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How do you handle sign ups and communication with your local gaming populace? Do you use Warhorn, a simple Facebook posting, a forum, etc.? Do you post specific scenarios or simply that there is a game night for PFS?
How do you handle muster? Do you already have breakdown of who needs to sit where? Do you just figure out who hasn't played what and a GM cold runs a scenario? What happens with walk-ins or overfull tables?
Afterwards, do players need to pay the store for the table? Do you need to hand out GM credits?
Basically, can you take me through a typical game day from the initial announcement to the end of the night at your location?
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Sign Ups:
About midway through the current month, the VL posts the schedule for for the next month of Mondays at our store (example page). Typically, 1 scenario for low tier, mid tier and high tier are offered. GMs and players begin sign ups and we use the comments for announcements, inquiries and adjustments as needed. Currently, sign ups are first-come, first-serve.
Game Day:
If its a light day (1 table of each scenario), no real mustering is needed as the GM claims a table at the store and people self-filter to the correct game. On busy days, if there are 5ish tables or multiple tables of a single scenario, someone will direct traffic the best they can. This will be the VL, me or one of our awesome veteran players.
If we have too many players, from last second sign ups or random walk ins, we do our best to accommodate them. If we can't, we direct them to the website to sign up for the next available game day.
If the VL is there, he will hand out $5 store credits (or owed store credits for previous games) to the GMs that night.
On good nights, we start right about 7pm. On rougher nights where mustering is a pain because of no-shows, late GMs or random walk-ins, games may not start until 7:15ish. The store is open until midnight, but we typically get the "wrap it up fellas" around 11:30pm. On average, you can get a solid 4ish hour scenario, including paperwork.
In southwestern ohio we are using an online signup tool. ohiopfs.org
The people email the local organizer to volunteer to be GM and he will post that on Dec 7, there are these 3 scenarios available. People can then reserve a spot in a given scenario. If it fills up, it fills up. If not hopefully there will be enough game day walk-ins to make a legal table.
If there a re a whole lot of walk-ins, often someone will have a scenario prep'd and with them. Then they can just start another table.
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How do you handle sign ups and communication with your local gaming populace? Do you use Warhorn, a simple Facebook posting, a forum, etc.? Do you post specific scenarios or simply that there is a game night for PFS?
How do you handle muster? Do you already have breakdown of who needs to sit where? Do you just figure out who hasn't played what and a GM cold runs a scenario? What happens with walk-ins or overfull tables?
Afterwards, do players need to pay the store for the table? Do you need to hand out GM credits?
Basically, can you take me through a typical game day from the initial announcement to the end of the night at your location?
I have been organizing a local game day called SCRAGcon ever since the days of Living Greyhawk. We would meet every first Saturday of the month for two sessions of anywhere from 1-4 tables per session as popularity waned and waxed. A little over two and a half years ago, we were still running Living Forgotten Realms but started adding PFS to the roster. About the same time, another local group, unaware we had added PFS to our roster, started running single session gamedays of PFS on the Saturdays we didn't have SCRAGcon. Eventually the LFR crowd dwindled and the PFS crowd grew to the point that we were only offering PFS at SCRAGcon. We also discovered that our two groups were now pointlessly competing with each other and joined forces under the SCRAGcon banner (mostly because we already had a Warhorn site and Yahoo Group set up).
As a result of all of the above, we now have two coordinators. One who organizes the two session gameday on the first Saturday of the month. And another who organizes the single session game days for the rest of the month. We also have a local VL who organizes special events and our local conventions.
We generally schedule games on Warhorn months in advance though we sometimes make changes if we find out a majority of players have already played a particular adventure or if we find out there is a conflict with some other event at our FLGS. We usually schedule at least two different adventures for each slot. We try to make sure that when we have two different adventures in the same slot, they represent different level bands and at least one of them is low level so that we can accommodate newbs.
For communication, we have two Yahoo Groups; one just for GMs and one for everyone. We also have a forum on the Pathfinder Society of Florida website. While we use these for announcements, the players seldom use these for communication and it is hard to get people to sign up to them. Some have stated it is because they prefer Twitter or Facebook but I do not find spreading communication out over half a dozen social media sites to be that conducive to good communication. Not to mention I don't have the time or wherewithal to do that. I am a volunteer. If people can't be bothered to use the communication method provided to them then clearly they weren't that interested in communicating. We, of course, also provide out email addresses and do communicate with people who email us.
Starting a week or so before the a particular game day I will start prepping for whatever mod(s) I signed up to run and start watching signups, primarily to see if we have enough GMs signed up. If we do, no problem. If we are short more than 1 GM, I send out a call for GMs. If we are only short 1 GM, and I was scheduled to play that slot, I wait until the Thursday night before the game to see if someone signs up, then switch over to GM or find someone who can. We try to take turns GMing and playing in order to avoid burnout, but this can be difficult as we always have a GM shortage. Sometimes we organize a home game for the GMs just so they get a chance to play. These home games can also act as ad hoc group meeting for discussing things.
The day of the game, I show up prepped to run the adventures I am scheduled for. Plus I have a couple of others as backup. We then muster based on who actually showed up. Thankfully, our local group has gotten pretty good about using Warhorn so we don't get a lot of surprises in this area. We add walkups where we can; seating them next to someone who can show them the ropes and giving some basic explanation both before and after the game as to how PFS works. If we have a shortage of GMs, then we have to ask for a volunteer to run something cold. This is usually preceded by a lecture about the importance of GMing in a volunteer organization. Fortunately, we have only had to do this a few times. We also do occasional reminders about making sure that everyone pays their table fee so that the "F" remains in our FLGS, and make announcements about special upcoming events including nearby Cons. There is also a large group of players in a city about 60 miles from our location that we sometimes share mutual support with.
Our single slot gamedays start at 11:00 am when our FLGS opens. On our double slot gameday our FLGS actually opens an hour earlier for us so that we start at 10:00 am. The slots tend to start about 15 minutes late, cause, ya know...gamers. And we try to make sure they run within a 4 hour time frame (not including paperwork) so that we are done and gone by the time our FLGS needs the tables for CCG & TTM events they usually run in the evenings. On the double slot Saturday we have a short, half-our break between slots for people to grab lunch but because of limited table times, sometimes people end up having to eat during the session.
At the end of each slot the GMs sign and fill out the Event Name, Event Number, Event Date, GM Name, GM Number, Gold, Prestige, XP & Day Job then give the AC to the player to fill out the remainder. We do not make them buy stuff there at the table as we generally trust our players and consider this a huge waist of time. At the end of the gameday, I spend about 15 to 20 minutes packing everything back up (I either bring a lot more crap than everyone else, or they are more efficient at packing things up). I am also not especially in a hurry as this gives players and GMs a chance to approach me and discuss things with me. This is when I get a lot of my feedback.
When I am done with all that, I head up to the front of the store to settle my snack tab and usually buy the latest flip mat or a box of minis. I do this to support PFS, show support for our FLGS, because they offer a gameday discount and because it gives me an opportunity to talk to our FLGS owner about any issues.
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In Metro Detroit we have 8 venues that run PFS games on weekly, bi-weekly or monthly schedule. We organize via a Warhorn page and communicate via a Yahoo! Group. 2014 YTD we have passed 600 tables run locally, so we need a tool like Warhorn to keep things managed. Each venue has a dedicated organizer who selects the scenarios. How this is influenced is different from venue to venue. Most organizers are diligent about posting the schedule well in advance, but sometimes, usually at the beginning of the month, there’s some anxiety as the game date approaches and there’s nothing posted.
I think that Detroit is an outlier in that most (90%) of our games are scheduled on a weeknight. This means that sometimes people arrive late, or the game is scheduled later in the evening. We have a relaxed, roll-with-the-punches stance. Mustering is pretty simple. There’s almost always multiple scenarios offered when we have more than a single table going off. Walk-ins are accommodated the first time, but are strongly encouraged to join the Warhorn page and sign up in advance in the future. Players who sign up on the waitlist understand they may not be accommodated. If we know in advance that a scenario has greater interest than can be handled, we’ll request an additional GM via the Yahoo! Group. If we get a volunteer, great. If not, waitlisted players find something else to do.
Only one of the eight venues charges for the PFS games. I’ve never run there since they began this policy—not out of any type of protest, it’s just way out of my area. There’s another venue that is actually a billiards hall/night club. On Wednesday nights business is slow so our PFS group & the venue have a mutually beneficial arrangement. The expectation is you’ll order a few drinks or an entrée over the course of the game. The food is excellent.
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My area uses Facebook for general chatter and announcements: Southern Illinois Pathfinder Society. I announce a rough monthly schedule (things get added on as we go) around the middle of the month before they are scheduled (so announcing January schedule mid Dec). We use Warhorn for signup, and many people have access to it.
I mostly coordinate just our twice monthly Saturday game days at one of the local stores, while other people who live closer organize the week night games and anything that goes on at other venues, depending on who is able and willing to head it up.
On game day, I bring copies of the Warhorn sign up, so walk ins can register too if they want, and we get seated and playing, most of the time, within 5 minutes of the sessions scheduled start time.
On any game days I organize, the GMs bring me the reporting sheets. If they organized the sessions themselves, I assume they can handle it.
Works well for us for the most part, though I am looking for willing volunteers to help start up events at new locations.
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Sure.
I'm a store liaison for one of the north Georgia game stores, FCB, so this is from that point of view. I'm not sure what local #'s are like for the other stores in the area as I'm not a VO and don't have access to that level of info (assuming that they do, which they may not either), nor do I work for the store in any capacity so I have no control over their stock or policies. We don't use Facebook - I'm not on it and am not interested in any involvement with Facebook, so that would be a deal-breaker for my involvement.
GA PFS has a website forum that most of the store coordinators in the area use to schedule games for anything other than really large gathers (ie local cons, holiday party, Black Friday event, etc - for those we tend to use Warhorn). There's a calendar that shows the game and links to the sign-up.
We have a variety of games in game store in the metro Atlanta area, so at FCB I schedule for four games a month and try to alternate the days & scenarios so that there is minimal overlap on game days / scenarios. I try to post out the upcoming scenarios for the quarter on its own thread so that folks can plan ahead. I try to post the actual sign-ups for 30-45 days out on "stickied" threads, but I'm a bit slow this time around and only have the last bits of December up at the moment while I wait to hear back from my GMs.
As an example, here's the sub-forum for the store I'm the liaison for: FCB Games.
Depending on the time of year (holiday season tends to result in fewer available gamers), I normally schedule 1 or 2 tables per night, but it can get up to 3. We only run one "slot" on any given game day at FCB, as we run on week nights & Sundays, so we have a bit less time available than the Saturday stores.
I currently have about a half dozen regular GMs and about that same # of occasional GMs at FCB, including myself and some of the local VLs.
There is no charge for tables, nor are the GMs incentivized (beyond the normal GM credit, of course) to run games at our store or any of the other local stores that I'm aware of. We don’t get a lot of walk-ins, and thus far have been able to seat those we have gotten. As pretty much every game store in the area uses the same model we do, the local players are used to signing up before games. For the same reason, we generally don’t have “over-full” tables – though we do occasionally have to go to 7 to accommodate – it’s the exception, not the rule. GMs get me the sign-up sheet after they've run and I log them for the store.
Hope that helps.
-TimD
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Phoenix uses Warhorn, with a closed Facebook group for discussion and announcements. Generally speaking the VOs post a schedule for the coming month with one to three scenarios for each slot. As people sign up, we tweak the schedule accordingly.
Muster tends to just consist of asking where your table is and waiting for the GM/other players. There is no table charge, and we accommodate walk-ins where we can. We've had a significant drop in those in part due to pushing the Warhorn signups and in part due to the holiday season.
After the scenario, players get their chronicles and hangout or leave as their schedule allows. GMs hand off the reporting sheets to the VOs and clean up their tables.
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The Seattle/Tacoma area has a web forum at www.nwpfs.org where we plan our game days. Each location has a coordinator who creates a new thread for each game day, allowing GMs to volunteer and players to sign up. We generally post the threads a week in advance, although some of our more enterprising coordinators plan a month or more in advance.
By the time game day/night comes, mustering is mostly a matter of finding your table. If we have walk-ins or someone discovers they have already played the scenario they signed up for, there will be a bit of table Tetris as we do our best to accommodate everyone.
Weekend games are almost always followed by hanging out at a nearby restaurant for late night drinks and snacks with story swapping.
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There are two venues for PFS in Brisbane - Fastbreak and Good Games. I organise the Fastbreak days, which are on the fourth Sunday of every month.
Basically, a week or two after the previous Games Day, I select 4 scenarios that we have not yet offered, or perhaps only limited sets of people played the first time around, and select people to prep the scenarios. I usually prep one scenario, and try to get 3 others to do the rest, and try to avoid anyone having to prep two scenarios for one day. Sometimes, we don't have enough volunteer GMs for this to be practical.
I set up the sessions on Warhorn, for morning and afternoon, with the GMs already listed.
On the Games Day, we generally wait until right before the start time to head out to tables. Generally, I try and stick with the signups, but we regularly get walkins who can't or refuse to sign up on Warhorn, or people who were signed up but don't arrive. Our policy is that everyone gets a game, so I then reshuffle tables as required to make things work. If we don't have enough people for both tables, I'll try and combine them onto one, and if we have too many on one table, I'll try and split them. Once we've determined the tables, we go grab physical tables and get to it. Rinse and repeat for second session, when we invariably have people who decide to leave or turn up. Lunch at the pub usually happens in between.
So far, we've been lucky, and only rarely had to deal with a missing GM. In that case, someone else (often me) will be tapped to take over the table, and either cold run the scenario that was offered, or find an alternative they have run before on the fly.
Fastbreak charges $6 for the first session, and $2 for the second. People playing for the first time at the venue play free. GMs don't pay, and collect table money, along with sign-in sheets.
This system has evolved over time. We used to run Living Forgotten Realms a lot, in a similar fashion, and had gotten in the habit of selecting and running mods on the fly. We found this doesn't work as well with Pathfinder, as the setups are often more complicated, and require more spontaneous adjustments.
I have been to Good Games a few times as well, and they essentially run in a very similar fashion. Our biggest problems right now are actually a limited pool of GMs, and a handful of people who have played so many scenarios that selecting one they can play is tricky.
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I'm from Georgia and used the system TimD described above. During that time, I maintained a spreadsheet that recorded which scenario I had scheduled between the two locations I organized on a quarter-by-quarter basis. I then posted the next quarter's (three months') game day sign-up pages about one month before the first event in that cycle. GMs and players could both sign up once those pages were live.
My policy was to adjust the schedule a bit if sign-ups for a certain scenario were slow, and up to three days before the event, I was open to finding additional GMs to make duplicate tables of a particular scenario if there was lots of interest. Those who signed up had seating priority, followed by new walk-ins. Established players who did not sign up were not guaranteed seats, and we played very little table Tetris. After a few rough events in which I made good on that policy, the community was really good about signing up ahead of time (we were still accommodating to people whose lives made it tough to schedule more than a few days in advance). This also did a lot to help GMs have plenty of time to prepare scenarios.
At that time, I only scheduled about one new scenario per month between the two locations. Players who wanted to play all of the new scenarios were encouraged to check out other GeorgiaPFS locations (we had about eight locations in the greater Atlanta region when I started working at Paizo) and/or attend conventions. This also made it so that each location had an opportunity to shine because no one event ran every scenario available.
My personal method worked really well but did involve a good amount of planning and maintenance.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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In the San Francisco area most stores use Warhorn to schedule events (we also use Warhorn for our local conventions). Stores will typically post their schedule between two weeks and two months in advance. We also have a Yahoo discussion group for the whole of the Bay Area.
Other than that, policies and practices differ from store to store. Of the two stores closest to where I live, one is free to play, while the other charges a $4 fee for players, but returns it to the GM as store credit. Both stores usually have around three tables of play, of which at least one will be a low-level scenario in case there are walk-ins.
Because sign-ups are done in advance, the event coordinator will quite often have a good idea on how to split players across tables (if more than one table is needed for a scenario). Walk-ins and no-shows can upset this, of course.
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We usually make a vague plan the week before and finalize it for warhorn a few days before. Sometimes we'll make or change plans during the initial geek seduko as we sit down, depending on who showed up.
Really need to make a "we're running something we just don' know what"
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Warhorn does have an option for Open Call under the modules section of the global catalog, BNW. You can see it here on the Phoenix Warhorn.
Edit: Actually, that might have been something we added ourselves. I forget. Either way, it's doable!
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Muster tends to just consist of asking where your table is and waiting for the GM/other players. There is no table charge, and we accommodate walk-ins where we can. We've had a significant drop in those in part due to pushing the Warhorn signups and in part due to the holiday season.After the scenario, players get their chronicles and hangout or leave as their schedule allows. GMs hand off the reporting sheets to the VOs and clean up their tables.
You left out the pregame burger and brew at Fat Willy's on Monday nights. You're invited by the way.
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Signup:
I've had little luck with using sign-ups for my games. I tried using a in-store sheet when my group had reached the size of 2 tables. But I ended up with people signing up that would never show up (and some of whom have never shown up ever). I have a Warhorn page now, but my players don't sign up. Most of them have registered to the site but maybe one or two will sign up once a month at most.
I've pretty much accepted this as the way things are now. I have one main table prepared and just in case I have too many, I usually have someone else ready with a 2nd scenario. However since Gencon I've pretty much had one table of 6 or 7 players every week. I have 9 regular players but one or two will disappear for a month and magically someone else comes to fill their place without any form of communication between them.
Planning:
As most of my players have only played PFS in our group, I know which scenarios that they have and haven't played. The only exception are those that have gone to Conventions but I know what they have played there.
Since I print my scenarios off (prefer using hard copy and highlighting stuff and putting notes in the margins), I usually record inside the file folder the days that scenario was ran, and who GM'd and who played. This way I can quickly access if a scenario might see future action again or if it needs to be put away. Lately most scenarios get put away after once use. But some of the low level ones have been played twice and I have enough players that haven't played it that I can work it in for a 3rd time.
Game Day:
I usually arrive at 4:30-4:45. Not all my players can make it til 5:30 so I usually hold off til then to start but if the scenario will take alot more time then normal, I will start at 5:00 (or sooner) and work players in as they come. At 5:00 I decide if we will be one table or two, that is the time one of our young pathfinders gets dropped off and when he shows up I know to expect his father to be by at 5:30.