Trenloe
April 20th, 2015, 05:48
So, here we go with my usual summary/review of an FG Con...
Who would have thought that 3+ years down the line I'd be writing a review of FG Con VI with it going better and stronger than ever.
I firstly want to say MANY BIG THANK YOUs to damned (those of us in the "real world" know him as Damian). He (as usual) has done by far the lion's share of the work for this convention - visiting many external forums and sites to publicise the convention, sending out GM and player updates, putting newsletters together, checking on event entries and bookings on the website, chasing GM and players to clarify details AND running a Castles & Crusades game. Thanks so much Damian, this incredibly successful convention wouldn't have happened without you.
Also thanks so much to IanMWard who joined the admin team to help out this convention - the graphical event view was all his work (among other things).
There is so much work involved in the background for these conventions that I look back with mixed feelings at the end of a FG Con - partly sad that it is over, but also partly happy that I get a portion of my life back for a couple of months before we start work towards FG Con VII.
This FG Con I played: Mask_Of_Winter's East Texas University: Bacon-omicon (Savage Worlds) and The Murderer of Thomas Fell (Trail of Cthulhu) - thanks Eric, damned's Maelstrom - The Fencing Masters (with his own ruleset - good work fella!) and Valarian's The One Ring: Under Mountain Hall - I always love a game in Middle Earth and Valarian never fails to deliver. To the GMs and Players in these games - sorry if I go quiet on you, I'm often dealing with FG Con admin (emergencies/disasters) while we're playing so I'm not always "100% there" (some people would say that of me normally).
A few statistics:
56 sessions. Compared with 48 events at FG Con V, 39 events at FG Con IV and 23 events in FG Con III. That's a 16% increase from V to VI - which is great and makes for sustained growth at future conventions :) At one point we actually had nearly 60 events registered, but some of those didn't go ahead due to low player booking or other not-to-be-forseen issues. My main goal for this convention was to top 50 session, so I'm really pleased we did that.
For the first time, we have some organised play events other than Pathfinder Society - Dungeons and Dragons 5E Adventurers Leagues - a very welcome addition to the events at FG Con.
320 (approx) player sessions booked. Compared with 281 at FG Con IV and 120 at FG Con III. A 14% increase from FG Con V to VI.
Over 22,300 site visits, a 10% increase from FG Con V.
The following is a screenshot of the weekly hits (FG Con V is on the far left).
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39085830/Screenshots/FG%20Con%20VI/Site%20Stats.jpg
We run FG Con for a number of reasons:
Because we *love* playing RPGs on Fantasy Grounds!
Because we want to allow people the opportunity to play different games (perhaps games they wouldn't usually play) or just get the chance to play a game in a fun, happy, community ran convention.
We want to introduce Fantasy Grounds to players (and potential GMs) outside of the Fantasy Grounds community.
To do this, we rely heavily on the FG community to step up and run games. Not everyone can GM a game on FG as it requires knowledge of the application and preparation time - we had a couple of GMs drop out as they weren't ready to run a game on Fantasy Grounds. As such we have a limited number of people who can run games for FG Con and so we are always going to be limited in the total number of events we offer. Thanks to all of the GMs who have ran games at FG Con I - VI, I hope that GMs will return for FG Con VII and more GMs will join the gang and run games.
Again, a BIG thanks to all GMs who ran games for this convention. :)
A few GM details:
First event - Blackfoot (FG Con veteran) and FG Con newbie HoloGnome - both running Pathfinder Society games.
Last event - Blackfoot's Champions Playtest and HoloGnome's PFS Valley of the Veiled Flame. (Notice some Symetry here?)
Most events - HoloGnome - 4.
Joint second (3 sessions): Draca, ShotGunJolly, Gadreun, Trenloe (I don't know why people play his games - he's a NUT!)
Joint seventh (2 sessions): Blackfoot, cmdisc, Damned, LordKavos ,Mask_Of_Winter, RobG, Skellan, Stollesson, Sunspoticus, Valarian, Xazil.
17 other GMs.
33 GMs in total (2 more than FG Con V)! This is great as it shows that we're spreading the load and not relying too much on the same people (except the usual suspects in the list above).
Feedback
Anyone who took part in the convention could you please provide feedback at the feedback thread here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?23893-FG-Con-VI-Feedback-thread
Damned and I will be taking a break for a few weeks and then we'll look at dates for FG Con VI and start to get organised for that...
Thanks again everyone!
Who would have thought that 3+ years down the line I'd be writing a review of FG Con VI with it going better and stronger than ever.
I firstly want to say MANY BIG THANK YOUs to damned (those of us in the "real world" know him as Damian). He (as usual) has done by far the lion's share of the work for this convention - visiting many external forums and sites to publicise the convention, sending out GM and player updates, putting newsletters together, checking on event entries and bookings on the website, chasing GM and players to clarify details AND running a Castles & Crusades game. Thanks so much Damian, this incredibly successful convention wouldn't have happened without you.
Also thanks so much to IanMWard who joined the admin team to help out this convention - the graphical event view was all his work (among other things).
There is so much work involved in the background for these conventions that I look back with mixed feelings at the end of a FG Con - partly sad that it is over, but also partly happy that I get a portion of my life back for a couple of months before we start work towards FG Con VII.
This FG Con I played: Mask_Of_Winter's East Texas University: Bacon-omicon (Savage Worlds) and The Murderer of Thomas Fell (Trail of Cthulhu) - thanks Eric, damned's Maelstrom - The Fencing Masters (with his own ruleset - good work fella!) and Valarian's The One Ring: Under Mountain Hall - I always love a game in Middle Earth and Valarian never fails to deliver. To the GMs and Players in these games - sorry if I go quiet on you, I'm often dealing with FG Con admin (emergencies/disasters) while we're playing so I'm not always "100% there" (some people would say that of me normally).
A few statistics:
56 sessions. Compared with 48 events at FG Con V, 39 events at FG Con IV and 23 events in FG Con III. That's a 16% increase from V to VI - which is great and makes for sustained growth at future conventions :) At one point we actually had nearly 60 events registered, but some of those didn't go ahead due to low player booking or other not-to-be-forseen issues. My main goal for this convention was to top 50 session, so I'm really pleased we did that.
For the first time, we have some organised play events other than Pathfinder Society - Dungeons and Dragons 5E Adventurers Leagues - a very welcome addition to the events at FG Con.
320 (approx) player sessions booked. Compared with 281 at FG Con IV and 120 at FG Con III. A 14% increase from FG Con V to VI.
Over 22,300 site visits, a 10% increase from FG Con V.
The following is a screenshot of the weekly hits (FG Con V is on the far left).
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39085830/Screenshots/FG%20Con%20VI/Site%20Stats.jpg
We run FG Con for a number of reasons:
Because we *love* playing RPGs on Fantasy Grounds!
Because we want to allow people the opportunity to play different games (perhaps games they wouldn't usually play) or just get the chance to play a game in a fun, happy, community ran convention.
We want to introduce Fantasy Grounds to players (and potential GMs) outside of the Fantasy Grounds community.
To do this, we rely heavily on the FG community to step up and run games. Not everyone can GM a game on FG as it requires knowledge of the application and preparation time - we had a couple of GMs drop out as they weren't ready to run a game on Fantasy Grounds. As such we have a limited number of people who can run games for FG Con and so we are always going to be limited in the total number of events we offer. Thanks to all of the GMs who have ran games at FG Con I - VI, I hope that GMs will return for FG Con VII and more GMs will join the gang and run games.
Again, a BIG thanks to all GMs who ran games for this convention. :)
A few GM details:
First event - Blackfoot (FG Con veteran) and FG Con newbie HoloGnome - both running Pathfinder Society games.
Last event - Blackfoot's Champions Playtest and HoloGnome's PFS Valley of the Veiled Flame. (Notice some Symetry here?)
Most events - HoloGnome - 4.
Joint second (3 sessions): Draca, ShotGunJolly, Gadreun, Trenloe (I don't know why people play his games - he's a NUT!)
Joint seventh (2 sessions): Blackfoot, cmdisc, Damned, LordKavos ,Mask_Of_Winter, RobG, Skellan, Stollesson, Sunspoticus, Valarian, Xazil.
17 other GMs.
33 GMs in total (2 more than FG Con V)! This is great as it shows that we're spreading the load and not relying too much on the same people (except the usual suspects in the list above).
Feedback
Anyone who took part in the convention could you please provide feedback at the feedback thread here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?23893-FG-Con-VI-Feedback-thread
Damned and I will be taking a break for a few weeks and then we'll look at dates for FG Con VI and start to get organised for that...
Thanks again everyone!