FG 8 -- Random Discussion thread

[ffujita]

I saw that "An Incomplete Lunch" is one of the adventures that is being offered. As an extremely satisfied consumer of "An Incomplete Breakfast" I'm quite intrigued. Is this going to be a slightly different version of the same thing -- Extremely useful for beginners of FG, one-shot, using characters already pre-generated by the GM. Or, is it going to be an intermediate (or advanced) version of "An Incomplete Breakfast." Or is it going to be something else entirely.

If it's for beginners, I probably won't sign up. But if it's an advanced take on "An Incomplete Breakfast" I'll be setting my alarm clock to sign up as soon as it opens.

[Trenloe]

You might want to leave a comment on the specific event: https://www.fg-con.com/events/the-incomplete-breakfast-2/ there's a box towards the bottom of the page specifically for comments/questions to do with an individual event.

[damned]

It is a follow up to An Incomplete Breakfast - and I hear rumours of An Incomplete Dinner coming later on too....

[Skellan]

.... and I hear rumours of An Incomplete Dinner coming later on too....

breakfast and now dinner? I hope the halflings got second breakfast or they might waste away

[rexx]

I would like to run something however it would be home gen 5e D&D. Are there any guidelines for what I need to do to run a game for the FG Con 8? I can gen an encounter that can keep people busy for a couple of hours. I would be willing to run this a couple of times during the con.
Regards,
Rexx

[damned]

Hi rexx FG Con starts in a little over 4 days from now so if you are going to post something this is what I recommend:

1. Post sooner (real soon, like today!) rather than later
2. aim for something 3hours with a max of 4hours (typically a max of 3 encounters)
3. Look at the calendar https://www.fg-con.com/mycalendar/ and see if you see an obvious spot for your session(s)
4. Ensure your scenario is flexible enough to run with 2 or 3 players if need be as you might struggle to fill a table at short notice
5. Have pre-gens available - do not do character generation during the session run time as it consumes a lot of time


https://www.fg-con.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/fgcon8-banner-04.jpg (https://www.fg-con.com/events/)
FG Con 8 – Invite A Friend April 8-10th 2016
Register at www.fg-con.com (https://www.fg-con.com/) for all the latest info.

[rexx]

I'm sorry I know I'm behind the curve on this one. I will post something and see what I get.
Regards,
Rexx

[rexx]

Is it taboo to run something pre-gen like Hoard of the Dragon Queen? The plan would be to play through the first part of the campaign. With what little time there is before the event and me being way behind the curve it might be the easiest way for me to host a session for 3-4 hours. It might be best for me to wait for the next con due to the limited time before the con.
Regards,
Rexx

[damned]

It is not taboo to run the opening of a pre-gen just spell out what you are planning in your submission.
I not that FSHShmo has replied to your other thread.
If you are able to comply with the Adventurers League requirements then you will be provided with 5 ready to run adventures to choose from.

[rexx]

Thanks I sent a PM to FSHShmo to see if I can go ahead and post the games on the calendar.
Regards,
Rexx

[Blackfoot]

We really need an option to allow sign ups after the game is 'full' I tried an experiment today with leaving the total spaces blank.. but that didn't seem to help.. a full game is still a full game.. there's no way to allow for waitlist reservations without upping the total number of spaces.

[damned]

The Adventurers League Online GMs have done that. They have increased the number of spaces and written in the description that the game is limited to 7 players. If any of the 7 do not show then you will take players from the wait list in order. If you do this you will also need to communicate that to the players up front and also tell them what time you will swap players in. You dont want a player arriving exactly on time and finding their spot is gone.

[Blackfoot]

Generally speaking, players who arrive 'exactly on time' are actually late... at least as far as PFS games go. Assuming that they have their characters in and pregame info all straightened out.. it's less of a big deal... but arriving at the last minute with no prep or email responses is a bad thing.

[ffujita]

Here is how I described it with 15 slots: "Tickets 1-7 are guaranteed a seat if they arrive on time. Tickets 8-15 are alternates in order of ticket number. Alternates will be seated five minutes after the event starts."

[Blackfoot]

That seems like a great 'stop gap' answer... ideally it would be better (and I realize that the software for the website has limitations) if there was some way to actually set up and assign people a waitlist, with a given order.
#1 on waitlist..
#2... and so forth.
Obviously a lot of this can be handled through emails and comments on the page.. it just would be a bit more slick/professional looking if it were a built in function. Again, I realize that there are limitations to what actually can be added to the functionality on the site.

[Trenloe]

A fully featured waitlist functionality would be great. But this would require a significant change to the Event Manager code (it's not just a case of adding a new "waitlist" status, there would need to be significant changes to the underlying code to allow approval, rejection, etc., etc.) - something that we would have to roll manually in to each new release. It's not a simple process and is prone to future code breaking what we've worked hard to do. It's like keeping an extension up to date, but 10 times worse as there is no "extension" like functionality, we have to manually roll our changes into the base code each time.

It would be best if the base product could do some form of waitlist functionality. We'll reach out to the developer/s to see if they're interested in adding in waitlist functionality. Obviously this won't happen for FG Con 8.

[Blackfoot]

It does kinda seem like the functionality would be useful to anyone who is using their ticket/reservation code.

[damned]

Generally speaking, players who arrive 'exactly on time' are actually late... at least as far as PFS games go. Assuming that they have their characters in and pregame info all straightened out.. it's less of a big deal... but arriving at the last minute with no prep or email responses is a bad thing.

So this will vary from game to game and if that is the case for your game then its important to set and communicate that expectation. Especially with the sting in the tail :)
Often when Im running a game I arrive only just in time to open the game at start time simply because of real life commitments.
In your PFS games you do have a lot to get thru and a set time in which to do it and there is a transfer of characters so it would be important to be early.

At this stage Im thinking the best waitlist option would be a second set of tickets called Wait List. It will track them in order however in most wait lists for online games most of the players on that list probably wont have turned up so you might be grabbing the person that is there as opposed to the first in the list. But having that wait list ticket would encourage them to show. You also wouldnt put a cut off time in the wait list.

It would show like this. You would accept those with normal tickets up to the normal ticket limit and leave the wait list tickets pending perhaps?

https://www.fg-con.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/waitlist.jpg

[Blackfoot]

That looks like a pretty nice solution. Getting on a bit late to add/change it for this go round but it seems like a good idea for next time.

[Blackfoot]

Hrm. OK.. so the one problem with the extra ticket solution. I don't see a way to change their ticket once you move them from 'Waiting List' to 'Standard'. Is that possible somehow? If so.. that solution would be really very cool.

[Blackfoot]

Sweet. I found it. You can go into bookings and then click the person and 'modify bookings'.. there you can switch it.. nifty.

[damned]

Cool. I was about to say... no.

[Mad Nomad]

Relatively long time off and on user of FG here. I think FG Con is an intriguing concept, but I feel like it really misses the mark. Running a bunch of 1 shot adventures is neat and a good way for new players to experience FG for the first time, and sure you may get to see some different DM styles in action, but only a few people can join each and the ability to sample across many is not very easy and very time demanding. Plus ultimately a gamble as well since you don't know if the session you join will offer anything particularly useful to you if you're not a beginner.

I think what would be incredibly more useful is to have FG Con work more like a professional or educational conference with sessions covering different educational topics to enhance the communities use of Fantasy Grounds.

Rather than playing in a 1 shot game I would love to see streaming sessions where people can showcase tips and tricks and tutorials on Fantasy Grounds.

Topics could include things like:
- A guide to using Effects in your D&D games (I've played in countless games where people don't know how to do this)
- DM tips and tricks
- Tools to enhance your FG experience )like how to incorporate streaming music and such)
- Streaming your sessions
- Enhancing your character sheets. (Because I know there are some cool things you can do to organize and enhance your player sheets even without xml customization)
- Module showcases
- Creating modules and rulesets

Benefits would be:
- A much wider audience could join each session
- They wouldn't need to be hours and hours long to spread knowledge
- They would bring a lot more value to non-novice users than current format
- Educating the wider community on the power of the fantasy grounds tool beyond the basics

If people like this idea, perhaps it's not too late to do something like this? I could try to help as well. Or perhaps this could be something done outside of FG Con like in an ongoing FG University with regular scheduled sessions.

[Blackfoot]

Damned has actually run sessions like this in the past. I'm not sure how well attended they were or not.

This is the 8th go at this con so a number of different types of events have happened at this point. Generally, people run what they want to and it has been very successful.

[Zacchaeus]

I saw that "An Incomplete Lunch" is one of the adventures that is being offered. As an extremely satisfied consumer of "An Incomplete Breakfast" I'm quite intrigued. Is this going to be a slightly different version of the same thing -- Extremely useful for beginners of FG, one-shot, using characters already pre-generated by the GM. Or, is it going to be an intermediate (or advanced) version of "An Incomplete Breakfast." Or is it going to be something else entirely.

If it's for beginners, I probably won't sign up. But if it's an advanced take on "An Incomplete Breakfast" I'll be setting my alarm clock to sign up as soon as it opens.

I'm terribly sorry but I completely missed this post.

The Incomplete Lunch is a new adventure written specially for FG Con 8 and actually follows on from The Incomplete Breakfast with the same characters that played through that module. It is neither intermediate nor advanced nor is it a rehash of Breakfast. It's a completely new story.

All of my sessions are designed for players who are new to FG or to the 5e ruleset but are also hopefully attractive to veteran players as well.

It would also be remiss of me not to point out that due to a cancellation a slot has opened up in the Saturday session of this adventure.

[Mask_of_winter]

Relatively long time off and on user of FG here. I think FG Con is an intriguing concept, but I feel like it really misses the mark. Running a bunch of 1 shot adventures is neat and a good way for new players to experience FG for the first time, and sure you may get to see some different DM styles in action, but only a few people can join each and the ability to sample across many is not very easy and very time demanding. Plus ultimately a gamble as well since you don't know if the session you join will offer anything particularly useful to you if you're not a beginner.

I think what would be incredibly more useful is to have FG Con work more like a professional or educational conference with sessions covering different educational topics to enhance the communities use of Fantasy Grounds.

Rather than playing in a 1 shot game I would love to see streaming sessions where people can showcase tips and tricks and tutorials on Fantasy Grounds.

Topics could include things like:
- A guide to using Effects in your D&D games (I've played in countless games where people don't know how to do this)
- DM tips and tricks
- Tools to enhance your FG experience )like how to incorporate streaming music and such)
- Streaming your sessions
- Enhancing your character sheets. (Because I know there are some cool things you can do to organize and enhance your player sheets even without xml customization)
- Module showcases
- Creating modules and rulesets

Benefits would be:
- A much wider audience could join each session
- They wouldn't need to be hours and hours long to spread knowledge
- They would bring a lot more value to non-novice users than current format
- Educating the wider community on the power of the fantasy grounds tool beyond the basics

If people like this idea, perhaps it's not too late to do something like this? I could try to help as well. Or perhaps this could be something done outside of FG Con like in an ongoing FG University with regular scheduled sessions.

Damned and I have in the past and for this Con Hector Trelane is running a Fate Core Tutorial and I'm running 2 Savage Worlds Hangout sessions. Some have streamed their game sessions before and some of those "seminars" are on the FG Con website.
FG CON is a community effort and as such we rely on other members of the community to submit events. We're always looking for any type of contribution that will benefit the community.

[Raddu]

Is there a way to filter the events by rules set? Like only the D&D AL games, or Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, etc?
How about only show games with available slots?

Working up a few posts for the weekend.

[damned]

Hi Raddu the search was playing up so right now no.
Use the Calendar to do some filtering: https://www.fg-con.com/mycalendar - it does have categories for 5e and Pathfinder but the rest of the sessions are classified by genre.

[damned]

Hi dereks Ive done some sessions at previous FG Cons. They were well supported. Here are some recordings. They are quite long 70-90mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eaMZwBKZkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNq4ebzYBHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nesj3tpggmQ

Other people have done GM Training Sessions which were very well received and attended.

FG Con is about playing games - it is a gaming convention.
You are however welcome to submit other ideas such as training or discussion sessions. Initiatives like this also do not need to be restricted to FG Con. Good ideas will work on their own as well.
If you wanted to have a chat offline please send me a PM and we can organise something.

[Blackfoot]

Full of big ideas once again... it would be nice if the Comments defaulted to receive automatically when someone signs up for an event. As it is, you have to jump through a few hoops, remember to click the 'send me notifications toggle', and actually post something to the comments in order to get notifications.
Is this something that's possible?

[Mad Nomad]

Thanks for sharing those. Ya fair points. I guess I'm so used to academic and professional conferences I was stuck thinking in that kind of mind set.
I'm just now discovering a lot of the various training stuff that's out there. If I get up some ambition and time maybe I will reach out to you as I have a few ideas.

[spite]

Not sure where to mention this, but I noticed an issue with the game calender for FG con 8, because I am saturday now, and my game is due to start saturday morning for me, but friday for other people (I think this is the reason) it stopped showing up on the calender for me when the friday games were filtered out, but also stopped showing up for the other players as well.
The only way to get to and access the event (it was even gone from my events organiser) was to go through a saved permalink that I luckily had.

[damned]

Thanks spite - what was the event - Ill see what I can see. It does drop off events once the day changes (here in Sydney) for events that started on the previous day. I think that is what has occurred.

[spite]

https://www.fg-con.com/events/ddex312-hillsfar-reclaimed-dnd-5e-al/

That's the permalink. Not sure how you can work around that if it drops off that way. :(