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What I've found works for my gamestore is having the schedule of games out several months in advance,
people can sign up for what they want to GM and when; the coordinator gets advanced knowledge of a day if filling up fast and another GM is needed
**this is where warhorn is freaking awesome in helping keep track of who is signed up where
and then biggest part is enforcing sign ups .. seat the ones first that have signed up and those that don't get what's left
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Warhorn is also our go-to for signups. We try to have our main groups schedule (Saturdays) out a month in advance due to setting 8-10 tables in a day. The weekly schedule is usually only put out a week or two in advance. This seems to work well enough for weekdays since a lot of people just plan their weekday events at the beginning of the week.
Also, all of the organizers in our region have access to the spreadsheet that we keep track of everyone's play/GM records, to make it easier to plan. We try to make sure that there is at least one scenario for everyone to play.
Enforcing Warhorn has been our biggest hurdle, even though we have been doing it this way for 3 years. We seat new players first, then signups, then GMs, and finally walkups. Yes, some people have been turned away, although it doesn't happen very often. We had hoped once players get turned away, they would listen to us and sign up on Warhorn. Some people got the hint, others just refuse. Most of our GMs pack an extra low level scenario just in case.
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I 2nd Thea's advice of using warhorn.
warhorn.net is a great site that can help you with managing what games are ran and sign ups.
We use it for our local games and cons.
As for GMs and players lacking knowledge of society rules, you can try a few thigs:
1) Set aside 30mins to and hr before the game to vet and explain society rules. You and your GMs can use this time to help answer player's questions and check if anything needs to be corrected before the game itself.
1a) To avoid developing a culture where players and GMs basically don't care about having proper documentation, enforce PFS early and often.
Also encourage players to plan in advance what books and sources they might need for their characters, by checking up the PRD or a site like www.archivesofnethys.com that list what source a spell/class/etc comes from. That way they won't feel pressured or overwhelmed on what books to buy.
2) Have a couple printed copies of the Guide to Society gameplay and additional resources available for GMs to quick reference.
3) Depending on your game store's willingness, you may want to have a means to keep track of sign up. Maybe a log book with the front page having a list of player's name, PFS number, contact? and the rest could be used as sign up sheets.
That way you can check back if report got lost.
4) Contact your local VC/CL (If there is one) to help set things up.
Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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I'm not familiar with warhorn, Meetup is used in my area. Makes it easy to see what games are where and RSVP. I believe that the organizers can also see who has a history of failing to show.
I think having some sort of online RSVP mechanism that provides a discussion board, calendar, e-mail capability, and RSVP mechanism is vital.
Other things that I think are important:
* Make sure you have plenty of copies of the pre-gen characters.
* Make sure you have the scenario sheets ready.
* Try to book for 5 per table.
* Distribute the work. Really. This allows the organization to continue working when someone suddenly is pulled away. If it is a connected pair of people, have backups for them.
* If appropriate to the location, have all players help with setup and teardown of tables and chairs. This sets an expectation that everyone helps in some way.
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I would agree with most of these, though implementing them has been difficult for our small group.
When a new person joins us the GM signature on the first chronicle is a sticky label with my contact info (email specifically) and directions to getting the PFSGOP and for registering their characters.
I get their email either then or when they send me a questions and can add them to the list. The list is ideally to let people know our next game time is (but I have fallen down on that more often than not lately :( This list in on a google doc. And we have a second one for the scenarios people have played/GMed though this only has the regulars are on it so we can determine what to play next.
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All of this advice is good. A few more specific suggestions:
Table size:
If you have a lot of trouble with people failing to show up, then you might want to 6 per table, so if 2 people don't show you can still run the table.
At new stores where we have a lot of walk-ins, we cap our online sign-ups at 4 per table. When we're trying to build a location, the last thing we want to do is turn people away.
Audits, rules instructions, character building/leveling, etc.:
If you can, set aside the hour before the session to handle these kinds of things. If you can't, that gets trickier.
In the past, we've scheduled entire game days devoted to nothing but housekeeping and advice, all day, but these were usually poorly-attended. At a recent convention, we scheduled one table in each session just for introductions to the game, character building assistance, and Q&A--and that table was booked solid for most of the weekend.
I would recommend the second approach: schedule one table at each game day for character advice, audits, Q&A, rules clarifications, etc. If you have a big problem with illegal or incomplete characters, you can try to make it mandatory for a player to "play" at that table sometime in the first three-four game days they attend. (That gets into some interesting bookkeeping issues, though.)
As far as you not wanting to always be the "rules guy":
Unfortunately, once you have a reputation for knowing your stuff, you'll continue to get asked. One thing you can try is doing some GM 101 classes to encourage more GMs with enough rules knowledge (and confidence) that they need to ask you less as time goes by.
About your venture officers:
Contact them anyway. They should be able to give you some advice and possibly get you some resources. They might already have an online sign up that you can piggy-back onto, which will cut down the amount of set-up and maintenance you need to handle yourself.
Getting your events listed onto regional calendars can raise visibility for your efforts: you might find more people in your area, and you might get some more experienced GMs or VOs who happen to be traveling to your area and are willing to help you out. You might also be able to schedule a "special visit" from some of the more experienced GMs.
Qualifications for venture officers are generally "some understanding of the RPG rules", "a commitment to follow the PFS rules", and most importantly, "a willingness to step up and do the work".
General note:
Thank you for stepping up and getting things coordinated. You and the other GMs in your area deserve a lot of credit for trying to get things started again, and I hope you all remember to keep having fun: don't burn yourself out with all the hard work!
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A lot of good advice here. I'll toss in something we do at my store that has gone over well.
At the end of the month, for example we just did this last Friday, we have what has been dubbed by the community as the council of GMs. We all sat down and planned out everything that would be run in October. We did this after the games played for the evening. At the begging of the evening I handed out index cards to all the players, so that they could request any scenarios they would like to play.
I also print out copies of the PFS tracking sheet and hand it out to anyone who doesn't have one. I have found that this has decreased the amount of times people have signed up for a table only to realize once the game has begun that they have played it before.
One thing I have learned as a good rule of thumb is to always have a 1 - ? table for new players. I also always have a copy of the Confirmation prepped and ready to run just in case.
Also big shout out to my local VL Jason Hanlon who has been a big help to me in learning the ins and outs of coordination.
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I'm not sure that we have anyone who would qualify for that position.4. The closest VC/VL to our group is 100+ miles away.Then it might be time someone step up to be a venture officer for your area. :)
There are really not a lot of expectations outside of what you are already doing to "qualify" for Venture-Lieutenant. Their responsibilities are largely defined by the Venture-Captain they report to. In fact, most Venture-Officers got their start as store organizers, and for many VL, that is their primary function.
My advice is to discuss the issue with the nearest Venture-Captain. You might find, you are already doing everything they require of their VLs. Besides, there are a few, albeit minor, perks for being a VL that could help with organizing your local area.
Good luck!
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Thank you all for you advice on getting better organized as a group. I brought almost all of the suggestions up with the fellow coordinators/GMs and I think it was well received and I believe we will be implementing most of the ideas we found here. I'm going to start putting things up on warhorn once I can get all of our 'regular' GMs to a sit down meeting to discuss scenarios that we will run so I can make a good list of what days will run.
Dorothy,
If you know how to get a VO or more experienced GM to Central Arkansas I'm all ears.
Traskus, start here: Regional Coordinators
It looks like the only Arkansas VO is the VL in Jonesboro. It looks like Arkansas is part of a larger region.