Convention Reflections
This past weekend I volunteered at AVCon, primarily, an anime and video game convention. Aside from the retro video game display, I have very little interest in most of what is there.
But they have a fairly large tabletop arena.
There were rows of long tables for board games and wargames, and a library of games for folks to borrow and play. There was another section for card games filled with Magic players trying desperately to not buy more cards, and failing (they put a card vendor right next to them, poor souls). And then there were 8 big round tables for RPGs.
There were five time slots over the two days, with almost 8 offers in each. So, not an enormous commitment, but enough considering most folks there are not there for RPGs. There were three or four 5E offerings each time slot, the rest filled with quite a range of games for little ol' Adelaide. There was Vampire, Honey Heist, Pirate Borg, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Call of the Cthulhu, and Into the Odd (run be me).
Folks were pretty exceptional and open to try new systems. So much so that several 5E tables didn't get any sign ups (bam!).
Prepping to get into the odd
I tried several adventures, but nothing seemed to fit with me. I rewrote an adventure I'd run a bunch of time during my 5E days, The Sunless Citadel.
I took a few hours to work through the first level of that dungeon. It has a faction conflict between kobolds and goblins that are pretty weak in the original. I bumped up that conflict by having the Kobolds are invaders and marauders, and goblins are essentially seeking refuge in the back of their own castle. Also, cut most of the top floor out and replaced it with a maze of rooms with an enormous pit in the middle of it. The maze of rooms is a Warzone the two factions have mostly destroyed and filled with traps and pit leads to The Underground that big nasties crawling out of.
Made a new encounter table and a table of 2d6 big nasties that come out once a day.
I wrote an intro that explained a bit about Bastion and Deep Country and then stole to 20,00 Guilders debt hook from Electric Bastionland. Stole the occupation mechanic from DCC too. Then read them the will of a long lost uncle and told them they were all cousins.
Running the Game
I ran Saturday afternoon and evening, and Sunday afternoon. I ran the same adventure each time with completely different results.
I have run games for strangers many times, but I always get a little nervous before the first session. I am convinced I'll forget everything and make a fool of myself. By the end, I remembered that making a bit of a fool of myself was the point.
There's a really close crossover between classroom behaviour management and running games at a con. Obviously no one is getting detention (but they might give themselves homework), but ensuring that all players are included, everyone is listening, everyone feels heard, and that it is a safe environment which all come under a category of skills I am proficient at.
The major difference being that most players are adults and, ideally, they all want to be there.
There is genuinely something very fulfilling about running games at conventions. There were only two players over the course of the days. I was unsure if they enjoyed themselves. That was mainly because they were hard to read and did not engage in play all that much. However, they both said they enjoyed themselves at the end. Only one player gave issue to the X card, but came around to the idea of it when I said they can leave if they don't like it.
Each session went smoothly. They all took the hook and made up minor backstories at the table. The adventure was pretty open-ended; I had no way to complete it, just presented the situation and the major tension pushed it all forward. While the two factions were at war with each other, the party had a deed to the old castle and wanted it for themselves. So, one party started with extermination mode... but when they found the children, and older adults had to switch their methods. Another party found a rod of empathy and used it to a) connect with a pseudo-dragon and b) have the leaders of each faction bringing peace to their lives. The third overthrew a tyrant.
Three sessions and three very different approaches and outcomes. It was a fun little adventure. I might tidy it up and drop it on itch. We'll see how Life treats me.
The 5E Effect
So, one of the major things I noticed over the weekend was the influence of 5E and, I assume, actual play culture on player behaviour and approaches. Each session had one or two players who took either the "Winning" or "Character Voice" approach to play. The Winners would try to game every situation, trying to catch me out on minor details and, of course, attempting to loot everything first. They wanted to be the first in the room and be the one who solved to the problems. Granted, I feel this could come of anywhere but based on age, and what they told me, they were all heavily involved in 5E campaigns.
The Character Voice folks seem much more interested in using a funny voice and trying to be hilarious all the time. Perhaps they were invested in Adventure Zone, or something, but they would come out with really unusual things at really awkward times and be groping for lols from the table. They got them occasionally, but most of the time, it landed flat. One guy on my brothers' table, my brother was running DCC, left after about 30 minutes of showering the table with silly voices.
After thoughts
AVCon is not an RPG con. Which meant there were elements about running games there that made it challenging. Some tables struggled to fill spots, others got no sign ups at all. There was only one vender selling RPGs and by RPGs I mean they were selling both of them. D&D 5E and D&D whatever the new one is called. I had two people ask where they could buy Into the Odd from and I had to point them towards an online store.
Next year, we'll do it again. We are going to come a little more prepared with indoctrination materials. I'll give away some of my adventures and smaller rpgs. We've already spoken to a suppler about having stock of the games we run on hand. We also started an OSR AuNZ Discord for Australian and New Zealand folks to meet and play. So, we'll push that a little at the tables too.
Running games at a con and more folks should do it.
Also, an OSR con in Australia (maybe even in Adelaide) is an interesting idea.