I've been a coordinator before and any and all advice from people who are coordinators, have been coordinators, or are also working as coordinators would be a godsend. If any of you want to get ahold of me by email: DrgnScorpion@comcast.net
I shall also be checking this every day. I thank everybody for any help that is given.
2) Getting the adventures for it.
3) General advice on running RPGA events at conventions.
Have you already posted your event on Warhorn?
warhorn.net/
You should probably contact your events manager for the pacific region and say hello.
games.groups.yahoo.com/group/lfrpusa/
2) Getting the adventures for it.
3) General advice on running RPGA events at conventions.
Adventures are sanctioned through the Schedule an Event link on the Events part of the D&D site. I am not sure what convention organizers do separately from store owners or private play... I suspect it is the same and your location is just the convention location?
Choosing adventures is a challenge. Ideally you want to look at the schedule and pick adventures that are coming out close to the convention so that you have new play that attracts both new and experienced players. However, there is a major delay on adventure releases these days. This can mean you could schedule an adventure that you expect to be released only to find it is not released. So, you probably want to schedule a fair amount of adventures that are already released and then not schedule anything that is being released the two weeks prior to the convention. If something you schedule runs late, do your best to change adventures as early as possible.
One way to manage this is to schedule slot 0s starting at least 1 month before the event. While some DMs are fine with running something they haven't played, in general they want to get a chance to play it. Start up a Yahoo group for judges and have them join as they accept judging at the con. Then use the Yahoo group to plan slot 0s and ask them to volunteer judging the 0s. You may want to count this towards any judge rewards you provide.
You will want a breadth of adventures, but particularly for the lower Heroic tiers. To that end, any adventure that provides a number of tiers is great, such as the ADCPs. You probably want an H1 adventure in each slot and then a few of the other tiers (with fewer paragon than heroic). You can see example convention organization here and here. If you get your scheduling up early enough you can see how signups are going and adjust as needed. You can also look to concentrate play in a few regions you like. This is even better if you can find fairly recent adventures from a single story arc that the PCs could play at the convention. The MINIs are worth considering. Some cons have added a MINI track and had good results with that. One table, one judge, all convention long.
You want as many volunteers as possible. You want people that will run with your instructions and deliver. Put up fliers in gaming stores (and talk to the owner... maybe they want to have fliers or a presence at your show in exchange?). Post on every online site you can find.
Consider judge rewards. The convention support packages are apparently on hold, but you could consider a bit of SWAG, or perhaps try to work with a gaming store to offer product. For example, score an ADCP and offer a prize from the store to the winning table and to a judge. Even a discount coupon can make judges happy and loyal to the cause.
You will want to pick someone good at mustering. Ideally you have nothing to do all con long, which frees you up to deal with the issues that always come up. Your mustering person or people set up some system by which players know where to go for each adventure they are playing, how they will be matched with a judge, and where they will sit. The easiest way is to zone the area and have table tents with a number. You have people grouped by adventure and you send them and a judge to a table number. The best people at mustering are confident people that can weather the inevitable barrage of requests that would cause mustering to take forever, but who will not be so strong as to offend players.
You will want to match judges with adventures. Generally, this is about placing your star judges on the highest tier or most complex adventures and making sure your newer judges can run the simplest lowest-tier adventures. But, it can be really helpful to have a judge that is particularly good with new people and even a new person track - such as an Intro to LFR slot that runs a simpler H1 adventure each day and has a judge good with kids and new players. Ideally, judges have slot 0d the adventure they are running, meaning you have well-prepared judges.
I hope this helps! I've never been insane enough to run a con, but I've helped a good many organizers. Hats off to you for taking on the challenge. My last advice is to always watch your profit margin. You don't need to get rich, but you don't want to lose money. This is a good time to negotiate with hotels, but a tough time to get gamers to fill hotel rooms.
I pretty much am in a waiting period for my boss at Dragonflight to send me the convention info for warhorn and I shall be having fun looking for adventures and stuff like that.
The LFR adventure release schedule for 3Q10 should be available sometime in June. That gives you the predicted release schedule, titles, levels, and blurbs for the adventure. Because Gencon is in early August, they will get info sooner (as Dave Christ picks the adventures for it, like soon). While we have a high probability that the Gencon LFR adventures will be done, the new release schedule means they might be phased releases for 2-3 weeks after Gencon. However, I think last year some of the Gencon adventures might have been run at PAX -- anyone recall?
A better option might be to pick up whatever is offered at Origins (late June). They will be easily available for slot 0s, and Origins list should be known soon.
Keith
Since your con is in August, it is in the 3rd quarter of CY10. When in August?
The LFR adventure release schedule for 3Q10 should be available sometime in June. That gives you the predicted release schedule, titles, levels, and blurbs for the adventure. Because Gencon is in early August, they will get info sooner (as Dave Christ picks the adventures for it, like soon). While we have a high probability that the Gencon LFR adventures will be done, the new release schedule means they might be phased releases for 2-3 weeks after Gencon. However, I think last year some of the Gencon adventures might have been run at PAX -- anyone recall?
A better option might be to pick up whatever is offered at Origins (late June). They will be easily available for slot 0s, and Origins list should be known soon.
Keith
PAX Prime ran similar (but not all) events as Gen Con. However, this year PAX is being re-tooled as an intro event. PAX East has no LFR. It is still up in the air as to whether we will have LFR at PAX Prime. I sure hope we do, because I think we will lose our best judges if we don't have at least H1 LFR. I also think it is bad for the campaign not to have any LFR. However, all Heroic is probably ideal for the event.
To the subject at hand, what this means is that you don't really have to worry about competition from PAX in terms of LFR events. Choosing adventures that will be at Origins and Gen Con is a good idea as you won't run into the issues so many of us are facing with the late mods hurting conventions this month. Add in a few other mods that showed up in May or June and you should be in good shape for those players that went to Gen Con / Origins. But, if you work with your best judges for slot 0s they can let you know if you need to offer more, since they will tend to be your most hard core players.
I have to find judges as its a whole new ball game for me. Yay for trips to Olympia and Bellevue now. It shall be interesting to see how all this looks.
UCC (yahoo group) out of Lacey
Seattle Mob out of Redmond
are the ones I know of. You can try recruiting judges there. Good luck -- I know a number of us didn't go to Dragonflight last year because there were issues with RPGA stuff, particularly judge recruitment.
Could anybody from the UCC group invite me please so that I might be able to ask everyone personally. my yim is drgnscorzero@yahoo.com.
I miss the old RPGA convention calendar.
-karma