1) Don't screw up the event information by saying that no experience is necessary. Event information shoudl make it clear that people need to have PCs that they have played to the appropriate level to participate int he adventure.
2) The character builder station is great, but it needs some patrolling. Having volunteers take people to a station and ask what they are building a character for and loading the appropriate campaign setting file would go a long way to keep people from having illegal choices. It also helps to have someone on hand that knows what's what so people can ask questions so they can make LFR legal characters.
After 2 slots of the 2-round mini (which ran both times in one round!), 3 CORE1-13, 2 CORE1-14, 2 SPEC1-3, ADCP1-1 and a midnight madness adventure I can only hope that I got people hooked up with what they needed and wanted from the show.
... yes, that's 11 slots in a 10-slot show. And I still had 2 slots off in which I was not in Sagamore at all. Is there an "Iron DM" award? ;)
Please, all, keep the suggestions flowing and the feedback as well. We want to deliver a rock-solid experience every year, and the feedback and communication will always filter to the proper people, trust me!
The fire alarm going off during that one slot caused us to pack up the table in a minute and cross over to one of the hotels, it was kinda funny, setting the map back up and finishing the combat in the room before heading back to the event room.
And I too have a few suggestions.
Delve suggestions: Some of the delves, simply put, were more fun than others. I don't like the delay tactics built into the delves. These are timed events and it gets frustrating when the monsters are weakening or insubstantial, or immobilize, or hinder in ways that make it impossible to fight back effectively, running you out of time. To top it off, the characters provided, aren't built to deal with these hindrances. I would prefer an environment where the difficulty did not stem from these delay tactics, but from the actual difficulty of the encounter, where a better judgement of where to move, where to defend, which monsters to prioritize will make the difference between winning and losing, instead of how many crits you can roll to do enough damage to matter while you are weakened. Weakening or immobilizing one character now and than would not be a big deal (it would be expected), but when the whole party can be hit by such effects, things get frustrating. Not looking for a happy end for every delve, but the challenge could be shifted to something other than delay tactics.
Ultimate Delve: I understand this is supposed to be difficult but a lot of people I talked to were stuck on the second encounter. It just feels like such a waste when you allot your time for 4-5 hours, and get about 1.5 hours out of it, then can't do anything the rest of the time. You can't exactly get into another game slot because everything is half-way through. You just basically have to kill time. You can do the regular delve but if you're not interested in that, you're in a bit of a pickle. I really don't understand why players aren't allowed to just continue on with the adventure. Stop the timer, drop into timeless mode where it just becomes a regular dungeon crawl, you know you can't win prizes, and you probably won't get to the end because you were too slow, but at least you get your time's worth.
7pm Open LFR: This advertised slot for open LFR did not happen. There simply aren't enough DM's to run open LFR at 7pm. Either this event should be eliminated so people know not to allocate time for it, or there should be DM's scheduled to run in the slot. Ultimately, it would be best to make this a registered event if it's going to be included, so we can get real tickets for it. There weren't that many people looking for this open slot. Maybe 3-4 groups of 6. For people who are trying to level up to be able to play in some of the higher level mods at the con, open play is very essential because there aren't enough mods released at the con to make this happen, unless you are starting the con at exactly the right level.
Midnight Open LFR: Not much to say about this other than a big thank you to all the DM's who volunteered to run at this hour.
For the regular LFR mods, I thought everything was great. Most DM's were well prepared, time aware, and did an overall great job. There was maybe one game where we had a ponderous DM, but we did put him through a challenge by doing some unexpected things the mod apparently hadn't prepared him for (it was IMPI1-5). Aside from that everything was pretty clockwork, and we had a great time.
A big thanks to the Gencon staff and volunteers! Managed to play through 4 slots on generics, a couple delves, and had a wonderful time. I do, however, have some suggestions for future cons:
1) Don't screw up the event information by saying that no experience is necessary. Event information shoudl make it clear that people need to have PCs that they have played to the appropriate level to participate int he adventure.
"No experience necesary" is, unfortunately for us, a GenCon term. When the events were sent to GenCon, one of the questions asked is how experienced your players need to be. IE - Beginners? Advanced Players? Experts?
Apparently whatever answer was equivalent to beginners listed itself in the catalog as "no experience necesary" - and as players for RPGA events, that's generally true.
Alas, in this case experience has two meanings, and your character needs previous LFR experience to participate. I've got it on my list of things to review on the RPGA HQ Staff mailing list.
Even if we set it to "Intermediate/Advanced" and it says "Some experience required" it won't solve the problem, and will only curb it - as lots of players have experience with 4E, and will still try to show up.
Still, any little bit helps.
2) The character builder station is great, but it needs some patrolling. Having volunteers take people to a station and ask what they are building a character for and loading the appropriate campaign setting file would go a long way to keep people from having illegal choices. It also helps to have someone on hand that knows what's what so people can ask questions so they can make LFR legal characters.
WotC staffers were there to lend assistance, but I actually agree with you - it would have been nice if we could have had an RPGA volunteer or two there to help with building RPGA-legal characters - especially in the hours when WotC staffers weren't on-hand.
It was a real pleasure to meet, converse, and game with frequent poster Gomez, who is a passionate and eloquent advocate for the Realms, for this game, for this campaign, and for this organization. The Dalelands region and LFR in general are lucky to have him. And when I had an hour to kill between meeting on Saturday, I lucked into having him as a DM for the delve I got to do. Me and the other random guys at the table got pretty well pasted, but we had a lot of laughs, too. And the guys marshaling the line gave me a miniature when I let some people in front of me so they could be at the same table as some of their friends--much appreciated even if it wasn't necessary!
I had a fantastic Gen-con experience, but kinda wish I'd not had to ever leave the LFR room! (It certainly would have saved me some money, but I'm stoked about these nifty magnets I got for tracking conditions.) Fort Wayne's about as close to me as Indy, and that's pretty much all gaming, right? I'm gonna go to that and just not tell anybody I'm coming so I can play the whole time!
Cheers,
Christopher
Fort Wayne's about as close to me as Indy, and that's pretty much all gaming, right? I'm gonna go to that and just not tell anybody I'm coming so I can play the whole time!
Cheers,
Christopher
If all you want to do is play DND for 3-4 days straight, DnDXP is the way to go.. there are some vendors but the scope of the con is all about DND, be it LFR, delves or minis.