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  1. #1
    Trenloe's Avatar
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    FG Con VI - Feedback thread

    Well, the sixth FG Con is over...

    Damned and I are always looking for constructive feedback on how the convention went for you and any ideas you might have for future conventions.

    If you'd like to give feedback, please do so in this thread or PM damned or me if you'd like to keep it private.

    Onward to FG Con VII!
    Private Messages: My inbox is forever filling up with PMs. Please don't send me PMs unless they are actually private/personal messages. General FG questions should be asked in the forums - don't be afraid, the FG community don't bite and you're giving everyone the chance to respond and learn!

  2. #2
    I'm not sure how much my opinion is valued or useful here, as I don't attend FG Con most years. But this is because the bulk of my work is on the weekends and so I generally don't do heavy gaming on Friday or Saturday (have a game on Sunday already).

    My only feedback would be to question the likelihood of extending FG Con to include one weekday, either the prior Thursday or the following Monday. I've seen this done with some live cons.

    Again, I am probably very much a minority here.
    I never claimed to be sane. Besides, it's more fun this way.

  3. #3
    Trenloe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nickademus View Post
    My only feedback would be to question the likelihood of extending FG Con to include one weekday, either the prior Thursday or the following Monday. I've seen this done with some live cons.
    We had similar feedback after FG Con IV and we tried running events on Thursday at FG Con V and... well, the response was very poor. So we stuck to the traditional Friday to Sunday, and will probably do so in future. Sorry that means that people who can't play on weekends will miss out.
    Private Messages: My inbox is forever filling up with PMs. Please don't send me PMs unless they are actually private/personal messages. General FG questions should be asked in the forums - don't be afraid, the FG community don't bite and you're giving everyone the chance to respond and learn!

  4. #4
    Well, you considered it at one point. That is good enough for me.
    I never claimed to be sane. Besides, it's more fun this way.

  5. #5
    AstaSyneri's Avatar
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    Having run events before in the real world (for card gaming, though), I have an idea how much work you put into it.

    Thank you for very much for organizing the Con - and for running games yourself.

    This has been my first FG Con - both for playing in games (well, one, as Sunspoticus' Savage Black Sails session was cancelled at the last moment ) as well as for running a session (All for One - Musketeers).

    Playing was good. Not great - playing with a bunch of total strangers in what is a one shot puts severe limits on what makes RPGing so great, imho, but considering those limitations it was really good. I loved seeing Trenloe's SW ruleset in action and while the scenario was very old skewl and felt a bit unbelievable - it ended with a bang (literally). I am tempted to run my own Star Wars game, if FFG didn't make playing on a VTT so difficult (no PDFs to convert).

    I was much more stressed out about running. I didn't have time to get all my maps up to par (CC3 beckoned, but I just didn't have the time). I had restructured my adventure to fit better after doing a test run with friends. Plus I am not a rules guru on Savage Worlds - I tend to forget the finer parts of the rules system and tend to rely on players to provide the rules knowledge where they benefit from it ;-).

    It worked out great. We had two large fights, in which I learned a lot more about the Savage Worlds ruleset (that automation is great - if you can figure out how to use it - we really need more tutorials on that - I have no idea how much I am scratching at the surface still). Getting more and more comfortable with that will speed up fighting a lot.

    We overran the time set by 90 minutes - and all by one stuck and afaict had a lot of fun, so it turned out to be all good.

    Of course everybody was new to the setting, and some were new to either FG, SW, or both.

    So in the end I'd say: Kudos for setting this up. While FG Con has a few disadvantages inherent to VTT RPGing, this Con is extremely important to convince players that FG is a very viable alernative to at-the-table roleplaying and how great the advanced rulesets work.
    Savage Musketeer Roleplaying with a horrific twist: All for One - Régime Diabolique for Savage Worlds is available on the FG store now!

  6. #6
    Mask_of_winter's Avatar
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    I think FG Con is hitting it's stride. I had a great time again.
    One observation. I had more no shows this time around but can't blame it on the organizers. I guess it just happens.
    There are two things I'd like to see in future FG Cons.
    1. A way to email all enrolled players with a push of a button instead of collecting their email addresses and sending an email from my account. This could prevent emails from being flagged as spam and help ensure everybody could be reached.
    2. A lobby system set in place on TS where players trying to enroll for a booked event could go and see if a spot opened up. I scooped up a few players over the past couple cons but since it isn't wasn't "officially" advertised or supported...
    Writer for Just Insert Imagination and co-host of the Wild Die Podcast.
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  7. #7
    All 4 games I signed up for ran, and it was fun in each of them. Yeah sure, the usual one shot limitations but that's the same with real world cons.
    78% of DM's started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, copy and paste this into your signature.

  8. #8
    ShotGun Jolly's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mask_of_winter View Post
    I think FG Con is hitting it's stride. I had a great time again.
    One observation. I had more no shows this time around but can't blame it on the organizers. I guess it just happens.
    There are two things I'd like to see in future FG Cons.
    1. A way to email all enrolled players with a push of a button instead of collecting their email addresses and sending an email from my account. This could prevent emails from being flagged as spam and help ensure everybody could be reached.
    2. A lobby system set in place on TS where players trying to enroll for a booked event could go and see if a spot opened up. I scooped up a few players over the past couple cons but since it isn't wasn't "officially" advertised or supported...
    I was going to suggest the same things, but it wouldn't of been so eloquently stated as what Mask just said. So Ill just quote him instead.

  9. #9
    Well done, once again, organizers! I could only participate as a player in one session this time, but intend to GM (at least one session) next time.

    I'll second Mask's point about facilitating new players to find sessions at the last minute.

    It may also make sense to save some seats for late-showing players, so they aren't frozen out. (Yes they "should" register earlier, but human nature being what it is...) Do you organizers have a sense of how many players may not find a seat given them finding out about the Con late? One way to approach this might be to allow the minimum number of seats for any given game session to be booked well in advance, but hold the remaining seats up to the maximum capacity of a game session for registration in the final 48 hours. Just toying with an idea here...

    Running: The One Ring and GUMSHOE--Esoterrorists (on hold); intermittently Fiasco and DramaSystem/Hillfolk
    Want to play: Pendragon, City of Mist, Dresden Files RPG, Orpheus, Changeling, Apocalpse World and more PbtA, Bluebeards Bride, Shadows of Esteren; anything by Bully Pulpit Games

  10. #10
    Trenloe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hector Trelane View Post
    It may also make sense to save some seats for late-showing players, so they aren't frozen out. (Yes they "should" register earlier, but human nature being what it is...) Do you organizers have a sense of how many players may not find a seat given them finding out about the Con late? One way to approach this might be to allow the minimum number of seats for any given game session to be booked well in advance, but hold the remaining seats up to the maximum capacity of a game session for registration in the final 48 hours. Just toying with an idea here...
    I don't think there's any ideal formula - based off the nature of a small percentage of internet gamers being no shows. I don't think we should go the way of keeping some spaces specifically for the last 48 hours. If extra players don't sign up and you then have a couple of the original players no show the game doesn't go ahead.

    This time around virtually every session was fully booked, which is great. To the best of my knowledge only one session didn't go ahead due to players dropping out - it wasn't fully subscribed and was borderline to run from the start. We have three sessions (to my knowledge) not go ahead due to GM emergencies. GM emergencies not withstanding, we had the best rate of games going ahead of any of the previous conventions.

    From my point of view it's best to have sessions fully booked - sorry, last minute players will just have to go on a waitlist or hang around in TS hoping to get a game. Knowing a few days in advance that your game should go ahead is a great thing for a GM - they can do their final prep knowing that they're probably not wasting their time. One thing we can improve is the up front GM to player communication - so that players get info earlier and more reliably from the GM about their game, and can communicate back in advance to make sure everything is ready to go. This will reduce last minute dropouts, but never completely eliminate them.

    We kind-of have the "lobby" now - people hang around in the open chat area and GMs can always go in there and look for players if they're short at the last minute. This is always going to be hit-or-miss because we don't use set slot times and there is no official "muster". Because this convention is global with many people in different timezones we're never going to be able to move to set time slots - this is just too restrictive for GMs who may only be able to GM at a specific time, for a specific length of time.

    We'll still look at ways to improve the booking system, if it can be done reliably and is easy to implement and use.
    Private Messages: My inbox is forever filling up with PMs. Please don't send me PMs unless they are actually private/personal messages. General FG questions should be asked in the forums - don't be afraid, the FG community don't bite and you're giving everyone the chance to respond and learn!

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