I was wondering if anyone else out there had any opinions about the Iron Player "contest" at GenCon. I played in it and it was pretty terrible. Off the three DM's, two were down right awful. Here is just some general observations.
1) Character creation was confusing and a waste of time, my fey background sorcerer used almost none of the equipement I spent an hour buying and I never made a single skill check that mattered.
2) Having eight people at a table was too much. Most of the "encounters" or obstacles were designed for classes with skills (and by skills I mean diplomacy and Know (local), and the loudest player got the attention.
3) The cinematic combats was an absolute waste of time. With my new PFRPG rule book sitting in front of me, I sat and described what my character did and rolled one dice, with an arbitrary success or failure. That was just dumb.
4) I don't even know where to go from here. between the bad DM's who didn't even seem to understand the rules to the lame story, I couldn't believe I had payed $10 and wasted 8 hours+ on this garbage.
I understand that things like this are probably difficult to run but one place to start is maybe getting good DM's. Second, try not to be so grand in scope. Set up encounters that mix skills and combat, and go for a shorter more managable story. Who ever won the right to call themselves "Iron Player" I laugh at you. It means you played a rogue and you out-shouted the other people at the table hogging the spotlight.
If your thinking about playing in it next year, don't bother. Go back to your room and have someone run a game using the pathfinder rules. You will have more fun.
What are you talking about?
How about giving the rest of us who were not at GenCon some info on what you are talking about?
How many people were playing?
It sounds like it was 3 GM's and 8 players by your post... which doesn't make sense.
What was the 'goal' of this event?
What is an "Iron Player'?
Starting a story/complaint in the middle does not benefit/enlighten anyone involved.