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For maps I split the images into pieces that fit 8.5 x 11 paper and printed them in b&w. I then cut out the 250+ pieces (7 different scenarios) and spray glued them down to 1" grid easel paper. It worked out very well, except that Kinkos screwed up some of the pieces by cropping the edges to fit some standard size that they felt it should have been (Not using them again). That was about as good as I could afford for 7 scenarios. If I get less next year I may print in color or go 3d. Paizo also gives GMs quite a bit of store credit. A couple of extra blank flip mats could keep you from drawing maps at the table.
I also agree with the running a only a few scenarios at the con. It cuts down on prep, is more affordable for those GMs that want to go extra on mapping, and I feel it's better for the player / con experience as the scenarios are run better with practice.
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This was my first GenCon, so I don't have the standard for comparison of some of you, though I've been to lots of smaller cons. Overall, it was a lot of fun, with only minor complaints here and there. Surprisingly, given that most of my gaming these days is PFS, I actually spent quite a bit of time on other things, just trying to take in everything GenCon has to offer.
My comments on the PFS stuff from the weekend:
Positive:
I had great players at my tables, which made for fun sessions. It was also great to meet a couple of the people I've seen here on the forums, though there were quite a few I know I missed.
Agreed with others who have said that colored tables made it easy to find your table. Given the sheer size of the room, that was a huge help.
I liked the room overall. Very big, but things were spread out just enough that the acoustics weren't that terrible. I've had harder times hearing people in much smaller spaces, just because there are too many people crammed into a small space.
I like the suggestion of feedback forms for the players. Maybe 5-10 easy multiple choice questions to get a feel for what they thought of the GM and the scenario, plus an open answer "comment" section, and prizes for those that get the best overall reviews. Maybe have them handed out with the prize tokens, one per player at each table, so the GM doesn't need to do it.
The special was very well run. Say what you want about the quality of the scenario (I personally thought it was great, but I'm seeing other opinions in some of the threads here), the coordination to make it work was terrific. I especially loved the computer graphics with the region colors. My group stayed in one region for all of act 2, and they kept got excited every update when their region changed colors.
I got to try out the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game in the vendor area. I underestimated the time it would take for the demo, so I didn't get to play a full game - after 20-30 minutes of explanation and the first turn of playing, I had to go and meet friends for something else. I didn't want to wait on line to buy it Thursday when the lines were huge, and they were sold out by Sunday, so I didn't get to buy it yet. I'll probably buy it from my local FLGS when they get it in (checked last night, and they didn't have it).
Negative:
Not enough information given to volunteers. I missed the Wednesday volunteer meeting (too busy at the day job that paid for this trip), and I ended up feeling like some sort of pariah that wasn't worthy of necessary information. I'm hoping the people who made that meeting were better informed than I was, but I'm not 100% sure of that.
I made a point of showing up during the Thursday morning session, at a time when they weren't in the middle of mustering the next session, so someone should have had time to talk to me. I was prepared to spend an hour there if necessary getting all the info I'd missed at the meeting. But when I asked what I'd missed, I was given my purple shirts and boon and told that the main take away from the meeting was to show up at least 15 minutes early for your sessions. That was it. That's all I was told.
Stuff I had to figure out by trial and error, sometimes painfully:
1. Where do players go to get pregens?
2. Where do GMs go to get their table assignments? For my first session, I checked in with 4 different people with clipboards under 4 different banners, all of which were doing table assignments for the adventure I was running, before I found the one with my name on their list. For the special, I noticed that the projectors were showing GM names on the front wall, so you'd know which banner to stand under to find the right musterer. Was that available for all sessions? I never noticed it in my two earlier GM sessions. If it was there, I wouldn't have been able to read it from the mustering area across the room, due to my poor vision.
3. What does Jon Cary look like? I was actually sent to see him about something at one point, but I had no idea who he was, so I ended up wandering aimlessly for over 5 minutes. I eventually went back to the HQ table in frustration and luckily ran into him, nowhere near where I'd been told he was. I even asked some of the other table GMs if they could point him out to me, and they had no idea who he was. If there's a single point of contact for important stuff, then being able to find him needs to be much easier than it was. I would have been fine with being told to wait up by HQ until he got back, or someone else showed up who could help with my problem, but being sent to go find someone in the crowd without knowing what he looks like is kinda silly.
4. How does the token redemption for boons work, and where do you go to do it? Again, I figured it out, but I should have been told up front, so I could tell my players.
5. What are all those computers near the HQ for? I'm still only assuming they're HeroLab stations - nobody ever did confirm/deny that for me, though admittedly I never bothered to ask.
I'm pretty sure there was more stuff I was expecting to be told up front that I'm just not thinking of right now. I'm sure I'll think of it all later.
Another complaint was all the scenarios that weren't ready to be downloaded and read by the GMs until the Friday before the convention. I ended up dropping Bonekeep 2 from my GM schedule, because I just didn't have enough time to prepare both that and the big special. I'm sorry, but if I don't have time to prepare and do a good job with a scenario, I'd rather not run it than do a lousy job trying to run it.
(Hopefully) Constructive Suggestion:
This is based as much on what I've seen in this thread as my own limited experience at the con. Instead of mustering in mobs, would it be possible to force the players into lines? That would make life so much easier for the musterers, because they'd just deal with the first group in line, not a whole crowd trying to get their attention at once. Maybe combine this with the idea of door guards checking tickets as players enter the room. The door guards make sure they have a real ticket (or generics, once the real tickets are all in), then point them to the proper musterer for their adventure and sub-tier. Just slowing the flow of players coming at the musterers would help keep things calmer. This would probably slow things down a little, but telling everyone to show up earlier for their sessions would still let us start on time.
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Not a derail at all. If we as GMs have less scenarios to run, then we put more effort into the few we do run. As such, the tables are better and the Con as a whole is better. I am all for running 1-2 scenarios over 8 slots. If I did I would do as you did and make 3d terrain for at least one of them.
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I thought that this is the best organized GenCon that I've been to. While I was only on the receiving end of the mustering, it seemed to have gone off extremely well. Most of my tables were seated within 10 minutes after the hour. Runners distributing water is a hold over from last year, but I still appreciate the effort that the staff has gone to make sure that the volunteers are being properly cared for. I do have a couple of thoughts to make next year's GenCon even better:
GM check-in:
Next year could we possibly have 3 or 4 lines (preferably sorted by last name,) and have pre-made swag bags attached to the badges, so that we don't have to check in, then go to a line to get your swag, and another line to get you GM boon?
Special GenCon Chronicles:
Since GenCon is such a premier event it seems that we should be able to make the chronicles a bit more special (watermark, boarders, etc.)
If we can't do this for every scenario, could it be done for the specials?
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I had a blast with this year's PFS at GenCon. And as a first time GM at a Con, I was a bit overwhelmed and yet it lived up to expectations and more. I was honored to be able to run a table for the Special as well! The energy in the room during the Special was simply awesome!
Now, to address the thread's topic (note that I was a Tier I GM):
PROS
1. Thanks very kindly for the water. Very much appreciated.
2. The color-coded tables was a stroke of brilliance for making it easy to find the requisite table.
3. Size of the tables were just perfect. Plenty of room for the players and the game map in all cases (at least in my case).
4. Thanks for making the Special able to be run off of basically one or two flip mats, and therefore easy to transition from one scene to the next. Also, well done on putting in RP scenes as well as combat ones. (I let the players choose cards that had the encounter numbers on it. For example, if they were in Battle District, I had an index card each with A1, A2, A3, etc and they chose their destination without knowing what it was. They seemed to enjoy "controlling their destiny", so to speak.)
5. Thanks to the Marshal that provided me with an "emergency" blank map, after my initial game didn't seat and I volunteered to run a scenario I had never run nor had prepped for some players that desperately wanted to play it before the end of the Con. (and while I'm at it, if those players read this, thanks very kindly for your patience as I caught up on the scenario. You guys rock!)
6. Thanks for the seamless hotel arrangements and badge! I commend Mike Brock and everyone involved with that process.
CONS
1. Please try to limit the number of announcements on Sunday morning. Just when the game flow would be re-established, another announcement would break it. Wash rinse repeat a couple of times. I heard both GMs and players grousing about this.
2. Catching the Con Crud! Yep...I succumbed to the prevailing germs, despite lots of hand sanitizer and other precautions. Oh well...it was worth it!
3. GMs and players that left their tables an absolute wreck for the next group to play! Many times did I have to clean the table of refuse, scrap paper, bottles, and whatnot as I went to set up for a game.
SUGGESTIONS:
1. Is it possible to muster players at one end of the room (say under the banners, which worked well), and muster the GMs at the other end of the room near the HQ? That way, the Marshal can easily find their GMs without shouting over the gathered players and assign their tables, then make their way to the banners for player assignments.
2. I like the earlier suggestion of having a "door guard" allowing only actual tickets in first, then allowing Generics after the others have seated.
3. You may need to find a bigger room for the Kid's Track...wow, was that busy at times (which is awesome).
If I think of anything else, I'll post it here. But, in conclusion, I had a great time. Overall, things were pretty smooth and I had tremendous players at every table. Thanks to everyone who actually RPd during Hellknight's Feast instead of relied on dice rolls to move you through.
I look forward to seeing you all next time!
Marty aka S.K., out.
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Special GenCon Chronicles:
Since GenCon is such a premier event it seems that we should be able to make the chronicles a bit more special (watermark, boarders, etc.)
If we can't do this for every scenario, could it be done for the specials?
A bunch of us GMing brought special/different chronicle sheets for this purpose. I think this one may be best left in the hands of the GM, as I think the effort:reward ratio is a bit skewed against it.
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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GM check-in:
Next year could we possibly have 3 or 4 lines (preferably sorted by last name,) and have pre-made swag bags attached to the badges, so that we don't have to check in, then go to a line to get your swag, and another line to get you GM boon?
This. Right here.
I got to the GM meeting, waited in line, and got my badge. When the meeting was over, they told us we could get our shirts. Well, no one told us where exactly, so someone from HQ (he was up in front and was introduced, but I didn't catch his name), had come off the platform and told us to get in some line, so we did.
After waiting in that line, we noticed there was a second line. A person behind me went up front, asked where we should be, and were told to be in the line we were in. Got it.
Then, we get up front only to be told, "no, this is the line to get badges. If you want your shirt, you need to get in THAT line over there." The line was too long for me to wait around, so I had to come back the next morning to get them.
At worst, it was just a frustrating/annoying sort of situation, but it is easily avoidable. Folks who are administering that portion of HQ should clearly direct people to "this line is for badges, this one for shirts, etc." Again, it was just an annoyance, but one that could be rectified pretty easily.
Mark
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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A bunch of us GMing brought special/different chronicle sheets for this purpose. I think this one may be best left in the hands of the GM, as I think the effort:reward ratio is a bit skewed against it.Special GenCon Chronicles:
Since GenCon is such a premier event it seems that we should be able to make the chronicles a bit more special (watermark, boarders, etc.)
If we can't do this for every scenario, could it be done for the specials?
I played in one of the games run by Carlos (Way of the Kirin, at Scotty's on Wednesday) and got the chronicle sheet on that heavier, parchment style paper. This was great, and something I think I'll do if I GM next year.
Mark
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1) Is there a reason GM table assignments (for all sessions) could not have been handed out with badge pickup? Not to replace mustering GMs (to count who was missing and hand out reporting sheets) but in addition. I was using mostly preprinted maps but I heard a LOT of GMs muttering about wanting to know where they would be so they could start drawing maps. In several sessions and several areas the players were only a few steps behind the GMs.
In most slots we had more GMs than we had tables. I didn't distinguish between overflow GMs and dedicated GMs when I set up the mustering assignments this year, so it made it nigh-impossible to pre-assign tables. Some of this will be much easier next year as we'll be back to our standard ~18 scenarios versus the 60+ scenarios we had to juggle this year.
2) The elevated HQ with the Hero Lab stations in front of it made it difficult to interact with people in HQ. A few banners could have made it easier as well - "Token turn-in" for example. Perhaps an area on the floor (with a "general help" banner) where volunteers could answer general questions, like from people who didn't read the mustering signs. Ooooh, and a "The (rules) Doctor is IN" booth where some of the more rules-savvy volunteers (and hopefully the occasional developer) could answer rules questions. I just saw a lot of people craning up at the HQ tables trying to figure out who to ask their questions to.
We won't have a developer available to answer rules questions in the PFS room. They're all busy working in the Paizo booth or running seminars all convention long.
The original plan for this year was to have a dedicated "Answer/Help Table" near the front of the room, but space limits removed that option. We had to scrounge space at the last minute to find places for all the pre-gen characters. Next year we'll have a lot more space and a few more tables. Hopefully that will give us the ability to have a dedicated Q&A area. I'm hoping to have a larger HQ area next year, too.
I spend a lot of my Gen Con just answering questions at HQ from players, GMs, and potential players. More signage would be good, but there's a limit to how much we can put up in a limited space. All those signs cost money, too, which is not a negligible factor.
I'd actually like to move the Hero Lab workstations to their own area next year if we can, but they need ready access to power which brings its own host of issues. It does give me an idea of how to deal with Hero Lab and pre-gens next year, though.
As an aside, the mustering signs were one of the great wins this year. We had almost no people come up to HQ to ask us how to get to their table.
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I thought that this is the best organized GenCon that I've been to. While I was only on the receiving end of the mustering, it seemed to have gone off extremely well. Most of my tables were seated within 10 minutes after the hour. Runners distributing water is a hold over from last year, but I still appreciate the effort that the staff has gone to make sure that the volunteers are being properly cared for. I do have a couple of thoughts to make next year's GenCon even better:
GM check-in:
Next year could we possibly have 3 or 4 lines (preferably sorted by last name,) and have pre-made swag bags attached to the badges, so that we don't have to check in, then go to a line to get your swag, and another line to get you GM boon?Special GenCon Chronicles:
Since GenCon is such a premier event it seems that we should be able to make the chronicles a bit more special (watermark, boarders, etc.)
If we can't do this for every scenario, could it be done for the specials?
I printed my own chronicles Bruce on a nice scroll looking letterhead. Yeah, cost me about $15 to do so, plus the cost of the ink to print.
But I wanted to do something special for the players at my tables.
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First, Gencon was fabulous and the Paizo staff was very well organized and we had no sucky DMs. Only two real complaints and those where fairly minor.
1. Mustering when you had less the 6 players with real tickets.
When mustering begins there is a large mass of people at the front doors trying to hold signs up or calling out requests for players to fill tables making you feel like your in some kind of Hero bazaar. This is fine and all, be when you have a legal table of 4 or 5 people you may not want to join the fray to fill out you table and later in the Con you just want to sit down at your table as soon as possible to get away from the noise, crowd and standing. Some mustering coordinators were very accommodating and let us sit, sending over singles or couples as they showed up. Others wanted us to join the bazaar and find additional players ourselves and one was fairly pushy about making us do that. We did not like being told we had to join the fray of hero shopping when we had a legal table of 4 people.
This year we had to seat ~810 players and ~135 GMs in each slot in less than 20 minutes. Each marshal was seating between 10 and 13 tables in that time. They honestly do not have time to find players to fill out your table. If you want to be seated quickly, make the marshals' lives easier and come to them with a full table. Show up early and muster your table early and aggressively. If your table is ready to go before the marshal shows up, you'll spend less time in the "bazaar".
If you want someone else to do that work for you, you're going to find that the players that put together their own full tables are seated first because all the marshal has to do is get their scenario & subtier information and write down which table got used. That takes less than 30 seconds, where as finding you a 5th or 6th player can take several minutes.
2. Confusion over the new guide.We experience a fair amount of table variance at Gencon when it came to how out of tier gold worked, how ITS were supposed to work, how to calculate appropriate tiers and especially how gaining PP in year 5 is supposed to work. I asked one of the DMs if all of this was gone over in the GM meeting they had on Wednesday and was surprised to learn it had not been.
We didn't feel like it needed to be addressed in the GM meeting because the new Guide was out and discussed in detail here on the Paizo boards for over a week before Gen Con.
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All I ask is that we consider such a thing for next year and have a plan.
Brian, we'll move tables around to accommodate special needs of any sort, but we can't guaranteed wheelchair access to every table in the room. We'd have to cut back the number of tables in the room to somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of what we have now. We're happy to move things around, and the layout this year had at least one or two tables of every color that were on the main aisles. We'll try to keep that arrangement next year and we'll happily work with any of our wheelchair-bound players to get them the seating arrangements they need if they let us know.
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Had a blast.
Only 3 small things:
* Running We Be Goblins Too in 2 hours was definitely too short. I had a few new PFS players and spent 15 minutes explaining PFS and the importance of having a PFS number (as directed by HQ) before we started. The first act took an hour. Now I have 45 minutes to do as much combat as possible. Here is a thingy, then the final thingy. Felt too rushed, and I think most players agreed.
Mike's already said that we'll have 4 hours for these next year. The 2 hour slots were a mistake and by the time it was caught it was too late to correct it in Gen Con's system.
* No break from AM to afternoon slot sucked, and the afternoon slot at 6. I had about 45 minutes of time to wander the vendor hall. I gave up shopping. Sure most games got finished earlier, but my tables didn't.
I agree, which is why I was calling the slot 30 minutes earlier than scheduled. Next year I hope to have two 30-minute breaks rather than one 60-minute break.
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GMs and players that left their tables an absolute wreck for the next group to play
I noticed the same thing. In previous years I think the players/GMs did a great job cleaning up after themselves. Not sure what happened this year, but I was constantly cleaning up soda cans, expended pregen sheets, food wrappers, etc.
We can hope that everyone polices themselves, but it falls to the table GMs to remind players to take their garbage with them. Please keep this in mind for all gamedays and conventions you attend, especially the larger venues. Someone will have to clean up if you fail too and those people are probably the volunteers who are already doing a ton to make your experience a good one.
Explore! Report! Cooperate!
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Jon,
That last point is a reasonable position to take, but some of those new rules either went back-and-forth a little during the week, or else were clarified when people thought of exceptions that needed to be incorporated in the rule. When I showed up at Gen-Con, I figured that the Inventory Tracking Sheet rules might have gone through another iteration between Monday evening (when I stopped paying attention) and Thursday morning, and I honetly hadn't had time to follow all the hundreds of posts about the out-of-tier gold.
Mike and John should make sure the GM pool is clear on any new changes, and the Wednesday meeting is a good time for that.
It's a minor issue, but at one point my group was sent to "B-15" only to find another group already at the table. It happened that we'd assumed that since we were mustering next to the Black tables that was what the marshal had meant, when she'd really meant to send us to Blue-15. We worked it out quickly, but only because there was a GM at the table to let us know we were in the wrong place. If it had been a table that was going to be unused that slot (not that I saw many unused tables) we could have been sitting there for a while.
It happened again later that I was sent to a "B" table, but this time I knew to ask before heading out.
Not a big issue, and I haven't heard of anyone having a real problem with it, but maybe next year buying either Blue or Black tablecovers, not both, would keep any potential problems from cropping up.
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Suggestions...
1. Making IDing Marshals in the Crowd Easier - One volunteer (Brandon Mann) had the good suggestion of marshals using bright armbands. Also, brightening up the clipboards might be another thought (back of the boards neon or some similar bright color). Heck, you could just throw the Pathfinder picture of a Gunslinger on bright paper taped to the back of the clipboard. The armband idea is easy enough to slip on and off when a person is active in their duties ("Oh, you're going to muster? Here, take my armband and clipboard..."). This will hopefully help mark them out in the crowd.
2. Placement of 'Marshaling Instructions' - Figure out where people are going to muster, then put the poster boards away from that. Otherwise, the crowds of people will mask their placement. Two in the center of the room (facing opposite directions), one in front of HQ, then the rest probably out in the hall in front of the doorways that people enter through probably work. It appeared this year, the boards were put just INSIDE the doors - and were masked by people. I didn't even notice one until Saturday.
3. Educating Volunteers Better - When I first arrived, mustering was a real cluster. I talked to numerous people (some marshals, some just DMs), and most of them didn't know what was going on, or what players were supposed to do (at least for those first two slots). Perhaps some good options for getting volunteers up to speed (other than covering it during the DM meeting on Wednesday, since some may miss that): A. make up a 1-page hand-out to give to volunteers, with instructions on 'how it is all going to work', and B. Emailing the instructions to volunteers before the event. It took about 2 slots before I figured out the multiple instructions for mustering [A. look on the projection for your 'banner', B. go to your banner, find the group of players for your game, C. find the marshal handling your table, and inform him when you have a table, etc.]. It helps that I've been through this before, but many attendees will be new to Pathfinder Society, conventions in general, or just playing one or two slots of PFS during the con.
4. IDing Important People - I noticed at least one person saying they didn't know who Jon Cary was (or another important person at HQ). This one may not be a big deal. Would it be worth including his picture in the one-page handout for volunteers? Would Jon or Wes want their profiles floating around like that? Perhaps not...but it's worth considering. I will warn you - I might consider cutting out Jon's picture, and making a new Pathfinder character out of it. <grin> "Time for a new table tent!"
The color tablecloth worked well, and most of the DMs I had ran their games well. Thanks for all the hard work y'all put into this!
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The emphasis on seating 6 person tables before anyone else was a bit of a problem. I was with 4 other friends for 2 of the specials and we found it a frustrating having to hunt down that last person. There was also one occasion where 5 of us (who all showed up individually) with actual tickets waited around while other mustered groups of 6 were seated, only to be told that there were no tables left. Part of this was on the person doing the mustering as she apparently didn't check to make sure that the 6 person tables she seated didn't have generics mixed in, but I think the emphasis to get full tables seated first didn't help. As far as I know all of us did end up in a game.
I've waxed poetic elsewhere about the challenges of mustering less than full tables in the time we have available. At some point it has to become the player's responsibility to find a table. To your point, if there were 5 of you standing around with real tickets, why didn't you form up a table with 1 generic and get seated?
If the Marshal was seating generics before slot time, then there's a communication issue we'll have to stress more heavily next year. If they were seating full tables with a mix of reals and generics after slot start time, then they were following procedure. After slot start time, we prioritized tables with the highest number of real tickets in an effort to seat all the real ticket holders.
I was also surprised when they turned away generic tickets Friday night and then the table my group was seated at had 2 empty tables right next to us (with GM's ready to run, no less).
We were sold out on the Special months before the event. For those who asked us at HQ, we informed them that we were not planning to seat any generics for the event, but that if there were empty seats or tables when we got done marshaling real tickets we would be happy to seat them at that point but that we could not guarantee that there would be seats available for generics.
Last year we bent over backwards to seat generic tickets during the special and it was a uniformly terrible experience for GMs who had to try and run it cold as well as for their players. We're not willing to have that kind of experience for players. I would much rather have a good experience for a smaller number of players. Next year we'll handle it the same way, so if you want to play in the Special at Gen Con in 2014, be sure to make it the top of your tickets to buy.
The quality of the GMs I had this year was excellent, with 1 exception (sort of). My first GM on Thursday showed up late and then asked the group if we could hurry through the scenario so he could get to the dealer booth soon after the hall opened. I was not happy with the idea but the rest of table agreed. However, after we started playing he seemed to settle into GM'ing and we ended up not skipping over or rushing any of it (except at the beginning)....
I have an idea for GM (and player) feedback, but it's going to require some work on the part of Paizo IT to implement. They're pretty swamped most of the time, so I'll have to sell it to Mike and TPTB to get it implemented.
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A bunch of us GMing brought special/different chronicle sheets for this purpose. I think this one may be best left in the hands of the GM, as I think the effort:reward ratio is a bit skewed against it.
I used 32# semigloss paper for most of my chronicles. So, we seem to agree that they should be special. I also agree that printing up several thousand chronicles may be a bit ambitious, but ~1100 (~160 tables x7 each) chronicles for the special event might be do-able. Failing that, I would like something more universal, so we don't have 100+ versions of "special" chronicles. Perhaps a watermark pdf or something similar.
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- The muster: Good idea. The banners worked well, even if they needed to be spaced out a little more. I guess the only suggestion might be to group low, mid and high level modules together when possible. Also, you need goblins hanging from the banner, chewing on them and trying to set them on fire.
I'll take the hit on that. When I assigned scenarios to muster stations, I had them grouped by level based on a list of iconics I was given. I didn't communicate that to Mike so when the banners went up no particular attention was paid to the order of the banners and it randomized the grouping. We've already decided to lay them out in alphabetical order next year so that shouldn't be a problem again.
- Screw water; give out hot tea and honey... My poor voice (and the poor GMs on Sunday's voices) was nearly gone by the end. The water was excellent, but if you have any suggestions for avoiding voice loss, I'm open!
I hear cough drops are good for helping with that. Logistically we can't really provide hot drinks. Honestly, Paizo's already being extremely generous to provide all that water -- other conventions and companies don't even do that.
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One way to solve this problem is to have door guards as a first tier of mustering. They check tickets to make sure they are real before they let them into the room to go to the muster stations.The musterers had enough going on, that they don’t need to also check for real tickets too.
It's a great idea, but who will bell the cat? Where should we pull the people from to guard the doors?
GMs need to be setting up their tables.
Over half the HQ staff is already engaged in mustering. Most of the rest are dedicated to other tasks and/or answering questions.
Also, should we turn people away that want to come in to work on their characters at the Hero Lab stations, or to play Goblin Attack (or whatever we have in its place next year)?
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To be fair, it's really kinda weird to be told there is absolutely no room for you, and then you see GMs sitting at empty tables. I got in on generics each night after being told there was no way I could possibly get in.I was playing high tier tables though. I dunno how the situation was for low tier, but I saw generics get seated for those too in Siege
I would rather surprise a few folks with getting seated when they didn't expect it than disappoint masses of people by not seating them when they thought they had a chance.
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I overheard from someone that the HQ staff didnt get tokens or boons for helping out. If this is true, could we maybe look into fixing that? While not running scenarios they are filling in important roles for this entire thing to move much smoother.
I've addressed your other points in previous posts, so I'll stick to this one. We did, indeed, forget to give out tokens or boons to the HQ staff. This was an oversight and not a policy issue. HQ staff are entitled to the same rewards as GMs of the same tier, including the GM boon. Honestly, I would have forgotten my GM boon if Wes hadn't grabbed one for me.
We (mostly Wes) are in the process of reaching out to our excellent staff members and getting them some boons, so that problem should be rectified soon.
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Oh, and how were the banners for mustering picked? I mean, Seltyiel and Dameil, but no Imrijka? Maybe it was just too hard to pronounce. Sadly no Lirianne either, but since gunslingers remain controversial anyways I wouldn't really expect her.
Not sure how they were picked. Mike has promised 3 new banners for next year, though, so maybe one of your favorites will be included.
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I would like to see mustering start at X:30, and X:45 for generics, more likely to get everyone seated by slot start time, also should make the musterer's job easier (expanding the time frame is helpful, it's not bad if the player's beat the GM to the table)
We can't seat generics before the beginning of the slot in case a real ticket shows up 30 seconds before start time. The real ticket holder would have a legitimate complaint that a generic was seated in his seat before the slot even started. Once that real ticket holder is late for the event, they have effectively given up their seat and we can seat a generic ticket holder in their place.
If the previous slot's table is still running, the player's know where they are supposed to go and can wait a few moments.
Previous slots should never be running at tables. Even between morning and afternoon slots there were 15 minutes between when we called end of slot and marshaling started for the next slot. That's 30 minutes before the start of the next slot.
If a GM was running past time, please send feedback to Mike so he can note that for next year's volunteer list.
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Something I brought up during the after-Con meeting was to have the reflective roadwork vests for the marshals. They are easy to see, and they can be passed from person to person between slots. They can also have the name of the iconic banner they are assigned to on the front and back in big letters. Possibly have the level ranges they cover also on the vest if each iconic is assigned to the same level brackets the entire con. Not sure if the last part is really viable.
I came up with this while looking over this thread. Maybe with some work we can get the player community to help us with marshalling next year to get this idea to really stick and work.
First the marshals split the players into two groups - pre-mustered and individuals with real tickets looking for a group. Call the pre-mustered groups of 6 up first to be seated.
Then ask the groups of 5 to send up one person with what "class" they need to round out the table. Then grab one player of that class from the looking for group crowd. You now made a table of 6 and seat them.
Then ask the groups of 4 to send a rep up with class needs. Assign 2 players from the LFG pool and seat a table of 6.
Ask the groups of 3 to come up, and either merge two of them or assign 3 from the LFG pool to make a table of 6 and seat them.
Ask the groups of 2 to come up, and either merge them or assign people from the LFG pool to make a table of 6 and seat them.
When you have nothing but real ticket individuals left group them up and fill out a table of 6 with generics and seat them. Then rinse and repeat the above steps for the generics.
Hopefully individuals in the LFG pool will eventually pick up on larger groups getting seated first and begin pre-mustering themselves into larger groups.
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All I ask is that we consider such a thing for next year and have a plan.Brian, we'll move tables around to accommodate special needs of any sort, but we can't guaranteed wheelchair access to every table in the room. We'd have to cut back the number of tables in the room to somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of what we have now. We're happy to move things around, and the layout this year had at least one or two tables of every color that were on the main aisles. We'll try to keep that arrangement next year and we'll happily work with any of our wheelchair-bound players to get them the seating arrangements they need if they let us know.
I don't think we need every table accessible, I understand that isn't feasible.
There were plenty of tables that were wheelchair accessible on the edges and on the center island. I just think we need a plan in place in case the scenario a wheelchair uses wants to play is not located at one of those tables.
I only brought it up because I could tell it hadn't really been thought of in advance.
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MR. Cary, thanks for your explanation of the banners. "I didn't communicate that to Mike so when the banners went up no particular attention was paid to the order of the banners and it randomized the grouping". That explains a LOT. Mustering is always nutty, and I think always will be, but having a more intuitive layout will be helpful.
I think we have to be careful about the 'generic' tickets thing. I doubt it would be good policy to make ticket holders who spent 'real' money on generics feel like second class citizens--particularly if Paizo would like them to be customers.
I've GMed an played a number of specials/Battle Interactives. Thurston, I really, really appreciate how meaningful the actions of low level characters were in ACT 3. I was GMing a 3-4 group, and they (and I) felt awesome when it was announced that another volley struck the demons. Major kudos to making lowbies feel important.
Mr. Brock (and all of Paizo), thanks for the credit given per slot, thanks a TON for the water (thanks for the runners who offered it, too), and thanks for giving me a really nice room to sleep in.
I heard a lot of new players (I ran 1-5 tables all con) talk about how well they'd been treated, how excellent their experience had been, etc. That is so awesome.
Thanks to all the HQ folks. You all were really great. Thanks to Mr. Brock for going out of his way to get my badge so that I could get my refund.
I look forward to GMing other cons for PFS.
Colin McGough
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For events that have high demand like the special can we get an announcement over the PA system for when GMs can accept generics at their table. I had to boot one from my special only to take on another at the end. I felt that different musterers had different opinions of when to seat generics or players with generic tickets were sneaking past to a table.
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This was my first GenCon, and I really enjoyed my time there. I'd been to Origins before, but this was a scale of gaming I'd never experienced!
I have a couple of suggestions for mustering from what I experienced.
1. For the more popular time slots (not just special) it can be a challenge to walk up and down the hall through crowds to find which banner you're supposed to be mustering under. Could the boards be altered to hold printed posters that show all the scenarios running and which banner you head to for mustering? That way you're not walking up and down the hall, visiting every board just to find your scenario.
I'm not sure if you noticed, but the boards outside were aligned with where in the hall the banners were located so that players could walk straight in to find their muster area. Next year the banners will be in alphabetical order, so that should help as well.
We were marshaling over 60 scenarios this year, so having one big board with all of them was impractical. Nex year we're looking at about 18 scenarios, so the data should be much more manageable.
2. The first game my son and I played, the marshal heard what we had tickets for, asked us for our tier, then directed us to stand at a certain area near her to wait for more players to arrive so we could make a table. She was very active in helping players find each other. Other marshals were often turning us away until we were already in a party of six.I'd like to see marshals taking a more active part in helping individuals/pairs find each other to build tables. It's a bit disconcerting to be told I have to troll through the crowd, looking for others who are ticketed for the same event I am and who are prepared to play the same tier I am.
I've addressed this before, but it comes down to a time issue. Marshals have to get 60-80 people seated in a limited amount of time. We can't really expect them to track each individual and what their needs are, so we rely on the players to organize themselves. Does it require more effort on your part? Yes, but it means that we can get all our tables started no more than 15 minutes after the scheduled start time, and many of them get to start early. Surely that outcome is worth a little effort on the part of many?
Yes, and we'll have more room for them next year. We'll also turn them 90 degrees so they're facing out into the room and are easier to see. The way they were laid out this year they obscured each other and were difficult to see from across the room.
3. As others have said, the banners need to be spaced further apart. It was often difficult to find the one we were looking for, especially as relatively new players who don't know the iconic characters by sight.
4. Maybe there's a creative way to share with generics what scenarios are not sold out? I can't tell by looking at the marshal area or the mustering posters, so if I don't have a event ticket but am looking to play, I have no idea what area to head towards for my best luck in getting seated at a table.
I don't have a good answer for that as we don't have a direct feed from Gen Con and they continue to sell tickets throughout the event.
5. I appreciate the issues that the organizers face in organizing and seating nearly a thousand people for a game slot and how much space so many tables take up, but in the long run, obtaining extra space for marshaling might be worth it in terms of less frustration for everyone.
Marshaling space is only used for about 20 minutes out of every 5 hour block. It's necessary, but we can't really sacrifice tables for it. That said, we'll have more space next year, with a slight increase in the number of tables, so that should get better.
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I am not sure that mustering for the same event should be held in multiple locations. It makes it harder for all the players to get sorted out.
Mustering almost 100 tables under one Marshal is not feasible. It would take the better part of an hour to get everyone seated, especially if the marshal is expected to fill in remaining players for tables of 4 or 5 players (which is why our marshals were instructed to seat tables of 6 first and then worry about partial tables).
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I was somewhat dismayed by the hurry to get us out Saturday night, seeing as last year we were playing until 1 am and HQ apparently had forgotten we were even in there. I understand the desire for us to leave and all, but I didn't need the constant pushing.
The slot end time is at midnight, reminders were given starting 30 minutes before the end of the slot, and the HQ staff cannot leave until everyone has exited the hall. It is the GM's responsibility to track time and make sure they're on track to end as scheduled.
All of the HQ staff are volunteers who, in most cases, worked well over 40 hours during the days of the convention. It's not fair to ask the HQ staff to say late and miss sleep or relaxation time because one or two tables did not finish on time.
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I would like to share a possible mustering "upgrade" based on a system my team uses at work. I work at a university, and for Honors Day, we must check in over 1000 students, verify that they qualify for honors, and sort them according to the levels for which they qualify. We do this very quickly by swiping each student's ID card. If a student forgets the card, we manually enter his/her ID number.
If each PFS player were given an ID card with their PFS number encoded, there would be no need for tickets other than generics. Each player would swipe to be allowed entry to the muster area. If they have not purchased a "real" seat for the event, the swipe would reveal this and they would be asked to step aside until such time as players with generic tickets are invited to join the muster.
The problem is that the tickets are sold by Gen Con, not Paizo. We have no way to tie tickets to PFS ID numbers. This system would all have to be set up by Gen Con, not Paizo or the PFS staff.
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Signs outside the Sagamore were good. Higher signs -- maybe 7 - 9 feet above ground, would be better.
Apparently there's a limit to the height of the signs we can place in the halls. I think it's an ICCLOS limit, so it's unlikely to change.
Is there any way to promote the higher-level scenarios? Or should we all expect that, for the most prt, we'll be running levels 1 - 7?
It's the nature of an Organized Play campaign. There will always be more lower-level tables, especially at large events where more of the players are brand new. Also, since characters in PFS tend to "age out" at a steady rate of 3 XP per scenario, there's not really a chance that you'll have a huge buildup of Tier 7-11 characters as the campaign ages.
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Overall, things at the con ran great. I got to meet several great players and GMs, and didn't have any bad games outside of a particularly angry table of Goblin Attack.
One of the things that would absolutely help the marshals and the mustering process is a way to identify who the marshals are. Be it through shirts, or stickers that have their banner characters on them, knowing who the marshals are would absolutely speed up the process. 15-30 minutes before the event, all of the GMs were going up to everyone in a purple shirt asking if they were the marshal. The process would then repeat once it was time for the players to show up because it wasn't clear who the marshal was.
We talked about this in the after-con meeting on Sunday afternoon, and we're agreed that something needs to be implemented. Mike mentioned the reflective orange vests that workers and police wear, I suggested giant yellow dunce caps, and RPGA used to have distinctive (oversized) Marshal shirts.
Whatever we finally settle on, we'll be sure to make our Marshals stand out next year.
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3. What does Jon Cary look like? I was actually sent to see him about something at one point, but I had no idea who he was, so I ended up wandering aimlessly for over 5 minutes. I eventually went back to the HQ table in frustration and luckily ran into him, nowhere near where I'd been told he was. I even asked some of the other table GMs if they could point him out to me, and they had no idea who he was. If there's a single point of contact for important stuff, then being able to find him needs to be much easier than it was. I would have been fine with being told to wait up by HQ until he got back, or someone else showed up who could help with my problem, but being sent to go find someone in the crowd without knowing what he looks like is kinda silly.
Maybe I'll wear the big yellow dunce cap next year...
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4. IDing Important People - I noticed at least one person saying they didn't know who Jon Cary was (or another important person at HQ). This one may not be a big deal. Would it be worth including his picture in the one-page handout for volunteers? Would Jon or Wes want their profiles floating around like that? Perhaps not...but it's worth considering. I will warn you - I might consider cutting out Jon's picture, and making a new Pathfinder character out of it. <grin> "Time for a new table tent!"
Other suggestions I've addressed, won't repeat myself. In answer to this one:
No! Bad Tom! Go TPK someone to get your aggression out!
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Here are my Comments for Gencon 13 hopefully generally readable, constructive and usable and not in any way viewed as a personal attack against anyone.
I agree whole-heartedly with Bob. Send the five/four real tickets to the tables-- the Marshall writes the number and subteir by the table; and as single and or double real tickets can trickle in then the Marshall can send those real tickets to the holes. Not to hard for the marshal to keep track of on the paper. The four-five person real ticket holders are legal tables and can get seated and are then out of the way. The six person tables should get priority but 10 minutes into mustering, timeliness counts too.
Mustering is not for the faint of heart. Having working previous conventions in bygone years(as a Marshall) musterers/Marshalls need to be seen and heard...the purple shirts work but not in a huge crowd. They need to elevate (especially any who might be height challenged (I sometimes stood on chair YMMV) and project their voice. I've seen people wear funny hats (like pirate hats or I actually bought a top hat this year). The RPGA had separate button up shirts then wore t-shirts to be judges. And they need to be thick skinned as some players might get irate at seeing tables of five get turned away when most of the room has been seated and there are judges with empty tables waiting on Players whether or not the event is timed. It was suggested that players having trouble getting a full table should seek help from HQ. Players aren't thinking of going to HQ to get a table because its not HQ's job to muster. Training to deal with irate players would be helpful. possibly go over it during the judges/marshals meeting y'all have on Wednesday. IE "I think you need to go to HQ with your issues sir"...
A lot of gamers are introspective and don't intuitively muster themselves into groups of 6, they need to be prodded by the musterer/Marshall. To this day I am still impressed by the new player base Pathfinder continues to build, but with that new player base comes the unfamiliarity of mustering into groups of six. Another thing I think should be recommended is those playing on pregens should mustered together. They have no investment in the pregen while people that have been playing that 6-8 level character (and have so many chronicle sheets behind it) have much more invested in its survival.
Signs needed to be changed every slot. This could have been causing some confusion. Especially if you came in on generics just wanting to play a game and had a PFS character. Finding a module that you hadn't already played could have been an issue. I know that multiple signs had the same teirs for the special but weren't next to each other. If the Marshall on one side ran out of tables there was no coordination with the other Marshall with the left over tables/players.
The special seating took over 1:30 and we just happen to have the table of five and two different generics holders were seated first before a real ticket holder was found. I don't know if this was built into the scenerio but that was a lot of waiting around. I did have a great time. The Wife/husband team from my old group did mega damage. I say it that way because she did the most. It was great seeing and playing with them again. The mustering issues the husband had with bonekeep #1 made him give me their two real tickets for bonekeep two...so he decided to go with an alternate schedule. 15 minutes before the bonekeep 2, I acquired a third ticket at event registration so that a wife/son group could join me at bonekeep 2 then I ran into a gunslinger that I had played with earlier.
One thing of note..(this is for Mike Brock). I looked in the Guide to Organized Play and it said that For modules and Adventure Path content below 9th level, if you do not have a character in the correct level range, you may use a Pathfinder Society pregenerated character, when we sat for bonekeep 2 the two randoms that we acquired weren't going to play their real characters. They were going to play pregens until I convinced them to play their subtler appropriate characters, we (the four of us) would keep them alive. What is Pathfinders policy about playing a module when you _do_ have the level appropriate character but don't want to risk the character death. My impression was they would play bonekeep 2 with the pregen then immediately apply it to the character they didn't want to risk. This seems to be out of the spirit of the game.
People with pregens have no investment with them and playing them in special events the players could callously or unintentionally cause unneeded deaths of real characters by their actions/inactions. My buddy and I played bonekeep 1 with 4 pregens. It wasn't pretty or fun. Well I made it fun, but that's me. The judge had issues with breaking magical weapons and hardness but fixed it eventually but the damage had been done time wise... Didn't matter I got to game with my friend and no pregen , my buddy , or me for that matter died) .but we only did four rooms. Meh. Very challenging. Sphincter factor rating extreme.
I overheard that the placement of banners was not by choice and the attempt to move them and some tables was left on deaf ears. Unfortunate. That did leave the hallway during bonekeep and the interactive a huge fire hazard. Maybe this should be brought up next year to convention center management. (And maybe you will have the entire Sagamore ballroom :-))
The colored table cloths were a great idea. It definitely helped my wonderful wife and family find me and occasionally bring me food. My wife also helped out a nice teammate and caffeinated her with coffee. (Sometimes its good to know people. Hehe) she was much appreciated and wide-eyed the rest of the module :-).
Judging crew were really good this year. Suggestion for judges: have a storage area for them or a judge "staff lounge" that is nearby even if it part of designated HQ. checkin baggage- check out baggage. I bet if ask your judges they'd like something like this. My compatriot was also a volunteer. While playing I often was standing watch over his judging materials while he roamed the dealer hall.... I hope the judge that got the blood clot has gone to the hospital and is feeling better. (I don't remember his name but he is a real trooper).
This may also be paltry in the scheme of things but its not the judges fault if their table doesn't make. Can they still be tokenified so they can get a chance at a boon.. Yes, the judge has been compensated in other ways but the boons from Gencon are only (to my knowledge) available there. Just a thought. If they go off to play, so much the better; they offered their time and prepared to judge, they should possibly get more chances than the average joe.
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I think we have to be careful about the 'generic' tickets thing. I doubt it would be good policy to make ticket holders who spent 'real' money on generics feel like second class citizens--particularly if Paizo would like them to be customers.
We're limited on this to some extent by the fact that it's Gen Con selling the tickets. The Gen Con system is that if you have a real ticket, you're guaranteed a seat at a table. If you've got generics, it's best effort on the part of the event organizers, mostly to allow players to fill in for no-shows at other events.
The way that translates in terms of Organized Play is that generics get "best effort" seating. We don't want to turn anyone away, but generic tickets will always get secondary priority for seating because that's the way Gen Con is set up.
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For events that have high demand like the special can we get an announcement over the PA system for when GMs can accept generics at their table. I had to boot one from my special only to take on another at the end. I felt that different musterers had different opinions of when to seat generics or players with generic tickets were sneaking past to a table.
Yes. I've added this to my list of notes (34 line items and growing) of things that need to be addressed for next year.
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Not a big issue, and I haven't heard of anyone having a real problem with it, but maybe next year buying either Blue or Black tablecovers, not both, would keep any potential problems from cropping up.ICCLOS only had 6 colors available, so that's what we used.
Did they use white? Now I don't remember.
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Did they use white? Now I don't remember.Not a big issue, and I haven't heard of anyone having a real problem with it, but maybe next year buying either Blue or Black tablecovers, not both, would keep any potential problems from cropping up.ICCLOS only had 6 colors available, so that's what we used.
Nope.
Red
Green
Blue
Black
Orange
Yellow
Did they use white? Now I don't remember.Not a big issue, and I haven't heard of anyone having a real problem with it, but maybe next year buying either Blue or Black tablecovers, not both, would keep any potential problems from cropping up.ICCLOS only had 6 colors available, so that's what we used.Nope.
Red
Green
Blue
Black
Orange
Yellow
Then maybe just putting the blue and black tables at opposite ends of the hall next year?
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Jon! Jon! Jon! I know how I am feeling on the day after getting home from Indy. I am sure a lot of others are in a similar standing. You have gone above and beyond with this thread. The shear fact that you are answering everyone's posts is just spectacular. As a GM @ GenCon I can not thank you enough for the devotion you have shown and are showing to PFS.
Thank you.