Gen Con 2016 Call for Volunteers!

Huzzah! My first GenCon!

Wonderful to see this posted so early this year.

GMing GenCon the last few years has been a blast. My app is in. I hope to see you all again this year!

All my papercuts have healed so I signed up to play with thousands of chronicle sheets again.

After filling out the questionnaire, should there be a confirmation email or no? How do we know we successfully signed up?

See you all in Indy! :)

Excited!

Woohoo!

I'll be excited to see y'all there. GenCon is a great time!

Wife and I will be there with bells on!

No GenCon for me this year, but you'll see me at PaizoCon =).

No GenCon for me this year, but you'll see me at PaizoCon =).

Same for myself... I hope.

I'd really like to meet a lot of the people I know here, and to volunteer for stuff like PFS.

holy crap, this is early and unexpected. I haven't even started thinking about summer yet.

How do we answer the questionnaire if we don't have a gmail account? It wants me to login to Gmail.

Is the questionnaire asking for slots yet? If so, is there more info about the specials?

The slots are listed, but we haven't had public announcement of scenarios beyond this blog post. As mentioned in the post, Friday night is the interactive special.

But oh, the secrets I know...

I'm filling out the survey now! Kind of weird this went up on a Thursday though. This'll be three in a row!

Edit: ...And done! Woo, I'm excited!

Cool! I'll be busy with Writing Track stuff for most of the con, but I hope they'll offer The Consortium Compact and I get the opportunity to run a session of it with my terrain. We're driving up so it wouldn't be a hassle to bring.

Also,

I think the shifting of the times is not beneficial.

1) I've attended GenCon the past several years as a Tier 2 GM and watched PFS grow to fill the Sagamore. I have only seen a few problems with morning slot tables not getting done in 4 1/2 hours.

2) Pushing back the afternoon slot and therefore the evening slot means we all get one less hour of sleep each day.

3) Ending at 1:00 am is even more family unfriendly then ending at midnight. I've seen and been at evening tables with teens and kids.

Also,

I think the shifting of the times is not beneficial.

1) I've attended GenCon the past several years as a Tier 2 GM and watched PFS grow to fill the Sagamore. I have only seen a few problems with morning slot tables not getting done in 4 1/2 hours.

2) Pushing back the afternoon slot and therefore the evening slot means we all get one less hour of sleep each day.

3) Ending at 1:00 am is even more family unfriendly then ending at midnight. I've seen and been at evening tables with teens and kids.

We've had long discussions on the schedule and decided to try something new this year. It is not just consideration of games finishing on time, it is the GMs needing a bit of a break before jumping into a second session. Trying something new this year. If it doesn't work, we can go back to the other way in 2017.

Change is good, this seems worth a shot! It'd be nice to have a break scheduled in to give people a chance to food/drink.

Has it been considered to have 2 sessions a day instead of 3? Should solve both of those problems.

I have a feeling GenCon would object to that.

Swiftbrook wrote:

Also,

I think the shifting of the times is not beneficial.

1) I've attended GenCon the past several years as a Tier 2 GM and watched PFS grow to fill the Sagamore. I have only seen a few problems with morning slot tables not getting done in 4 1/2 hours.

2) Pushing back the afternoon slot and therefore the evening slot means we all get one less hour of sleep each day.

3) Ending at 1:00 am is even more family unfriendly then ending at midnight. I've seen and been at evening tables with teens and kids.

We've had long discussions on the schedule and decided to try something new this year. It is not just consideration of games finishing on time, it is the GMs needing a bit of a break before jumping into a second session. Trying something new this year. If it doesn't work, we can go back to the other way in 2017.

Well, the only way to see if something is better is to try it out. I'm in.

This looks great! More time is definitely a good thing in my book. I'm really looking forward to it, but definitely don't want to run three in a row on that schedule.

(Hey, this will be my first post with my new reduced rank. Cool.)

Not sure if I'll be living on the Adirondack trail or under a bridge by that point...

Hurm, now I have to decide if I'm going to go.

Benefits: (a) I get to go to GenCon and do an orgy of gaming. (b) It's within driving distance.

Drawbacks: (a) Pictures I've seen of GenCon make it look like OMG an unholy crowded zoo, which is a bit of a turn-off. (b) I'm already going to PaizoCon. I have to consider costs in both time and money.

Hmm, hmm, hmm, all very hard to decide.

Interesting that the GenCon call for volunteers is coming before the PaizoCon call for volunteers, given that P is two months earlier than G. (Or did I miss the PaizoCon call?)

Hurm, now I have to decide if I'm going to go.

Benefits: (a) I get to go to GenCon and do an orgy of gaming. (b) It's within driving distance.

Drawbacks: (a) Pictures I've seen of GenCon make it look like OMG an unholy crowded zoo, which is a bit of a turn-off. (b) I'm already going to PaizoCon. I have to consider costs in both time and money.

Hmm, hmm, hmm, all very hard to decide.

GenCon is always great fun but it has gotten really crowded the last few years. The board gaming boom has swelled the size of the con a lot. It really is as big as Indy can handle at this point.

Gencon is crowded, but the Sagamore has usually been better than most of the other areas, especially once we took over the entire Sagamore.

Hard cover of horror adventures? Did I miss somethings?

The husband and I have signed up. First Gen Con, and first year where we both have the vacation time to go ^_^

Hard cover of horror adventures? Did I miss somethings?

It was announced at GenCon last year but to be honest with the new Adventure paths, both the ones we knew about and the one we didn't, the new GenCon release has sorta slip under the radar compared to everything else that was talked about.

rknop wrote:

Hurm, now I have to decide if I'm going to go.

Benefits: (a) I get to go to GenCon and do an orgy of gaming. (b) It's within driving distance.

Drawbacks: (a) Pictures I've seen of GenCon make it look like OMG an unholy crowded zoo, which is a bit of a turn-off. (b) I'm already going to PaizoCon. I have to consider costs in both time and money.

Hmm, hmm, hmm, all very hard to decide.

GenCon is always great fun but it has gotten really crowded the last few years. The board gaming boom has swelled the size of the con a lot. It really is as big as Indy can handle at this point.

This year GenCon is expanding into Lucus Oil Stadium as well.

Huh, this really caught me by surprise. Didn't expect this to show up so early, and on a Thursday at that.

Nobody expects the Paizo inquisition!

In for a penny, in for a pound!

I have put in my questionnaire. Either way I'll see you at Gen Con!

Interesting that the GenCon call for volunteers is coming before the PaizoCon call for volunteers, given that P is two months earlier than G. (Or did I miss the PaizoCon call?)

Seems like they pushed it forward so GMs getting comped badges but not hotel rooms can get into the Gencon housing lottery.

No GeonCon this year :(
But I'll make it to PaizoCon :)

sadly no way i can afford the hotel so no gen con for me

rknop wrote:

Interesting that the GenCon call for volunteers is coming before the PaizoCon call for volunteers, given that P is two months earlier than G. (Or did I miss the PaizoCon call?)

Seems like they pushed it forward so GMs getting comped badges but not hotel rooms can get into the Gencon housing lottery.

I am pretty sure you didn't miss the PaizoCon call for volunteers as I know myself and other would be all over that announcement.

Sadly I will be unable to make either one, maybe next year for PaizoCon.

Do we know if the Go Express shuttle buses will accommodate these later hours for those staying farther away? I don't think they ran all night.

The form doesn't seem to be working for me?

EDIT: Oh, have to click *on* the text... *headdesk*

Form entered and sent.

I just hope that my availability doesn't reduce my chances...

sadly no way i can afford the hotel so no gen con for me

Go Tier 1, and you don't have to pay for it =D

Speaking of... when will the official call for PaizoCon volunteers be announced? I was expecting that to be announced before GenCon would be.

Sarvei taeno wrote:

sadly no way i can afford the hotel so no gen con for me

Go Tier 1, and you don't have to pay for it =D

Speaking of... when will the official call for PaizoCon volunteers be announced? I was expecting that to be announced before GenCon would be.

I was just wondering that myself Nefreet. I even checked the blog thinking I missed it.

As they noted above, the stated reason they posted was that folks who are looking at the housing lotteryscam and the badge registry could make those plans knowing in advance what they can and cannot do.

As PaizoCon is an 'in-house' sort of creation, Paizo is not beholden to Gen Con or otherwise to worry about getting enough rooms for their judges, etc, so it gives a bit more 'breathing room' to prepare.

Fingers crossed!

Did I read the tiers description correctly, in that only tiers 2 and 6 have zero ACG slots?

The Form said "shirts every 2 years" Does this mean can get new ones if you had gotten the purple a few years ago?
Hope we can choose what we would like to run, when scenario list is published.

Change is good, this seems worth a shot! It'd be nice to have a break scheduled in to give people a chance to food/drink.

That's been a frequent complaint in previous years between the morning and afternoon slot, this is our attempt to make things a little more comfortable for our GMs and players, both.

Interesting that the GenCon call for volunteers is coming before the PaizoCon call for volunteers, given that P is two months earlier than G. (Or did I miss the PaizoCon call?)

You didn't miss it. Tonya posted this first due to the Gen Con badge/housing schedule and finalizing some details for Paizocon.

Did I read the tiers description correctly, in that only tiers 2 and 6 have zero ACG slots?

You're looking at the ACG Demos, which are run in the dealer's hall at (or next to) the Paizo booth where they sell the merchandise. The hours are different from the Sagamore's, and the shift lengths are different from the ACG GMs that will be in the Sagamore running the Card Guild games. With that, just like with HQ, some adjustment to the tiering levels are necessary to make everything work out in terms of total hours volunteered vs. compensation.

Sarvei taeno wrote:

sadly no way i can afford the hotel so no gen con for me

Go Tier 1, and you don't have to pay for it =D

Speaking of... when will the official call for PaizoCon volunteers be announced? I was expecting that to be announced before GenCon would be.

Tier 1 & 2 both get hotel room space at Gen Con. I wouldn't recommend Tier 1 GM for a novice at Gen Con, it's a rough run spending 80% of the con running games.