to coms that relly on out-of-region attendance, which I doubt is the case even in LG outside of North America. Local cons will draw mainly on players from within the reguin, which I believe is the current case with LG. Tom Bollis
Surgebuster 11-07-07, 07:15 PM	At GenCon and Origins many people just play the LG specials because they can just play the other core mods at home. Same with our Arcanis special events, many people show up and play the LARP and Battle Interactive because you can't play them at home. LFR will not allow local conventions drawing out of town players... So, are you actually saying that LFR won't have interactives or special adventures? Because I'm pretty darn sure that it will. Joe
PCI_StatMonkey 11-08-07, 10:45 AM	Your reasoning only applies to coms that relly on out-of-region attendance, which I doubt is the case even in LG outside of North America. Local cons will draw mainly on players from within the reguin, which I believe is the current case with LG. Tom Bollis Depends on the conventions... For example.. weekends in X always seem to get people in from out of town. Also Cross-regional conventions always have a big draws from out of town.
PCI_StatMonkey 11-08-07, 10:47 AM	So, are you actually saying that LFR won't have interactives or special adventures? Because I'm pretty darn sure that it will. Well we don't know yet... I wount be suprized if special events are restricted to "core" regions (thus being run at DDXP, Origins, and GenCon) But again, unless the special event is the = of a BI with item access I don't realy see people driving up to out of region local conventions.
reytheist 11-08-07, 10:56 AM	So, are you actually saying that LFR won't have interactives or special adventures? Because I'm pretty darn sure that it will. I won't go that far, but I will say that it seems unlikely they would be eliminated. Why do we play LG at Cons, aside from the social aspects? To get and do stuff we can't do with our home group or at our game day. Games from other Regions: On the surface, this is not an issue anymore. But if there's a "Core" region that is only available for campaign play, that would certainly help conventions. Especially since you can play Regionals from anywhere (presumably at the cost of extra play opportunities). Interactives: You get to LARP, or you get to take part in a massive battle, or you get to participate in a tournament, or any number of other reasons to get a bunch of people in the same room where every table is not completely an island. Special Access: This one is usually tied to Interactives. Since the interactive is only run one time at one Con, that will be your only opportunity to get access to certain unique or rather limited items. Influence on Storylines: Certain scenarios can have multiple outcomes which can direct the story of the region. In LG, the premiere con was usually used as the official result of the mod for plot purposes. Extend that to a month or two, so there can be a "premiere" in each state or country, so that players make a difference. If you can advertise "We've got three cores (you can only play at Cons), a regional premiere (that will affect storyline), and an access interactive at AwesomeCon", you've got five slots of stuff that you can only play at a Convention. Will this mean fewer cons in a region? It guess it would depend on how they classify "premiere". But there will likely be a hit in either the number of Cons or in the distance people will travel to attend them.
ceregon 11-08-07, 11:53 AM	Your reasoning only applies to coms that relly on out-of-region attendance, which I doubt is the case even in LG outside of North America. Local cons will draw mainly on players from within the reguin, which I believe is the current case with LG. Tom Bollis Many conventions that are RPGA-only cons rely on out of town attendees. Hotels charge high rates for conference rooms and discount them to affordable rates with food purchases (usually called catering) or a guaranteed number of sleeping room rentals (room nights). Since food prices are high--and don't forget the 18% gratuity and set up fee, etc.--the only realistic way a con can lower its costs is to attract a certain number of out of region travellers that stay at the hotel. I run Theocracy by the Bay, the largest RPGA con on the west coast. Even with 250 tables running this year, the con was only financially viable because of the 20 rooms rented at the hotel by the attendees. If I lose just 5 of those rooms, my costs go up significantly. While cons mostly provide play opportunities for local gamers it is the out of town folks that come reduce the financial risk to a manageable level. If I have to assume more financial risk than I'm comfortable with, then I won't run the con. It costs thousands of dollars to put on a large convention and since you have reserve space, put down deposits and guarantee room nights far in advance of the actual con, the risk is considerable. This problem does not affect a large general gaming convention like DragonCon or KublaCon, but I have found that RPGA only conventions tend to be more enjoyable for me if I'm mostly going to play RPGA events. I have been to general cons with contradictory schedules/tickets, gaming rooms in different areas of the hotel so you literally had to run from game to game, and had the RPGA events coordinated by con staff that have no idea how the RPGA works. These problems are not usually encountered at an RPGA con because the person running the show is an RPGA member and knows how to handle RPGA events. I think that many local cons will be replaced by smaller game days and that people will mostly play modules with their local gaming groups. A great deal of my enjoyment from LG came from meeting new people and making friends all over the country. The cross-pollination of ideas, builds and tactics from interacting with new players made for a very dynamic and exciting campaign. I'll certainly miss that aspect of organized play. I got into the convention business to prove to a non-RPGA con that the RPGA could fill more than 40 tables we were being given (we did 200 the same weekend as their con 40 miles away). I continued to run cons so that gamers could play in special events like the Extended Premiere program and take part in large battle interactives and other special events. I didn't do it to make money and most of the proceeds get donated to charity. However, if I have to take on a much larger financial risk than I currently do, then I'll just stop running conventions. I won't be the only one to do so, and that is the problem with the new model. Local cons will definitely need "saving." Bart Scott former Pale Triad coordinator of Theocracy by the Bay and Confession
tombollis 11-08-07, 01:47 PM	Depends on the conventions... For example.. weekends in X always seem to get people in from out of town. Also Cross-regional conventions always have a big draws from out of town. Your examples just reinforces my point - such cons tend to be at or near regional borders, thus mainly in North America, and they aren't typical local cons. Tom Bollis
MatteBlack 11-08-07, 03:33 PM	What it boils down to is that cons could use some sort of exclusive content to help draw attendees. I think some fresh innovative types of interactives and or early access to new mods are all that is realy needed. Lee
PCI_StatMonkey 11-08-07, 04:19 PM	Some extend thousands of miles. Some span continents. Some include speakers of a variety of different languages. After seeing the size of the regions I can clearly see the death of the local convention drawing out of town guests, specialy in Miami, where if we don't rent out 10 rooms we can't run the convention in the first place. LFR will be restricted to game days at stores down here (and even then the stores are small)
tombollis 11-08-07, 04:49 PM	After seeing the size of the regions I can clearly see the death of the local convention drawing out of town guests, specialy in Miami, where if we don't rent out 10 rooms we can't run the convention in the first place. LFR will be restricted to game days at stores down here (and even then the stores are small) In Canada, I have been to cons at convention centers, universities, a high school, and even a library. Hotels and stores aren't the only alternatives. Tom Bollis
MatteBlack 11-09-07, 12:34 PM	In Canada, I have been to cons at convention centers, universities, a high school, and even a library. Hotels and stores aren't the only alternatives. Tom Bollis I have seen a number of cons run fairly well on College Campuses. They seem to work out pretty well and would seem to be a good way of getting some newer blood into the hobby. I don't see why any of a variety of lodge/social club halls couldn't work out either. I am going to a one day can in a masonic lodge tomorrow. Lee
BrotherCadfael 11-10-07, 12:47 PM	I agree with those who foresee potential trouble ahead for the RPGA only cons once LFR is the only RPGA D&D campaign. The design of LFR will allow local DMs to play mods online so they don't have to burn a mod. Out of region mods will be playable globally. This easier access will make travel to cons uneccesary. Of course, there is some value to the sheer joy of gaming and socializing with new people face to face, but I fear that the cons will need more than that to draw attendence. There are several ways to create added value in Con play: 1. Increase reward points for con play. 2. Marketplaces that give access beyond the norm or at a discount. 3. Greater meta org benefits for con play. 4. Create regional meta-orgs that give benefits for "in region" play. 5. Interactives. 6. Con specials (mods playable only at regional cons). 7. "con only" swag, minis, etc. (presumably with relevance to the region) 8. Limit PCs to home regions where they were first played (ie if you want a PC to have MonkeyDale as its home region you would have to play the PC in a Face to Face mod within the real world geograhic boundries of that region first) Some of the above would be bigger draws for out of region players than others, but the RPGA and LFR admins will need to be creative in finding ways to create added value (while maintaining campaign balance) for LFR only cons to be viable. Additionally, I believe that it will be important from a marketing standpoint to create incentives for LFR play at the general cons (muti-genre cons) within the different regions. As there are competing living campaigns (ie Blackmoor, Witch Hunter etc), the RPGA and WotC should take steps to ensure that RPGA/WotC gaming has the most tables, the most visability, and creates the most play opportunites. Otherwise, RPGA/WotC may not be as effective in bringing in new members and customers from this target rich environment as they have in the past. It is a big (and unecessary) gamble for RPGA/WotC to give ground to their strongest competion in such traditional markets. The WotC push to take D&D online is a good idea, but should not have to be done in a way that creates a disincentive for traditional avenues of play and marketing. If RPGA/WotC fails to create a model that encourages play at these cons, other competing living campaigns will step in to fill the vacuum and WotC will lose some of its market and potential income.
lcquincy 11-12-07, 05:55 PM	I 8. Limit PCs to home regions where they were first played (ie if you want a PC to have MonkeyDale as its home region you would have to play the PC in a Face to Face mod within the real world geograhic boundries of that region first) I don't like that one...my character concepts include characters from the Vast and Silverymoon (no matter what timeline they use)...and If the Vast and Silverymoon are handed to folks in the Western US and us here down in the SE US get Halaruaa and Chult, then there go my character concepts...which I have now set in stone. I like the idea of a character from any region on the map...but where you adventure in any face to face gaming may be limited to your geographic region... Arrgh...and Swords High, Tom Nolan
ankhwearer 11-12-07, 06:35 PM	Other options for helping local cons, recruit more players in the RPGA. But, the sad news that RPGA-only cons don't do anything to increase the membership, and thereby teach new players D&D. As a marketing arm of of Wizards of the Coast, the RPGA is supposed to be setting up systems by which new players can find organized play. Gamedays in stores and local clubs arranging games over Yahoo Groups is a much stronger mechanism for this. You could argue that setting up systems where your player are asked to regularly fly/drive across the country and stay in a hotel does a disservice to D&D. Now this is not really the big plan, I'm sure, but doing everything that Wizards can do to shut this down avoids pricing the hobby out of the reach of any new players. Instead, more local play, more often gets more players into the action. Has anyone in these forums every been to a "bring a newbie" event where new players are specifically targeted? Hell, at a con this autumn I tried to give feedback that our table was no fun. We had two brand new players with 0 xp character and two veterens trying to play in an investigative mod, but with an exhausted DM cold-running the mod. The game sucked in just about every way. Now the organizers knew that they were offering the first RPGA game ever to two new guys, but when given feedback the con head honcho just shrugged, "that's the way the RPGA works, oh well." I know that con organizers--and the people that depend on cons in their own locale to get enough playtime--both need their cons to still go on. It just seems to me that everyone is fighting over the same pool of players, hoping that out-of-towners will increase the number of tables and revenue so that the con can still go on. I just think that it would make more sense to make the pool of players larger, since that might be easier to do than expecting out-of-towners to fork out several hundreds of dollars. In the end, if 5% of the players currently fly out-of-town, you can fight over that 5% or you can make the overall pool 200% bigger, and thus the out-of-towners demographic also increases.
MatteBlack 11-13-07, 02:13 PM	One possible upside is that it should be less likely that a given con won't have any new content to for the players that show up. instead of just having a debut and an interactive to offer, they'll have the opportunity to offer out-of-region adventures. Nearby conventions might even be able to organize specific regions beyond the one they are in geographically in which to offer out-of-region content from. You could play the newest from your region or a sequence of adventures from another region. Lee
aljergensen 11-13-07, 04:24 PM	Nearby conventions might even be able to organize specific regions beyond the one they are in geographically in which to offer out-of-region content from. You could play the newest from your region or a sequence of adventures from another region. Lee I think this was mentioned in another thread somewhere ... I like the idea. Especially if there's some kind of rating system associated with mods so that con organizers could find the best mods from around the world. Time will tell if larger hotel based RPGA only conventions will survive, but ideas like this could help make LFR more fun. The only problem will be how to fit in all the gaming goodness! Allen.
Madfox11 11-14-07, 08:05 AM	The biggest problem with rating adventures is that the rating will be at least as dependend on the people with whom you play it, the person that runs it, your own gaming style and preferences and the adventure itself. I usually simply talk with friends and fellow gamers in the region that I know have similar tastes and styles as me to get an idea of what adventures are more or less suited for the game days I organize. Even if you know few people in the LG community, you can always chat with the local triad about it. As for organizers ignoring complaints about DMs, that has nothing to do with the RPGA. The RPGA does NOT select the DMs. The senior DM does. When I am the senior DM of an event, I will make sure that the DM knows he people have been complaining about him and why and if he does not change his behaviour and more people start complaining, I will stop using him as a DM. I also try to get the newer players at the tables of the DMs that are more able to run a fun game for beginning players.
Wavester 11-14-07, 09:11 AM	I think giving Cons to much of a bonus is harmful to the campaign as a whole. So things need to be balanced. The vast majority of play in LG, and willing to bet my house on it going forward LR, is not at conventions. It's local gamedays and home games. Giving conventions a bonus does give some players more reason to go to them and does help build community within that small subset of players but it does nothing to grow the campaign and does a disservice to all those that cannot attend conventions and travel. RPGA conventions do not grow the membership. They might be a retention tool but not an acquisition tool. Gencon and shows of it's ilk are but they are large national shows we happen to run things at not shows we do ourself (for example DDXP is our show and new members there are a small fraction of a Gencon or Origins type show). So I enjoy conventions but do not do a disservice to the larger player base to keep the smaller traveling one happy.
aljergensen 11-14-07, 10:42 AM	The biggest problem with rating adventures is that the rating will be at least as dependend on the people with whom you play it, the person that runs it, your own gaming style and preferences and the adventure itself. Check out Nyrond.org for a sample of ratings of games. I've found the ratings reasonably accurate and a good guide when I had limited play opportunity. Of course, all systems have flaws and I look at how many people have entered a rating. If enough people have rated a mod, it's been pretty accurate in my experience. Allen.
MwaO 11-14-07, 11:14 AM	Giving conventions a bonus does give some players more reason to go to them and does help build community within that small subset of players but it does nothing to grow the campaign and does a disservice to all those that cannot attend conventions and travel. I really have to disagree with that - the huge advantage of conventions is good mod propragation. Conventions mean DMs don't have to eat mods as frequently. If there's a consistent problem, it is occasionally possible to make changes before wide distribution. The writers of a particular premiere usually show up, so DMs and future DMs of the mod get the writer's viewpoint and the writer gets immediate feedback. At GenCon, as an example, I was DMing Heart's Desire near Eric Menge - with a couple of the minor characters, I changed my interpretation of how they acted to how he voiced them. That's something that's not possible unless Eric's near the table, the DM, or you have the ability to easily ask him questions before the game. I arrange a home LG campaign that meets almost every week, even now. Some people can never go to conventions, a couple can go to a few, and a couple go to almost all of them. I don't restrict myself to a given set of 6 players - I'm guessing that we've had about 30 or so different players. With a couple of exceptions, we've almost never had to eat a mod to arrange an LG game. We usually have DMs who have run the mod more than once already. In many ways, in my area, I'm probably one of the biggest causes of retention and acquisition of LG players - I run a good, consistent group even if I'm rarely the DM. But in order to make my group work, I need DMs who have played the mods already - and conventions are the easiest, most consistent route to getting them.
Wavester 11-14-07, 11:32 AM	I really have to disagree with that - the huge advantage of conventions is good mod propagation. Conventions mean DMs don't have to eat mods as frequently. If there's a consistent problem, it is occasionally possible to make changes before wide distribution. The writers of a particular premiere usually show up, so DMs and future DMs of the mod get the writer's viewpoint and the writer gets immediate feedback. At GenCon, as an example, I was DMing Heart's Desire near Eric Menge - with a couple of the minor characters, I changed my interpretation of how they acted to how he voiced them. That's something that's not possible unless Eric's near the table, the DM, or you have the ability to easily ask him questions before the game. I arrange a home LG campaign that meets almost every week, even now. Some people can never go to conventions, a couple can go to a few, and a couple go to almost all of them. I don't restrict myself to a given set of 6 players - I'm guessing that we've had about 30 or so different players. With a couple of exceptions, we've almost never had to eat a mod to arrange an LG game. We usually have DMs who have run the mod more than once already. In many ways, in my area, I'm probably one of the biggest causes of retention and acquisition of LG players - I run a good, consistent group even if I'm rarely the DM. But in order to make my group work, I need DMs who have played the mods already - and conventions are the easiest, most consistent route to getting them. Well I'll let you disagree this time just don't make a habit of it LOL. I am glad that shows allow you to play things so you can run them for your locals back home. A lot of people do that and while it's great why should we add additional bonuses on top of that? I don't think this huge worry about shows folding is really that big of a deal. Lot's of shows sprung into existence due to the regional nature of LG. Adventures needed a place to premiere and in small regions (such as Ohio) conventions had to be basically created from scratch to accommodate that. If Ohio went to a couple of really well run shows instead of five so-so ones then once again not a bad thing IMO. A lot of bad shows continue to exist just on the strength of people traveling and not them being actually well run shows. If some bad shows fold I don't think that's a bad thing. If a few huge shows drop in size due to the new dynamic that's not a bad thing. Good shows existed just fine before the LG model was around and good shows will continue to exist after it. People are going to have to eat a lot more mods in LFR. It's just the nature of the system and some need to absorb that fact now and save some grief later on. Regions are bigger and you are a lot less likely to get the author to the show and much less likely to get a campaign staff member there. For example the North Central region is a huge player base and Ohio is not even guaranteed to have a campaign staff member in it. That means if I run my show and the authors are from Iowa and Wisconsin then they are not going to show up to my show. People are going to have to eat adventures or nothing is going to happen. Much like XE though with regional play opened up you just divided the labor between the group. If each person picks a region to not play and judge then everybody is happy. Convention play will not really help that is there is just no way you can play enough at shows to make sure nobody has to eat anything ever.
Madfox11 11-15-07, 04:15 AM	Check out Nyrond.org for a sample of ratings of games. I've found the ratings reasonably accurate and a good guide when I had limited play opportunity. Of course, all systems have flaws and I look at how many people have entered a rating. If enough people have rated a mod, it's been pretty accurate in my experience. Allen. Only if enough people from enough different regions do so and even than you have to take in account that only the really active players and those who feel particularly strong about the adventure react. I have seen some of the ratings for core adventures, and I know that people in my area are actually more or less positive about those adventures. Besides, it doesn't help me one bit in deciding what kind of adventures to run for my convention. I have seen some superb adventures that I wouldn't run on conventions, or with beginning players. Ratings helps a little, but keeping it working requires a lot of work and in itself it is simply not enough.
aljergensen 11-15-07, 01:02 PM	Only if enough people from enough different regions do so and even than you have to take in account that only the really active players and those who feel particularly strong about the adventure react. I have seen some of the ratings for core adventures, and I know that people in my area are actually more or less positive about those adventures. Besides, it doesn't help me one bit in deciding what kind of adventures to run for my convention. I have seen some superb adventures that I wouldn't run on conventions, or with beginning players. Ratings helps a little, but keeping it working requires a lot of work and in itself it is simply not enough. So what's the alternative? I never said that ratings were the best tool ... just the best tool I've seen. I could see part of the rating indicating the type of mod (investigative, combat heavy, puzzle) being separate from whether or not you'd recommend the mod. As far as whether it's worthwile or not, I guess I just disagree. If I know someone who can give me a personal recommendation on a mod, that's great. It happens for maybe 1 in 10 mods. For the other 90%, an online rating (in combination with the blurb, etc) has been very helpful. Allen.
tombollis 11-15-07, 03:24 PM	As far as whether it's worthwile or not, I guess I just disagree. If I know someone who can give me a personal recommendation on a mod, that's great. It happens for maybe 1 in 10 mods. For the other 90%, an online rating (in combination with the blurb, etc) has been very helpful. Allen. If you're just getting a general rating of the mod that affects whether you play it, that's ok; but getting details that will affect how you play it, that's cheating. Tom Bollis
TWG_Prometheus 11-16-07, 11:44 AM	If he's talking about the nyrond.org site, the ratings there don't give any information one could use to cheat with. It's just a number of stars in a few cateogries. Personally, I find the ratings there to be dramatically off in many cases, however. The fact that judges use the rating system to mark the adventures that they burn (since they can't label a character as having done the mod) just makes it worse. I no longer consider them to be a source of valid information.
Sutro 11-16-07, 08:57 PM	Honestly, I think calling the death of the con is kind of Chicken Little-ish at this point. We have like one or two sentences, from very early on in the process, to draw all these conclusions from. As a heavy travel guy, I'm a little anxious, but I'm going to save any vitriol for when we know what the actual plan is.
Herrbard 11-17-07, 08:02 AM	<SNIP> Adventures needed a place to premiere and in small regions (such as Ohio) conventions had to be basically created from scratch to accommodate that. If Ohio went to a couple of really well run shows instead of five so-so ones then once again not a bad thing IMO. Well then, we are close to this in Ohio this year. :P With only three conventions (Your own MVC, Bashcon, and the upcoming Weekend in Veluna) hopefully we have enough! Five regional premiers in December? This is gonna be fun.;)
Ishorn 11-17-07, 08:42 AM	What about us poor parents that just want to play once a month games day at our local game store. I really can not afford to travel all over to play adventures at cons. Can we get special events for our games day like events that are only available at the Dungeons & Dragons Experience? I guess RPGA events are only for the wealthy.
Surgebuster 11-17-07, 09:09 AM	What about us poor parents that just want to play once a month games day at our local game store. I really can not afford to travel all over to play adventures at cons. Can we get special events for our games day like events that are only available at the Dungeons & Dragons Experience? I guess RPGA events are only for the wealthy. Only for the wealthy? That's hilarious! You can play well over 100 rounds of Living Greyhawk for *free* this year at your aforementioned local, once a month gamesday and possibly miss out on the *2* core special events that are 'special events only'. You poor parents sure must power through the games at this monthly gamesday to be left wanting more! :) Joe
Keith53 11-17-07, 11:46 AM	What about us poor parents that just want to play once a month games day at our local game store. I really can not afford to travel all over to play adventures at cons. Can we get special events for our games day like events that are only available at the Dungeons & Dragons Experience? I guess RPGA events are only for the wealthy. I trust Dave Christ's perception that the majority of RPGA play occurs either in local game days or home play; after all, he gets to peek at some of the numbers. You might miss some activities that tend to only work with large groups, but I bet you will have access to the vast majority of LFR adventures. Keith
Ishorn 11-19-07, 07:31 AM	Only for the wealthy? That's hilarious! You can play well over 100 rounds of Living Greyhawk for *free* this year at your aforementioned local, once a month gamesday and possibly miss out on the *2* core special events that are 'special events only'. You poor parents sure must power through the games at this monthly gamesday to be left wanting more! :) Joe We never get to play events like Vault of the Drow or Return to Temple of Elemental Evil. Yeah that 100 rounds of so so Living Greyhawk adventures for minimum cost not free makes up for this.
qstor 11-19-07, 09:16 AM	I trust Dave Christ's perception that the majority of RPGA play occurs either in local game days or home play; after all, he gets to peek at some of the numbers. You might miss some activities that tend to only work with large groups, but I bet you will have access to the vast majority of LFR adventures. Right but there's a long history of local conventions within the RPGA going back to Living City days. I think the RPGA does itself a disservice if it doesn't provide anything to local conventions within the new LFR campaign. I think Bart was right when he said that travelling players help convention organizers. Perhaps the answer is to make some of the adventures playable only in region. Mike
Wavester 11-19-07, 09:25 AM	Right but there's a long history of local conventions within the RPGA going back to Living City days. I think the RPGA does itself a disservice if it doesn't provide anything to local conventions within the new LFR campaign. I think Bart was right when he said that traveling players help convention organizers. Perhaps the answer is to make some of the adventures playable only in region. Mike I like conventions as well. I like the community feel it helps build. At the same time helping conventions with special in-game things does a disservice to the other 90+% of the campaign that cannot or does not go to them. Give me something that meets the goal of bringing players to shows without leaving everybody else holding the Charlie Brown bag of rocks then I'll be all behind it.
kamuiden 11-19-07, 10:21 AM	For LFR in Colombia we are planning with the other players in other cities of the country to make at last a general gathering every two months so we can play special adventures.
MatteBlack 11-19-07, 10:24 AM	I like conventions as well. I like the community feel it helps build. At the same time helping conventions with special in-game things does a disservice to the other 90+% of the campaign that cannot or does not go to them. Give me something that meets the goal of bringing players to shows without leaving everybody else holding the Charlie Brown bag of rocks then I'll be all behind it. I am not calling you a liar but, is there any documentation on that 90+% figure? Granted, I am not at the tables of these home game players that never make cons but, from my point of view it seems like a much more even split. Would you consider interactives to be inappropriate? You need a large group for many of them. I wouldn't think they should stop running them because home game players can't make it to the cons they get run at. I think special content that requires large groups is fine but, can see where they should be on even footing with the rest of the campaign asset-wise (although, if they aren't making cons and venturing beyond their homegame, is it that big of deal?) One answer would be make convention bonuses usable only at conventions, then the players who don't get to go to cons won't be left at a percieved disadvantage. lee
kamuiden 11-19-07, 11:18 AM	One answer would be make convention bonuses usable only at conventions, then the players who don't get to go to cons won't be left at a percieved disadvantage. lee The players in the Cons go for fun, the bonuses are not necessary, if you can give them something they will be grateful but it is not necessary at all.
MatteBlack 11-19-07, 12:17 PM	The players in the Cons go for fun, the bonuses are not necessary, if you can give them something they will be grateful but it is not necessary at all. I agree or at least that is how it should be. The game is it's own reward but, Cons are a good way to get more new people into the campaign and give living campaigns a greater depth than a thousands of home tables reporting to a single source. Having a strong convention draw should be a consideration but, promotion of one playstyle or another should not come at the expense of the rest. That being said, I have no problem with someone engaging in several aspects of the campaign getting unique rewards in each whether playing, DMing , online, at home or at a con. I doubt I will take part in all aspects much but, having a little incentive to strive do participate in the others is good in my mind. As we never really directly compete against one another, it really comes down to how jealous you are of other peoples' character and gear adavancement versus your own.
tombollis 11-19-07, 01:37 PM	Perhaps the answer is to make some of the adventures playable only in region. Mike Better to have con only features, such as interactives and magic stores, that will draw local players to local cons. I find it hard to believe that out of region players are required to make a local con viable, or that hotel room bookings to allow cons to be held in hotels are required. There are other venues for cons, and some people will travel long distances, even within a region to go to a con that has something they can't get in their own community. Many players go to cons just to get to play with a variety of players, even if they could play the same adventure at home with their regular group. Many don't have a home group to play with regularly. I joined the RPGA in the mid 80s; I've played a couple of sessions at game days and a couple of home play, but the vast majority of play has been at cons, most LC and LJ within Ontario or at GenCon, almost all LG within Ontario (the region of Ket). I don't see why having all regional modules playable in all real world regions would significantly hinder local cons. Tom Bollis
ceregon 11-19-07, 02:43 PM	Maybe in Ontario you can rent hotel space cheaper than in the US, but if you only go to cons in Ontario then maybe you don't have a broad enough experience with conventions. It is true that you can have small cons in non-hotel sites, but I have been to some really crappy cons that did that (like a con that used vacant retail space in the same shopping center as the store and didn't get the power turned on, or a con at a honkytonk where we had to yell because a band was playing 30 feet away, or a con in a banquet hall that had flooded and had mold growing on the carpeting that smelled so bad we ended up moving games to hotel rooms that attendees had rented at a nearby hotel). I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. Libraries usually won't let you rent space for 12 hours or more in a day, they seem to limit you to 9am to 7pmish. VFW halls usually aren't available for a whole weekend because they already have "every Saturday night" type events. Colleges can be expensive if you are running more than a couple of tables at a time and can't fit in the rooms normally set aside for clubs. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but until you actually run a con you don't understand all of the problems and costs that go with it. Roomnights and the discount they get you are usually the difference between losing money or not. When cons lose money, the organizers tend to not run the con again. You may not see this to be a problem, but the people who organize cons do. Bart Scott Theocracy by the Bay & Confession
tombollis 11-19-07, 03:31 PM	Maybe in Ontario you can rent hotel space cheaper than in the US, but if you only go to cons in Ontario then maybe you don't have a broad enough experience with conventions. Over 20 years experience going to gaming conventions in both several cities in Ontario and cities in several US states. Only a minority of them were held in hotels. If you have been to few successful cons that weren't in hotels, I think that your experience has been limited. If youhsven'y been to local cons in hotels were a majority of the rooms weren't booked by out of towners from within the region, either the regions have been small, so that in-region players could drive home each night, or they haven't been what I would consider local cons (GenCon, Origins, etc.). I am sure that LFR can have cons that draw people from hundreds of miles away, or further, even with nothing more than good players, good DMs, fresh modules (possibly premiers), and good orgsnization as a draw. If they are in hotels, they should be able to fill nearly as many rooms as they would if modules were exclusive to the region. A con with the theme of another region might do even better at drawing out of town players from within a large region. Tom Bollis
MatteBlack 11-19-07, 04:12 PM	Basically, there will be a shift in who will be going to each given con. The hard-core guys and con fans will probably continue going. All cons will lose a few players to better online access but, this might actually increase overall campaign participation which could lead to more players who go and try a convention. Those who were going to border area cons solely to play out-of-region content will be loss but, might be replaced by those who didn't attend local cons because they could play the same small variety on mods at home and will now have a broader selection available to them and will go to a con now that it might offer more than a few mods. Some sort of con exclusive content could help but, aside from border cons that heavily rely on out-of-region players, I think most of it will offset. I think a model that has local cons appealing to local players is a huge improvement over one that promotes travelling out-of-region. A reduced need to travel could also make one day cons that offer only 2 or 3 slots alot more viable and able to make use of those shorter term meeting areas. * Ultimately, cons are going to have to rely on offering con-goers the mods they are most looking for. maybe that will be in-region or maybe that will be out-of-region. A good suggestion might even be to promote the play of core and out-of-region materials in home games so local cons can be gatherings of for regional play amongst that community, possibly with exclusive interactive or special mods that are only available at cons within the region. Or, maybe having a con specialize in a far-off region's material would work out better? You could go to each of the local consin your area and enjoy an excursion through a different part of the Realms. Some organization on the part of the campaign staff and con organizers now could help guide players into a workable plan that gives the most variety and immersion over the greatest range of the upcoming content and hopefully without requiring too much travel.
ceregon 11-19-07, 04:39 PM	I also joined the RPGA in the 80's and have been going to conventions for a long time. I'll admit to only going to 12 LG conventions that were not held in a hotel, but I would only go back to 2 of them. I have gone to a con in every LG region in the US since that campaign started. I am lucky to be able to travel as much as I do, and will probably have retired 4 LG characters before the end of LG. In the post I was responding to, you said "I've played a couple of sessions at game days and a couple of home play, but the vast majority of play has been at cons, most LC and LJ within Ontario or at GenCon, almost all LG within Ontario (the region of Ket)." That does not sound like a broad sample of RPGA only cons to me. The point that you keep missing though, is that you are a gamer--maybe an experienced gamer with a lot of gaming experience--but you are not a convention organizer. I have run five RPGA only cons (and been the RPGA coordinator for three other general gaming cons) that have run 120, 200, 160, 150 and 250 tables. All five of my cons turned a profit (which is mostly donated to charity), but only one of them would have turned a profit without the discount I negotiated with the hotel for all of the roomnights my attendees would purchase. How many conventions have you organized? I like to travel, meet new players and make friends around the country. I've been doing that 8-12 times per year since the LG started. I won't be doing much travelling if I can play all of the mods at home with my friends or at the local game store. Other people like me will be travelling a lot less as well. This will significantly affect RPGA only cons. Bart Scott soon to be ex-convention organizer
ceregon 11-19-07, 04:56 PM	I like conventions as well. I like the community feel it helps build. At the same time helping conventions with special in-game things does a disservice to the other 90+% of the campaign that cannot or does not go to them. Give me something that meets the goal of bringing players to shows without leaving everybody else holding the Charlie Brown bag of rocks then I'll be all behind it. I'm also not going to call you a liar. (Ya know I luv ya Dave!) But I looked up the play history of the Pale regional that premiered at my con at the end of April. Pal 7-2 has been ordered 23 times. 7 of them were by cons, 4 of them were by game stores that I recognized, so it has been a home game 12 times. I think we can assume that a mod will be played once at a home game. Local game stores will probably run 2 tables (or more) at their LG nights. A con could run the mod anywhere from 5 to 16 times. Smaller cons might run it less, but I ran 16 tables of it when it premiered. I'd guess that it ran at least 50 tables at cons, about 10 at game stores, and 12 times as a home game. I'm definitely not seeing this 90% number that people have been tossing around. I might buy that 90% of RPGA play is in home games, but not 90% of LG. When I was on the triad and actually emailed mods and certs/AR's to people, it was rare for me to get an email from somebody I didn't know. I know that people played mods at home, but 90% of the requests did not come from individual gamers or gaming groups. I don't know how to answer your question, so maybe you can throw a bag of rocks at me the next time I'm playing Three Dragon Ante at one of your shows. It seems like a mutually exclusive situation to me. If something is available to everyone, it certainly won't be bringing players to the shows. If something is bringing players to shows, it probably isn't available to everyone. Bart Scott con organizer
JohnduBois 11-19-07, 05:48 PM	I think that unless the con benefits are significant, I'll be travelling to about five or six cons a year - a con in Ann Arbor that isn't RPGA-only, a con in Kalamazoo that isn't RPGA-only, a con in Toledo that isn't RPGA-only, and the Big Three RPGA shows (assuming they get special content or Dave asks me very nicely ;) ). Apart from that, I would rather not spend all the money on gasoline and hotels, myself... I don't think I'm alone in this, either. Without some region-unique pull to the cons, travel to the cons is going to drop dramatically, and RPGA-only cons will be nearly unsustainable. At our last LG con, our interactive ran six tables (down from twelve or so the previous year), and approximately half the players were from out of state. Without those players having a "uniqueness" reason to travel, they wouldn't have come...
Mattastrophic 11-19-07, 06:48 PM	I might buy that 90% of RPGA play is in home games, but not 90% of LG. I have to say, I think you're spot-on, Bart. I also have to say that MwaO is spot-on as well with the "module dissemination" theory. I know myself that the flow of a mod through Living Greyhawk starts at conventions and ends at homeplay, and your average person doesn't like eating modules. Do away with regions, that's fine. Keep interactives and premieres, though. And I'll also say this... I was introduced to Living Greyhawk at a con. And I would never have found it otherwise. -Matt
Reneshat 11-20-07, 06:29 AM	I don't think that Cons are going to go away, but I am of the group that thinks that they are probably going to transition to smaller, more regional cons (like super-powered gamedays.) This is probably going to be the case with or without premieres and interactives, but it's going to be healthier and more robust with the special events. If anything, I think that we are currently somewhat limited when it comes to special events. I think that a large LARP interactive with less actual module, and more RP potential might have the potential to bring as many people as a large battle interactive. If we branch out a little bit more from what we normally offer as the special draw of these conventions, conventions could become a larger deal regionally, and serve to help foster that feeling of community that might otherwise be lacking with the open availability of out of region modules. However, I could also be entirely wrong. I can only make judgments based on what people who play around here would like. I am not well traveled enough to say that this would really make that much of a different LFR as a whole. As far as hotels are concerned, the smaller the con is, the more viable the option of a non-hotel location becomes, but that still doesn't make it a very viable option in many cases.
MatteBlack 11-20-07, 10:46 AM	I go to a probably 3 or 4 general gaming weekend cons and probably as many game days solely to play LG. I also play LG in a home group for 2 or so slots worth of adventures a month. I like and have grown used to the ability to play 6+ slots in a weekend but, I can see where well-developed one day cons that draw a more local crowd could have a broader appeal. As the gaming communinty is getting older and the game strives to involve more kids and children of current gamers a shorter format that begins and ends at home is much eaiser to schedule for parents, kids and families not to mention cheaper for those who travel and hotel expenses can be large concern. The current system seems to force travel on campaigns players to gain access to more content. I don't think that is a good practice to base things on. I'd much rather see as much of the content as possible getting out to as close as possible to where the players are and focus a convention's drawing power on the positives of interaction of large groups of players in the campaign. However, I think cons are such a positive force on the campaign that rewarding those who bother to make the pilgrimage would be appropriate. Cool accesses or itmes that are time or area restricted are unlikely to unbalance things as long as some concern is taken with their impact on play. Besides, the only place a non-con player would be at a disadvantage to one who might have an exclusive con reward would be online. Perhaps, online versions of the con exclusives could even level this imbalance. While I do enjoy cons and would like to see them strengthen, the access to the parts of the realms my friends and I would prefer is the big selling point of this all and will likely allow the campaign to be more successful since players have more control over where there characters adventure.
ankhwearer 11-21-07, 04:56 PM	I still feel that the way to get more attendees to cons is to increase the membership rolls of the RPGA. Only someone that is already in the RPGA and has played serveral mods is going to travel to a con. Those that want to try it for the first time are likely to discover the RPGA at their game store, or be brought in by friends. PAX was the first con where I actually saw more than six RPGA membership forms passed out. (I couldn't speak for how well GenCon or Origins do, however.) That's something like 5% of the players. Certainly not all of them continued. So that's what, 3% growth each year for PAX based on new members. Sounds like other cons are even worse than that to me. I really don't intend to be insulting, but this squabble over players that fly to conventions reminds me of used car salesmen standing on the corner squabbling over potential customers walking down the sidewalk. Instead of fighting over the poor bloke dithering on the pavement, deciding which car lot to try first, they should be promoting the idea of buying a car so that more customers come down to that street corner. I'm still doubtful that more than 50% of the hotel rooms are going to out-of-towners. How many of those rooms are going to local attendees that plan on playing from 8 am to midnight each day of the con? Wouldn't it be easier to get more local people playing in the RPGA and hiring those rooms? I want to save local Cons by getting more locals to play. I don't think it is reasonable to be requesting special favors or exclusive offerings in order to get 25 out of towners when you live in a county with a million people. Besides, there will not be enough time to play every mod coming out in the LFR. At only six mods per region, with 18 regions and the Core, that's at least 90 mods a year. 90 mods that you can play right at your game store. You could play every slot in an eight slot con once a month and you would just manage to keep up with the releases. I think this indicates that there will be MORE local cons, not less.
Redfist 11-21-07, 06:18 PM	I played D&D a lot when I was younger back at it's inception. When I left college and got a "real job", I stopped playng while I focused on my career. I had only played homegames before that and thus never heard of the RPGA. Four years ago, I decided to go to a con here in Phoenix that I heard about from the husband of my wife's friend. Once there... I finally learned about the RPGA and thus started my first LG character. I believe your assumption is flat out wrong that people don't learn about the RPGA at cons. I believe they are actually one of the most prevalent ways people can learn about it. Cons are advertised WAY more than game days. My 2 gp...
GCOLLIOU 11-22-07, 07:47 AM	I also joined the RPGA in the 80's and have been going to conventions for a long time. I'll admit to only going to 12 LG conventions that were not held in a hotel, but I would only go back to 2 of them. I have gone to a con in every LG region in the US since that campaign started. I am lucky to be able to travel as much as I do, and will probably have retired 4 LG characters before the end of LG. In the post I was responding to, you said "I've played a couple of sessions at game days and a couple of home play, but the vast majority of play has been at cons, most LC and LJ within Ontario or at GenCon, almost all LG within Ontario (the region of Ket)." That does not sound like a broad sample of RPGA only cons to me. The point that you keep missing though, is that you are a gamer--maybe an experienced gamer with a lot of gaming experience--but you are not a convention organizer. I have run five RPGA only cons (and been the RPGA coordinator for three other general gaming cons) that have run 120, 200, 160, 150 and 250 tables. All five of my cons turned a profit (which is mostly donated to charity), but only one of them would have turned a profit without the discount I negotiated with the hotel for all of the roomnights my attendees would purchase. How many conventions have you organized? I like to travel, meet new players and make friends around the country. I've been doing that 8-12 times per year since the LG started. I won't be doing much travelling if I can play all of the mods at home with my friends or at the local game store. Other people like me will be travelling a lot less as well. This will significantly affect RPGA only cons. Bart Scott soon to be ex-convention organizer I agree with Bart, I'm from France, so don't speak about only North America. One of the best think of LG are the Con with Special Event, Interactive and Premier. And I not speaking about GenCon, DDXP or Origins who are not for me the best Con, because the only "bonus" are generaly a Special Module and we dont care to play core module at this event, that you can play at home. The best con are Local Cons where you meet local Modules Flavor, meet new people and make new friends (It's what now I can travel near all Europe and North America to play LG at home, but still conitnu to going to Local Con) What going to a con if you can play everything at home. And as organizer I'm not going to plan an event if i'm note sure I can bring players. Local Con is one of the best think in LG, it's why I going the first time at GenCon UK (Where i play some local Modules and an Interactif) or Origins because of an american friend that I meet in a Con in Netherlands who live close to the event. So because of LG I travel a little more to play and meet people (and also make some tourism). I play in Pale (San Fransisco, Las Vegas) , Nyrond (LA, San Diego), Ursnt, Zeif (Seattle, Vancouver), Furyondy (Michigan), Veluna (Ohio), Ulek (Florida), Tusmit (Quebec), Ket (Ontario), Washington (Geoff), NY area(Keoland, Bissel), Onnwal (UK), Sunndi (Netherland), Dullstrand (Swiss), Aerdrie (Germany). I'm make a lot of new friends and some of them become very close. Whitout this kind of players you limited for me the living part of the Campaign, you need this kind of players to develop the campign, or you surely limited the players impact to some home group. With the new system, Local Con going to disappeard and players involment surely be less important. And now i'm not continue to spend my holiday and travel to going to play locally, because I can play everything at home, so what playing LFR if i can play other Home Campaign. I think the LFR evolution is surelly not the best evolution for the "Living" Campaign. It's not against FR but againt the new RPGA point of view, who be a mistake particulary for non English language country like I say before. And I don't make a mistake when I see that they don't find volonter for South Europe, thinks that I say who going to happen.
Madfox11 11-23-07, 03:30 AM	You do realize Gerard that you are the exception to the rule in regards to traveling? Out of the 60 Dutch LG gamers that I know only a handful has ever played a LG outside of the Netherlands and most don't even leave the local province. Hack, I am considered to be a traveling gamer in Europe and even I only visit France and the UK/Ireland on a regular basis (and I have gamed in Washington DC, New York and Germany). Now this doesn't mean that LFR might or might not hurt convention attendence, just that you must be really careful in using your own situation as a generic argument for one situation or the other especially if you are clearly an exception ;) Pieter Sleijpen, who joined the RPGA after a gameday and who visited the UK GenCon long before I even knew about the concept of living games.
GCOLLIOU 11-23-07, 05:01 AM	You do realize Gerard that you are the exception to the rule in regards to traveling? Out of the 60 Dutch LG gamers that I know only a handful has ever played a LG outside of the Netherlands and most don't even leave the local province. Hack, I am considered to be a traveling gamer in Europe and even I only visit France and the UK/Ireland on a regular basis (and I have gamed in Washington DC, New York and Germany). Now this doesn't mean that LFR might or might not hurt convention attendence, just that you must be really careful in using your own situation as a generic argument for one situation or the other especially if you are clearly an exception ;) Pieter Sleijpen, who joined the RPGA after a gameday and who visited the UK GenCon long before I even knew about the concept of living games. I agree, but most part of this travels I do, I have other people with me (other French, Swiss or UK Guys), and I see some US/Canadians Guys coming in Europe too and I know some German & Dutch who travel in Europe. For me it's important to try to propose that option and not only play everything at home. And try to convince player to travel because it's one off the best thinks in a "Living" Campaign I think we must try to do something for Local Con, particulary to have some flavor to attract people and not only Interactive, perhaps some Special Local Bonus Module. A good way to keep regional flavor for critical event can be the a report of each module you play at home (but important for me than the player of the regional area have more impact than the players outisde, because you surely find more players thru the world, so what the benefit to be from an area if players outside have more impact on the regional event ?, without that what the benefit to have regional area ?). Keep interactif for Con for one shot Critical Event impact. And why not some Bonus Module only playable in con (not a special like actual core special who are only hack and slash), who can have a critical event but important to have a result quickly to continue the plot and not waiting 1 or 2 year to writting a sequel, and keep the critical of other modules for direction who not need to be quick.
Keith53 11-23-07, 05:30 PM	The question of impact (negative or positive) on local cons from LFR is to my mind a different question than maintaining a regional flavor to regional adventures. The latter is a big concern, I think, to the regional Writing Directors but should be something they can influence. I don't feel that a system which would require you to travel physically to North Central USA to play one of our regional USA adventures is really local flavor, whereas an adventure where in which the NPCs and situation shriek <insert region> and at least some of the plots have unique local twists. If most adventures feel like a generic D&D adventure just set in region X, then I wil feel we fell short. :-( Between the regional adventures, unique specials, and unique flavor to the meta-orgs, the combination should define the region. Keith Hoffman LFR NC USA Co-Writing Director
GCOLLIOU 11-23-07, 07:20 PM	The question of impact (negative or positive) on local cons from LFR is to my mind a different question than maintaining a regional flavor to regional adventures. The latter is a big concern, I think, to the regional Writing Directors but should be something they can influence. I don't feel that a system which would require you to travel physically to North Central USA to play one of our regional USA adventures is really local flavor, whereas an adventure where in which the NPCs and situation shriek <insert region> and at least some of the plots have unique local twists. If most adventures feel like a generic D&D adventure just set in region X, then I wil feel we fell short. :-( Between the regional adventures, unique specials, and unique flavor to the meta-orgs, the combination should define the region. Keith Hoffman LFR NC USA Co-Writing Director Local convention are bigger than a home game with 6 players, so the flavor is surelly better if you have 100 players around who play there characters, and most of time because they travel for there hobby they are really more involved in the situation and plot of the local region. You cannot propose Convention with only an interative or two, we need modules but what kind of modules if you can play everything at home ? That surely divided by half or more the players at a local convention. In that case this convention cannot survive, so interactive disappear, so where is the living campaign ? You not going to make only an interative for a local group of 6 players, and interative need to be big. And local convention need special stuff to continue to exist. And for having play at home in lot of areas and lot of local conventions, I can say that i'm sure that the flavor is bigger in a local con.
Cosmic 11-23-07, 08:34 PM	I like the idea of playing mods from other regions, so I do not want that to change. The answer to maming cons special is to have con only mods such as interactives or mini-missions. This creates a situation where a visitor to the con can get a con only mod, that is not even regional, it's con only. In the Pale, we have one to two con interactives during the year, not at all cons, and we have several mini-missions, often 4 at a single con. The obvious advantage of this is that if I want to go to a con I can play the specials, and if I don't I still have over 100 games to choose from. I am one of these hotel stayers because I come from 2 hours away. I like the cons also because I can often get 6 to 8 games in at one time. Karl
JamesMaissen 11-23-07, 11:40 PM	The question of impact (negative or positive) on local cons from LFR is to my mind a different question than maintaining a regional flavor to regional adventures. Many people seem to ascribe modules, metaorgs and/or access to 'regional flavor' and I would strongly disagree. Regional flavor is defined by the players from the region.. plain and simple. Essential to that is a propagated community feeling and without interaction that can never happen. Everything else then at best augments or compliments that feeling, but absent it they would be near meaningless. Essential to forming such a community is the local con and moreover I contend that an essential part of that is people coming to those cons from afar. I think that LFR will destroy the local con. Consider the traveling that you've done in LG's tenure. Perhaps you started at a game day (or larger event) yourself, or because someone came back from a con all excited about LG and hand recruited a group of people to run through the modules that they played at that Con. Some of those recruited at the same time don't bite any more than that (for a variety of reasons), but likely you then decided to go to a 'local regional' con and got hooked. And from there you perhaps then branched out to farther cons held in other regions depending on means and how much you were hooked. Having found myself in that later group I can attest to seeing regional flavor and being an out of region guest at many cons. Each is a link in the chain, and it propagates both ways. Even if the person next to you never travels to another region, playing with others that have or that are from other regions enhances their experience. Being able to see people from other regions with different backgrounds enhances a local flavor in my experience. My fear is that in LFR this cycle (or ecosystem if you will) will be destroyed. When was the last time that you traveled to another state to play a Core module? Did you feel as much of a draw to do so as you would a local (outside of your own) regional module? I don't think so. How many modules does your group routinely eat in order to play? Do you try to find someone that's played the mod first? Have you noticed a difference in the experience between people eating mods and those that run them after playing them? (Variations on individual judges aside). I think one thing that Bart said should be highlighted (beyond other nice valid points) when he was POC sending out mods he knew almost all of the people ordering modules. How could this be if 90% are being played at home? Because the figure is misleading (regardless of accuracy). An active person in the community eventually finds their way to a local convention at some point. They, in turn, tend to run more modules and organize local venues. So even if they are running everything for a group of 6 people that never go to conventions of whatever size (thus coming close to that 90% mark by having 1 in 7 players going to cons) without the one person going to a convention in the first place all 7 are out of luck. They could take turns eating modules, but beyond simply playing the modules (and whatever local take on them that gets transfered) the feelings and atmosphere of the region is imparted to the convention goer and thus transfered to those he then runs those modules for and without that there is no regional 'identity'. Nor is there really any feedback 'up the chain'.. or heck any feeling of community at all. -James
MatteBlack 11-24-07, 12:04 PM	My fear is that in LFR this cycle (or ecosystem if you will) will be destroyed. When was the last time that you traveled to another state to play a Core module? Did you feel as much of a draw to do so as you would a local (outside of your own) regional module? I don't think so. -James I can definitely think of a large number of players in my region who travel further winthin the region (including out-of-state) than it would take to go to a con in the next region to play mods they would have had access to at home. I live in CT (Bissel) and can make Keoland events in 60-90 mins but, many of the cons I attend are throughout New England (Bissel) 2+ hours away. I enjoy the other players in my region so I am drawn to cons in it and I don't think I am alone in that. I think there is a fair number of players to go the cons they can make it to just to be immersed in the community and play opportunities over a weekend. What tends to drive these same people out-of-region is when they run out of regional, meta-regional and core content that they can play. Presumably, it will be much more difficult to run out content since nearly all of the campaign's mods will be available to you anywhere. Lee
JamesMaissen 11-25-07, 01:27 AM	What tends to drive these same people out-of-region is when they run out of regional, meta-regional and core content that they can play. Presumably, it will be much more difficult to run out content since nearly all of the campaign's mods will be available to you anywhere. Lee So those players are likely never to travel farther in the new system. Not only will they then not experience other region's flavor, but they won't introduce other regions to yours. I don't see that as a good thing. I see it as eroding what you are purporting as the reason that they travel as far as they do in the first place. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong. I hope so, as I'm pessimistic about what LFR's new policies will do to the community that LG helped build up. -James
MatteBlack 11-25-07, 01:49 AM	So those players are likely never to travel farther in the new system. Not only will they then not experience other region's flavor, but they won't introduce other regions to yours. I don't see that as a good thing. I see it as eroding what you are purporting as the reason that they travel as far as they do in the first place. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong. I hope so, as I'm pessimistic about what LFR's new policies will do to the community that LG helped build up. -James There could be some truth to what you are saying but, at the same time, cons that are local to player may become more attractive because they have more to offer since their will be a greater range of adventures. Players will also be more able to play a character from whatever region they choose since they could pick an area far flung from the region they are actually in and be able to fairly readily access the adventures from that area. I have skipped cons that ran shortly after another because I have played all or most of the recent mods that would be offered or worried about "burning" a mod by DMing it for similar concerns. The content crunch will be less of a factor. Cons can decide to run adventures that weren't just run at a recent event and there will be a whole sea of(likely more than a player can play all of) out-of-region adventures that could help replace the ones that are "burnt".
tombollis 11-25-07, 09:05 AM	So those players are likely never to travel farther in the new system. Not only will they then not experience other region's flavor, but they won't introduce other regions to yours. I don't see that as a good thing. I see it as eroding what you are purporting as the reason that they travel as far as they do in the first place. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong. I hope so, as I'm pessimistic about what LFR's new policies will do to the community that LG helped build up. -James The primary purpose for local cons should be to give those in the region an opportunity to get together for a couple of days of fun. They do draw players from out of town, even if they only offer adventures playable eventually in home play. A major draw is DMs and other players that you don't play with in home games. You don't need players travelling thousands of mile to play, nor players coming to sample modules that they can't play in their home regions. Regional flavor and community are better supported by play venues where people traval within their region than ones that emphasize out-of-region travel and a mixing of players from different regions. Most of the regional flavor arguments I have seen for not being able to play regional modules out of their region don't make much sense to me. Big cons not specific to a campaign, such as GenCon and Origins, require players traveling long distances to be successful, but I don't believe it is true of local cons, whether specific to the RPGA or ones that host games from both the RPGA and other sources. LC didn't have regional adventures, but people traveled and some stayed overnight in hotels to play at local cons anyway. Tom Bollis
The_Jester 11-26-07, 03:05 AM	My town's most recent small, local con was a disaster. The neighboring town scheduled their game day for the same period, so the majority of possible travels just stayed home. We had 7-8 extra people show up, so really it was just a larger than average gameday. They knew they'd miss an interactive, but it was stand-alone so there was no story necessity to be there. Other than that, all mods were one's they'd be able to play themselves. It just mean one or two people would have to eat mods. I can't imagine LFR will be that different. Little reason to seek out games while traveling. Unless you're really at odds with the local community you can save money and get the same level of play in. Well, let's give the brand new campaign staff some options. With all modules available everywhere, what are some ways to encourage people to travel? Give them something to discuss or propose now before those next big planning sessions. 1) Interactives. This might work if they really meant something. If they actually determined the course of future events and adventures and had really good rewards. This might work best with a stricter and more tiered system of rewards with regular mods offering regular rewards, core specials offering better and interactives offering the best, with the possible exception of big-con specials. What said rewards will be might be the tricky part... with the "everything is Core" attitude of 4E open/closed/NONC might be gone and since magic items will be playing a lesser role there might simply be fewer things to gain access to. So it might just be cooler favours or simply better xp/gold. 2) No home regions, but mods set in other regions cost more. A simple system; you pay less for adventures played in-region. If you don't travel your character has to "travel" more and pay extra TUs, while if you go border hopping then you get to play more mods with that character each year. 3) Extra reward points for con play. When mods are ordered they can be ordered as gameday or homegame or con, so why not increase con points after reporting results? This would work better if more rewards was a good thing instead of just resulting in extra Eberron cards...
Keith53 11-26-07, 07:03 AM	Many people seem to ascribe modules, metaorgs and/or access to 'regional flavor' and I would strongly disagree. Regional flavor is defined by the players from the region.. plain and simple. Essential to that is a propagated community feeling and without interaction that can never happen. Everything else then at best augments or compliments that feeling, but absent it they would be near meaningless. Essential to forming such a community is the local con and moreover I contend that an essential part of that is people coming to those cons from afar. <snip> -James I guess we will agree to disagree on the definition of regional flavor. What you are citing seems to me to be the socialization of an energized, involved community of gamers or perhaps simply that "locals" know a great deal more about happenings in their local region than a visitor does. While such environment may convey regional flavor better, I don't think it defines such. :-) Keith
ankhwearer 11-26-07, 02:27 PM	I have skipped cons that ran shortly after another because I have played all or most of the recent mods that would be offered or worried about "burning" a mod by DMing it for similar concerns. The content crunch will be less of a factor. I can see what you are saying here. We can expect at least ten mods every month, probably more. (Eighteen regions releasing every other month, plus core.) My support is still behind the idea that I will have to travel to play every mod. The Seattle region (home of WotC) has three full game days per month (two in Lacey, one in Redmond; with occassional game days on the fifth Saturday in Bremerton, a 90 mile drive or 60 minute ferry ride for me) And then we have three cons per year (Dragonflight, Retirement party, New Year's Eve.) I play a home campaign, so gamedays and cons are my only RPGA events. I will have to travel in order to play every mod, which would be compounded if a miss any of the Saturdays. Especially for the mods earlier in the year, since we have no local cons until August. Now, my current situation is a little different than that hard-core, long-timers. I'm still trying to catch up on last year's mods, since I started in mid '06. To me the math supporting a death of local cons does not square up. Even without special enticements, even with a con following another con by only a month, there will still be stuff to play and I will only be able to keep up if I travel to other cities. Another point I want to make about the con organizers: I don't think they care how far people travel from, as long as they take a hotel room. Two hours is as good as two time zones. But most of the talk has been about getting people from other regions. Could someone explain why it has been suggested that out-of-region players are necessary for local cons? I haven't heard a clear "why" answer yet.
MatteBlack 11-26-07, 08:26 PM	I think the fate of local cons comes down to whether a healthier more popular campaign (it's debatable but, we hope) and a larger amount of available content will offset the loss of the current out-of-region draw. I enjoy and support some local conventions but, I favor what is best for the campaign and letting the cons adapt to the new world order. It's my hope that an overall larger player population with make for increased participation in and out of convention play.
Keith53 11-27-07, 06:57 AM	(Eighteen regions releasing every other month, plus core.) Just a FYI. LFR has 12 regions, not 18. ;) Keith Hoffman LFR NC USA Co-Writing Director
larytw 11-27-07, 10:51 AM	The comment has been made that there are more home games then con games. That might be true. I run 40 to 50 home games a year, plus judge around 20 slots at regional cons. And I am not the only one; a lot of our local judges have similar numbers. My point is that a huge majority of the players at my home games are all part of my local convention community. We wouldn’t have these home games if it wasn’t for meeting people at conventions. Another advantage of conventions is that it makes it easier to create a balanced table and to find the right APL. With a small cloistered group, someone is usually forced to eat the mod, and it’s also tough to bring in new people (i.e. five of you have 6th level characters and some newbie wants to join you.). One other thing, there may not be a lot of new players signed up at cons. but that’s because we bring them into our home games first, and then take them to Cons. My concern is that with out conventions, home games will be dramatically reduced. Lary Wesley PS Not that it’s common, but I attended a Shield Lands con in October that had exactly ONE person from the Shield Lands. All the rest of us were from out of region. PPS My group has traveled all over the country to play mods. Unless there is some impetuous to do so after LG I doubt that we will continue this practice. PPPS I go to a lot of Midwest USA Cons, and I would say that at least 1/3 of the attendies are from out of region.
MatteBlack 11-27-07, 12:17 PM	I do think cons help drive the campaign but, really wonder if it is fair to make players who might have no interst in cons go to out-of-regions ones in order to access more than their regional, meta-regional and cores if they want to play that much. If the con experience can't sustain itself why drag in those who might not want to be there for anything more than expanded play opportunities. There will be some fall off but, I don't think is that large of a percentage who don't go to cons at least in part because they enjoy the con enviroment and activities. Maybe they won't be able to talk that one more friend into coming along and maybe they will go to a closer con they may have skipped otherwise but, at least everyone there will want to be there.
JamesMaissen 11-27-07, 10:52 PM	I do think cons help drive the campaign but, really wonder if it is fair to make players who might have no interst in cons go to out-of-regions ones in order to access more than their regional, meta-regional and cores if they want to play that much. If the con experience can't sustain itself why drag in those who might not want to be there for anything more than expanded play opportunities. Well if the player is that active in gaming, why not include incentive for them to become more active in the community? You're suggesting that someone who has played through an average of 36 mods a year (plus adaptables) needs to be playing more often. That's ignoring prior year's mods of course. Conventions give back to the community. In my mind the local convention is the backbone of that community. Even should you never go to one, being only a few degrees of separation from those that do enriches your play experience in my mind. It allows us all to come together to one degree or another. I think that LFR is going to destroy this fragile ecosystem, and that's a bad thing. We'll all suffer for it. -James
Cobain 11-28-07, 01:09 AM	As a huge fan of RPGA conventions, I'd like to mention the main reasons I go to local cons and rent hotel rooms to do so. First and foremost, I love to meet other hardcore RPGA players. As was mentioned above, just seeing different character concepts and Role Playing with unfamiliar heroes is about as fun as D&D ever gets for me. Secondly, I can catch up on many of the games that my local group may have played without me, or get a few new mods played so I can DM them for my local groups. Thirdly, I love the interactives and specials, but they are not the reason I am willing to get a hotel room or two for all the people I bring along to conventions, they are just bonuses. If there is really reason to be concerned that local conventions may be doomed by LFR, I have some suggestions that may help. What if a region was set up that could only be played at conventions? That way local and out of town gamers would have a motivated reason to attend. Just like Specials and Interactives work to draw in out of towners now. Only the best mod writers would be published in that special region. It would be like having a convention only Core region. Don't you think everyone would want to attend at least one con per year if it was the only way to play in that region? Instead of just a special and or an interactive, what if conventions primarily ran mods from this unique region? Wouldn't that leave plenty of room for local groups and local game days, but still draw enough people to make Conventions financially and motivationally feasible? And the Specials and Interactives would make each local convention unique in its own right, just like they do now! Another problem mentioned before: If it is a goal for conventions to attract new players, how about an incentive program for mentors of new players? Imagine having a RPGA reward card for every new member you brought into the RPGA who reached 50 RPGA points... Expansion of our hobby is all about a referal incentive program. And most of us would be easy to please. I would hate to lose either of the local conventions I annually attend (Kublacon and Conqest SF) and I am always looking for ways to go to other local conventions. If LFR is going to have open regions, thats fine by me, there will always be ways to attract hard core gamers to the conventions, like a special 'convention only' region or interactive mods that affect the game world. Even stupid gimmicks like specially marked ARs that say you played at a convention, or special access that you only get if you were at a convention, but could still be played otherwise. I'd hate to think that other people only go to conventions because thats the only way to play certain mods instead of to meet new gamers, but if that is true, lets offer special mods and keep the local cons growing
aljergensen 11-28-07, 10:36 AM	So how about a modest proposal. At the next several conventions held in a hotel that you help with, do a survey. Find out how many people are staying at the hotel. How many rooms are they booking? Are they from out-of-region? Is it a significan number? By what percent would the hotel booking drop if they had not attended? Would that have affected the ability to host the convention at the hotel? Would the convention have been small enough without out-of-region folks to run it at a local game store or other venue? I'm all for rumor and speculation but this thread has 75 postings and no real resolution. Personally I don't think opening up all mods will be the end of RPGA as we know it. Partly that's because most of my gaming is in a game store either at game days or smaller conventions. But I also used to attend conventions and stay at hotels for convenience, or because I had to travel for more than an hour. In my personal experience the number of people attending from out of region are pretty minimal and I don't think the numbers are large enough to kill most conventions. So prove me wrong with some real numbers. Allen.
ceregon 11-28-07, 12:06 PM	I'm all for rumor and speculation but this thread has 75 postings and no real resolution. Personally I don't think opening up all mods will be the end of RPGA as we know it. Partly that's because most of my gaming is in a game store either at game days or smaller conventions. But I also used to attend conventions and stay at hotels for convenience, or because I had to travel for more than an hour. In my personal experience the number of people attending from out of region are pretty minimal and I don't think the numbers are large enough to kill most conventions. So prove me wrong with some real numbers. Allen. I have been posting real numbers throughout this thread. I will answer your specific questions, based on Theocracy by the Bay 2007 held in Sunnyvale, CA on April 26-29. We have been equal to or bigger than GenCon Socal as far as RPGA tables run and have an excellent reputation as a well run and fun convention. We had 145 attendees (115 paid players, 30 free judges) who played 250 tables of RPGA games. About 45 people were from outside the bay area and 32 of those were from regions other than the Pale. On our biggest night, there were 22 hotel rooms rented and only 4 of those were from people that lived in the bay area. (The bay area is pretty big and even though the con is fairly centrally located population-wise, some people have a 1-2 hour drive to get to the hotel.) This means that over 80% of my roomnights come from out of towners. Without them, I lose my discount on my conference room space and my costs almost double. If my costs double, I lose a lot of money and never run another con. So yes, it is a very significant number. No, the convention is not small enough to run as a game day at game stores. Someone suggested that recruiting new players would solve this problem. I started LG night at a local game store to do just that. This has grown to 3 and sometimes 4 days (evenings really) of RPGA games and there are several co-coordinators involved now. This helps the RPGA out but doesn't help a convention. I know this won't make sense to most people so I will try to explain. Remember that most gamers are not aware of all of the issues that a convention faces, but convention organizers are. Here's my problem. I have to buy enough conference room space to hold enough tables to seat 1 judge and 6 players at each table. Adding extra players means that I have to add extra tables which means that I have to purchase extra conference room space. I charged $40 for the weekend (only $20 for <18 years old). The judge will only judge 6 slots and will actually be a player in the other 6 slots, so I really need 2 new judges and will only have 5 new paid players. Adding 5 more paid players (assuming they are all adults) gives me an additional $200, but that works out to only $50 more per day of the event. Without my discount for all of the roomnights my attendees pay for at the hotel, that $50 does not cover the extra expense of adding extra space for the new table of games. If I'm losing money on each table, I cannot make it up with volume. I also challenge that 90% figure that is getting thrown around. I looked up the play history of the Pale regional that premiered at the con. Pal 7-2 has been ordered 23 times. 7 of them were by cons, 4 of them were by game stores, so it has been a home game 12 times. I think we can assume that a mod will be played once at a home game. Local game stores will probably run 2 tables (or more) at their LG nights. A con could run the mod anywhere from 5 to 16 times. Smaller cons might run it less, but I ran 16 tables of it when it premiered. I'd guess that it ran at least 50 tables at cons, about 10 at game stores, and 12 times as a home game. I'm definitely not seeing this 90% number that people have been tossing around. It looks like 2/3rds of play is at conventions, not less than 10%. Conventions improve the gaming experience and also provide a chain of expertise. I try to have authors run zeros for my judges, and those judges run the mods at the con, con players can then go back and run the mods at game stores or home games, and I'd bet they do a better job than somebody who just orders the mod, reads it and runs it. I'm not sure what to do to fix these problems. The best suggestion I heard so far was to have a convention-only region, but that will only increase the number of local players at a convention, not the number of players that stay at the hotel. Having marketplaces at cons could help, but it really depends on the access model that LR uses. I realize that this is not WotC's problem. They have no financial interest in local conventions. However, conventions tend to energize players and get them to contribute more to the hobby. It was at a convention when I was struck with inspiration to write a mod, and I have written 25+ rounds of RPGA events now (Hey, where's my plaque?!?). It was at a convention where I thought "I can do that" and went on to run my first con (and it was much harder and a lot more work than I thought). Some of my modules have motivated people to write modules, and there have been more than 10 sequels and spinoffs to my first year 1 mod. Some people that have attended my conventions now run their own, and they email me for advice and suggestions. Local RPGA conventions are good for the hobby, and if they go away then it will decrease the critical mass that the hobby needs. Large-scale events like battle interactives and LARPy interactives can only be held at conventions. Having lots of small gaming groups will not energize the campaign the way that getting many small groups gaming together will. Bart Scott
MatteBlack 11-28-07, 12:29 PM	So ultimately we need to find ways to replace the rented rooms that could be lost by those enticed to cons by out-of-region play opportunities. For numbers, we need to look at how many out-of-region players are renting rooms and then try to get a grip on how many come solely because of the out-of-region play. If all the out-of-region players are there just because of the extra content access then we could have a problem. If it is a small percentage, it's likely something that could offset by the new improvements. The real question we should be looking at is, "How can we give players more reason to stay at the cons?" Unique interractives would be my starting point. I might also suggest schedules that start earlier in the mornings, end later at night and offer more than one slot on the first night as happens alot. (shorter standard slots?) There are porbably other ways.
tombollis 11-28-07, 01:18 PM	We had 145 attendees (115 paid players, 30 free judges) who played 250 tables of RPGA games. About 45 people were from outside the bay area and 32 of those were from regions other than the Pale. On our biggest night, there were 22 hotel rooms rented and only 4 of those were from people that lived in the bay area. Bart Scott Not clear figures on out of region hotel rooms. By your figures, 32/45 of out of Bay area were out of region, and 18 rooms were out of Bay area, but were there 12-13 rooms out of the 22 total from out of region and 9-10 from the Pale? How many were for judges who only judged? Why did the 113 (78% of attendees) from within the Pale attend a con within their home region? You need better figures, from a statistically significant diversity of local cons before you have a reasonable basis for your fears. Tom Bollis
aljergensen 11-28-07, 01:37 PM	I have been posting real numbers throughout this thread. I will answer your specific questions, based on Theocracy by the Bay 2007 held in Sunnyvale, CA on April 26-29. Bart Scott Sorry if I implied that no one had posted real numbers, but you are the only one who has that I remember. To clarify my question - how typical is your experience? IIRC Sunnyvale is on the border of the Pale and Nyrond. How many people from accross the border would have attended even if there were no out-of-region play opportunities? When I lived in Sacramento, I visited the Bay Area a few times just to get out of town and I would have considered attending a large con even without any special access. I can see that border conventions could be hurt, but how typical is this for hotel run conventions? Allen.
ceregon 11-28-07, 02:23 PM	Not clear figures on out of region hotel rooms. By your figures, 32/45 of out of Bay area were out of region, and 18 rooms were out of Bay area, but were there 12-13 rooms out of the 22 total from out of region and 9-10 from the Pale? How many were for judges who only judged? Why did the 113 (78% of attendees) from within the Pale attend a con within their home region? You need better figures, from a statistically significant diversity of local cons before you have a reasonable basis for your fears. Tom Bollis Oops. There were 3 rooms for people from outside the bay area but within the Pale. Very few people _only_ judge at the con, but I'm very greatful to the few that do. We don't provide rooms for judges like some conventions do. A couple of the out of region folks judged a couple of slots, but the vast majority of judges were from the bay area and commuted to the con. I would say that the 78% local figure came from the opportunity to play events that you could not play at home and because we have such a good reputation. We premuster all of the tables and everything runs very smoothly despite having a huge number of tables in each slot. While our charity events are popular, I don't think that people come to the con just because of that. There was a general gaming con in the Pale 2 weeks prior to ours and another one 4 weeks after. We ran roughly 5x the tables of one and more than 2x of the other. I don't have data on their out of region players or hotel room data. While I'm sure that data from other cons would be interesting, the only data that matters to me personally is data from cons that I run. I have run 5 large rpga only cons here and the ratios are similar. If cons in other parts of the country have different ratios it will not affect my decision to risk thousands of dollars to run another con. I will make that decision based entirely on local data. I have talked to other people who run large rpga only cons and they feel the same way that I do. At least one person besides myself who has run several large LG-centric cons is not going to run any cons for LR. I haven't made a final decision yet, but I'm leaning towards avoiding the risk. Bart
ceregon 11-28-07, 02:45 PM	To clarify my question - how typical is your experience? IIRC Sunnyvale is on the border of the Pale and Nyrond. How many people from accross the border would have attended even if there were no out-of-region play opportunities? When I lived in Sacramento, I visited the Bay Area a few times just to get out of town and I would have considered attending a large con even without any special access. I can see that border conventions could be hurt, but how typical is this for hotel run conventions? Allen. My experience is typical for the bay area and the 5 cons that I have run. I have talked with other organizers and the combination of decreasing con attendance since the big announcement and the play everything everywhere rule has them worried. (As players, most organizers are happy to be able to play more mods, they just don't want to organze conventions to support LR.) Sunnyvale is not a border city. It is about 200 miles from San Luis Obispo, which is the closest city that runs Nyrond events at a small general gaming con that runs about 15 tables of LG each year. It is 400 miles from the Duchy and 600 miles from the County. Theocracy by the Bay is not a border con. I have been involved in a few of those and they are even harder to pull off successfully than a regular con. They have the advantage of usually being in a small border town (at least out west) and everybody attending has to stay at a hotel because everyone is from out of town. Getting judges is a much bigger problem for these cons because half of the events are out of region for your judges. The question of how many people would have attended if there was no exclusive content is the big one. I travel to out of region cons quite a bit, but only because I can play events there that I can't play here. Before the announcement of LG ending, my threshold was 7 or 8 play opportunities. If I could only play 6 mods at a con I wouldn't go. If a con had 12 I would definitely try to go. Much as I'd like to think people will keep coming because they had fun and the con was well run, I doubt that they would spend hundreds of dollars to play events they could play at home. Bart
Reneshat 11-29-07, 12:17 PM	I also challenge that 90% figure that is getting thrown around. I looked up the play history of the Pale regional that premiered at the con. Pal 7-2 has been ordered 23 times. 7 of them were by cons, 4 of them were by game stores, so it has been a home game 12 times. I think we can assume that a mod will be played once at a home game. Local game stores will probably run 2 tables (or more) at their LG nights. A con could run the mod anywhere from 5 to 16 times. Smaller cons might run it less, but I ran 16 tables of it when it premiered. I'd guess that it ran at least 50 tables at cons, about 10 at game stores, and 12 times as a home game. I'm definitely not seeing this 90% number that people have been tossing around. It looks like 2/3rds of play is at conventions, not less than 10%. I'm not trying to argue your point of the difficulty of holding a convention, however 7-2 is a poor choice to use numbers to try to determine where mods are played. A module has a life-span of 1 to 2 years, depending on when it debuts. For the first X months, it is not even available for play outside of conventions. This means the earlier you pull numbers for a module, the more they will be disproportionate towards convention play. Once you include the fact that not long (compared to module life) after the mod was available for home play, the announcement came out that LG was ending, inspiring some to discontinue their LG play. It would give a better idea of who plays what where, if you pulled the numbers for a year 6 module, or even better if you could somehow go back and get the numbers for one of the old year 5 modules (don't know if that is even possible), seeing how you also get a year end upsurge of play, so the year 6 numbers would be off not only from the announcement, but they would also probably lack numbers from end of the year conventions.
MatteBlack 11-29-07, 12:56 PM	I'm not trying to argue your point of the difficulty of holding a convention, however 7-2 is a poor choice to use numbers to try to determine where mods are played. A module has a life-span of 1 to 2 years, depending on when it debuts. For the first X months, it is not even available for play outside of conventions. This means the earlier you pull numbers for a module, the more they will be disproportionate towards convention play. Once you include the fact that not long (compared to module life) after the mod was available for home play, the announcement came out that LG was ending, inspiring some to discontinue their LG play. It would give a better idea of who plays what where, if you pulled the numbers for a year 6 module, or even better if you could somehow go back and get the numbers for one of the old year 5 modules (don't know if that is even possible), seeing how you also get a year end upsurge of play, so the year 6 numbers would be off not only from the announcement, but they would also probably lack numbers from end of the year conventions. Good point, maybe we can look at stats for retired mods but, ultimately, I think we are going to find that con vs. homeplay is closer to a 50/50 split than an 90/10 one.
ceregon 11-29-07, 02:07 PM	I'm not trying to argue your point of the difficulty of holding a convention, however 7-2 is a poor choice to use numbers to try to determine where mods are played. A module has a life-span of 1 to 2 years, depending on when it debuts. For the first X months, it is not even available for play outside of conventions. This means the earlier you pull numbers for a module, the more they will be disproportionate towards convention play. Once you include the fact that not long (compared to module life) after the mod was available for home play, the announcement came out that LG was ending, inspiring some to discontinue their LG play. It would give a better idea of who plays what where, if you pulled the numbers for a year 6 module, or even better if you could somehow go back and get the numbers for one of the old year 5 modules (don't know if that is even possible), seeing how you also get a year end upsurge of play, so the year 6 numbers would be off not only from the announcement, but they would also probably lack numbers from end of the year conventions. I'm not sure if there is still a delay. 7-2 was available to all three groups from 1/1 on. I looked at 6-2 which premiered at Theocracy by the Bay 2006 and it was ordered for a game day that very same weekend. 6-2 was ordered 65 times, for 19 conventions, 15 game days (mostly at retail) and 31 home games. Assuming 2 tables at each game day and 1 at a home game, then both groups ran about the same number of tables. The 2006 & 2007 TbtB cons ran more tables of it than all of the home games put together. I don't have the exact figures for all of the conventions, but I can estimate that it probably ran 60-80 tables. It looks like conventions ran at least 50% of the total tables. Once again, I'm not buying that 90% number. Bart
Reneshat 11-29-07, 03:03 PM	I'm not sure if there is still a delay. 7-2 was available to all three groups from 1/1 on. I looked at 6-2 which premiered at Theocracy by the Bay 2006 and it was ordered for a game day that very same weekend. 6-2 was ordered 65 times, for 19 conventions, 15 game days (mostly at retail) and 31 home games. Assuming 2 tables at each game day and 1 at a home game, then both groups ran about the same number of tables. The 2006 & 2007 TbtB cons ran more tables of it than all of the home games put together. I don't have the exact figures for all of the conventions, but I can estimate that it probably ran 60-80 tables. It looks like conventions ran at least 50% of the total tables. Once again, I'm not buying that 90% number. Bart Thank you for your numbers. I wasn't sure about the percentages either, but 50/50 sounds about right. I thought the 90% sounded off, but I didn't know by how much. However, you initial numbers sounded a little off to me as well. This definitely says that the loss of conventions will hurt play numbers for modules, however, so we really need to work to keep conventions going.
MatteBlack 11-29-07, 03:18 PM	Thank you for your numbers. I wasn't sure about the percentages either, but 50/50 sounds about right. I thought the 90% sounded off, but I didn't know by how much. However, you initial numbers sounded a little off to me as well. This definitely says that the loss of conventions will hurt play numbers for modules, however, so we really need to work to keep conventions going. How common are the RPGA only cons? Most of the ones I attend are gamedays or for a number of different games. It would seem to me that multi-game cons would be the best at bringing in new players along side some of the retailer events.
Reneshat 11-29-07, 03:36 PM	How common are the RPGA only cons? Most of the ones I attend are gamedays or for a number of different games. It would seem to me that multi-game cons would be the best at bringing in new players along side some of the retailer events. I have been at a few RPGA only conventions, but only one multi-game convention unfortunately. However, there were many, many more LG tables at the RPGA cons that I went to than the multi-game con. Still, my experience is a lot less than many others, so my perspective doesn't (or at the very least shouldn't) carry as much weight, so it might be best to ask others. For me it's simply a play opportunities question. Are we really giving more play opportunities if we are choking the source of a good 1/3 (number pulled out of my butt) of the play opportunities?
ankhwearer 11-29-07, 05:07 PM	We had 145 attendees (115 paid players, 30 free judges) who played 250 tables of RPGA games. About 45 people were from outside the bay area and 32 of those were from regions other than the Pale. On our biggest night, there were 22 hotel rooms rented and only 4 of those were from people that lived in the bay area. Do you venue choices change when (as you suspect will happen) your numbers drop from 145 attendees to 100 attendees? That would be about a 33% drop in size, so less tables and a smaller convention space. Also, would you say that your convention (bigger RPGA turn out than GenCon SoCal) is representative of conventions nationwide, or is it possible that the risks you run with the change in the campaign are due to being one of the largest conventions out there? And, as one more question I would like to see answered (you may not know, however): How many of those out-of-region players were there because they had exhausted the play opportunities at home? I'm sorry I stuck on the point that people will still have to travel because there just won't be enough play at home to capture all of the mods available. My local region, for example, offers a approximately 69 slots on average per year (cons+gamedays, but not including home games). And since I DM several of those slots and don't make it to every gameday or every day of every con, I barely keep up with just Duchy of Urnst and Core mods. Actually, I'm not caught up with Cores, but I hope to do that at the end-of-the-year con we have here. Certainly some areas will still need to send players to Theocracy by the Bay due to insufficient slots offered.
Cobain 12-04-07, 04:32 PM	Because I have no control of my work schedule and I travel, I rely on cons to provide about 2/3 of my play opportunities. Thats probably atypical, but it also highly motivates me to save the cons. I would be willing to have fund raisers and also pay more for my entrance fee, at least for the first year, so the convention planners wouldn't be risking substantial financial investments just to work their asses off for a month or so. So, besides trying to curb the problem by attracting more out of town gamers, I'd be willing to invest time and money to help put my heroes, the convention organizers, at ease.
Aoibin 12-05-07, 02:14 AM	Hi all. I've been reading this thread and thinking of how to add my 2 cents worth. Here goes... I have been involved in Living Greyhawk since year 2. Now I admit that I don't live in a large population center, but I think that's true for a lot of people. I was introduced to the Living Campaign at a convention. Before that, I had encountered RPGA a couple of times, but it was poorly run and only offered some one shot adventures with pregenerated characters. Nothing that made me want to join. Then I played Living Greyhawk and I was hooked. I loved the idea of a worldwide campaign. I played at a couple of cons and enjoyed it more each time I attended. At home was another story. While I belonged to a regular home group, it took me overa year to get them to play living and even after they did, they preferred to play RPGA games at cons. Despite my best efforts, this situation prevailed for the three years I continued to play in Southwest Virginia. Then I moved to Wisconsin. While I was very happy with the fact that I could just pick up where I had left off with the RPGA living campaign at cons, the home play difficulty continued. Home groups, while they enjoyed playing RPGA at cons, just weren't interested in home games when they could play non-living games. In both areas there was a local game shop, but neither one was interested in hosting RPGA events. I've seen it said here that most RPGA games are played by home groups rather than cons, however in my own experience, and those of a number of people I've played with, this doesn't seem to be the case. Players in home groups have stated time and again that they don't like playing within RPGA campaign restraints in their home games. Conversely, they have happily spent tons of time and money to prepare for and attend conventions to play LG and LA. The whole con experience has almost always been worth the expense and time involved. Maybe I and my friends have been isolated cases, but I doubt it. For five years, I have been able to enjoy Living Greyhawk, and am looking forward to LFR, but without cons, I see my chances to play diminshing exponentially. Without a local group or game days at a local shop, I would have to travel to play at all. That expenditure of time and effort is worth it for a convention, where I can play for an entire weekend, but is hard to justify for a single game, or even a game day. In my experience, conventions have been the heart of the RPGA experience for myself and others, many of whom live apart from major urban centers. Without conventions, I see our chances for Campaign play to be limited at best, and posibly completely restricted to online play in the future. I truly hope cons won't be dropped by the wayside. I know the big three will still do well, but if local cons go, I wonder about the growt and continuation of the living campaigns, and about my ability to continue playing.
CdrcJsn 12-05-07, 06:55 PM	I would just like to establish a few definititions here because I still see some posts that seem to confuse terms. Most LG RPGA play can currently be divided into: 1) RPGA Only Conventions: they run 25 or more tables over a weekend that is held somewhere (most often a hotel). The financial risk of putting one together is usually held by the convention organizer. 2) RPGA Convention held in a bigger, non-RPGA exclusive convention: DragonCon, PAX, all these big gaming shows can and usually host 25+ tables of RPGA events and recruit a con coordinator from the local RPGA region. There is no financial risk to the RPGA con coordinator. 3) Game Days: These are usually held in local stores, libraries and private homes. They usually put on only 1-5 tables per day. The financial risk to the organizer is very little (spaces are free or negligible cost). These can be ongoing or one time events. 4) Home Games: Usually one off events with 1-2 tables over the course of a day. Bart and the other people concerned about local cons going away are only talking about event type #1. Those are the ones that are very likely to disappear if out of region travel drops. The costs are just too prohibitive otherwise.
CdrcJsn 12-05-07, 07:08 PM	Regional flavor and community are better supported by play venues where people traval within their region than ones that emphasize out-of-region travel and a mixing of players from different regions. I think you're misunderstanding something here. Regional LG only cons ARE for local players. They make up 80% or more of the attendees, they know the canon of the region and help build the community. However, it is the out of local area travelers that allow the local LG only cons to exist in the first place. The costs are too prohibitive otherwise. I have never organized a convention thinking, I need to create something special for out of towners. They came because they can play 9+ slots of unique gaming that were not available to them back in their regions (local regionals). As a convention organizer and Pale triad member, local players were always the target of interactives and other special events. LC didn't have regional adventures, but people traveled and some stayed overnight in hotels to play at local cons anyway. Tom Bollis This is actually my greatest fear...that the RPGA is once more moving to the LC model. Was the success of the RPGA in the recent years due to the 3.0/3.5 system or due to the regional system forcing community? Will the ability to play regionals from out region destroy the need of locals to help contribute to their local region? The proposed system seems like a cross between LC and the eberron faction model, neither of which had the pulling power of LG.
ankhwearer 12-10-07, 03:58 PM	And, despite calls for unique content that can be run within specific regions (or a Con-only region), I think that there will be too many mods release every year for a single region to run them all. Thus, the "unique" content ends up being the mods that were never run in your own region because of the increased access to mods easily "overflowing" the number of organized play "slots" within any one city. Larger cities with more organized play will not suffer from a shortage of slots, no doubt (Theocracy by the Bay, I'm thinking about you...) But the large numbers of players that are outside of these hotspots will need to travel to play those mods that were not run in their region. Thus, Local cons that are large enough to require hotel space to run are still running the way they are now. At least, that's my theory.
ankhwearer 12-10-07, 04:13 PM	Most LG RPGA play can currently be divided into: 1) RPGA Only Conventions: they run 25 or more tables over a weekend that is held somewhere (most often a hotel). The financial risk of putting one together is usually held by the convention organizer. 2) RPGA Convention held in a bigger, non-RPGA exclusive convention: DragonCon, PAX, all these big gaming shows can and usually host 25+ tables of RPGA events and recruit a con coordinator from the local RPGA region. There is no financial risk to the RPGA con coordinator. What would you say D&D Experience is, or very large RPGA Only conventions, like Theocracy by the Bay, in which over 75 tables are run? What category do conventions that require multiple ballrooms or conference rooms fall into. Currently, all RPGA-only cons are labelling themselves "local Cons" (as in they run mods from the local region, I believe). But surely an RPGA only con that is larger than GenCon SoCal creates a category of expense and organization that places it in a rank superior to a local region retirement party.
Reylance 12-11-07, 11:57 AM	It hasn't been that long since the RPGA only ran events that could be played anywhere. I was playing in the 1990's, and traveled to a lot of conventions. Back then, the motivation was playing debut modules. A local convention would have (mostly) local authors write modules to debut at the convention. That helps in running Slot Zeroes, meaning one less module to eat, although logistics often required someone to eat a module anyway. Most often, though, these weren't RPGA-only conventions. I think the closest among these conventions was Milwaukee Summer Revel, which was almost entirely RPGA, but had a few other events. I attended many conventions within an evening's drive, as well as a few conventions that I flew to. Because I was interested in saving money, I mostly attended conventions where I had a free place to stay with friends or family, or conventions that offered free room space for judges. Afterwards, I could judge these games for people who didn't attend the same conventions, either at a game day or at a local convention. During the same time period, I was running one of the few, at times the only, game day open to the public within my region. (Other players had no problem picking up modules, but they weren't playing in any public venue.) While we may see a return to this model in the future, there are a couple of big changes over the last ten years. Most notably, there's better organization for playing games. Conventions used to be the only way to easily play RPGA games. Now, a post to a Yahoogroup can quickly put together a table. In addition, the rise of online play means that if you want to play a module before running it for your local group, you don't need to travel to another convention, you can play while sitting at your computer.
GrahamWills 12-18-07, 12:38 AM	I am not convinced that the number of people who only travel to conventions to play things that they could not play without travel is a large one. Certainly if I do travel, then I try to play things that were not otherwise available to me, but it's not a deciding issue. When I meet people at local cons, they do not say "I wanted to play a Verbobonc mod", they say the same sort of thing that I say when I am out-of-region: I had the time and money and this con was close and looked fun I came to play with a friend who lives here I was here for another reason, and took in the con at the same time Now, maybe I'm wrong, but the number of people who travel to cons purely because of out-of-region play possibilities appears to be small. In fact, I'd expect most of them to post in this topic! I would be more concerned about the overall loss of community; with larger regions, will people feel less involved? Will the meta-orgs be too generic? I way prefer the regional mods to the core mods currently; it will take a lot of skill to keep the larger regions having a strong sense of community.
amysrevenge 12-19-07, 02:51 PM	Thus, the "unique" content ends up being the mods that were never run in your own region because of the increased access to mods easily "overflowing" the number of organized play "slots" within any one city. The problem then is that "the mods that were never run in your own region" is a different list of modules for everyone. In the LG model, that list was extremely easy to predict (as in, everyone outside of Western Canada has "all Zeif mods" on their list of mods that were never run in their own region). In the model we have been led to expect for LFR, that list will vary wildly from person to person, and from city to city. You (as a convention organizer) can no longer choose the obvious mods (your own regional mods) and know that everyone from every other region has to come to you to play them. Now you have to pick mods almost at random, and hope for the best. You can easily pick mods that haven't been played in the convention area, but the whole point here is to pick mods that haven't been played in all OTHER areas, not the local area. Big Mike Calgary AB
MatteBlack 12-19-07, 02:58 PM	It seems like the way to go would be for cons in a given region to oick an "outside" region to specialize in. You'd run the local stuff and cores and also the whole catalog from one other region then next con would run the latest cores and regionals, interactives and a catalog from another region and so on. I would think most of the con organizers could coordinate this with other cons in their region. Lee
tombollis 12-19-07, 04:05 PM	The problem then is that "the mods that were never run in your own region" is a different list of modules for everyone. In the LG model, that list was extremely easy to predict (as in, everyone outside of Western Canada has "all Zeif mods" on their list of mods that were never run in their own region). In the model we have been led to expect for LFR, that list will vary wildly from person to person, and from city to city. You (as a convention organizer) can no longer choose the obvious mods (your own regional mods) and know that everyone from every other region has to come to you to play them. Now you have to pick mods almost at random, and hope for the best. You can easily pick mods that haven't been played in the convention area, but the whole point here is to pick mods that haven't been played in all OTHER areas, not the local area. Big Mike Calgary AB Even in LG, the majority of those attending a local con are from within the region. Regional mods do attrack people to cons within the region. Some of those people are from out of town and stay in hotels. Some may be from out of region. If the goal is to attract players, content from ANY region will do, though themes help. The way to be sure of unplayed adventures is to host premiers. For local cons hosted in hotels to survive in LFR, it seems necessary for them to attract enough out-of-towners who stay in the hotel, not necessarily players from other regions, and that should be the case even with all adventures playable anywhere (eventually).. Premiers should be limited to in-region, and to cons rather than game days or home play. Tom Bollis:confused:
MatteBlack 12-20-07, 12:08 AM	If we assume TUs will continue to be employed in LFR, they could waive the additional TU cost for out of region mods if you played them in their home region. Saving half a dozen TUs on a favorite character might be enough to motivate a player to travel to a neighboring region.
bhale187 12-20-07, 12:20 AM	If we assume TUs will continue to be employed in LFR, they could waive the additional TU cost for out of region mods if you played them in their home region. Saving half a dozen TUs on a favorite character might be enough to motivate a player to travel to a neighboring region. Agreed, it's certainly worth a try anyway.
Surgebuster 12-20-07, 12:36 AM	If we assume TUs will continue to be employed in LFR, they could waive the additional TU cost for out of region mods if you played them in their home region. Saving half a dozen TUs on a favorite character might be enough to motivate a player to travel to a neighboring region. I wouldn't assume that TUs were necessarily going to be used in LFR. Remember that LFR has the opportunity to implement a number of new concepts over, above and sideways of what people experience with LG. I certainly wouldn't assume that the LFR campaign will be LG with a shiny new sticker slapped on it. Just my two cents. :) Joe
Reneshat 12-20-07, 12:38 AM	If we assume TUs will continue to be employed in LFR, they could waive the additional TU cost for out of region mods if you played them in their home region. Saving half a dozen TUs on a favorite character might be enough to motivate a player to travel to a neighboring region. I think that's actually rather brilliant. Simple, effective, and it doesn't make others feel like they are missing important opportunities because they can't travel. It's incredibly easy to implement, and doesn't really add any complexity that makes things harder on the administrators. However, I thought I had heard something about them not planning on using TUs for the next campaign, so we will have to wait and see on that one.