I'll be bringing pregen characters as well as other materials for the Wheel of Time d20 game I am running on Sunday, A Conspiracy in Shadows. My proposal stated such, but as I read the listing in the schedule it does not make that clear. I realize that not very many people even have the game book and can't create their own characters to bring.
I think most convention games assume the GM will be providing pregen characters for everyone to speed up the session so you can jump straight into the action and reserve as much time as possible for the actual adventure rather than character creation. That said, however, Paizo has every game slotted for a 5-hour slot, which is quite generous.
Most smaller conventions provide 4-hour slots, whereas the bigger ones like GenCon, Origins, etc. rely on the 5-hour slots. What that means is, if most GMs are used to 4-hour slots (and therefore tailored their game for such), they might still have an hour available for character creation if they want it. I'm not sure how many planned on that, though.
For the Shadow of the Fellnight Queen, I can definitely say I'm bringing pregen characters with me. I'll have optional mini's for folks to use (or they can bring their own). Other than that, dice and pencils are really the only things I'd expect most players to bring with them. And even then, I'll have several sets on hand in case someone needs to borrow some.
--Neil
Most of the various (very cool sounding) game events list material provided - what is this exactly?
Some also say pregens, which obviously mean that pregenerated characters are provided. So, if a game does not say pregens does that mean you are to create one ahead of time to bring, I assume?
Im bringing pre-gens plus some prop art for mine - but its worth considering as well if your game has "No Experience Required" listed. If someone has no experience at all, they may not have their own rule books.
Im running an offbeat game with no expectations of players bringing rule books - in my case, its not required. But the game requires a lot of dice of different colors, and I did mention that they need to bring them.
If I were running a Pathfinder RPG based game and put down No Experience Required, then I would expect a lot of folks not to have the core rule book (like 3.5 players just trying it out for the first time).