The RPGA did not standardize the contest, which is important since it is a timed event (4 hrs). For one thing, some of the DMs used dungeon tiles and some used printed maps, meaning that if your team was unlucky enough to have a DM with tiles you lost 15-30 mins in "tile setup time" right off the bat. I would say it takes most of the DMs 5-10 mins, or longer if you have a disorganized DM, but there are 4 encounters per round, so it adds to a big penalty for your team.
In the first round our DM actually went to the bathroom, setup the wrong map, realized his mistake, then setup the real map. Play was stopped a good 20 mins for us while we waited for him to finish "Dungeon Tile Tetris".
The other huge problem, that was the most ridiculous was the length of time it took the RPGA to judge the contest. After completing the semi-finals (we played 1-5pm on a saturday), we were told the results would be ready by 11:30-midnight Saturday, and if we advanced we'd play at 8am Sunday...
NO DEAL!!! My wife got a cell phone # to call to get results, which she called at 3:30am to get no answer, and finally got an answer at 6:30am to find out they still didnt have the results! I ended up getting 3 hrs sleep out of this debacle because I live about an hour away, showing up at 7:15am only to see they FINALLY scored the thing a mere 45 min before the event was to start.
And of course I show up to find we didn't advance, doh! Thank you RPGA I didn't need to sleep. How hard can it be to score this thing?? Looks like if you thought you might have it by 11:30pm, that's 30 mins after the last group ended, so by that logic you estimated 30 mins but it ended up taking 8 hours, nice!
Our first game was great, our DM was well-prepared, with maps ready and a good grasp of the rules. The time spent on the event was dedicated to the players actions and the running of the game itself, with very little time spent on other matters.
Our semi-final DM, however, was a complete wash. She had no grasp of the rules (no idea how Opportunity attacks work, no idea how movement worked) She made the players draw the maps based on vague descriptions ("There's an 8x8 room with another corridor kind of over there). One PC spent two rounds walking around searching for an exit INSIDE of the space between walls because the DM couldn't be bothered to even draw the map.
The worst came in our encounter. Enemies kept appearing on a map. We eventually found a hidden portal and entered (assuming it was a way out) and died. Turns out this was a the portal that the enemies were emerging from, but she never even bothered to describe this ("It's not my job to tell you how the monsters arrive). We filed an official complaint about the judge, but this lack of standards amongst judging is the worst thing for any "standardized" competition environment.
I don't assume we would have been able to advance to the finals (not really that well-prepped of a team), but the lack of a decent DM really screwed us over. I hope things change and the DM's are better prepared and properly screened in the coming years.
Yeah, we almost went through that same portal, but we finally realized that we needed to go out the double doors (via the lame skill challenge, where 27 Athletics check was a fail, wtf?). We wasted too much time in the room, and it was our own fault for not understanding we needed to just flee, and flee fast. We got to encounter 3 with a lot of healing surges left, and all PC's alive, but we didn't advance to the finals, understandable. What was not understandable was the slow judging that forced my entire team to wake up at the crack of dawn just in case we advanced.
And one final thought on WoTC in general, no dice roll/prize give away at your exhibition hall booth? This was a GenCon tradition, I know people that go to GenCon just for that, and we were all sorely dissapointed this year. Lame!
This was my first D&D Championship, although one of my teammates had been to the 9 previous ones (and this was the first time he'd advanced to the finals).
The comment about judges and maps seems to me to be quite valid, and it's one that I brought up with my teammates. Ultimately, the situation was one where the DM having to *draw* the map wound up being something of a *benefit* to the players in such a group rather than a detriment.
You have 4 hours to complete the mod. I don't think anyone in any of the rounds actually completed all of the encounters in a mod; I believe that most of them completed all but the last encounter and wound up in the last one (if they did well). I heard one group actually completed the entire mod in the semifinals, but I don't know if that was apocryphal.
Given then that the secondary criteria for victory was the number of healing surges spent by a team (after the "soft" criteria of sportsmanship, teamwork, roleplaying and the like), this means that the less time a group spends in the last encounter (which was the hardest), the less chance they have to take damage and the less likely they are to spend healing surges beyond what other folks need to spend to get to the beginning of that encounter.
Two out of the three judges we had drew maps on battlemats. The third judge had dungeon tiles, but these tiles he had pre-baggied and set out as we played.
Now, all of my judges were good judges--I rarely have anything bad to say about these folks; they volunteer their time and in general are very good at what they do. This timing issue, however, leads groups that (presuming they can get to the last encounter) take longer to get there to have a slight advantage.
The biggest problem I had, though, was the scoring and qualifications in the first place. My team had qualified (or so we thought!) at pre-Qualifier 6. We had been under the impression that the top 3 teams from two sites (and the sites were my store and the San Diego Comic Con) would advance to the semifinals. We wound up showing up for the prequalifier round *anyway*, intending to play without being scored so that we could experience playing the characters in-game and not be at a disadvantage against others in the semi's. As it turns out, however, the criteria I had gotten via email was wrong and we didn't pre-qualify. No matter, we wound up getting to the semi-'s of our own accord.
The debacle with the timing of the posting of the final round information was ridiculous. The results weren't posted until about 7:00AM, an hour before posted start time. I had people on my team who wanted to go out to late events the night before, and people who wanted to schedule things for Sunday, but had to hold off because they didn't want to have to cancel/didn't want to have no sleep.
As for the prizes: they were fine. I say "fine" because, well, they weren't anything *special*. I was hoping for a plaque or a trophy or a certificate or something, or a signed copy, or one of the Deluxe book sets they're coming out with. As it was we got a stack of Wizards product not unlike the ones that the RPGA judges got for running games at GenCon. If this is supposed to be the Big Kahuna of D&D games, then I would think that the prizes would be more, I dunno, neat. The top team did get an IPod Nano...I suppose what I'm saying is, I'm not begrudging the *value* of the prizes so much as their *nature*.
I was also in the 3 dragon ante tourney (got 4th), but they didn't have enough coins. All the players had to get out pens and write on the coins, haha. Then to make matters worse, at the final table the judge called time too early (he gave us 30 mins instead of 1hr 30 mins) and it took a long time to convince him that he was wrong. Some of the players had thrown their cards down on the table (face up). Eventually he let us resume play, which caused the game to be won by someone else, what a debacle!
Kind of a supply versus demand thing there I'd imagine. People actually did sign up to try and let you actually play at the games, so please do be a little considerate.
Some valid complaints here though, there is no reason it should have taken so long to get the results.
What are you guys talking about? They took all of the skilled and professional DM's that wanted to run it who signed up. Once both of them were ready go the RPGA had to get people to DM for the rest of the tables. ;)
Kind of a supply versus demand thing there I'd imagine. People actually did sign up to try and let you actually play at the games, so please do be a little considerate.
Some valid complaints here though, there is no reason it should have taken so long to get the results.
I don't want anyone to think I am looking down on the judges or the tremendous effort they put in. Nor, in fact, do I have any problem at all with the (general) organizers; Conrad and many others were quite helpful.
No, my problems are with (a) the standardization of running the event (either give all the judges pre-printed maps, or tiles bagged up with minis, or nothing at all--the tiles/minis thing should be easy because all the new RPGA modules have a list of all the tiles and all the minis necessary); (b) customer service in terms of scoring the final (should've been up at 12AM or so on Thursday; the last semifinal round started at 7PM that evening); and (c) the Wizards website updating team and speed of results for the pre-qualifiers (the same thing, really, but a small complaint at that.
It is the responsibility of the tournament organizer (i.e. WotC/RPGA) to provide the necessary materials to the judges in order to provide a fair and even experience, and they obviously failed in that. AT THE VERY LEAST they should have provided the Judges with pre-printed/assembled maps of each encounter (be it on paper or with super-glued Dungeon Tiles) and the appropriate minis for each monster and character.
Then those all went away.
Very disappointing. I hope they return.
Kind of a supply versus demand thing there I'd imagine. People actually did sign up to try and let you actually play at the games, so please do be a little considerate.
Some valid complaints here though, there is no reason it should have taken so long to get the results.
Yes, I appreciate the volunteers very much, but it doesn't look like they got enough support from the RPGA. Both DMs we had this year were actually really good. The problem is, the dungeon tiles slow down even the good DMs.
I realize a dnd tourney is a hard thing to make "fair", but some things towards that effort are very simple and cheap. Give the DMs rolled up, printed maps, or pre-draw the maps on paper using crayon or marker (like our 2nd DM did, which saved us 20 mins right there). That guy rocked the house, he had a freaking EASEL whiteboard to track initiative, its a shame we didn't advance, his organization gave us a big boost.
So yes, very many thanks to DMs and volunteers, but the RPGA should take a harder look at the tourney, it all seemed haphazard to me. My wife's team got 2nd in NASCRAG, a (puzzle/roleplaying/almost no fighting dnd tournament), they had the results within 30 minutes of each round. Granted, I can't stand NASCRAG, I did it last year, no thx. =)
I'd also like to note that this year's World Wide D&D Gameday totally had packets for judges that included miniatures, dice, as well as a premade map for the whole adventure. Something could have at least be attempted for that.
Was there an entry fee for this thing? Was there a large grand prize for first place?
So, this being the case I asked the head judge how we could possibly have maxed on every other scorecard criteria and beat the winning team in healing surges, but not placed in the top 3. He told me that they put things on the scorecard that don't matter "just to throw you off". He also told me there are many things that do matter that aren't on the scorecard, and he said he couldn't tell me what those were. I asked him what place we were in, and he couldn't tell me. He said "probably 4th or 5th, you were very close". So we have a tournament where the winning conditions are completely unknown, everything is executed and planned poorly, and there is no accountability or audit potential for huge mistakes.
If it took them 8 hours to judge the semifinals, and they judged the finals in about 10-15 minutes while we waited at our tables, why should we believe they didn't make a huge mistake in the judging? Maybe they just lied to cover up the oversight?
I also agree that all the prizes other than the iPod weren't special at all this year. Last year I placed 2nd and received a load of books and minis, a bunch of 4th ed that is still coming as it is released, and was given playtesting permission for 4th ed. 1st place was the same, plus a trophy.
This will be the last open I participate in, and probably my last GenCon, since it is the main reason I attend the convention.
I can understand that GenCon had issues this year and Wizards was unsure of the outcome but you still should have known that everything would potentially work out and have the preparedness as if there was no problem. Even if they didn't make GenCon Wizards could have still had this event as another game day to inaugurate the Living Forgotten Realms. Just a disappointment.
We thought we'd won the thing as well. As far as I can tell, scoring per round is based on healing surges, how far you've gotten (how many encounters completed), how many people died, and some "soft" criteria (like Sportsmanship, Tactics, and Roleplaying?), rated as "Excellent/Good/Fair/Poor".
The winning team was an alternate qualifier for the final round, which means they bollixed the semi-finals.
The only thing I can think of for their victory conditions are: 1) they got better scores on the "soft" criteria; 2) the organizers placed a heavier weight on individual free-form judge commentary than the secondary "hard" criteria of healing surges spent; and/or 3) their score on the qualifying round was higher than the top two teams *AND* higher enough that it outweighed their performance in the semi-final round compared to the other winning teams.
I'm not contesting the results. In that sense, I'm not a sore winner at all.
Unlike other competitive events that offer prizes of this nature, the D&D Open's scoring system has always been pretty unknown. When I told a friend that we'd taken third I was asked, "So how exactly do you WIN a game with no victory conditions?"
Prize support was, for third place:
1 Against the Giants Booster
1 D&D Minis Starter Set
1 Core Rulebook Set
1 Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide
1 Halls of the Giant King Dungeon Tiles
1 Character Record Sheets
1 Thunderspire Labyrinth
1 Pyramid of Shadows
As far as I could see, second got the same thing but 4 boosters; and 1st got the same thing but 6 boosters plus an Ipod Nano plus a copy of Richard Baker's Swordmage in hardcover.
I would've preferred less in the way of Wizards product and more in the way of cool stuff, like minis repaints or RPGA cards. At the least, the books could've all been signed by the developers--they were there signing books anyway. And a trophy doesn't seem like too much to ask for.
I didn't play in the Championship to get these prizes; as a game store owner I can get them pretty easily (and in fact, winning them with my team--my customers!--I'm winding up losing money that they would've spent on the items in my store!!) I won for bragging rights, some small measure of fame, and in the hopes I'd get something neat and unique.
In terms of D&D Game Day, yes, the packages were much better put together. GMs got the adventure, maps, and bags of minis; and the PCs got minis to play in the tournament.
The total cost to participate in the Championship was $6 in tickets.
I don't want to sound like sour grapes here, or like a "sore winner". I certainly got my $6 worth in *entertainment value alone* for the sessions played. The thing is, the D&D Championship should be as big of a deal as the D&D Minis Championship, and they REALLY had their crap together. Hell, they had coverage on the Wizards website for every round, with pictures and everything. The D&D Championship doesn't have ANYTHING up on the website for the tournament.
For the curious, by the way, the modules are downloadable and runnable in standard RPGA play now. I've grabbed 'em and read 'em and was fascinated by the things we missed as a team, and how differently--and horribly wrong--things could've gone had we screwed up.
One thing I found interesting about that, in particular, is that there seemed to be two different qualifying round modules--one for Thursday and one for Friday, perhaps? The one we went through involved a temple followed by the Master of Beasts in a dungeon; the other one which we didn't play involved a trip through a forest filled with outdoor encounters. (I don't want to give too much away.) Did anyone play in the latter one?
The other thing about these rounds is that they seem to be pretty detailed with roleplaying and interludes, and plot elements which are spiffy and require attention to detail. As a tabletop game, I would love to go through these modules. I'm not sure about their suitability, however, for a competitive round; with a 4-hour time limit the pressure is on to get as many encounters done as possible. I think I'd prefer either (A) no time limit and a criteria based on how good the PCs did in the encounter; or (B) a time limit but a set of encounters based entirely on combat similar to the Dungeon Delves but on a larger scale. It would be trivial, given the popularity of the Delves, to run a Championship based on how far a group could get before being eliminated (rather than how far a group could get before time ran out).
Our group advanced to the final round, although like everyone else, we had to get up before 7:00am on Sunday to discover this little bit of information. However, to me, this was less bothersome than sitting and doing nothing in the middle of a TIMED EVENT while our DM erased the vinyl battlemat then spent another 10 minutes drawing the map for the next encounter. It was even more painful to watch as the DM at the table next to us layed down a (beautifully drawn) map and began setting out minis and reading the flavor text, while our DM fanned the battlemap to dry it before he could even begin drawing the next encounter. The map for the third encounter (the ruins of the city street) was so hastily and badly drawn that I didn't even know what some of the lines on the map represented. "These red smudges represent fire, and this is grass. No, you can't move there, that's the wall of a building!"
If every team doesn't have predrawn maps, then no team should have predrawn maps. Duh! I mean, how many Olympic events do you think could be won by a team that had to wait for their equipment to arrive WHILE THE CLOCK WAS RUNNING!
This is the D&D Championship for Pete's sake!
I consider this to be the premier event for Dungeons & Dragons, but it was organized like an afternoon pick-up game.
The D&D Game Day event held at my hobby shop was free and I got to keep the mini of my character and some dungeon tiles. The D&D Championship Event cost $6 and all I got was a bad taste in my mouth.
Both of my DMs were professional and I felt neitehr of them was trying to give my team a raw deal. However, I did notice that simple things were ruled differently at different tables. Once example was the push provided by "Thunderwave". One DM said if it is used the monsters must move all 4 squares (if possible) and the other said I choose how many to move them from 0 to 4. Another was "Hunter's Quary" one DM said it applied to the critical hit as full damage the other said it was considered part of the "extra dice" like a vicious weapon's extra damage.
The maps one DM drew were easier to read than the others. As a result we spent some time thinking a door was in one place rather than where it actually was.
Did we have fun? Absolutely. Was it worth complaining to somebody about? Not at the time. But seeing so many other people had similar issues I suppose it may be time to add my comments to the need for consistency perhaps the solution will be to run the championship on the DDI gametable.
1: DMs should be supplied with ALL the maps and the proper figurines...as much as I like Eating the Starburst that represent that Kua-Tua when we will him..there is something that is more enjoyable to having the actual figurine ya know...And the maps...jeez..some pple had really nice real tiles makes...we had some paper unfinished maps that the DM actually finished as he placed it (thus loosing lots of time...im looking at you Semi-Final DM...) Some DMs weren't familiar with some of the rules, and Our 2 american teammates knew the rules far better then the DMs in some cases...
2: The scoring...as it was pointed out.we had 37 Healing surge remaining..and we were an alternate team (2nd alternate) .. I've been informed that the scoring is handled by a law firm, and that it's kept secret because it would be too easy to have some RPGA judge and DMs influence the scoring. I know that we really had LOTS of fun, laughed all the way, and I believe every DM really enjoyed being at our table. (after we drove 15 hours to be sitting at that table..winning or not we were happy). I think most team reached the final encounter, the Emperor. On our table, we dished out roughly round 275 HP damage before time was out, and our DM told us we nearly bloodied him..maybe that counts. Nobody died, nobody was dropped below 0. We were lucky on the Fire Snake spell...he circled round the top part of the room, never really moving into a hindering position for us. On the first round, our Reynard (the Tank Warrior), moved and Threw the Dragonfly cutter at the Emperor..rolling a natural 20 and dishing out a quick 52 damage, followed by a Automatic Crit Curse (thanks to the Prophecy of Doom spell used by the Wizard) to dish out another 60 something ...
So bottom line is...nobody knows how it is scored..so everybody does what he think its right..and in the end..not knowing the score is fair for everyone
3: The reason the scoring of the semi-finals takes a long time is easy...the last semi-finals finishes at midnight on saturdays..and i guess that the lawyers scoring them are asleep..thus waiting on the morning to release the teams... its a pain..but i can live with that.
4: THe prize...here is what we got
6 Booster
3 Core book
1 Forgotten Realms CS
1 FR Novel (spellmage i think)
2 Quest
3 Tile set
1 Character Sheet pack
1 MIniature Starter Set
1 Ipod Nano 8 G
and thats it... Its a really nice prize BUT
A Free badge for gencon 2009 to defend our title would've been nice
A Trophy or commemorative plate to show-off to friends back home woulda been nice
A ''SIGNED'' copy of Baker'S book would've been nice
All and all, i think the Open this year..much like 4 edition, needs polishing, but it is still a very grueling competition. DMs are of different skills and severity..but your get a new DM every round....and like all our Dice Rolls...Chance and Luck has a lot to do with something being either Very Easy..or very Hard.
Damien
Team 3 fifth Canadian
Winning Team of the 2008 Championship
The D&D *Minis* championships had 85 total players. The standings (admittedly, a lot easier to compile than the ones run by the RPGA cuz the DCI software does it) were posted rapidly.
Each day they had pictures and profiles up of various players with interview questions for them.
The D&D Championship Results haven't even been posted yet. Hell, the Qualifier 6 results were never posted (okay, so it's a bit of a personal gripe, but still).
The D&D Championship had 19 teams and 3 alternates qualifying for the semi-finals from Thursday's qualifiers, and 19 teams and 3 alternates qualifying from Friday's qualifiers (if memory serves). Not counting the groups that prequalified and participated in the last semifinal round on Saturday, that's 220 players who made it into the semi-finals, not even counting those who didn't make it to semis. Compared to 85 total D&D Minis players, I'd say that warrants a bit more coverage, no?
Which game makes more money for Wizards and has more players?
1. The judges work very hard to try and make sure that every encounter is run the same. There is an email discussion list where we would methodically look through each encounter and discuss tactics and what if's. Also, there is (at least, there used to be) a briefing before each round to discuss the module, and point out any last minute discrepencies, for judges to ask questions, and to clear up any ambiguities from previous rounds. At the same time, judges will also make mistakes and, being human, will not always be able to run something perfectly.
2. I think there has been a cutback in the amount of resources given to the Open judges from Hasbro. Three years ago, we had nice pre-printed maps & minis, all ready to go. Two years ago, we got Dungeon Tiles & minis. then last year, just Dungeon Tiles and we had to supply our own minis. Also, please keep in mind that unforseen things happen (warehouse mis-ships supplies, supplies get stolen when nobody is looking). I know the Open staff does the best they can with what they're given (up late evenings sorting out minis & tiles to try and make things as smooth as possible during the day).
3. The scoring process is still a mystery to me. I've had tables in the past where 3 PC's were dead and just started the final encounter that advanced, and tables with no PC deaths that were almost through the final encounter that didn't. A lot of it has to do I think with how the other teams in your round played. I really hope they are not putting too much weight on soft data (how well they role-played, teamwork, etc.) because that's too subjective from one to another. Also, being the first Open under 4E, it is possible that some things they wanted to use to measure success (healing surges) quite possibly were not as good an indicator as they thought based on other feedback.
4. The new 4th edition rules have been out for what, 2-3 months? To become experts at rules as complex as D&D takes a lot more than a couple of months in my opinion. When 3.0 came out, it took me the better part of a year before I was comfortable enough with them to want to run anything more than a friendly game at our LGS, much less the premier tournament in the world. I personally don't think it was enough time to learn all the nuances for anyone.
As to what happened this year, I can't say (having not even gone to Gen Con). But, please remember that just about everyone you see working the Open are volunteers who are giving up a significant portion of the convention (some give up the entire convention) to try and provide an enjoyable slot of gaming for you. Are they perfect? No. And, when things don't go as planned, they generally try their best with the cards they've been dealt.
Eric
I also have no problem with the volunteers running the HQ. All of them were as helpful as they could be given the constraints of their positions.
No, my problem is with the support and organization provided to the judges (and the volunteers), as mentioned above. As cool as it is that some judges went the extra mile to have pre-prepared maps, dungeon tiles, minis, etcetera, either all the judges should have them or none of them should. Maintaining that standard isn't a commentary on the suitability of a particular judge but rather a commentary on the method of ensuring a fair and balanced competition by the tournament organizers.
Well...i SERIOUSLY think that the Minis are making A LOT more money the D&D...think about it...you bought what....3 books...90$...probably a few figurine too cause your a gaming addict..so maybe 60$ of figurine....thats 150$ ...Now..compare a Mini player...he's buying box and crates of the thing...i mean.I have purchased myself in figurines since they started like more then 1000$ ...and i've bought maybe what...250$ worth of books?...yes the D&D takes a lot more skills and time investement then the minis...but minis are much more lucrative...jeez..they Each mini probably cost .25 cents to make...8 per box..that 2$ ..maybe another dollar for box and shipping..so each mini box cost like 3$..and sells for 15$....each book cost 35$..probably cost 10 to 15$ to print and ship...and you only buy 1 book of the same printing...but you can buy 20 mini box and still not get what you really want !
Speaking as a retailer, D&D products (books) sell a great deal more than D&D minis products. While D&D minis players buy a lot of product as D&D minis players, the majority of D&D minis sales are to people who use the minis in their RPG games. As well, the majority of D&D players who buy the books don't buy the minis (or don't buy many of them, if they do).
I actually brought up the dungeon tile/predrawn map issue with one of the HQ guys and he seemed genuinely concerned, but mentioned there was nothing they could do about it (if indeed something needed to be done) until next year.
Who knows, maybe we are helping the RPGA with threads like this, as it provides them ammunition to show to the Hasbro executives (or whoever controls the budget for the open) to get more resources for the following year.
We entered the final round seeded 5th and drove our way through the finals with flawless tactics, easily defeating the first three encounters. When time ran out, we had just bloodied the final boss, the emperor, and had 36 healing surges left (recorded - though we're pretty sure we had more - one player who spent 0 surges had his "surge chips" knocked over into the small collection of spent surges - under 10)
While playing, we noticed that some tables had two DMs running tables (one assisting with iniative) to help speed things along. We also noticed that some DMs skipped boxed text entirely and jumped from combat to combat. Our DM, while a really nice guy and clearly passionate about DMing, happened to be the author of the module and insisted on taking his time, reading all of the boxed text, and ensuring that we experience the story behind the adventure. While this is great, it doesn't belong in the open where the objective is to win.
Furthermore, after the second encounter, our DM said "you guys are doing great" and took a 10-minute break. He also ran monsters much more slowly than our DM in the semi-finals. This kind of inconsistency is the reason I left the Open with such a bad taste in my mouth.
It also baffles me that our team got farther than the team that won, had one fewer healing surge remaining (probably because we fought the Emperor for a longer period of time), and yet placed outside of the top 3.
But, please remember that just about everyone you see working the Open are volunteers who are giving up a significant portion of the convention (some give up the entire convention) to try and provide an enjoyable slot of gaming for you. Are they perfect? No. And, when things don't go as planned, they generally try their best with the cards they've been dealt.
Please excuse my ignorance as I have never been to GenCon, but who gets the 6$ per player fee (per round?) if everyone involved is a volunteer?
Please excuse my ignorance as I have never been to GenCon, but who gets the 6$ per player fee (per round?) if everyone involved is a volunteer?
I don't know the breakdown/details/split, but it seems part of the money goes to GenCon and part goes back to the RPGA/WotC.
Plus, while we're all volunteers, there's still costs for having us there. If you judge 4 slots, you get a free badge (admittedly, not a bank breaker). If you judge 7+ slots you get your share of a hotel room paid for (a room can hold 2, 3, 4, or in once case at Origins* 6 people).
*this was largely due to a miscommunication, and since two of them brought their own inflatable bed, it wasn't a big deal. At least, not to me, and I'm one of the people who was in that room. It makes for a good story though.
I can understand not giving out score details beforehand because of hidden rooms or items, but there is no good reason for refusing to show how it is scored, or at least what each score was after the event has concluded.
I would be willing to bet money on the fact that # of healing surges remaining was one of the items that did not count against your score. It just doesn't make sense - healing surges are there to be used and help cover the "luck buffer." A team that spent more healing surges likely had worse luck with die rolls rather than necessarily "played worse" than a team that spent fewer surges.
However, a lot of the other scoring criteria are a mystery to me still.
If we asume that
1) the scoring is fair, in that it is handled by a firm outside the RPGA and by lawyers and such.
and
2) Logically, your doing the best you can to win this, and play your game at the best of your abilities....Thus if you'd know how it is scored..you wouldn't play otherwise, cause your already doing your best.
My point is, pple don't want to know the scoring because they want to know how to win...but because you want to know WHY you didn't win...So if your doing your best, and you don't win...it simple because someone's doing it better then you. What is it that makes them better is the secret. I don't even know myself what I did better to deserve the 1st place. I know we played a hell of a game, finished the 1st encounter within 18 minutes (yes...we skipped it and walked right off the map). We had an awesome amounts of crits, we had an incredible team chemistry. Everyone nailed their role. We challenged the DMs on a good number of rules and mostly won out in our argument. we didnt bicker among us and had tons of fun...
But if we assume that the judges are doing the scoring fair play, the scoring method doesn't matter, cause your already doing your best. Whats the point of keeper healing surge for extra points if a player dies...you use them when you need thats it..If you're wasting them, then your not doing it right..if your cheap and keeping it..then your not doing it right either...Taking damage doesn't make a team good or not..so I do believe healing surge didn't really count. My opinion is that what counts the most is Teamwork, death of players, and up to what point you've been through the modules
In the first round on Friday, we had the Judge with the crayon colored maps and the white-board-on-easel. He was a great Judge, and while I had a complaint against him at the time, I don't remember it now. As I mentioned we played on Friday, so we had the outdoor encounter of doom, with the shambling mounds and vine horrors. We finished the round having just started the following encounter with the trolls, very light on healing surges (I had 0 left).
In the semi's on Saturday, our Judge had the encounters pre-rendered on battlemaps, and quickly made the swaps between them, but was slow putting the monsters out, and we lost at least 20 minutes to him going to the 'council' for answers to problems that came up. We wasted a lot of time on the first encounter, but cut our losses and got out with less casualties than other groups, I imagine. We felt we ended better than we did on Friday, but it wasn't quite good enough as we...
Found out we were 2nd alternates on Sunday morning. We were disappointed but happy with how we had played, and hung out just in case. I was looking forward to doing some delving (which we never got a chance to do till now), and hitting the exhibit hall at 10. I was quite surprised, and somewhat disappointed, when we got seated after two teams didn't show. We spent two rounds on the first encounter as we ran for the exit, as nothing in the story, or on the board, suggested that the encounter was anything but a bump in the road. The second encounter, on the boat, was dangerous, but we handled it without too much trouble (man that captain and slavemaster were beasts). As we entered the city I made a big mistake by not casting Resistance on Reynard the first round, but with that on the second round and some well placed (imo, I was the wizard after all) bursts from the wizard, and of course crits from Kiva, we got through the encounter spending very few surges. The Labyrinth was a non-issue, and aside from a minor quibble about grabbing a swarm the Emperor's room was actually rather easy. As my buddy Damian said we had the Emperor down to nearly half before time was called, and it was just a matter of rounds before he was dead.
Talking to the other teams shortly afterwards I'm not sure why we won either. We were damn happy that we did, considering events leading up to that point, but I know I'd like to know why. On the other hand, not knowing, and just playing the best you can, is probably a far better option than people playing the scoring to their best advantage, to the detriment of the game.
We specifically avoided using healing surges because they were on the scorecard. We also ran past the first encounter. We skipped past anything that we could find a way to skip past. This method hasn't failed us in previous D&D Opens.
A tournament must have objective scoring and goals. You can't place people according to a score and not be able to tell them that score, or even what place they were in. As far as any of us know, they rolled a d12 to pick the winners. As far as any of us know, they disqualified teams with fat people. As far as any of us know, they took points away for wearing a blue shirt.
That aside, I'm in complete agreement that there should be a completely objective method of scoring. I fail to see how this year's scoring was necessarily any less objective than previous years, all I see is that we all put a high value on surges remaining. I imagine things like the results of the skill challenges as well as how we accomplished the encounters figured their way in (freeing the bear or not, for example).
In previous Opens did you know the details of all scoring? Did you manipulate the system then? Maybe I've been out of the loop too much, and maybe this is why we didn't place last year.
Aside from it being 4th edition, and the issues with table differences, what's different this year?
How far dead did the other teams have the Emperor? The couple we talked to had barely scratched him.
Our Judges last year didn't even track the number of action points we spent.
edit:
Scoring based on the number of resources you were given and didn't use seems rather silly to me.
When it was all over, other teams were talking like we did really great because we were farther than in the last encounter than other teams....however, we didn't place. My question the entire time was how can a team who gets farther in the module than another team, doesn't place higher than them. As I recall from our discussion, the 3rd place team had just started the last encounter, the judge was just drawing it...it just shows you that there are a lot of other criteria used to judge how well a team does than just how far did you get and how well did you play tactically...
This was my fourth gen con open (I'll never be able to call it the championships) and it was a downer to see that the judges just were not provided the same resources to use...probably a money thing with the economy and what not..my only hope is that someone with the RPGA reads our messages and takes them to heart...any other tournament I've been in outlines at least how some things are scored so that all players understand...this is the only tournament I've played in that you walk away with more questions than answers
1: Judges. Don't get me wrong, I love judges. I think they are God's gift to gamers and have seen my share of Judge-only conventions and know how hard it is. BUT, there just is not a good consistency between them. It's a crap shoot on if you'll get a good judge or a bad judge. We've filed "official complaints" about horrible judges in the past, hoping, if nothing else, to get them removed from judging a Championship series! This was five years ago. Ever since then we have received the same judge twice (whom we quickly asked for a replacement), and still saw the judge judging the finals this year.
This gets worse when the judge doesn't know the rules for fourth edition. Hint: If your team placed and used a tactic of "drawing Attacks of Opportunity" away from other players, and the judge doesn't know that doesn't work anymore, you got away with a big bonus. It sounds like people had worse judges then us this year, but I guarantee we had the worst in years past. For instance: A puzzle has a 20 sequence pattern, but the judge messes up the first pattern... Wow how much time we lost on that!
I feel for everyone that has had to deal with these issues in the past and know precisely what it is like.
2: Some transparency in scoring. Will it really hurt if we know how we lost points? Because honestly, we were crushing the finals, inflicting a good deal of damage on the final boss, and didn't place? Did we miss something? Was the judge just annoyed that we requested he move faster? Was there something subjective in the ruling? Was there a role playing score? (there was one year) How about those "skill challenges"? Some tables were able to all assist on one skill and simply keep using that skill over with a +10 bonus. Our table had to push to find out we were even in a skill challenge! (A horrible mechanic by the way)
And using surges as a way of determining scores would be ridiculous. I'd take it as a tie-breaker (which I was told it was), but not for score. They exist for a reason.
Over all I always enjoy the Open... sorry, Championship. It is fun and competitive, rewarding tactically sound players. Every year I am disappointed by not knowing why we lost or won and always worrying over the quality of the judge we get. (In previous years all finals tables received two judges, a main and a co-pilot to keep track of hit points and look up any murky rules questions. It also helped to mitigate extremely poor judges.)
I understand the lack of resources this year as the RPGA was thrown under the wagon by a late coming, barely coming Wizards to the convention, but wish they would take player feedback a bit more seriously.
Woo... rant over.
-Guan
...and we came out of the round using only 2 healing surges. While we didn't avoid combat at any point, knowing that healing surges "counted" for something changed our tactics significantly. Having seen in a prequalifier round that the team that placed 1st in that round did so by not entering the final encounter (where we had several party members die), our tactics were colored by that as well.
This is where the scoring thing gets confusing to me. You have the following possible cases:
1) Scoring in the final round is based on how far you got into the last encounter. By this criteria, we shouldn't have placed.
2) Scoring in the final round is based on how many encounters you have *COMPLETED*, and what resources (surges) you have remaining when time is called. By this criteria, we should have placed first.
3) Scoring in the final round is based on a combination of #1 and how far you got in the Semi-Final Round, in which case, we shouldn't have placed but neither should the 1st place team have placed, as they were alternates for the final round.
4) Scoring in the final round is based on a combination of #2 and the result of #2 within the semi-final round. By this criteria, we probably should have placed, but again the first-place team shouldn't have placed first.
I don't think (but then again, I don't know) that it would be possible to include performance in the qualifier rounds fairly in the model. This is because there were two different qualifier modules with the 9th level pregens at GenCon and there were 6 different pre-qualifier modules run at various locations around the country with different pregens each time (and some of them were 3.5E).
I was told that the scoring sheets basically asked how many characters survived, how many surges they had remaining at the end of the encounter, and which encounters they completed. Those were the "hard" criteria that were used. There was also a "Good/Bad" "soft" rating for teamwork and sportsmanship. And of course the judges could make comments.
Our judge for one round said that we had done well; when asked afterwards if running through an encounter that we had stayed to fight out would've counted as beating it, the answer was "No." I know that another group said (I think of the first encounter in the final round) that they beat the giants encounter by running past it without engaging. I know that the judge we asked in the final round if that would count as beating the encounter said that they could not answer that question yes or no, and we had to make our own decision on the matter.
How they score this thing is a mystery to me. I just know that we did our best and were rewarded for it. I think, reading what other people have written here, that so did everyone else! A clearly-delineated scoring system can only benefit the Championship experience. Everyone should be on a level playing field and everyone should know what is expected of them. I would be fine knowing that "soft criteria" are important if I knew what those soft criteria were judged on. Our team, training for the event, made a point to study the characters and get the roleplaying stuff down for them.
Not knowing these things makes people who don't win bitter and people who *DO* win ultimately quite uncertain of how they *DID* win when reviewing the after-action reports of other teams, as I am.
I understand the lack of resources this year as the RPGA was thrown under the wagon by a late coming, barely coming Wizards to the convention, but wish they would take player feedback a bit more seriously.
-Guan
See, this is pretty much where I've got little sympathy. If anything, the RPGA should have been *MORE* prepared for the Championship this year than they were in earlier years, because they'd been running the Pre-Qualifier rounds since D&D Experience in FEBRUARY. They knew there was going to be a Championship, and they built up a lot of hype about it. To present the thing they way they did is not exactly professional.
On a personal note to Chris Tulach, Skerrit, and all the other people who hopefully will be reading this:
Guys, I don't mean to beat up on you here, really I don't. I like you and think you're doing your best. I just know that if I ran events at my store like the Championship was run, I would lose customers big-time. When in my store I was running a Magic tournament and my air conditioning went out and they were uncomfortable, even though it wasn't my fault I went out and got them all ice cream. It didn't fix their tournament, and didn't make them any more comfortable, but I kept my customers. When other things go wrong with my tournaments in the store, I alter my procedures (ignoring bad suggestions and disgruntled customers) accordingly to improve the experience. Hopefully, you will take these comments in the spirit they are meant: from people who love the experience of the D&D competition and who want to see it improve.
How do the rest of you feel about 4th in this context?
First, 4th ed is new. Almost every table got away with murder on things they shouldn't have. For every mistake a judge made, you got a gift in something else. It's just that people have a tendency to not know, or not care when they do good, and concentrate on the bad.
Second, Were you to trim the judges to those who were 100% up on the rules, ran quickly, and never had to pee. It's likely there would be about 8 tables a slot. If you think that the judges are of poor quality and don't want to see the number of tables reduced, your only valid option is to start judging. I encourage you to do so.
Third, RPGA has a budget. It's X big. From my (non-important) POV, the open seats maybe 600-900 people total at GenCon. That's far below any of the other events in the long run. If I'm going to treat my people right, I'm going to spend the money on the events where I have more people. The costs of tiles and minis are extremely high, both in $ and manpower to prepare. So much so that the total cost of providing tiles and minis for the open would exceed the total cost of every other RPGA event (including the Delve) at that con by a large margin.
Every judge you saw with a drawn map, or laminated map, or dungeon tiles, or candy figs, or real figs, or anything else. Outside of possibly figs and tiles they got through judging rewards (where they took their gifts for judging and instead of getting things for themselves got them for the players) paid for that out of their own pocket. Some judges spent over $100 on things to prepare for the con. That's $100 they spent of their own money to try to give the players a good time. They could just as easily have thrown down pocket lint on the back of a newspaper.
D&D is random. It's supposed to be active and random. I'm not sure people's desire for a competitive classic game is even conducive to the intent of D&D. I don't disagree that the scoring might need improvement, but at the end of the day, there is only so much granularity you can get in a 4 encounter module where they've stripped so much out of it to "make it fair" that it's basically down to a few chunks of boxtext and 4 combats. Especially a 4 encounter module that nobody actually finished.
I'm sure that the lessons that Greg M. and the rest learned from this season of the open will go to improving next season, assuming all the whining and complaining doesn't drive anymore people away.
On judges...
I don't see any posts here criticizing the judges. Perhaps some were pointing out that they didn't think their judge understood the 4E rules as well as they could have, but that's not a criticism so much as it is a statement of fact. Personally, I don't care about that; that's to be expected. The only criticism--a valid criticism--of the judges isn't of the *JUDGES* but of the support and organization involved in the mapping inequalities. I don't fault judges who didn't have preprepared maps or preprepared minis. I fault the TOs.
Third, RPGA has a budget. It's X big. From my (non-important) POV, the open seats maybe 600-900 people total at GenCon. That's far below any of the other events in the long run. If I'm going to treat my people right, I'm going to spend the money on the events where I have more people. The costs of tiles and minis are extremely high, both in $ and manpower to prepare. So much so that the total cost of providing tiles and minis for the open would exceed the total cost of every other RPGA event (including the Delve) at that con by a large margin.
This may have been important when the RPGA was a mostly-outside organization not run by Wizards. That's no longer the case.
Let me give you a picture. The Delve had something along the lines of 20 tables at the Con, and those tables came with pre-prepared tiles and minis. The Championship had about 25 tables, only slightly more than the Delve. The cost of a pack of Dungeon Tiles--RETAIL--is $9.95. The cost of the minis is negligible, because the Wizards folks don't need to pay for booster packs to get single minis out. (For that matter, so is the cost of the dungeon tiles). To make complete sets of minis and tiles for the adventures run costs Wizards man-hours, not product cost. The sole cost for Wizards of the Open that they cannot defray is the hotel & badge costs for their volunteer judges and, frankly, they would have to pay that *anyway*.
That being said, the Open *SHOULD* cost more than the other RPGA events at the Con. Those events--not being time competitive--don't require dungeon tile or minis support.
The idea that RPGA's budget is too small, however, is a valid one; and the argument then becomes that Wizards corporate should increase--even slightly--the budget for the Open. It really would not cost that much. I run a retail gaming store and I can provide better support for an event like the D&D Open myself, on a shoestring budget and with one person providing all the work.
Taking a look at support for other Wizards events--and by this I mean not Magic but Axis & Allies, past Dreamblade tournaments, Maple Story, and others, and the vast amounts of marketing dollars that have gone into those, one imagines that budgeting an additional, let's say, $1K into the Open wouldn't hurt them--and the PR that could come from it would HELP. You could even increase the price of the Open--as far as I am aware, every player at the Open was prepared to pay the $6 /per round/ we thought it would cost, but they only collected tickets once. I'm sure that had the prizes been announced and if they were more interesting (note I said "interesting", not "expensive"--if you did as much as simply promised the winners they would be playtesters for future Wizards products, you could increase attendance and fee by a factor of 2-3), you would have even more of a draw to spend money there.
Every judge you saw with a drawn map, or laminated map, or dungeon tiles, or candy figs, or real figs, or anything else. Outside of possibly figs and tiles they got through judging rewards (where they took their gifts for judging and instead of getting things for themselves got them for the players) paid for that out of their own pocket. Some judges spent over $100 on things to prepare for the con. That's $100 they spent of their own money to try to give the players a good time. They could just as easily have thrown down pocket lint on the back of a newspaper.
Once again, the problem isn't with the judges. I respect those that have prepared and spent their money on such things just as highly as I respect those that did not but were donating their time, which is even more valuable. My statement was never that those who didn't do so were bad. It was that the standard for the Open should be the lowest common denominator in terms of preparation time *because it is a timed event*. If you are not going to provide minis, tiles, or pre-printed maps, then in that case, none of the judges should be *allowed* to use their own home-brewed versions of same. I respect that they *WANT* to, but in the interests of providing a level field of competition, they *SHOULD NOT* do so.
D&D is random. It's supposed to be active and random. I'm not sure people's desire for a competitive classic game is even conducive to the intent of D&D. I don't disagree that the scoring might need improvement, but at the end of the day, there is only so much granularity you can get in a 4 encounter module where they've stripped so much out of it to "make it fair" that it's basically down to a few chunks of boxtext and 4 combats. Especially a 4 encounter module that nobody actually finished.
This argument is fine, but misplaced. If you want to make the case that there shouldn't be an Open in the first place, that's okay; but this isn't about that. That it's random is absolutely true and that's part of the charm--but that randomness is expressed adequately in the dice, the tactics, and other in-game elements. Outside of game elements that can be easily controlled should be easily controlled.
I'm sure that the lessons that Greg M. and the rest learned from this season of the open will go to improving next season, assuming all the whining and complaining doesn't drive anymore people away.
Dismissing this thread as "whining and complaining" is insulting and, moreover, detracting from the value of it as feedback to the RPGA. No one is faulting the judges. Perhaps we could have phrased our statements in a kinder manner--instead of "this is wrong", a nice "we would like to see these improvements". Most of the people posting here had fun--you have two *winning* teams with representatives here (including myself)--making comments about the Open. If the *WINNERS* are saying there were problems, well...let's hope there are some lessons learned here indeed, and perhaps next time, the Open will see those improvements implemented.
Almost every table got away with murder on things they shouldn't have. For every mistake a judge made, you got a gift in something else.
I'd disagree with this statement. We knew the rules and went from there. Wehn we did have an issue (such as an interrupt interrupting an interrupt interrupting an interrupt, the judges got together, conferred, and made what I deemed a correct ruling.
If you think that the judges are of poor quality and don't want to see the number of tables reduced, your only valid option is to start judging. I encourage you to do so.
Many of us do. Many of us are authors, judges, regional triads, co-authors, and a host of other things which we volunteer for the RPGA. That is what makes this so frustrating. We know how hard it is to pull off and know it can also be done better. Honestly, I can take everything in stride except for the non-transparency in how things are scored. An after action report on how a team lost or gained points would completely remove this complaint for me.
Third, RPGA has a budget. Some judges spent over $100 on things to prepare for the con.
Agreed. Each time anyone judges anywhere they do this and I am always thankful for and know tables are thankful to me when I provide them. However, last year and in previous year each table was provided standard tiles, minis, and utilities. This year every table was provided with a DM's screen. It seems the judges are supplied with items that are being released or have been released recently. Who supplied it in years past?
D&D is random. It's supposed to be active and random. I'm not sure people's desire for a competitive classic game is even conducive to the intent of D&D... Especially a 4 encounter module that nobody actually finished.
Randomness in dice roles and player personalities, not weather of not you can exploit your judge on a rule or get one that wastes a lot of time. One year, we had a judge that demanded they keep track of everyone's hit points... No other table did that and it caused a lot of lost time. That no one finished is a testament to the how the module was written, not the player's performance.
I'm sure that the lessons that Greg M. and the rest learned from this season of the open will go to improving next season, assuming all the whining and complaining doesn't drive anymore people away.
This is unfair. Most of this is constructive feedback and I would encourage it. To declare it as whining and complaining is just plain disingenuous.
I'm no one official for the con, but I can say that your comments and constructive criticism has been heard and is being discussed at least by the judge pool, so it is probably safe to say that the higher-ups are discussing it as well.
As a judge, I do my best to give my players a fair and enjoyable experience. I provide my own minis and tiles in an effort to make it feel more special. It has been my experience over the years that players are a fickle lot. Some teams really like the tiles and minis, others see them as a hinderance to their time. I spend time at home practicing the tile set-up in an effort to minimize the time I take doing it, but I prep twelve maps and can't have it all down every time. I have always felt that since it is common Championship knowledge that the judges are going to vary with maps and minis, then as a team the players - the ones who plan to win, at least - will have already taken this into consideration and be thinking of ways to better manage their own time at the table.
Many are the teams I have judged who did not think about what they want to do until I have called their name in initiative. Another two to ten minutes is lost while the player debates with their team what they should do. They finish their turn, the next player is called, and another ten minutes of debate ensues. I already know what the monsters are going to do because the adventure states their tactics, so I can prepare their next turns easily in this time. I have only ever been pressured once in my time as a judge to act, and that was because the team was whipping around the table making decisions on their own that best help the team as a whole instead of going into committee mode, and they used their time wisely by thinking about their next turn when everyone else was up.
Fourth edition is a lot easier for a Championship judge to run than 3rd in my opinion, as the stat blocks are far more intuitive. The tactics are laid out and their abilities are right in front of you, which keeps you focused on the battle instead of cross-referencing three books to figure out how the feat works with the attack/spell. It's all there, calculated out for you, all you have to do is roll the dice and perform three actions.
Initiative counts aren't that difficult to maintain either, and having used both methods of private tracking and public tracking, I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter much time-wise which as a judge that you use. We're talking negligible seconds here because again, players never seem to plan what they are going to do until their name is called by myself or their teammates.
As for scoring, I can't say anything. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't know how they compile the results. I fill out the form and hand it in. As a Championship judge, I personally don't want to know how they decide who advances and who doesn't, because that keeps me honest. That way no player can say that I screwed them on their scoring because I didn't like them or was out to get them. There isn't even a place for my name on the sheet and if the scorers wanted to find me, they would have to consult the mustering sheet with the team number to determine who judged that team.
Talking with the other judges, it seemed as though most (if not all) had passed the Master level of RPGA judge testing, but to be fair that was based on the third edition ruleset. I expect going forward Championship judges will be required to be Master level for Fourth, but don't quote me on it. A number of judges chose not to run Fourth edition, and there were some new judges in the pool.
Prize support I believe is whatever can be finagled out of the budget. I personally think there should be medals for the top three in addition to all the other sweet swag, but that's just me. In light of previous years the awards this year, while a big pile of stuff, boiled down to free product that the players likely already owned. I personally would have thought more unique prizes would have been provided, but I don't know how that is handled and so cannot really speak about it with any authority.
The support from WotC and the RPGA is something I won't comment on. I am personally satisfied with it, and I'll leave it at that.
You may notice a lot of "personally" and "in my opinion" in this post. That is because I want it understood that I am only speaking for myself from my own experience as a judge, and not representing anyone else in my comments. I want to give my own perspective, but don't want to speak on anyone's behalf or have my comments misconstrued as official, from-the-Championship-judges perspective.
Concerning the prizes. As the winning team, we got the Core Rulebooks...how obvious was it that we already had team! Seriously! i sold mine in under 2 minutes after the moment i knew I won! though i kept the nice box
A mdeal, or trophee would've been awesome! I mean right know, the results arn't even posted on the RPGA website! Aside from my own personal photos, There is no way of actually proving that we won! Though I took pictures of every single encounters!
All and all, it still is a nice competition!
I heard horror storys from other tables about unprepared judges and judges that didn't understand the rules and even judges that ran the encounters incorrectly but our judges over all 3 rounds were pretty good. All 3 had prepared maps and minis of some sort even if not the exactly correct ones and the final judges knew the rules cold (first round judge was a little iffy on the rules but we did okay). I have only two complaints about the Open the lack of information on who made the finals and the shut out on who placed where in the finals. Not getting the results till 7 am really put a damper on my Saturday night and Sunday con experience. Saturday night is the big community draft event for DDM a kind of big get to know everybody party and I had to leave early so I could get some sleep in case I advanced and Sunday is the day I usually run in an RPGA event or a last chance DDM event and I could do neither since I couldn't rule out the finals.
And while I was under no illusion I was going to make top 3 in the finals, we only made it to the 3rd encounter and I knew at least 3 teams made it to the 4th I would like to have known how well we did. I have never made it to the finals and was thrilled as heck to just get in so I wanted to see how we did for a team thrown together at the last minute. After the prizes were awarded and all Kudos were given ,CONGRADULATIONS to the top 3 teams WAY TO OWN THE EMPEROR, we wanted to know how well we did so we went up to the head judge,or whoever read the list and awarded the prizes, and asked about the rest of the teams and was told he only had top 3 so we wanted to know where we could find the rest of the list and were told that currently there was no list but one might be posted online at some unspecified future time if there was room in the article. We were kind of crushed is it really too much to ask to see where a team placed in the finals.
On a sidenote, yes I think the 4th edition ruleset was very very good for the D&D Open. 9th - 11th level characters using 3.5 rules would have been much slower paced.
I have to say the biggest issue I have with the Championship is a lack of standard training/quality amongst the DMs. You'd figure the Championship DMs would be more experienced, but it's like they take anyone willing to run a table.
Our first game was great, our DM was well-prepared, with maps ready and a good grasp of the rules. The time spent on the event was dedicated to the players actions and the running of the game itself, with very little time spent on other matters.
Our semi-final DM, however, was a complete wash. She had no grasp of the rules (no idea how Opportunity attacks work, no idea how movement worked) She made the players draw the maps based on vague descriptions ("There's an 8x8 room with another corridor kind of over there). One PC spent two rounds walking around searching for an exit INSIDE of the space between walls because the DM couldn't be bothered to even draw the map.
The worst came in our encounter. Enemies kept appearing on a map. We eventually found a hidden portal and entered (assuming it was a way out) and died. Turns out this was a the portal that the enemies were emerging from, but she never even bothered to describe this ("It's not my job to tell you how the monsters arrive). We filed an official complaint about the judge, but this lack of standards amongst judging is the worst thing for any "standardized" competition environment.
My group had her in round one. We spend the last hour and a half trying to kill ourselves in game.....and failed. And somehow were advanced to round 2.
Yay.
That means a lot that a WoTC staffer replied to this thread, I'm glad this discussion turned out to be a positive one.
On a sidenote, yes I think the 4th edition ruleset was very very good for the D&D Open. 9th - 11th level characters using 3.5 rules would have been much slower paced.
Off Topic:
I haven't played 4th ed. Do you beleive that 4th ed. would run significantly faster than 3.5 core rules only? Or is it all the expansions that slow 3.5 down? Long-to-short. Don't you think 4th will be much slower 3 years from now when that have 15 more books of rules to use?
On Topic:
I am also very pleased that WotC/RPGA is listening and making changes.
-Swiftbrook
However, I still believe that the Championship is better served by keeping the scoring secret. Knowing the scoring intrinsically changes how the game is played.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=16649020&postcount=3
-Some tables had shotgun GMs while others didn't because we were short-handed. I, for one, got one, but as I was losing my voice, it helped. We tried to get shotguns to those GMs who needed them, because we normally have each team shotgunned for the final round.
-Minis and maps were not given this year for a variety of reasons, which I don't even know all of.
-I can't comment on solutions to indivdual encounters by individual teams. Skipping the combat is certainly an option in the encounter you're discussing, but for some teams it may not be teneable. I know two of my teams had planned on it, but their initiative rolls boned them (I cut them off and they had to fight.)
-I also can't comment on individual style.
-The scoring is kept secret from even us, and always has been. So I cannot comment.
As you've seen, the WotC people are listening. They listen to us too. Things will be fixed.
Thanks for the feedback, folks. We have a lot of things I want to accomplish with next year's Championship... some were addressed in this thread, and others came to my attention while I was at the show. There will be improvements made to the Championship next year, particularly in the DM resource department and modifications made to scoring.
Thanks Tulach,
I'm glad someone has responded to our comments so I know that they weren't in vain. I always enjoy the championship each year but we all know that there have been sweeping changes in the industry, your company and the conomy for that matter that always seemto affect this event the most. Hopefully, next year's event will eclipse our woes with this one; plus everyone will have had a solid year with the new rules and their first experiences with the rules being a sanctioned tournament like this one.
I won't repeat a lot of what has been laid out in previous posts -- our team played through to the finals, I believe we were the first to the final room and had 80 minutes in that room and were not able to defeat the final boss. At that point, our DM -- who was one without a co-DM -- was clearly tired and losing focus -- he was moving slowly, had to reread his stat card every round to figure out what he would do, and was quite clearly slowing us down -- in 80 minutes we played 6 rounds of combat, a pace which is VERY un-open-ish. Nothing we could do sped up his play, and we were taking our own turns as quickly as possible. We were also dealing with many of the same mapping problems that round -- and also in the second round.
We did make mistakes earlier in the round which cost us healing surges -- we were under 30 at the end, which is probably a big part of the reason we didn't even place.
But my biggest gripe about the whole experience -- one I don't think I've seen discussed in this thread -- was the deeply negative -- at best ambivalent -- attitude about 4e that we had with our DMs, especially our first and third DMs.
Our first DM set the tone with a pretty strident diatribe, for example, about how "broken" sleep is, as a spell. Our party had, at that point, maneuvered ourselves to create a box for our opponents, catching most of them in the area of the sleep, and the major opponent in the scene had failed his save, along with some of his flunkies. This made the encounter a lot easier for us, of course, but from where I was sitting, we were playing well, having worked as a team to use the resources we had . . . and the DM spent several minutes explaining to us that the game had not been adequately playtested and that sleep was clearly going to have to be errated soon.
Since our whole team were playtesters, we were chagrined on top of everything else to hear about how the game had not been playtested well enough. ;)
The same sort of theme ran through the whole Championship -- and that was a stark contrast from the DMs I had in LFR, not to mention the way I ran the three LFR games I DMed. Our second DM was by far the least offensive in this regard, but even our very slow third DM was not happy with the rules and didn't hide it from us at all.
Anyway . . . I mention that only to make sure that this idea is also included in the lessons for the future -- the DMs should be people who are excited about the game, or learn to fake it well.
But my biggest gripe about the whole experience -- one I don't think I've seen discussed in this thread -- was the deeply negative -- at best ambivalent -- attitude about 4e that we had with our DMs, especially our first and third DMs.
Our first DM set the tone with a pretty strident diatribe, for example, about how "broken" sleep is, as a spell. Our party had, at that point, maneuvered ourselves to create a box for our opponents, catching most of them in the area of the sleep, and the major opponent in the scene had failed his save, along with some of his flunkies. This made the encounter a lot easier for us, of course, but from where I was sitting, we were playing well, having worked as a team to use the resources we had . . . and the DM spent several minutes explaining to us that the game had not been adequately playtested and that sleep was clearly going to have to be errated soon.
Since our whole team were playtesters, we were chagrined on top of everything else to hear about how the game had not been playtested well enough. ;)
The same sort of theme ran through the whole Championship -- and that was a stark contrast from the DMs I had in LFR, not to mention the way I ran the three LFR games I DMed. Our second DM was by far the least offensive in this regard, but even our very slow third DM was not happy with the rules and didn't hide it from us at all.
Anyway . . . I mention that only to make sure that this idea is also included in the lessons for the future -- the DMs should be people who are excited about the game, or learn to fake it well.
I *highly* recommend reporting this to Dave Christ, naming names. Being negative about the adventure and game system during the game is a big no-no for DMs who work for RPGA HQ, and not reporting this behavior only increases the chances that offending DMs will be welcomed back with open arms rather than reprimanded or placed on the blacklist, as they should be.
Also, I recommend naming names for the DMs you liked as well. The biggest pet peeve of mine as a convention DM and convention coordinator is that frequently I only hear about the things that people didn't like, not those they did.
To be honest, it makes me ashamed to call myself a DDC judge knowing the behavior of my peers was so disrespectful and inconsiderate. There is a time and place for personal opinions, and sitting at a tournament table while wearing the judge shirt that represents the company what made the game you are playing and that is footing the bill at the biggest game convention around is not it. Not to mention many of the people sitting there who want to play have probably spent a lot of money to get there and the last thing they want to do is hear the judge gripe about the system. There is a way to be diplomatic when a player asks, "So what do you think about 4th Edition?"
I personally have never judged the final round by my own choice - far too stressful for my taste. I was asked to run it once last year and I declined. I enjoy the entry rounds and a semi or two, and that's enough for me. This year I finished out the con with Star Wars.
Star Wars was a joy to run. The focus was on having fun instead of refereeing a four-hour adventure grind, and the players were awesome. Great way to end the con for me. I hope the RPGA offers a full Star Wars campaign next year. *Crosses fingers*
The irony is that he at least had maps prepared and didn't get in our way when we were trying to move quickly. The agonizingly slow work of our last DM crippled us -- and we were making some very good moves in that final round.
For instance, we managed to get a result of 43 arcana check casting a Phantom Steed ritual at the start of the round, which provides flying mounts. We were pretty much able to fly right through the first encounter. Thanks to good tactics again we were able to simply move through the third encounter. So the only encounter we fought through was the second, on the ship. To have those three combat encounters -- two of which we passed through on the first round -- take two and a half hours is really unforgivable in a speed-based tournament. It was our own mistakes that cost us the healing surges that kept us from placing, probably, but I would still argue that healing surges are not an adequate tiebreaker -- but that has been said before.
Anyway, we were disappointed with our result this year -- two of us were on the third place team last year, and to not make it into the top three was frustrating, especially when it's very difficult to think of anything that we could have done differently/better -- other than get a DM who would have helped us more.
But, in the long run, none of that really matters. We play the championship because it suits our play style and gives shape to the con -- it's very hard to imagine Gencon without the excitement and tension that builds up to the finals on Sunday. It's my favorite part of Gencon, and we'll keep playing. The only reason I'd stop is to start DMing the championship myself.
I was quite surprised, and somewhat disappointed, when we got seated after two teams didn't show.
You're welcome. We're one of the teams that didn't show up. We didn't figure we made it, and didn't even wake up.
1. DM's not having a standard Maps, Tiles , ETC taking to much time setting up.
2. DM's having problems with new 4th edition rules.
3. Lack of Organization and no prompt responses for qualifications for events.
4. Lack of Staff or Experienced DM's.
I am going to comment on each point in questions.
1. Most DM's our using their own supplies so each is going to work with what they have, unlike dnd Game day we aren't sent maps to make things easier. We get a pdf that has a breakdown of the adventure and maps.
I spend on average 4-6 hours prep time for a module, getting minis ready, runnning a quick dry run of the encounters, and trying to troubleshoot it. Slot 0's help some because the dm can actually play the module ahead of time.
I bet some of the DM's were just giving the print outs a hour ahead of time and told to run this, that makes a huge difference on it.
For most of these RPGA events I take initiative once mark it on cards and move on to save time for encounters if the whole party agree, most will because that way they are saving time on encounters and I just have to roll ini for my mobs.
There are a lot of ways to speed up the modules but there is a lot of factors on this, some maybe bad DM's but some may be lack of preparation not the fault of the GM.
2. This can be expected, I still occasionally get rules wrong, took me awhile to get AOA right in the new system. These problems will eventually go away as people get more familiar with the system. Best thing the GM can do is admit they were wrong and move on.
3. This is most likely due to the lack of support staff and the late planning of attending Gen Con. I am not sure what political battles were going on but I bet planning was on hold while they were resolved. This most likely wasn't the only factor but I bet it will be better next year.
Volunteers are hard to find if you want it to run better, volunteer yourself and work towards making it better, we are all here to have fun.
4. I found it very hard on where to even try to volunteer for RPGA events at Gen Con. The system doesn't appear to be as well planned or organized as it could be. You should be recruiting DM's months ahead of time and from what I had heard many were turned away from alot of RPGA events due to lack of GM's.
From my understanding the only compensation for most GM's is reduced or free entrance to Gen Con, and if you do at least 6 mods free hotel space, and freebies like minis or books from drawings.
I think next year it would be helpful for maybe DM kits for people who dm certain events, like D&D championship. that include a reusable game map, markers, dungeon tiles etc. The free stuff should enable the gm to run better.
I have been reading through this thread and from what I have heard there were 4 major complaints.
1. DM's not having a standard Maps, Tiles , ETC taking to much time setting up.
2. DM's having problems with new 4th edition rules.
3. Lack of Organization and no prompt responses for qualifications for events.
4. Lack of Staff or Experienced DM's.
I am going to comment on each point in questions.
1. Most DM's our using their own supplies so each is going to work with what they have, unlike dnd Game day we aren't sent maps to make things easier. We get a pdf that has a breakdown of the adventure and maps.
I spend on average 4-6 hours prep time for a module, getting minis ready, runnning a quick dry run of the encounters, and trying to troubleshoot it. Slot 0's help some because the dm can actually play the module ahead of time.
I bet some of the DM's were just giving the print outs a hour ahead of time and told to run this, that makes a huge difference on it.
While that's true for many events, it's not (to the best of my knowledge) true of the Championship. Championship judges are selected 6+ weeks in advance, and have a separate mailing list to discuss the module in confidentially.
For most of these RPGA events I take initiative once mark it on cards and move on to save time for encounters if the whole party agree, most will because that way they are saving time on encounters and I just have to roll ini for my mobs.
There are a lot of ways to speed up the modules but there is a lot of factors on this, some maybe bad DM's but some may be lack of preparation not the fault of the GM.
Yeah, while there are a handful of good suggestions on little things here and there that can speed up combat, there will always be a little table variation. Still, judges who are blatantly wasting time should still be pointed out to HQ. Likewise judges that kick butt and are super efficient (or just super fun) should also be pointed out to HQ. We keep a "kudos" list for that very reason.
2. This can be expected, I still occasionally get rules wrong, took me awhile to get AOA right in the new system. These problems will eventually go away as people get more familiar with the system. Best thing the GM can do is admit they were wrong and move on.
This is a two-way street. Sometimes it can also be in the best interest of the table to just accept a ruling and move on as well - especially in a timed even like the championship. It depends on the degree to which the call is bad, and/or how easy it can be to retroactively fix the problem (IE, turning a hit into a miss vs nullifyinga condition effect that's been applied a couple rounds.)
3. This is most likely due to the lack of support staff and the late planning of attending Gen Con. I am not sure what political battles were going on but I bet planning was on hold while they were resolved. This most likely wasn't the only factor but I bet it will be better next year.
Only Dave C and Chris Tulach would know for sure. Feedback in this thread has been noticed and will likely go far toward improving next year's event.
Volunteers are hard to find if you want it to run better, volunteer yourself and work towards making it better, we are all here to have fun.
And that's not just true at GenCon, it's also true on the local level. More volunteers = more gooder.
4. I found it very hard on where to even try to volunteer for RPGA events at Gen Con. The system doesn't appear to be as well planned or organized as it could be. You should be recruiting DM's months ahead of time and from what I had heard many were turned away from alot of RPGA events due to lack of GM's.
If you (or other interested parties) haven't already done so, I'd strongly suggest you sign up for the "Dave Shows" RPGA group. Dave will send out a noticed (usually a few days before things get posted) when it's time to volunteer for big events from here out.
From my understanding the only compensation for most GM's is reduced or free entrance to Gen Con, and if you do at least 6 mods free hotel space, and freebies like minis or books from drawings.
I think next year it would be helpful for maybe DM kits for people who dm certain events, like D&D championship. that include a reusable game map, markers, dungeon tiles etc. The free stuff should enable the gm to run better.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Championship gets more physical product support for the judges next year. Only time will tell, of course.
If you (or other interested parties) haven't already done so, I'd strongly suggest you sign up for the "Dave Shows" RPGA group. Dave will send out a noticed (usually a few days before things get posted) when it's time to volunteer for big events from here out.
I wasn't able to find Dave Shows RPGA Group in a google search, could you provide me with a link?
[...]I still believe that the Championship is better served by keeping the scoring secret. Knowing the scoring intrinsically changes how the game is played.
Why is it such a bad thing if the players play differently? Keeping the method of scoring a secret is far more harmful to a tournament's integrity. I can't think of any other serious competition that doesn't tell you how you score.
I've been informed that the scoring is handled by a law firm, and that it's kept secret because it would be too easy to have some RPGA judge and DMs influence the scoring.
If the RPGA can't trust its tournament officials, that's a serious flaw that needs to be addressed some other way. Keeping the scores secret makes it easier for fraud to occur, not harder.
If the RPGA can't trust its tournament officials, that's a serious flaw that needs to be addressed some other way. Keeping the scores secret makes it easier for fraud to occur, not harder.
I do not believe that the OP was accurate about a law firm scoring things; I believe that the evidence I have seen (I have no inside source, merely observation, conversation, and deduction) that the RPGA heads score things.