Running Quests at a Wargaming Con: Advice


GM Discussion

3/5

I had too little or too much coffee this morning, because I just realized I'd volunteered to demo PFS (run quests) at a local wargaming convention. So I've come to my favorite board for advice.

I'm planning to show up, lay down a grid, and trick 4-6 stranger into sitting down for 1-6 hours. Does this work? Should I bring a local player to two to seed the table and help teach?

I see lot of reviews that 6 quests are done in 4 hours. Do you end up with a pile of dead time if you try to run one per hour?

Grand Lodge 3/5

You might be able to do the 6 quests in 4 hours if you are running them for players who already know the system, my experience with running the Phantom Phenomenon at a local comic con was that with players who are new to newish to Pathfinder it will take closer to an hour per quest.

Good luck with the demo! I had a blast when I did it and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

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Having 1 or 2 local players to seed the tables is always nice. It's also nice to do quests that have a heavy story element and a built in genre to fall back on. Both Phantom Phenomena and the new quest series, House of Harmonious Wisdom, have movie genres that you can use to cue in your players as to what's happening. I usually tell players in Phantom Phenomena that you're doing jobs collecting 'Ze Psychic Phenomena' for a mad scientist is Ustalav - Pathfinder's Transylvania. For the brand new House of Harmonious Wisdom, I sell it as 'you're the plucky heroes of a Wuxia film, working to recover documents and artifacts for the poorest successor state of what was once a great Empire.'

Don't sell the quests as a 5-6 hour block. Sell them as linked 1 hour or less adventures that come together to tell a bigger story. Most people have an hour to give you. If they like what you do, they'll stay or come back for the rest.

I've never been able to run all of Phantom Phenomena in 4 hours, and I run pretty fast. I say begin one quest when the next one ends. You will have people leave and people come back. When I do convention quests, I usually get most people for 3 quests at a go, and then they shift out to do something else for a bit, and then they come back. So usually in a given day I wind up running about 8 or 9 quests for a mixed group of people that come in and out -- a little more than half of my players do the whole 6 quests. About 3/4s do just 4. Everyone has a good time, though. Be prepared to run some of your favorite quests 2 or 3 times at the con if you have different groups of people.

Teach mechanics, but teach it lightly. Emphasize story, character and problem solving. They'll learn as they go.

Phantom Phenomena Hook:
With Phantom Phenomena, there is a great initial hook (an old woman is throwing horse shows at you) that will get most groups to join in on the fun! Who is this old woman? Why is she throwing horseshoes at us and shouting in a Monty Python old lady voice. "Begone, foul spirits!"?

This scene has worked EVERY time for me getting a group of stranges coming in cold to roleplay and have a ball.

When doing wild numbers of varied quests, here are things to speed you up:

1) New Player Folders -- This is what Minnesota puts in ours!

2) Pre-fill your chronicle and welcome to Pafhfinder Society boon sheets to some extent so that all this can go faster. I check off boxes, but don't fill in final gold and XP/PP until the end.

3) Have an organized Pregen folder filled with your favorite pregens that they can pick from.

  • Having your 1-2 player buddies means that they can explain to people their characters as they go so that you can keep going with the story.

  • If you can have a player buddy help newbies select their pregens, that will be even better. Some new players will have choice paralysis, so having someone who can help them choose what to play is one of the biggest things that will slow a game down. That is one of the things that a great HQ person can do for you at a bigger con. Here, you can mimic that with an excellent player buddy.

4) If you're using Good Reader to access your quest series, have two copies of the quest series open so you can access monster stats and the quest text separately and quickly. Otherwise, have the monster stats printed and accessible.

5) Use Flip Mats or have all maps pre-drawn so you can switch seamlessly from one to the next.

5/5 5/55/55/5

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Be sure to have terrain. A roll out checkerboard might cut it for regular geeks but wargamers are going to want to see some hot foam

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

Oh, terrain would be a lovely addition... We have a local GM who clearly loves to create 3-d experiences. I'm just not that crafty, so I have to rely on charm and pretty flat maps instead.

Hmm

3/5

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HMM, thank you! There is lots in there that will help me out!

3/5

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Obligatory after action report:
The wargaming convention had extremely few spectators, so we had people who were interested but didn't have the time. After the main tournament those that were interested had gaming fatigue. So although it was a success in being able to meet locals who are interested in joining our weekly games, we only ran one quest the day we were there. (We may have got sucked into a malifaux demor ourselves.)

Next year we will either just show up, be social, and check out the painting competition without demoing. Or if the organizers continue to broaden the scope, bring all the regulars and sit 1-2 normal tables.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

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I am sorry that you only managed to seat one quest!

Some conventions are great outreach events... Others are somewhat limited in what they can offer.

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