Concrete Cow 15.5

Pre-Cow Prep!

Concrete Cow 15.5 was yesterday and now, after a good night's sleep, I'm ready to dump my thoughts into text in a semi-coherent fashion. CC is one of my favourite conventions and yesterday reaffirmed this to me. So lets look at what worked well for me and what didn't work so well for me.

What Worked

The Sign-Up System

In years gone by, all the games that were on offer in the morning would be placed on one table in the hall and when the signal was given everyone would rush forward to get to the game sheet they wanted and hope that they could elbow their way to victory. Understandably this is pretty daunting, frustrating, and (depending on size) dangerous for some people. It also meant that your chances to play the game you wanted, assuming it was popular, were based purely on your ability to barge.

In recent CC's a tombola system has been implemented however to try and combat this and bring a fair system into play. When you buy your ticket to get into the con, you get given a numbered sealed ticket (ending 0-9), then at sign up people are called up to the tables in waves based on that number. The exception goes to newbies to the convention - first-timers get to go up first regardless.

The benefits are obvious while watching: there's no pushing, no shoving, everyone is able to comfortably sign up to what they want. The downside is that you could be unlucky and have the last number and find yourself watching the game you want to play in fill up. The flip side of that coin is that in the next batch of games (ie, the afternoon), the calling numbers are reversed so you'll be at the front of the sign ups.

Of all the sign-up systems it's the most balanced. It's not perfect but it's the closest I've seen one come to it.

The Players

I was really fortunate with my players yesterday. This was the first time I had ran games at a convention and I was, to be short, bricking it. It's one thing to run games for strangers at my local club - if I have a bad session there, I know I can prove that I'm not normally poo in the next session for example - but I was consciously aware that people had travelled to come to this convention and the last thing I wanted was to be held responsible for them not enjoying themselves.

My first game however was made up of players who I knew (though I had not played with all of them previously) so that was a great start to the day. For the afternoon it was predominantly a new gaming group but still with great players.

This caused me to reflect back on my previous sessions at Concrete Cow and I realised that I had only ever encountered one player that I really didn't jam well with - out of a con that sits at around 50 odd players on average I think that's a pretty good ratio!

Something Stinks in Stilton

This was something I had been looking forward to. It was the chance to run my adventure for people I hadn't played with before, people who would react in ways that I wouldn't have been able to predict in the same way that I could with my normal gaming circle, and the adventure held up! A couple of things took me by surprise and added a new element to things but I was delighted that it still worked and didn't suddenly end one hour into the session.

While describing one of the more unsettling scenes, one player remarked, "Nope, fuck that, fuck this." while shaking his head. This was exactly the kind of reaction I was hoping to get (cheers +David Black).

The Tenra Bansho Zero Emotion Matrix

David Black's Stilton character and feelings.

Tenra Bansho Zero is an anime RPG that has a lot of fun little mechanics but one of the nicest is one of its simplest - the Emotion Matrix. Basically, when a player encounters another PC/NPC they can roll on this table to determine what their relationship is with this person.

As I was using basic pregens for both my games I wanted to use this method to give the players something additional to work with - there was no mechanical reward for doing so, but it gave them a hook with each character. It worked, in my opinion, fantastically.

For example in the morning's game, all of the players bar one played humans. The odd player out played a halfling, seemingly out of place when you consider their objective was to hunt some halflings. Through the luck of the rolls on this Emotion Matrix, the human characters had varying degrees of affection for the halfling; companionship, admiration, feelings of interwoven destiny, even love. The halfling however hated most of the characters, harbouring killing intent for the human who loved him.

I don't think it should be used for anything over than one-shots but I'd highly recommend checking it out. Could use a bit of tweaking to making it more rooted in respective systems but for games like Crimson Dragon Slayer it'd be a perfect fit!

What Didn't Work

The Morning Location

In the morning I was running Lamentations of the Gingerbread Princess, quite a fun tongue-in-cheek adventure, and I figured it'd be a nice ice-breaker to kick start the day. Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to nab any of the quieter enclosed rooms and instead had a table in the main hall. It was noisy, hot, crowded and I could never get myself properly into the vibe of things. When the fire exit behind me got propped open to allow traders to come in and out as they set up their stalls I felt the frustration I was having with myself grow considerably (though temperature wise I was a lot better!). Bugger attempting that again in a hurry. The players assured me they had a good game but I still felt I could have given them a lot better if I hadn't let myself get so anxious over what was going on around me.

In the afternoon I managed to get a secluded table sharing a room with only one other group and I found it a lot more productive - I could speak normally without having to repeat myself or raise my voice and I had no distractions.

My respect for GMs who regularly run games in large halls like that has gone up considerably.

In Summary

A great time. Don't be misled by my grump at my own performance in the morning, I still had a lot of fun then; the characters got humped by poodles, they turned a princess into gingerbread and crushed her with a giant teddy bear, and they fired fireworks into a sleeping girl's face.

I've not been put off running future games at Concrete Cow but I'll likely stick to running games in the afternoon and evening where its a bit quieter, and I still heartily recommend this convention to anyone and everyone!