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Con Artist - Prepping a Convention Game
26 Plays19 days ago
Daryl, Nick, & Robert continue with the convention theme, as we discuss some important things to consider when putting together a game session to run at a convention. Time limits, creating pregenerated characters, testing your adventure...all of this and more.
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Transcript
Introduction to How We Roll Gaming
00:00:03
Speaker
D20 Radio, your game is rolled.
00:00:17
Speaker
How We Roll Gaming is dedicated to spreading enjoyment of great role-playing games. We hope to bring you insights into games you may not have played, tips to be a better game master or player, and share stories of momentous events at our tables.
00:00:29
Speaker
Every game is a new story to tell. I'm Daryl. I'm Nick. And here's Robert. And this is How We Roll.
Star Wars Andor Series Discussion
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome back to the How We Roll Gaming Podcast. ah So how, Robert, Nick, how have you by guys been doing since we last talked?
00:00:55
Speaker
I've been doing good. i just started a new position at my job, so I'm trying to learn that all. Out for the first week and then just been coming home, relaxing, played ah played a little bit of Crusader Kings 3 and then just got to catch up on the Andor that finally came out. Need to watch that. Oh, yes, you do. You do. yeah you Yes, you do. the The boy and I sat up and and watched it as soon as it dropped Tuesday night.
00:01:23
Speaker
And it's... It's good. It's good. They're going places. it Especially since you like the new novel that came out. I haven't finished it yet, but if you like that stuff, ah if you like the Mon Mothma stuff, you're going to love the performance of her.
00:01:40
Speaker
Oh, the Mon, in these first three episodes, the Mon Mothma stuff is my favorite stuff. Yeah, I think I'll enjoy that, though.
00:01:52
Speaker
After reading the novel, I'm hoping they also bring in Bail Organa. I'm taking this report that I saw online with a grain of salt, because you know how online stuff can be.
00:02:04
Speaker
But I read something the other day that Bail is in it, but Jimmy Smits is not. That there were scheduling conflicts, so they couldn't get Jimmy Smits, so they have Benjamin Bratt playing Bail.
00:02:21
Speaker
Not a bad choice, but still. He's kind of iconic. I thought they'd more CG than do that. i' even trying to They've been trying to lessen that.
00:02:33
Speaker
Then again, Brad is not a bad choice. and I'm in law and order. I'm sure I can like him as a politician. Just to say that like Jimmy Smitsworth's in a law and order, he's been in a law and order. There's some cross-fruits.
00:02:47
Speaker
if they If they do the makeup and costuming right, I can buy it. If it's right, I'll go in with Grace. And you know i've I've heard that also scheduling reasons, they they recast um General Draven and I can't remember the the head of intelligence from Rogue One. I like that guy.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, they they had to recast them.
Star Wars Celebration Highlights
00:03:15
Speaker
and And where I really started taking it with a grain of salt is they're like, yeah, and they they recast Jin Erso. And i was like, there's zero reason for her to be in this series. Really? She's like, what?
00:03:28
Speaker
A teenager? Well, no, I mean, to it so it picks up just four years before Rogue One. Like, yeah. like yeah That'd be a very weird cameo. Also, Jen doesn't really we need to be in this. That defeats the whole purpose of... Her whole story is......each other in Rogue One.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, because allegedly the the final shot of the series is Cassian about to head off to the Ring of Kaffreen at the beginning of Rogue One.
00:03:58
Speaker
Which is really good. They're all four-sattering already. Which means we will get Kay. Oh, yeah. Kay is guaranteed. Kay is guaranteed. Yeah, I mean, Alan Tudyk was at Celebration, and they were they were talking all about that. And speaking of that, so I know Nick did. Did you fall down any rabbit holes of watching Celebration coverage, Robert?
00:04:21
Speaker
No, I've been, like I said, new job. Easter weekend, I was really busy. um Yeah, Nick and I both fell down rabbit holes staying up way too late.
00:04:32
Speaker
There's a lot of fun things on the way.
Barnes and Noble Sales and Discounts
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, Darth Maul animated series. um Visions Volume 3, which we knew was coming. Visions having its own spin-off series of one of the sorts getting a spin-off.
00:04:51
Speaker
and ye Tons of novels are coming out that sound really interesting. Tons of novels. Movie Jedi Starfighter starring Ryan Gosling, directed by Sean Levy.
00:05:05
Speaker
Lots of stuff. Lots of stuff. So that that was all good. And I'm not going to show them, but i I stopped by one of the local game stores in town last Friday and bought two of the small Delta Green module books.
00:05:25
Speaker
Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Okay. Okay. And ah Nick, I did finally pick up a copy of ah Star Wars, The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire.
00:05:38
Speaker
That's the good news. The bad news is I picked up the copy because the Barnes and Noble closest to our house is closing in June. Oh, no. So everything right now is 40% off. Oh, that's good. But that's also bad.
00:05:54
Speaker
But also so Good deal bad for the store.
Challenges of Running Games at Conventions
00:05:59
Speaker
yeah Next week, yeah I'll be heading out on free comic book day and we'll be stopping at a couple of game stores nearby and or that participate.
00:06:11
Speaker
And I'm also going to be stopping it back in at that Barnes and Noble because that Barnes and Noble had a copy of the 2024 D&D DM's Guide and Monster Manual that I almost went ahead and got, but yeah I was planning on getting them at a buy two, get one free sale on free comic book day.
00:06:32
Speaker
But if I could, that would be 33% off. If I can get both of them for 40 or more percent off each, sorry, that's a better deal.
00:06:45
Speaker
I'll offend that makes, I'll pretend that makes sense. I know, Nick, I was mathing. Yeah. And you don't like when we math. No, it causes me the headaches.
00:06:58
Speaker
It gives you the vapors. huh Well, then we we will move on from mathy stuff and we should probably get started with the actual show.
00:07:10
Speaker
ah But before we dive into this episode's subject matter, let's take a quick moment to mention the other great podcasts that are here on the D20 Radio Network. And there's lots of great shows that cover gaming content here on the network.
00:07:26
Speaker
I know. Shows like the Story Told podcast. In their latest episode, the gang is returning to their roots a bit, sitting down at the table to explore the world of the Wild Sea RPG by way of character and ship creation.
00:07:39
Speaker
Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along as they have fun building for a new game. We've talked just a tiny bit here and there um kind of over the last few episodes about Gamer Nation Con.
00:07:53
Speaker
And then last time we visited with GM Chris to talk about our experiences at the con this year and the origins of Gamer Nation Con. And so we're going to keep rolling with that theme for this episode and talk a bit about prepping a game to run at a convention.
00:08:10
Speaker
Yes, and a convention game has its own unique challenges and elements to keep in mind when putting it together. You want to make sure it's seen as effortless as possible for your players while making sure everyone has a good time overall.
00:08:24
Speaker
We're going to talk about some of those challenges and elements and what we've done to prepare games to run at a convention. With that in mind, this is just how we've done it. So feel free to take inspiration from what but we've done and sounds like it will work for you.
00:08:41
Speaker
So the first big thing to be aware of is that unlike your at home, your game at home, where it's no big deal if you run a bit long or sometimes you run a bit short, like when you derail the GM's big campaign finale by turning a set piece into a weapon, um you've cut you've got a set time window at a convention, usually right around four hours.
00:09:10
Speaker
And in that time, you want to give your players a full game without feeling too rushed or running too short. And you want to don't want to leave them with nothing to do until their next scheduled event.
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, and I can say for us, our games with each other run about six or seven hours. so yeah web towers Yeah, we generally run in the neighborhood of of five to six, sometimes seven hours.
00:09:37
Speaker
We've got that luxury on the weekends. That includes delays, that includes a little bit of banter, sometimes getting completely off track, and including a snack break.
00:09:50
Speaker
Yeah, and you we we kind of build that into our Saturdays, because even those of us you who have lives have no lives, and we spend our most of our weekends at Nick's rolling the funny Click Clack Math Rocks.
00:10:08
Speaker
It's good weekend. I just get everything done over the week. Yeah. I'd say that most of the chairs are broken in some more literal than others. Yes. I may have broken an ottoman like once, but that's only once.
00:10:22
Speaker
Still haven't replaced it, but... Working on that. So, with with the con game... more than a standard regular game session.
00:10:33
Speaker
Like for a regular game session, there are times that I have walked in just knowing, okay, here's two story beats that I want to hit and I'm just going to throw the players into the setting and let them help me drive here.
00:10:49
Speaker
With a con game, I make out much more detailed notes. I have a tighter idea of the beats that I want to hit and the end point that I want to reach because with rare exceptions, you do want to hit a specific end point because you want the players at that table to have a beginning, middle, and end to the session.
00:11:15
Speaker
You don't want it to be like a Saturday Night Live sketch where it just stops. Yes, and we're luckier in that we do we've been doing our three-part acts, but even then, we still to find that cutting-off point, or like, this is when the other person's starting, so I need to make sure that my people get to that stop point, for that start point later on.
00:11:38
Speaker
And know everyone has the luxury to have three GMs to spread it out after three games, or even have, like, a like plan out and schedule two games at the same convention for the same group of players.
00:11:52
Speaker
Exactly. You have to yeah approach it with the idea of, like especially if you're starting out making a con game, don't anticipate there's going to be a part two.
00:12:05
Speaker
Right. no this is a Go in as a one-sided with your thoughts. no Unlike the two of you, i have run standalone single-session games. At the con.
00:12:17
Speaker
And so I've had to to do that. the The first year I ran a DC Heroes game. I talked about it a little bit last episode when we had Chris on.
00:12:28
Speaker
And that one wasn't as tight as I would have liked it to be in retrospect. I knew what my beginning, middle, and end were. But it was harder for me to anticipate the actual window of time.
00:12:46
Speaker
So I was kind of rushing at the end, but fortunately with the kind of wacky shenanigans that I had planned to be the end of the session, i was able to fast forward a little bit when I saw, oh man, we we're coming up we're coming up on time here.
00:13:05
Speaker
So I need to and need to start wrapping this up. Yeah, and even in our three-part acts, I know the last con for my second, for my act two,
00:13:16
Speaker
I did realize, oh, I spent a little too long on this, so I kind of sped run the last portion of it to get to a spot where Nick could take over.
00:13:28
Speaker
Yeah, and that can happen. And that can happen even if you're doing ah single one. Now, the second time that I ran a solo game, things were things were a lot tighter.
00:13:40
Speaker
Ironically, that was one that all I really had was the basic setup. I didn't have copious notes. So I found it a little easier at that point to, okay, I had this idea for something that they could do, but there's not going to be time so I can scrap it. And it felt more natural.
00:14:05
Speaker
And for all I know, the players in the DC Heroes game didn't notice that I was fast forwarding stuff or anything like that. That's probably something that feel that is a good way to approach it in that more likely than not, these aren't players you're going to be playing with again. So they don't necessarily know your play style.
00:14:28
Speaker
So you don't know your play style. And, and the thing of it is what I was kind of having in mind just now is that, I knew those story beats that I was cutting out, so it seemed obvious to me yes that I was cutting stuff out. That's what I was sort of picking up on, and the fact that your regular table might notice where you would usually cut a piece, or where you're slimming something down, or adjusting.
00:14:58
Speaker
You can get away with a little bit more leeway with new players if it makes certain that they get those beats in. It's just assuming that that's how you schedule the game itself and we'll have something to base it off of so you can feel a little less self-conscious like, well, I wanted this to happen, but for time I have to cut it.
00:15:21
Speaker
Or in some instances the players take it off in an entirely different direction that you can just spin into something new that you didn't expect and still finish enough amount of time for them.
00:15:33
Speaker
Exactly. And that's what happened in the final act of Mine and Nick's cross table alien game at the con this year, in that we had a big giant monster fight ready to go at the end.
00:15:51
Speaker
And we're like, okay, how are the PCs going to get through this? And you know being that it's Alien and being that it's a con game, we were fine having a body count. But we ended up just throwing that monster fight out the window because what the players had brought to the table with the characters and how they started interacting when we brought the two tables together much more interesting than the giant monster fight.
00:16:19
Speaker
Oh yeah, I sort of use that since most of the action was happening on your side. I described the big monster fight as like a metaphor for like in the background. And even some of the players were picking up it's like, oh, it's a metaphor because if we're fighting each other. the The monsters are fighting each other.
00:16:41
Speaker
And then last year, the the one that seemed to run smoothly for me, the solo one that ran smoothly last year, was my Star Trek game. And i I mentioned it a little bit last episode.
00:16:54
Speaker
The theme of last year's con was Lord of the Rings. So I just knew I had a fun little idea for Star Trek. It's a holodeck episode where the PCs are...
00:17:08
Speaker
The crew of the ship, and you know just for grins, it was called the USS Jackson. Shout out to GM Hooley for coming up with the idea and the name of the ship and being kind enough to let me steal his premise since he was unable to come to the con.
00:17:23
Speaker
But I just said, okay, they're in the holodeck, they're playing a Lord of the Rings reenactment for leisure, and the holodeck screws up as it does.
Role of Character Backstories in Games
00:17:37
Speaker
And I just went with it and I riffed. I let them follow or I let them direct where the story went. And then I just threw adversaries and situations at them because it was a nice synchronicity. Honestly, that's kind of and kind of how we did the alien game in general, like at least how I planned it.
00:18:02
Speaker
that There are certain beats of like certain like stuff, but I let the character sort of like, okay, they're going this way. If I need to move them, here's an action set piece. And there's a tire, like creatures of weird, weird creatures and set pieces. They didn't get to see, but they're like always meant to be like, okay, is there a lull here?
00:18:18
Speaker
Then this will push into the next spot. Right. And it was a kind of a nice synchronicity with that Star Trek Lord of the Rings game in that, The player characters were working off of their knowledge, which may or may not have been extensive, of Lord of the Rings, which is exactly what the players were doing.
00:18:43
Speaker
Like, okay, we're in Lord of the Rings, and we're stuck in Lord of the Rings, and we need to get out. So if the program will end when we reach the end of the Lord of the Rings, how can we speedrun Lord of the Rings?
00:19:02
Speaker
And it worked. Yes, and it's that's a good way to point out that at a convention game, you are on it. in a set period of time. And you also have to factor in bathroom breaks because there's always like 10 minute, a 10 minute bathroom break in between.
00:19:17
Speaker
But or s split up in how many minutes you want to. Exactly. And you definitely structure it to where, you know, as a convention game, you are going to have to kind of keep them on track a little bit.
00:19:30
Speaker
If they veer off too much, you got to push them back a little bit, but you don't want the time. to take away from the fun of the game to where you're just rail-rolling him saying, no, that's not how I wrote this, you need to get back on track or we're not going to finish.
00:19:43
Speaker
It really does test the limits of, like ah again, working with an established group of players, you can know how how far you can like let them deviate and when you're like, okay, you got bring it back in
00:19:58
Speaker
You have to be a bit more tight in the construction of the story. but also not to be so tight that they don't feel like they have agency. Exactly.
00:20:09
Speaker
it's a hard It's a hard mix to do. Yeah, you you have to, with a convention game, you have to railroad to a degree to get them to the end point. There's no escaping that.
00:20:23
Speaker
But the the best ways to do that railroad is rather than having them on tracks... a better metaphor is you set them into a fun house that has arrows pointing the direction to the exit, but there might be multiple paths to get there.
00:20:46
Speaker
ah better example that I would say that's going to use, especially since I um was writing up, I have an a horror idea that probably won't fit the theme next year, but I want to do one time, but more like a haunted house.
00:21:01
Speaker
You know how haunted houses are. You go in there expecting expecting like a linear experience. It's it's your experience, but like there's your experience how you react to the the scares and stuff like that.
00:21:17
Speaker
But the whole time you're going from like zone to zone, plot point to plot point. But it's like, you can easily disguise that with like the scares and like the ah traps and everything to be like, okay, it makes it look like, oh, there's two paths going in separate ways.
00:21:35
Speaker
They all lead up to the same chamber, but you don't have to tell them that. Right. And I can't remember, did either of you play in Darren's um The Rad Batch at the con? No, I didn't. No, I wasn't able to get in.
00:21:52
Speaker
Okay, so He did pretty much that very thing. He was telling us a little bit about the structure at the end of it. It starts off, you we're clones, we wake up from suspended animation, and there's something pounding at the door of the med center that we're in.
00:22:15
Speaker
So we have we get out of the med center and there's two paths in the hallway. One leads to our equipment and the other is kind of a shortcut to the shuttle that will get us off of this Kaminoan station that's being bombarded by the Empire.
00:22:36
Speaker
And so you want totally it was totally up to us to decide which path to take. But one path would give us more resources and take longer.
00:22:48
Speaker
The other would be... be a shorter path, but give us less resources. But ultimately we would have converged in the same um laboratory that was the midpoint.
00:23:05
Speaker
It's just what we encountered along the way was different. again like exactly That's how I set it up on my half of the stage. was like, of our alien game. like, okay, there's, you could go towards the armory or you could go towards the machine bay.
00:23:24
Speaker
Yeah. One will get them more weapons. One will get them more equipment. And it's like, depending on how they were playing their perspectives and who was taking charge, that either way, they were going to be railroaded, big finger your quotes there, to the next story point.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah. It just depends on which resources they got, but they would be rewarded for their choice. Exactly. Watch your time. But also remember, this is a game. Make it fun. Give them choices. Because we as GMs know, the choices they make give us opportunity.
00:24:01
Speaker
Absolutely. And it can impact their play style if if the warrior doesn't feel they have a weapon. They're going to push the party to get a weapon, and that means you can throw something a little bit tougher at them.
00:24:13
Speaker
Or you introduce an orb, and that just messes up the next GM's entire play. But I always do, you when I'm running a game, whether it's part of our three-parter, or it's one of my own, or the two tables, especially with the two tables side by side,
00:24:33
Speaker
um I always keep an eye on the time. Now that two tables side by side had its own unique timekeeping aspect to it in that Nick and I, and Nick can back me up on this.
00:24:48
Speaker
We built in three act structure to the game and we had definitive moments that happened for both tables and at the end of each act that were based on time.
00:25:04
Speaker
Basically, I had my laptop there that at each act break, there was a different announcement that played through the station that both parties heard.
00:25:18
Speaker
And so we and we both had to kind of keep an eye on the clock that way. But yeah, we kept an eye on the clock. and Though our, I'll admit that some parts, especially the first act, we didn't like meet like, it wasn't dovetailed perfectly.
00:25:35
Speaker
was close enough. Close enough. It was close enough. It worked because I was able to vamp yeah at my table when we resumed while you got them up to that, your table up to that point.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah, but the rest of the ones were lot closer. that's And part of that, too, is having seen that we hadn't quite synced up, I made an even more concerted effort to keep you informed of where we were at in the countdown clock.
00:26:12
Speaker
Yeah. That was going on my laptop. And I made it more of an effort to go to your side to get to give not only my updates, but also ask her any pertinent updates.
00:26:23
Speaker
Right. So time's a big factor. Don't let it stress you out, but you need to be conscious of it. Exactly. Don't try something as elaborate as what we've described here as a first con game, obviously.
00:26:40
Speaker
I mean, the three-part relay was yours, and it was both of your first con games. and Exactly. and That just shows we have good support systems. We play off each other really well, and we had experience coming before, at least just doing our own games.
00:26:59
Speaker
If you don't feel comfortable with being either part of a relay or doing something as extreme as multiple game assessments every a day, just take a one session It's in the pros. Yeah.
00:27:12
Speaker
yeah That's entirely up to how you work. Like, there's a lot of different types of games. Like, there's scheduled games where you prepared for it. As Nick knows, there are pickup games where you just bring a concept and see how they can play it.
00:27:26
Speaker
And then there are certain types of games where the entire playthrough is, like, one sentence, and then you and your players make up the entire rest of the story. Havoc Brigade.
00:27:37
Speaker
ah I'm sorry. Did I have something caught? Yes. It seems ah it seems to be going around.
00:27:48
Speaker
it It does. It does. And I know Steve is listening because he has told me he listens to every episode. So but Steve, we love you and you are an awesome GM and we love the way that you improv with all of our shenanigans.
00:28:06
Speaker
Thank you, my men.
00:28:10
Speaker
but So we've yeah've pretty much covered the time aspect. Next up, I think, is probably my favorite part. And I know it's Nick's favorite part. It's definitely my favorite. Let me take care of this.
00:28:23
Speaker
The next part is player characters. Unless character creation is something baked into the system. which there are systems that do that, and we'll probably talk about playing of those throughout this ah series, but you'll absolutely want to prepare prepared characters for the players.
00:28:42
Speaker
Not only will that ensure that PCs are tailored for the game, its story, and its events, but it will save a lot of time at the table and then everyone just dive right into play. Because again, piggybacks off of time.
00:28:56
Speaker
Yes, and yeah if you've watched our episode about player characters or session zero, you know that creating a character does take time. And time, like we said at a convention, is you don't want to spend a lot of time on making characters.
00:29:12
Speaker
You just want to bring some that people can choose from. And especially if you're... was going to say, especially if you are making characters you know You have characters that their skill sets are going to be essential to the story that's being told in that particular game session.
00:29:33
Speaker
ah Like last year when we did the Lord of the Rings Star Wars. Yeah, it would have been fun if somebody had just made whatever bounty hunter character they wanted.
00:29:45
Speaker
But would that have fit in the Lord of the Rings story that we were telling? Or like if your game was in a desert, you don't want to make a sailor.
00:29:56
Speaker
Right. Now there are systems that do lend themselves to character creation and on the fly. And those are, if you want to really like nail it down and really maximize also getting people into the game, start with premades.
00:30:15
Speaker
Everyone's okay with a premade.
00:30:19
Speaker
Now behind the GM screen. We like making those pre-made characters. Yeah, we love it So to give everyone listening an idea of how much how much fun we had making our characters for our Delta Green relay, each of us had six slots at the table.
00:30:42
Speaker
We made eight pre-gens. And we went through the whole kit and caboodle for them. As we were making those characters, we were like, oh, what about a character like this?
00:30:52
Speaker
What about a character like this? And we had way too much fun making them. Yes. Now, caveat, too, though, that I'm going to mention, when you're making those pregens, it can be fun coming up with with connections between the characters, which can help...
00:31:13
Speaker
quickly generate party cohesion, especially if you have a bunch of strangers that are all sitting down at the table to play it who don't know each other or you. One thing that we did run into, and I don't remember if I mentioned this to you guys or not, ah with the Delta Green game, when I played part one and Robert sat at the table, so he so I know he saw it, but there were we had two of the pre-gens that we had decided in the backstory of the group, these two characters had had a short but very intense affair.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah. And it had broken off. One of them had been more invested in it and the other was just like, that was a fun fling, but I'm done now.
00:32:01
Speaker
And one of the players at the table pulled initially the character that was really invested in it. And as he was reading the backstory, he's like, I'm not comfortable doing this. Yeah, because I think he was a younger character.
00:32:13
Speaker
Participant as well. Yeah. And I was like, that's fine. That's totally fine. yeah you You can pick a different character or you can just ignore that part of it.
00:32:25
Speaker
yeah yeah there's and saying You have to do anything with it. we We just built all of this in. So you want to keep things like that in mind. you Am I including an element that there might be someone who is uncomfortable with this character element, even though it can generate a lot of really good game potential and story potential.
00:32:50
Speaker
That should be baked into sort of the ah the opening talk that you have at the start of the game. Yeah, pretty much the mini session zero before everything begins. Yeah, so explain it like, OK, here's the characters as they are. You may choose to ignore elements as they are.
00:33:09
Speaker
still to be able to, like, that's still a good way to, like, if, again, nine, a large percentage of the chances you're going to be gaming with people that you've not gamed with, and they've not gamed with each other, so this is a good way to at least create party cohesion without them knowing each other.
00:33:27
Speaker
But if they don't feel like that element works with them, or they don't die for this part of it, they're free to explore the character on their own, just using it as ah It's a jumping off point.
00:33:41
Speaker
Right. And the thing is, in a case like that, if he had chosen to play the character, but ignore that part rather than picking a new character, which is what he did at that point, you tell the player that has the other character that's part of that.
00:33:56
Speaker
Hey, that's going to be off the table. yeah say You're in the mission. you don't have time for personal feelings. Just get the job done. Right. However you want, or however you want to agree What's more important, and this may sound counterintuitive to, ah especially how I make characters normally, it's important.
00:34:18
Speaker
It's more important, like creating statistically strong characters for this, this game, then, then you're kind of looking to not min max, but build characters towards roles.
00:34:34
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. Now, on the flip side of that same character element coin, Robert, since you weren't one of the GMs for it, you weren't there for the the planning session where Nick and I made the characters for the two tables at the Alien game.
00:34:51
Speaker
no But you've you saw the characters. I saw the characters. I saw the photos you printed out. I saw all the relationships. and And you know We were us we worked for we worked on those but like Oh yeah, the minute I saw them, looked at the table and saw them, I'm like, you guys put way too much into this. but you and yet know as you looked at it Knowing us, you looked at it, and you said, oh yeah, they had just as much fun doing this as we had making the Delta Green characters.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yep, I was like... And we did. And the flip side of that coin of those character dynamics at the Delta Green table... Quite unintentionally, we didn't do this intentionally to have a running theme, but three of the characters at the two alien tables, two characters at mine were husband and wife, but it was a strained relationship.
00:35:55
Speaker
In fact, the wife's personal item was unsigned divorce papers that she was just waiting for the perfect moment to give to the husband. And one of the characters at the other table was a character that she was having an affair with.
00:36:13
Speaker
And the character also connected to them at my table was the daughter of that relationship. Of the husband and wife. Who would rather be downstairs than be up there with her parents' drama.
00:36:26
Speaker
Right. And so... Fun fact. Oh, yeah, you were there last time when we described the fun fact that the characters didn't know that they... that the The daughter character and the affair character didn't know that they were connected at all.
00:36:43
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And I remember our play test where my character just straight out said, yeah, he's he's a he's having an affair with your mother. They didn't find that out until, like, the very end. It was like, that worked perfectly because at the beginning he was acting like ah big As the pilot, he was actually like, well, this kid's running around. I'm going to try and be nice to them. And he's like, i'm a alone don't feel comfortable around you, dude.
00:37:09
Speaker
And he's like, oh! Or like you said last episode with the two android people who were literally side by side. and still clears so The players were side by side.
00:37:21
Speaker
The characters were in different locations on my side of the station. And they could just not realize, hey, do these two look similar at all? Do you see anything that might jog your memory? that That was purely the result of a bad observation roll on the part of a character who was looking at the newly arrived other android.
00:37:47
Speaker
And the way it works on mine is that he mistook the the name of the woman he... The woman that he's having an affair with for the name of his ship. Which I just said, like, yeah, you named your ship that. It's like, oh, see?
00:38:01
Speaker
Oh!
00:38:07
Speaker
became awkward when the father, the actual husband, came to the other side. Yeah. But... And that's the kind of of things that you have dynamics of different players too.
00:38:23
Speaker
Whereas the player at the Delta Green table was not comfortable with a character that had a past emotional relationship with one of the other characters at the table.
00:38:42
Speaker
Whereas at the Alien table... And part of this may have also been the nature of the games and how character interactions are set up. They're meant to lean more towards adversarial in Alien.
00:38:58
Speaker
yeah And so the players had zero problem buying into all of this backstabbing and and sneaking around and and things like that.
00:39:12
Speaker
Borderlines soap off for drama. the Yeah, where Delta Green is more... It is a conspiracy, but you're just a part of that conspiracy and it's more collaborative.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's more collaborative than than an alien cinematic session. In this case, in indian Alien Cinematic System, there's already a conspiracy. Then they're in a conspiracy of like the company or the government or whatever is involved.
00:39:39
Speaker
And then add in monsters. Yeah, i still remember when it was just another player and I, one your cinematic alien ones. And we decided, just both by our agendas and everything, that we just worked together. And we got out of there. And when Daryl heard that, he's like, Nick, you played it wrong. Yeah.
00:39:58
Speaker
They're not supposed to work together. But when you're making the player characters, we touched on this in the intro, you do want to tailor them to the story that you're telling.
00:40:09
Speaker
ah For instance, the Delta Green game, we knew that fire was going to be a huge element of the conclusion. So one of the characters that we decided to build out was a firefighter.
00:40:23
Speaker
And we totally didn't make New Buckley. We totally did not make him buck from 9-1-1. It just sort of happened. It was a happy accident. It did just sort of happen. you know and Intelligence was his dump stat, and we looked at everything else, and did we just make Buck from 9-1-1? Honestly, I you like and with it feel ah feel like the best description is like it's like Bob Ross painting it. is like I guess that's what we're doing now.
00:40:54
Speaker
To the credit... The player that played that character, she was at all three sessions. And she played it to perfect. knew 911. As soon as she saw the character sheet with occupation firefighter named Buckley, she knew.
00:41:14
Speaker
She even looked at the sheet and was was just like, is this just Buck? Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes, it is. Mm-hmm. And it was an accident, but we decided to roll with it.
00:41:25
Speaker
She's like, and I'm going to roll with it too. And it was beautiful. And honestly, why we were coming up with that character, we assumed that they were going to be overlooked for like the more standard array of what your standard array of.
00:41:41
Speaker
yeah Yeah, because we had ATF agent, FBI, astronomer, occultist, ah of our artist who is drunk all the time.
00:41:52
Speaker
Riot Felice. Your classics. Because we planned this out to where, like, oh, maybe they'll think the firefighter's not important. Like, what we're looking up a murderer. What's a firefighter going to do? But then later on, they'd be like, oh, we need the firefighter. Someone play the firefighter.
00:42:06
Speaker
Because, like, it it took me looking at, like, the stats for, like, the main antagonist at the end. It's like, oh, it says, like, normal normal fire suppression is incredibly effective, I guess, these things.
00:42:19
Speaker
so But it was the exact opposite because nearly every time whoever showed up first would be like, I want the firefighter. Yeah, I want to play Buck. I want to play Buck.
00:42:30
Speaker
So us leaning into that was probably a ah positive. Yeah. And it's just take take a look at where your story is going to go. Take a look at the character types that are in the system that you have and build accordingly.
00:42:49
Speaker
Like if you're if you're running a Star Wars game and you want to do ah do a classic smuggler run, someone's got to be the pilot. Someone's got to be the pilot. Someone's got to the muscle. Someone has to be the face.
00:43:04
Speaker
The mechanic. The smarts. Yeah. Someone's got to handle the gun. like i mean You basically take a ah ah make a classic crew. you You make the characters from Solo.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like one of those games like maybe don't, that's not the game you should probably throw a Jedi in.
Enhancing Engagement with Pregen Characters
00:43:24
Speaker
If you're going to do a Jedi thing, like have maybe one Jedi or have a whole bunch of them.
00:43:30
Speaker
Or maybe not necessarily have a Jedi, but the pilot could be force sensitive applying the force to their piloting. Or is gambling.
00:43:43
Speaker
Or gambling. Yeah. It's like, Granted, this wasn't a con game, but the very first Star Wars campaign that I ran using the FFG Edge system, um my wife played a con artist who was totally not inspired by um Saffron slash yolanda Yolanda slash Bridget, a.k.a. Yosaf Bridge from Firefly.
00:44:13
Speaker
Totally not. And... I allowed her to be force sensitive. I GM granted her her force rating, but the character was unaware that she was force sensitive and could only spend XP on the influence force power tree.
00:44:36
Speaker
So she was unconsciously using the force to help her with the cons that she was running. Which is a fun way to introduce that.
00:44:48
Speaker
you know She was unknowingly basically using the Jedi mind trick whenever she was fast-talking somebody. Yep. It's a way to do it. It worked out nicely.
00:45:01
Speaker
Again, like it may sound like it sounds counterintuitive. What we're not saying is you don't mean create min-max characters. You're not making the best smuggler for everyone to play.
00:45:15
Speaker
You're making the best smuggler for this story. Definitely, I'd say give them a bit more oomph than a standard player character.
00:45:26
Speaker
And this this is my rule of thumb for making a pre-gen character for a convention game. Character creation rules become a guideline, not rules.
00:45:40
Speaker
They don't completely go out the window, but Make the character in such a way that skills and talents that will be useful for the story that you're going to tell are there for the character and not tossed aside or not included because you wouldn't quote unquote naturally get to them if the character was developed.
00:46:10
Speaker
Exactly. Also, they should be like a truncated version of it. They should be able to build this character. Maybe not going straight out of the box, but they should be able to get to that.
00:46:25
Speaker
Yeah, like the first act of Delta Green that I was with you with, Daryl. We built the rightot riot police SWAT officer guy. We did the Delta Green kind of thing, but then we would go in and be like, okay, maybe this needs to be a little higher. This one might be a little lower. But even in the first playthrough,
00:46:40
Speaker
Steve, who was playing the SWAT guy, actually brought up a good point about you should probably have a good loss stat when he was going to go do something. And right then there, we were both like, yeah, you're right. and Make your loss 60.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah. And it's just something that we hadn't even considered and kind of overlooked during creation. so And basically, there's a lot of skills in that.
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah, don't feel that you're locked in. If something, when you get to that table at the con, if something feels like you had overlooked it and it comes to your attention, feel free to adjust it on the fly.
00:47:17
Speaker
And don't feel safe. my act, we had a linguist. Someone was playing the linguist who had like, I forget the other languages, but he had Swedish. And so I decided, okay, he has all these languages. I'm going to bring that in. So I said, okay, and some of the things you find in the secret lab Some of it's with notes that are waiting written in Swedish.
00:47:37
Speaker
And the guy was like, oh, well, I can read Swedish. Let's do this. Yeah, that that's a good point, Robert. This character preparation and game preparation is a two-way street.
00:47:49
Speaker
Because a lot of times, as you're building out the pregens, that can give you an idea that makes you say, oh, I want to give this character the ability to do this because it's a fun mechanic.
00:48:03
Speaker
I hadn't thought to include it in the game. Let me include it there somewhere. But there's also some abilities, like, i think we I think we did throw it out, like, we were on a lot of, like, we didn't want to give them too many specific languages. I think Swedish just sort of came to mind, like, and it's like, yeah.
00:48:25
Speaker
just so happens there's some sweetness there that looks intentional, but it's like, no, that gives you something. It's like, even it's like a throwaway skill. Like if you have like, when you're building the character, it's like, I'll give him this much in alchemy.
00:48:39
Speaker
Or like how you guys had the artist. And so Daryl quickly decided, okay, Act one is all about Rob Ross. So I'm going to have the artist be tied into the painting. He sees that Bob Ross has made. Yeah. We had established in the background that the artist, his art was fueled by these nightmarish visions that he was having.
00:49:03
Speaker
Oh, well, these visions are a great way that if I need to start redirecting the players, I can just give the artist a vision. And ye t was still it will exact a quote-unquote toll on their sanity, but we've already given them a bunch sanity damage already, so that can still help us in the economy of the game.
00:49:28
Speaker
and it It's similar to one of the best pieces of advice that I ever saw, and we keep going back to this system, and it's because it's our bread and butter.
00:49:40
Speaker
The Star Wars RPG. ah In that there's lots of talents on the specialization trees that allow you to remove setback dice from various circumstances, various roles.
00:49:56
Speaker
And one of the best pieces of advice that I've heard anywhere ah was... Give players who are spending the XP on these talents to remove setbacks.
00:50:11
Speaker
Find reasons to give them setbacks so that that spent XP is worth it. Exactly. So they have if they reduce setbacks to break computer code, say, okay, you got a computer code. It's pretty extensive.
00:50:28
Speaker
Three setbacks. Well, I can remove two setbacks. Good. Okay, great. It's only one setback. i Guess what? That encourages them when they go into code, when they get their XP at the of the session. It's like, all right, there are plenty of like two that I was able to only remove one. But if I had two Codebreaker, I could have removed all of it.
00:50:46
Speaker
And what if but if we encounter higher codes? I might begin going down trees so I can get all three. frank Or if someone chooses Gambler, introduce some gambling in your campaign.
00:50:58
Speaker
And just apply that general philosophy to the pre-gens that you're making for your convention game. iy want yeah I've given this character these skills, and some of them, they just have the skills because they're logical for the character.
00:51:18
Speaker
But try to create situations where there's a reason to have those skills. There's a reason that character is there in the scenario because they're going to use this skill that someone else doesn't have to help them reach their end point.
00:51:43
Speaker
My final philosophy on building just pre-gen in general, build a pre-gen that's going to inspire a player to be like, I want to build something like this.
00:51:55
Speaker
Or they'll look at the across the table like, oh, wow, if I play this game, I want to play someone like that. ah Exactly. So you should use the materials that of character creation to make your premades.
00:52:09
Speaker
Just not be wholly absorbed to them. Give them like the, oh, that's so cool. I want to be able to do something like that. So they can come into a game system and be like, all right, I have this example of like mechanically what I want to do.
00:52:26
Speaker
And a good possible hint is almost every RPG out there these days has a starter game that comes with pregens. Go to your favorite starter game and take inspiration from the pregen from the pregens that you like the most when you're making your pregen characters for a convention game like I think we've mentioned it before in a previous episode.
00:52:53
Speaker
Nick, you ran the Avatar Legends starter game. Oh, that one. And we all fell in love with the pre-gens. So much so that they are us. They are characters now. Yes, we did. When we started the campaign. Sorry, Nickelodeon. Sorry.
00:53:11
Speaker
We demanded a campaign in this game, and you said something along the lines of, okay, I'll schedule a session zero so that we can create characters.
00:53:22
Speaker
No, we have our characters. We have our characters. We are using these pregens because we love these characters. there's There's only like two that one changed their slightly and one basically reflavored them heavily.
00:53:38
Speaker
Yeah, basically just reflavored the backstory to be like, no, this is how I want it to be. But the rest of them are, but like 80% of that campaign is just straight from the box.
00:53:51
Speaker
yeah I know me. I'm sure Daryl I can agree. Best pre-gen characters I've ever seen. Ever made. I was like... That Kickstarter that got all the money, money well spent.
00:54:05
Speaker
It went into the Honestly, it like... the the Those guys that wrote these things were like... yeah They understood the assignment. You earned that all that extra money.
00:54:16
Speaker
Perhaps too they worked too well. like Usually it's like, oh, this is a cool pre-gen. You'd be like, take it for me. So it's like, no, this is a full-fledged character. Thank you. I'll be playing this character and I will hear no other discussion about it.
00:54:33
Speaker
but like I said, good day, sir. That's literally how like I was like, what we're having fun with these, but and you can make characters like that. You can say no, no, no. Yeah, it's the only game I've ever played where it's be like, I don't need to make a character.
Playtesting Convention Games
00:54:48
Speaker
I have my character. This is me. I mean, but that's even a step beyond what, Robert, when you ran the Cyberpunk starter, I liked the Rockerboy.
00:55:01
Speaker
I built a very similar Rockerboy for the campaign because I liked it and had fun. But no, with the Avatar game, no. Give me the pregen.
00:55:16
Speaker
that would And I will say, like that's the first time I've been low-key bullied into a campaign. You were not bullied. You wanted to run it.
00:55:28
Speaker
That's why you dropped the money on the Kickstarter and all of the books for it. Just like me. You knew you wanted it. We just made it easier for you. We gave you the excuse.
00:55:38
Speaker
You enabled me. We enabled you. We gave you the title. You said it was a great title. And then we you just made everything around it. And making it. it's It's working out so far.
00:55:51
Speaker
Yep. yeah there's There's one more pillar of coming up with a convention game. When you have your characters ready, you need one more thing.
00:56:03
Speaker
Yeah, when you when you know when you know how long you got, and you know what characters you have, now's the time to play test a little before you actually get to the convention. And if you can, we strongly, strongly recommend running your convention game using your regular group.
00:56:20
Speaker
The people that you know. This will help you get a feel for anything that needs to be tightened up. See where players might go outside of where you expect them to. Make sure you can comfortably run in the session and the time allotted and more. Because with your home group, they'll be honest. They'll tell you what worked, what didn't, what you might need to tighten up, what you might need to loosen or where you need to go.
00:56:39
Speaker
But if you also can get an entirely new player to be in the game, just one, one or two, it can help as well because you can encounter what you can expect at a convention, complete strangers.
00:56:50
Speaker
And helps you get mentally prepared for this for them that you'll encounter when you run the game at a convention. We were very lucky. that's a tight we for the hat We were very lucky when we playtested part one of Delta Green.
00:57:07
Speaker
We had two brand new players that none of us had ever even met before. One hadn't even watched Aliens. Well, no, we're talking about Delta Green.
00:57:20
Speaker
so that yeah you went there I wasn't there for that. I wasn't there for that. No, we had two brand new people who signed up on the meetup. They were great.
00:57:32
Speaker
they They were great, and they were a fresh set of eyes, because since we didn't even know none of us even knew them outside of that few hours that day, they were able to give a completely fresh set of eyes.
00:57:49
Speaker
And their insight really helped, especially with... Pretty much everything... didn't even notice. Pretty much every bit of feedback they gave, I applied to some degree or another to part one.
00:58:06
Speaker
And then for the Alien playtest, yeah, we we had two people that... one or more of us did know from outside of there. That's how they showed up.
00:58:17
Speaker
We personally invited them, but yeah like you said, one hadn't even seen an alien game. Neither of them had ever played the system before. and the one that Stephanie and I knew we had play at Nick's table so that it was someone that didn't know my vibe.
00:58:39
Speaker
With it. So good. Good. Because it was also good for me to have someone I didn't know so that I could bounce off of them more organically. Exactly.
00:58:50
Speaker
It was fun. it was it was fun. it was very fun. ah But yeah, playtesting works the kinks out. I cannot recommend it enough.
00:59:04
Speaker
I understand that not everyone will have a chance to play test. I understand there's a variety of reasons for that. Yeah. Because i I know for a fact that um you Steve came into the con.
00:59:20
Speaker
um ah The Bigfoot game, he barely finished in time. The Bigfoot game was originally going to be inspired by Havoc Brigade, but with him kind of making his own system.
00:59:36
Speaker
And he realized as it was coming up close to the con, I don't have time to do this. And so he switched it to Genesis. So it's not always possible to play test. We get that.
00:59:51
Speaker
But if you can and especially if you recommend strongly doing it. Because it's invaluable. Even if it's your... Going back to our Lord of the Holocrons last year, we got some incredible feedback from just our regular group of players.
01:00:12
Speaker
Yeah, what worked, what didn't work, what we might might want to think of just taking out altogether make you run more smoothly. And sometimes the playtest can give you inspiration for something that you hadn't even considered.
01:00:31
Speaker
Yes. i'll I'll use our Delta Green game. I'll use part one as an example. We always knew that part one was going to end with the players finding Bob Ross mid ritual killing.
01:00:46
Speaker
Spoiler alert, he actually does it. Yeah, not a other person. And result in Bob Ross's death. During the play test, at one point, they went to the Bob Ross Museum there in his hometown.
01:01:04
Speaker
And one of the new players that we didn't know was kind of fishing for information and started interacting with the girl who was the cashier in the gift shop.
01:01:18
Speaker
A character that did not exist in my wildest imaginations prior to coming. this player starting to interact with her. we were kind of painting fast and loose with characters, but this, this interaction becomes important.
01:01:34
Speaker
And she's, she's interacting with the cashier. The character is bouncing off of her, has a good rapport with her, makes a connection.
01:01:45
Speaker
And so, As they're opening up the storage compartment door and finding Bob Ross there mid ritual, it suddenly clicked to me.
01:02:00
Speaker
On the table, you see the cashier from the gift shop.
01:02:06
Speaker
And so as as you saw, Robert, I made sure. include her, yeah. I dropped the seeds for...
01:02:17
Speaker
the players at the actual con game going to the, to the museum. And they did. And I made sure that they encountered the cashier.
01:02:28
Speaker
Yes. And then, and that, again, like that, that was a huge note that I think again, like they were new players, so they didn't know our planning process after then.
01:02:42
Speaker
So that was a completely new insight to how to get, that they didn't even bring up in their notes. They had other notes, but like that was a big note that we both picked up on. It's like, that invested everyone in the scene.
01:02:57
Speaker
Exactly. And what learned from me in my Act 2 one was more of what not to do, because we actually ended it. The player who was playing the artist, Selvo, was actually somewhat upset, because throughout it, he had sanity, which then caused his alcoholism. He wasn't in a place where he could get alcohol, so he had a minus 20 on everything.
01:03:19
Speaker
Then he got past his breaking point, which caused him to have another setback, which basically on top of the alcoholism made him a minus 40 on everything. So I can em admit this throughout the entire act too.
01:03:33
Speaker
He basically couldn't do anything because he was at a minus 40 on rolls to where his highest threshold was like forty So he really couldn't do anything. And he he was basically yeah yeah basically fat basically was entirely useless in that entire act to work on maybe finding some way to get an artist involved in a more action-heavy session. and I took that criticism and be like, OK, I'm going to shave off the combat a little because we also took too long on what we like to joke about the one Arnold Schwarzenegger guard. The Terminator guard.
01:04:10
Speaker
The Terminator guard. They still say he's out there somewhere. He's still out there. now After six rounds, he was still up. So, yeah, that wasn't a bad thing.
01:04:23
Speaker
After six rounds, he was still up. And one point... We were hitting it with and was after hitting him actual bullets. know, after the scene ended i'm sure that you know we We ended the session, and then you know the credits roll, and then mid-credits, all of a sudden, he stands up and... I'll be back.
01:04:46
Speaker
Yeah, so I was like, okay, when actually bringing this to the invention, I'm not going to stay out the guards. They're going to be cinema stuff, and they're just going to die in a few few rounds. They're all just going to die, and you'll be left with the the fish people.
01:05:01
Speaker
Just to cut it down, and also making sure that any characters... There's not a lot of time for them to get fully insane and cause a detriment to their game, which helped include them. And was even phony. I tried not to put the more action heavy people in the action. And yet the guy who played, i think the astronomer through, I didn't make him do this. He was like, I pick up a microscope and I attacked the giant fish person with it. I'm like,
01:05:31
Speaker
and don't I don't want to kill you, but that's very, very not what you should do. But you know what? Whatever. Oh, I've ever picked up one of one of those songs I've seen at Microsoft? It's pretty heavy.
01:05:43
Speaker
Have you ever seen a Greater Deep one? That's not saying much. head Well, I don't know if I can say if I have. Nick, what did you learn from your playtest of Delta Green Part 3?
01:05:58
Speaker
I learned that certain skills could allow them to be more deceptive in getting around the enemy. And what else did you learn? Did you learn that the way that you had it structured only ran for two hours?
01:06:13
Speaker
Yes. So I changed it, expecting them to do more. Unfortunately, this is where the inverse happened. Yeah, basically, yeah, because I know how this ends.
01:06:27
Speaker
I prepared... prepared for them to be more investigative, stealthy,
01:06:34
Speaker
and extended combat encounter. No, not blazing. It was more one guy. We gave a brief rundown of it. We gave a brief rundown of it. I know about the mind swap grenade, but... Did they...
01:06:51
Speaker
One of them went insane and tried to ram the firetruck in there, and they forgot what type of firetruck it was. Probably I should have had them make it check and they make sure that they knew that there was a firetruck with water in it.
01:07:05
Speaker
Yeah. what what Was this a cause firetruck, Nick? Was this a create firetruck? it was It was a whole mess of things. was like, okay, so they just decided to skip the investigation stuff and just went in hog. Also, fire trucks don't have a lot of water. You hook it up to a fire hydrant, and that's how you get the water. But you're going to find that in the middle of a forest or something.
01:07:33
Speaker
There are fire trucks, and I specifically made certain that I guess I didn't know that they didn't know what types of fire trucks have water in them. to my that they People don't usually know that right off the bat, but that's why we had the firemen.
01:07:49
Speaker
And they didn't make a check Buck's not bright guy. i think he can at least decide, okay, that's the color of the truck that has the water in it. Okay, that's fair.
01:08:01
Speaker
They ran up and decided to join in with join and try to fight the cultists. Yeah, that's that's ironic. The firemen went in to fight the cultists. while the so the SWAT police officer went to do the fire truck.
01:08:15
Speaker
And it went insane. and also has pyrophobia. Yeah. It was a whole mess. So nothing... okay I played up to my playtest, but nothing in my playtest was prepared for my players.
01:08:32
Speaker
Which is a good thing to note. You can have a playtest, but that doesn't mean that's what's going to happen in the convention. you You can have a playtest, but the the big universal RPG axiom will still apply. It's the same thing with all war scenarios.
01:08:50
Speaker
No plan survives first encounter with the players. Especially if they have what essentially becomes mind swap grenade. Yes.
01:09:03
Speaker
Which I introduced. Did not expect one of the players to be hooked on that. Oh, I didn't expect him to even would use it that way. I just was there for you how you described it.
01:09:14
Speaker
And again, I keep on saying it. like He describes it as like, I'm shaking it. It's like, um why you shaking it? It's not Diet Coke and Mentos.
01:09:30
Speaker
And I'm just tossing it in the middle. It's like, what? Which we can note that this was the same player who in Daryl's Act 1 got one of those characters that had the affair and be like, I'm not comfortable playing that.
01:09:43
Speaker
So we know he had fun because he was like, where's the orb? I want the orb. Give me the orb. Yes. we We know that... like The orb was like his main goal and from the minute we all sat down. Who has the orb? He wants the orb. He negotiated heavily to get the orb.
01:10:00
Speaker
Which, in a Delta Green thing... Having one of the agents get super focused on an unnatural artifact fits the scenario.
01:10:12
Speaker
It does. And like he was like, I want him to negotiate with the angels. And he's like, okay, you're going to... He takes the psychic damage and he's like, all right, I'm going to shake this thing up. It's like, shake it up.
01:10:24
Speaker
I'm going to shake this thing up a whole lot. And then I got to throw it. like Nick, you you keep using the phrase shake this up again. And I don't know if you've listened to the post-production of the last episode.
01:10:38
Speaker
Every time you said that, I included the cars. Shake up. Oh, it's it's in my mind. Again, it's the most, of all the things to use your phone,
01:10:53
Speaker
your Again, this we gotta admit, it's a Robert creation. This is not from the world of Lovecraft. Yeah, I made it up. But you made up a good.
01:11:06
Speaker
He made up a good one where it's like, okay, he's shaking it up. He's throwing it in the middle, I guess. Okay, mind swap grenade. Everyone swap. Everyone does the mind swap.
01:11:19
Speaker
When I heard that, I was just like, hmm. That's exactly not what I intended. Everyone had fun. Did you expect someone to shake it up?
01:11:29
Speaker
No, no, I didn't. Because initially it was two people had to touch it for it to happen. But in Act 2, no one was doing that. So I just was like, you know what?
01:11:40
Speaker
Instead, light on two people's foreheads, swap. To which he then was like, and I was there to listen to this. was like, okay, that's how that works. was like, but Why is he shaking it up?
01:11:53
Speaker
Like, I just asked him, like, ah guys ah yeah, just move it in my hand really fast. It's like, and then I toss it in. It's they're like but that okay, my swap grenade.
01:12:04
Speaker
That's the kind of inventive thinking that I love running convention games for. Yes. But the weird thing is, going back to our plan, it's like, it made my game shorter.
01:12:18
Speaker
My playtaste said, like, here's how to make it longer. Like, I guess it's running short now.
01:12:27
Speaker
i I saw you guys were still busy, even after the time ran out. I mean, for for what it's worth, the first time that Stephanie and I played Delta Green, Steve ran it for us at Gamer Nation Con, and...
01:12:43
Speaker
This is ah module written by the publisher intended to be run as a quick start game at conventions. It's literally the only one shot I've seen that can be done in one sitting.
01:12:58
Speaker
And the way that... did yeah we didn't like three hours in our own play. Yeah, and so did we. The way that the group at the con table went around it or went about it is when we got to the final location, we went through there in such a way that we, slight description, there's a small house and there's a barn and there's a tank with something evil in it buried in the ground.
01:13:40
Speaker
Yep. The way it's written, and i know, Robert, I think you've gotten the electronic copy of it. I don't know if you've looked through it or not. I have a PDF. I think I have, but I know it's like you either go down and confront it or you just kill it above.
01:13:56
Speaker
the The way it's written is the PCs are expected to thoroughly investigate the house. And then, you know just because of the order of where everything is on the property, investigate the house, then probably find the tank, creepy stuff starts happening, then find the barn, which has ways to take care of the creepy thing.
01:14:27
Speaker
yeah But we were like, okay, we know something something not right is going on here. We just cleared the house to make sure there was nobody or nothing in it.
01:14:37
Speaker
Went straight to the barn. Then we found the tank. Then we found the tank and we're like, oh, this isn't right.
01:14:50
Speaker
Wait, there was gasoline in the barn. Let's pour the gasoline down and in the septic tank and just burn this thing. It was the same thing we did. That's what we did, yeah. You all interacted with the creepy thing more than we did.
01:15:05
Speaker
As soon as it started talking to us, we were like, nope. Yeah, they were much more like, burn it. Burn first, ask questions, never. Yes, that is exactly what we were like. and so are they they They were Warhammer Inquisitors.
01:15:23
Speaker
We were were done. We were done in three hours. We were done at three hours, and Steve was like, I'm sorry, guys. enough one but that's the end of That's the end of the adventure.
01:15:36
Speaker
That's not a failure. That's not failure. No. That's player characters doing stuff.
Planning and Inspiration for Convention Games
01:15:42
Speaker
The reason he perceived it as a failure is we've mentioned about Gamer Nation Con that for every hour that you game, you get XP, which is your currency at the auction.
01:15:54
Speaker
And these games are four hours. They're four hours, and so he's like, e you're not getting all 40 XP. They just gave me three because we were done in three hours.
01:16:06
Speaker
They just gave 30. couldn't fund a little bit for mine. i couldn't fund it enough. Yeah. But we had fun, and that was the point.
01:16:18
Speaker
I was like, I'm sorry that wasn't the full hours, is like I tried to fudge it a little bit with them. was's like ah But they all had a great time, because we hit all the story points that were built around everything. hit the insanity, we hit the orb.
01:16:38
Speaker
Yep. ever I think the the standout thing was the orb. and believe it. yeah And though those are the three big things that we do when we're planning a convention game.
01:16:53
Speaker
I mean, some of the things that we've talked about in previous episodes can apply. Like you, you want to come up with, with a good story idea. You want to come up with a good hook. That's going to, when you list the game out, entice people to sign up for it.
01:17:10
Speaker
And you want to be a good GM. you want You want to be a good GM, you want to be a gracious GM. At a convention game, you know all three of us, when we're playing our normal home games, we are very much, unless it's completely out of the question, we are very much yes and or no but GMs in that we try not to just cut somebody off in something that they want to do.
01:17:39
Speaker
And i I dial that up to 11 for a convention game. Yeah, because I think it was players to lead in some ways. Yeah, because I don't know if it was you or your wife who said they played a game once where the GM literally said, no, that's not how this is written. Get back on track.
01:17:58
Speaker
Right. That was a disastrous Star Wars. are ever seat that We never forget who her GM was. Oh, no, i I know who her GM was for it.
01:18:09
Speaker
He's a great player. I've played with him before. I've run games for him before. He's a great player. It's just his GM vibe didn't work for her.
01:18:23
Speaker
Oh, the Jeffrey syndrome. Yeah. Yeah, it just did it didn't work for which you it happens from time to time. It happens. And unfortunately... They they are very they aren't aren't equivocal skills.
01:18:37
Speaker
And it just so happened to unfortunately be a convention game So there wasn't an opportunity for her to... can be very unpleasant.
01:18:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, and yeah that's for her tastes, he didn't find the right balance of railroading without making it seem like he was railroading.
01:19:03
Speaker
Exactly. ah Which, as we've said up top, some degree of railroading is inevitable in a convention game. It's almost a start assuming you're railroading and then try to defiate as much.
01:19:21
Speaker
Right. Because again, you're working on time, but like if you start with a railroad, you can branch out. And one thing that I do like you know about coming up with convention games for Gamer Nation Con specifically is since they always have a theme, that very frequently helps to spark ideas for the session that I want to write and run. That's nice.
01:19:53
Speaker
I mean, the Alien game didn't really fit the theme of this year's con, but... Yeah, there was some conspiracy in there. Corporate conspiracy. ah There was some, and but that wasn't... There was some, but that wasn't the genesis of the idea.
01:20:13
Speaker
The genesis of the idea was, I was falling asleep one night, and the title of the two halves and and how they interacted together came to mind. And I sat bolt upright, grabbed my phone, made a note of it, and then messaged you, Nick, the very next day.
01:20:31
Speaker
the titles came first. I think it was like six in the morning. the The titles came first. I think, yeah, I think you me a.m. I was like... I mean, it's entirely possible because that would have been the time that I got up to go to work, to get ready for work. I was like, that sounds good. and I like it Yeah, we've learned that we're really good at making titles.
01:21:00
Speaker
And, you know, but go back and listen to a couple episodes ago, The Hook Brings You Back. and That's part of hooking. A good title can definitely get people into it.
01:21:13
Speaker
Game Renaissance Con has a tradition of having great themes. Had a tradition of great themes. like and get tear getting get salty You're going to get salty about next year not being Ocean's Eleven again, aren't you?
01:21:29
Speaker
Don't do and that's it. I'm not saying anything was stolen from us. Don't get salty again, Nick. Don't. It's still something you both like.
01:21:40
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, I understand that I'm... I'm joking. I'm joking. I understand I'm going to have to be doing the heavy lifting to come up with the concept for our three-parter, but something occurred me... have some ideas.
01:21:56
Speaker
have to come up with some ideas.
Casual Discussion and Conclusion
01:21:58
Speaker
Right on. And something occurred to me that, you know last week, Chris very correctly so recommended Robert Watch... Strange New Worlds to get kind of a feel for a Trek vibe, because it's recent, it's awesome, and at this point, there's only 20 episodes to watch.
01:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, still gotta do that. Maybe... Oh, you could do that ah do that on the Paramount+. If you don't have it, you could use it for for just like a month-long trial. Yeah, you can do a trial, but maybe...
01:22:33
Speaker
We do an episode of our sister podcast, Casual Nerdity, after Robert has watched Strange New Worlds, maybe one for each season.
01:22:44
Speaker
Bring Robert on, kind of like we're doing with Clone Watch and Lauren, and their first time watching Clone Wars, we get Robert's first time watching Star Trek.
01:22:59
Speaker
That could be fun. I'm just throwing that out there. You are under no obligation, Robert. Well, we do know where where you live. ah Do you, Nick?
01:23:10
Speaker
Do you actually?
01:23:14
Speaker
David, he called me up. Nick, his his address is in the meetup for the campaign that he runs from home. Don't let him know that. And you have the interwebs in your pocket to get you directions to go places.
01:23:30
Speaker
Yes, and I always text Robert, he's going to forget that by the time he wakes up. Well, even if he remembers, that still requires him to leave his house. And yes, I text, but yes, but I always text you, your wife, or your son to ask where your house is.
01:23:46
Speaker
Yes. Yes, you do. Because I haven't run a session from home frequently. You know, Nick, you can store those things in people's contacts in your phone.
01:23:57
Speaker
Or heck, you put it in maps, it's on your recent searches. We're picking on Nick again, Robert. I'm very bad with technology. When we start picking on Nick, that usually means we' we're coming to the the episode. Yeah, that usually is a sign that we're all we're done. Because we've run out of subject matter and then we just turn on Nick.
01:24:20
Speaker
Turn on Nick like it's Lord of the Flies. Oh, I'm not the guy with Asmar. That could that could be a ah could be a different con later.
01:24:32
Speaker
Yes. GamerNationCon 20, Lord of the Flies. Are you listening, Chris? Hopefully not. Don't take that seriously. Lord of the Dice.
01:24:43
Speaker
That does sound cool.
01:24:46
Speaker
So any other final closing thoughts now that we've realized we were picking on Nick and we've reached the end of the episode? We've given you what we do, but like we said, find what works for you.
01:24:59
Speaker
if if any of this helps, then we've done our job, but don't take this as gospel. Like this has to be how you do it. And there is plenty more it like the general RPT knowledge that we're sharing.
01:25:15
Speaker
before and after that could be applied to this. And as a little shout-out, by all means, check the other people on D20, the other podcasts.
01:25:28
Speaker
I'm sure they have advice, too, on how to run games. Absolutely. and They absolutely do. yeah I know that there's an episode of Order 66 about creating a con game.
01:25:39
Speaker
um I'm sure me and Steve have ideas for making games and convention games. you know Listen to all of the other shows that are on the network just to listen to them because they're a podcast.
01:25:53
Speaker
And like you said earlier, especially during the during the player character, there's fortune, but also in terms of story and just general vibe, look for starter games. they're They're not terribly terrib expensive.
01:26:10
Speaker
They usually come with a pair of dice, with a set of dice and pre-made characters and a small story that you can least build off of. If not, just run that at a con.
01:26:23
Speaker
That's perfectly allowable. or if you Or you can also just take a look at the book or the world that they're doing and see how they actually make their scenarios. I know Star Wars has the scene stuff.
01:26:37
Speaker
Delta Green, basically you put an entire like investigative case kind of structure. in Legend of the Five Rings, it's like scene by scene and you decide what type of scene it is. Action, subterfuge, diplomacy, something like that. Just see how you can structure your the scenes in whatever world you're doing and see how it can work for you.
01:26:57
Speaker
yeahp Absolutely. All good advice. And that brings us to the close. And between now and next time, be sure to check out our website at howwerollgaming.com.
01:27:10
Speaker
And while you're there, you'll find links to all of our social media accounts and information about our current campaigns. You can also directly support the show through Patreon. Just go to patreon.com slash how we roll gaming and you'll see our different membership tiers starting at just $2 a month.
01:27:30
Speaker
A special recognition on our discord server and higher tiers giving you on air credit and discots on our soon to be relaunched merch store. Finally, if you have any questions you'd like us to answer, topics you want us to cover, or even submit to your own RPG Glory stories, shoot us an email at podcast at howwerollgramming.com.
01:27:54
Speaker
And we hope that you will join us next time. And until then, Daryl. I'm Nick. And I'm Robert. And this is How We Roll.
01:28:08
Speaker
This episode of the How We Roll Gaming podcast is copyright 2025, How We Roll Gaming, LLC. All games and associated intellectual properties are copyrighted their respective owners, and How We Roll Gaming makes no claim of ownership by discussing them here.