The Backstory

Michael (aka @TheRPGAcademy on Twitter) has been a supporter of Campaign Mastery and an occasional conversationalist on the subject of gaming for several years now. He is also one of the people behind the RPG Academy podcasts. Several months ago, he flattered me outrageously with an offer to be interviewed for the show as one of their “Show & Tell” guests; a technological handicap prevented me from accepting at the time, but I was chuffed nevertheless (anytime the circumstances change, he’ll be the first person I tell about it)!

Acadecon and the Kickstarter Campaign

Last week, he invited me to take a look at his Kickstarter fundraiser for AcadeCon and possibly promote the event if anything struck a chord. They are fully funded already, but there are some cool stretch goals that he would really like to see happen, so I took a look.

This will be the third AcadeCon (which I would pronounce “Akkaddakon”), a gaming convention in southern Ohio; the first two were limited by venue space, and so were invitation-only. The 2015 model will take the convention into Hueston Lodge, located in the Ohio State Park, a picturesque location just north of Cincinnati. That carries several advantages – more space, 24-hour gaming, and no real worries about disturbing the neighbors with gaming noise! The Con is scheduled to take place on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of November, 2015.

To quote Michael, and his partner-in-gaming-crime, Caleb, “Our only goal this year is to have fun. We are not making a profit from this convention. All funds received will go towards improving the quality of this event and preparing for a bigger and better convention in 2016.

“But, more than anything, remember to play more games and follow our motto: If you’re having fun, you’re doing it right!”

So check out the Kickstarter by clicking on the AcadeCon logo above, or on this link – you have until September 7th. If you want more information, you can also look at the convention page at the RPG Academy website.

There is some cool swag up for grabs, and most of the stretch goals are all about adding to the swag, so don’t miss out if you have any interest whatsoever! That deadline again is September 7, 2015.

Meanwhile, At The Blog Carnival

This month’s Blog Carnival is being hosted by Mark Clover at Creative Mountain Games, aka CMG.

Mark Clover (of CMG) (@MarkCMG on Twitter) is another long-time supporter of Campaign Mastery, often promoting my articles on social media, so I was eager to participate if I could – but as has been the case for the last couple of months, I was drawing a blank when it came to subjects (for reasons that will become clear a little later).

That was, until Michael extended his invitation, and a key phrase from the Kickstarter write-up (quoted above) leapt out of the woodwork to inspire me: “…preparing for a bigger and better convention in 2016…” and I asked myself, “what would I do to use one year’s first public convention as a springboard to a bigger and better convention the following year?” What strategies could I devise?

What would I do?

If I were designing a convention to grow into something bigger and better in future years, what would I do? How would I organize it? What would I like to see?

What would I do?

Ideas began to tumble forth, as though my subconscious had been thinking about the question for simply ages, and just waiting to be tickled in exactly the right way…

A Caveat: My limited gaming convention experience

Up front, I have to confess to an extremely limited experience when it comes to Gaming Conventions. I’ve been involved in the organization and running of two conventions – one Sci-Fi and one Tolkien-themed. I’ve been peripherally involved in one World Science-Fiction convention, co-hosted the official (and successful) bid party for another, and was a member of the organizing committee bidding to host a third – but not a lot of that is relevant. I’ve attended two gaming conventions, sitting in on one game session in one, and keeping a vendor in the huckster’s area company in another. And that’s the full extent of my convention experience.

So my ideas (as opposed to a couple of war-stories I’ve shared during the discussion to follow) have to be viewed in the context of being strictly theoretical, with no certainty that any of them are at all practical. I think they are both good and workable, but I have no grounding in expertise to give that opinion any credibility.

A further caveat: Organizer Surprise

I wouldn’t expect to see any of these ideas forming part of the structure of AcadeCon 2015, even if they are viable in the longer term, for the simple reason that organization of the convention is obviously already well-advanced, and Michael won’t have seen or heard any of them prior to the publication of this article. He’s going to be as taken by surprise as any other reader.

A reasonable expectation

Rather than expecting any of these proposals to be accepted, or even directly relevant, what I could reasonably hope to achieve is to spark a discussion of the proposals and their underlying thinking. Many of them relate to topics that don’t often get a public airing, for one reason or another, either because they might seem boring to outsiders, or there may be dirty laundry involved, or to preserve the mystique that organizers always know exactly what they are doing. There’s no university degree or even college class that I’m aware of that teaches you how to run a gaming convention! Most people learn from bitter experience, from assisting in the management of other people’s conventions, or – if they are lucky – from other organizers with more experience.

Some of the advice is potentially stating the obvious. I make no apologies for that; it’s better to have it said publicly than not said at all.

Sessions

Gaming should be organized into sessions or units. Each should leave enough time for a meal and some shopping in the huxter’s area between games, plus transit from one to the next. In addition, each should have a “margin” built in in case they run long. My original thinking on this didn’t allow for 24-hour-a-day gaming but that makes little difference; if the day is 12 hours long, you get two sessions a day; 15-18, three; 24, four. Alternatively, you could use 8, 16, and 24. I would also recommend an in-the-middle-of-session break of 15 minutes.

Meal allowance: 30 mins should be long enough, given that more can be appropriated from other functions. Shopping: 15 minutes. Movement from one event to the next: another 15 minutes. Margin: 30 minutes.

That means that if the session plus extras are 6 hours long, each play “unit” would be four and one-quarter hours in length, which doesn’t include the 15-minute break somewhere in the middle. If the sessions are 8 hours long, each play “unit” would be six and one-quarter hours in length, not counting the 15-minute break.

Some of the games should be three units long, some two, and some single-sessions. These should occur on different days if possible, encouraging a variety of games for the attendees.

Experience Ratings

Gamers should be able to rate themselves on a four-step scale, and games of each length should be targeted at each of the steps. The terms I’ve chosen to refer to these ratings are Beginners, Apprentices, Journeymen, and Masters.

Beginners

Growing a convention necessarily has a sub-context, at least in part, of growing the hobby. And that means encouraging new players to take it up. Beginners are those with less than 10 sessions of gaming under their belts. Playing once a month would get you out of Beginner standard in about a year; playing every week would get you there in about three months. In other words, this category really is reserved for those who don’t know exactly what they are doing yet, who still need the occasional reminder of what 4d8 means, and so on.

Apprentices

Apprentices are those who have started learning how to play, but have not yet really mastered it. If you have played or GM’d more than 10 game sessions, but have been at it for less than, say, three years, you would fall into this category. A journeyman probably only has experience of one or perhaps two game systems. One unresolved question is to what extent further breadth of experience should mitigate against the three-year boundary; while every different game system adds experience and variety to the gaming CV, it also limits the depth of expertise in any one of them. So there are factors to consider in both directions.

My gut feeling is that each extra game system (over the expected two) in which you have at least 4 months experience or 20 game sessions should add about 6 months to your experience, over and above the actual playing time, until you get to more than 6 in total. On a three-year basis, that would mean that you averaged 5 months to a game system – which at 4 weeks in the average month, is 20 game sessions. Beyond that, each extra should count for minus 1/4 of a year, with the final verdict to belong to the GM of the game.

Journeymen

Journeymen are probably the largest group – if your gaming experience is anywhere from three to fifteen or maybe 20 years, this is where you belong. You would be expected to have experience in at least 3 game systems over that long a period, and probably a great deal more. At this level of expertise, you should be able to learn a new game system as you play and with minimal instruction.

Masters

Masters are the real pro’s. Anyone with 15-20 years at the game table, in any capacity, is not likely to need a whole lot of hand-holding; on the contrary, they are likely to need a whole new order of challenge in order to test them.

Why Discriminate?

First, “Discriminate” should be viewed in the sense of choosing or characterizing, and not be understood in any pejorative sense. Nevertheless, I deliberately chose the term for its shock value.

I think that expectations of ability and difficulty of game would be different at the different levels of expertise, that the reward that you receive is more likely to be satisfying if those demands are in line with the level of expertise you posses, and that the presence of someone without the appropriate level of experience at a game table can interfere with the fun of other players, inducing frustration. In my first game, I played a first-level character amongst others ranging from 5th to 12th level, with challenges geared accordingly. I died very quickly – and if I had payed to participate, would not have been very happy about it. A game targeted at my level of expertise, possibly even with slightly higher character levels than first to give scope for making a mistake without the consequences being immediate death, would be a lot more reasonable – and fun.

So it’s to the benefit of the participants to rate the games for expertise levels.

As you’ll see a little later, it also permits the convention organizers the capacity to target each level of customer with benefits, inducements, and encouragement to grow both the hobby and future versions of the convention. So it’s a win all round, while the alternative can be a source of trouble.

I’ve seen convention modules published in magazines before, and (in general), they pay more attention to character level than they do to the level of player expertise, as though assuming that if you have a 9th level character, that your character has earned all nine of those levels in play. I think that’s an unwarranted assumption.

Hucksters & Advertising

Every convention should have an active hucksters area. Invite local game stores, local book stores, regional publishers. If there’s a store in the region that handles gamer-style t-shirts, invite them, too. Try to think outside the box and invite someone who normally doesn’t get a table at an RPG convention – DrivethruRPG or Amazon or Netflix. Even if they don’t accept the invite they might be interested in a promotional tie-in.

INVITE THE LOCAL MEDIA, and have a professional press-kit distributed to all local and several major national media outlets. You want first-time gamers – because a year from now, if you’ve done it right, they will be back, beginners no more.

Most conventions charge vendors for the privilege. That’s all well and good for the convention, but it doesn’t grow things very much because it imposes an additional overhead that must be met before the vendor can make a profit. There should be a better way of doing things, but short of imposing draconian accountancy, I have to admit that I can’t think of a general solution. My best idea is to charge customers an entrance fee into the huckster’s area, giving them a pass that’s valid all day – but that’s too easy to cheat. Maybe stamping hands the way they do at nightclubs is the answer. By charging each potential customer a small fee you can reduce what you charge the vendors for table space, and the convention makes money whether the customers buy or not.

The best that I can suggest is that you permit vendors to pre-book table space for the next year’s Convention right up to the end of this year’s con – and get a discount on that booking and a partial refund on this year’s con if they do. You want to generate word of mouth through these venues, and having their customers hear that they will be attending can help make them your customers. I would further offer a smaller discount on this year’s fees if a flier for the convention is displayed in their stores and/or websites prior to the con.

Food

Do a deal with a local vendor – free space (ie payed for by the con) but if they do a certain amount of trade over the whole convention, they have to come back for the next one – at an agreed-in-advance fee based on huckster table rates. That’s assuming that the venue isn’t catered, of course.

Access to the food area should be through the huckster’s area. You want to encourage impulse shopping and the buzz of “look what I just bought” as people pass.

One of the first two conventions that I attended provided tea and coffee for A$1 a disposable Styrofoam cup (it was in the 80s, and this was comparable to vending-machine prices at the time). It was my responsibility that weekend to ensure that as each panel ended, a fresh supply of hot water was available, milk was restocked, etc. The convention was being held on the first-floor convention facilities of a city hotel, and the milk came from a store across the road with whom the convention organizers had done a deal – down two short flights of stairs and then back up them with the milk. It all sounds fair enough, doesn’t it?

The grab-a-quick-cuppa proved so popular that over the course of the 4-day convention, I carried more than 3,000 liters (3170 quarts) of milk up those two flights of stairs, 20 liters at a time (in 4 liter plastic bottles that are still in use today). It seemed like I no sooner got back than I would have to turn around and go back again, but carrying more didn’t seem to be a viable solution either. It caused panic attacks at the supplier, too, who went through their stock for the weekend – even though they had arranged to have extra – in just 6 hours. The convention made about A$1800 profit from the hot-drinks-between-sessions alone (and I’ve taken my coffee and tea black ever since).

Now, I haven’t looked up November weather in Ohio, but I suspect that the seasonal position (early winter) would have been comparable, if not a little warmer here in Sydney. There are valuable lessons in this story for any convention organizer!

“Corridor Space” and other mistakes

I’ve seen at least one convention that seriously underestimated the amount of space needed in the aisles between huckster tables, forming bottlenecks that resulted in a lot of problems – everything from theft to an entire display accidentally getting knocked over and injuring the knockee. I’ve also seen a convention which tried to organize them by type of business, so that you had all the vendors of second-hand books together, and all the people selling toys together, and so on. This facilitated price wars and ill-will between those vendors. At the same time, I’ve also seen vendors take advantage of greater distance between them and their rivals to secretly undercut those rivals. Finally, I’ve seen a convention that didn’t think that the Huckster’s area needed security. None of these worked out very well for either the con or the vendors, and one convention was almost sued by a Vendor as a result, claiming that the convention had made promises and failed to deliver on them, costing the vendor trade.

If I’ve seen these problems with my limited convention experience, how commonplace must they be?

It’s always worth investigating the price of insurance against damages claims by vendors. This includes event insurance in case the Con gets canceled for some reason.

Finally, I’ve seen one convention which seriously over-estimated the available space in the huckster’s area, only discovering the error the night before the convention; they had to set up the overflow in a separate space, and that caused considerable ill-will.

If you must charge a table fee, I suggest making it a sliding scale – one table for X, a second table for Y, a third for Z, and so on – and specifying the maximum size of each space considered a “table”.

First Aid Stations and other necessities

You need at least one of these, preferably two or three. At least one of them should be outside the huckster’s area, and at least one inside. You should notify the local police and ambulance services that there is going to be a convention going on, as a courtesy.

While I’m on the subject of telling people, warning any local merchants that there may be people in strange costumes wandering around and possible shopping in their stores can save a lot of trouble – one fellow almost got arrested, possibly shot, because he was in a (pre-movie) Starship Troopers ensemble, complete with dummy rifle, and went into the local 7-11 equivalent to buy snacks. The clerk thought the convention-goer was there to rob the store and hit the silent alarm…

Weapons policies are always a headache – both getting people to agree on what the policy should be, communicating it to the attendees in advance, and enforcing it.

You want to keep your convention-goers safe and you definitely don’t need the negative publicity that can result.

Panels

Of course, there should be panels and workshops and discussions between guests. But what should these be about? This was actually my initial thought of all those presented in this article, the stone that got the ball rolling, as it were.

While pre-registration for panels is possibly a necessity, with participating numbers limited, attendance of one panel that I immediately thought of should be encouraged as widely as possible: How to write, prepare, test, and run a convention adventure!

The more people who can contribute and run adventures, the more players can be serviced at the next convention. Attendance should come with all the paperwork that people will need to fill out in order to offer a game at that next convention – fill out the form, mail it by the date stamped on it, and it’s over to the organizers. If you can get 150 GMs, who have never run a convention game before, attending such a panel, and only one in twenty take the next steps and actually sign up to run their first convention game in a year’s time, that’s an extra 7-8 GMs next year. If you can up those numbers to 300 and one-in-ten, that’s 30 extra GMs. 600 and one-in-five, and that’s another 120 GMs!

You want bigger and better in twelve months time? Give your attendees the tools to make it happen! Work out what you will need to accommodate double or triple this year’s expected attendance and use this convention to achieve those requirements!

Everything else that I propose in this article has flowed from this one starting point.

Panels and related activities should be between 60 and 120 minutes in length. That means that in a single “game session” you can attend two or three panels instead of playing.

Admission vs Game Entry Fees

There are those who might argue that one fee, up front, is the better approach. It certainly has the virtue of elegance and simplicity. But I think there’s something to be said for a more pay-for-what-you-play approach.

First, it would enable you to keep general admission fees down – and that, in turn, encourages a strong turn-out. Young gamers in particular, by-and-large, are not the wealthiest of individuals. And the vast probability is that if they save money on admission, any extra will get spent in the huckster’s area, enhancing the reputation and likely future attendance of the next convention. It’s a snowball effect.

Second, it doesn’t mean any more work if you require pre-registration for events (other than those for beginners, perhaps). It simply means that instead of one item on the receipt, there are several. More, it means that convention goers who might not otherwise have the financing to attend will do so at least part of the time (NB: my thinking on this was, at the time, that the convention would be held in a city hotel), enabling participants to come and go.

Once I had this general thought, opportunities to encourage participation began to occur to me, mostly of the cross-promotional variety. The general principle was that most participants should pay for about 2/3 of the activities they are involved in, with the remaining 1/3 being subsidized by the first two-thirds or by convention-supporting activities.

Beginners

A Beginner’s first session should be free with admission, and they should get one other session free. They should also get admission to one panel of their choice, free. The costs of running these should be subsidized by the convention because if their convention grows the hobby, the hobby will grow their convention.

Apprentices

Apprentices should also receive one session’s entry free with admission, plus a rebate of 1 other session free if they buy the appropriate core rules for that game from an on-site vendor, and an additional session free if they GM 2 sessions for beginners (subject to availability of convention space). (They should also get entrance to 1 panel free with their general admission). Finally, of course, GMs don’t pay entrance fees for any session that they GM.

This encourages the sale of product, keeping the vendors happy, and provides an incentive to game producers to feature their latest products – possibly in return for a partial subsidy of the cost – a reasonable marketing operation, especially in conjunction with the “How to GM a convention game” panels. Between this policy and the panel, you are giving young GMs everything they need to step forward and become the future backbone of the hobby.

Journeymen

Journeymen get 1 session free with admission, plus 1 other session free (via rebate) if they spend $100 (or $75 maybe?) in the huckster’s area, plus 1 free session of play for every 3 sessions they GM (subject to availability of convention space), and 1 panel free. I’ve already indicated that I expect this to be the most populous group of attendees, and this policy is aimed at persuading them to attend at a discount if they spend part of their time helping to make the convention a success. The “subject to availability” is an important point, because it means first in, best dressed (in terms of getting the discount) and prioritizes the most organized GMs. This settles the convention games roster ASAP.

Once again, GMs don’t pay entrance fees for any session that they GM.

Masters

Masters get their last session of play free with admission, plus one other session free for every 3 sessions they GM for others of Master or Journeyman level or 4 sessions they GM for Beginners or apprentices (subject to availability of convention space), and attendance of one panel free. This encourages those with the greatest mastery of the art of GMing to stay the course for the whole weekend.

And, as usual, GMs don’t pay entrance fees for any session that they GM.

Panel Presenters

Panel presenters and special guests should get free general admission and 1 free game session for each panel or workshop they participate in (subject to availability of space). This combines two principles: “all work and no play” and making contact with a potential fan-base. The assumption is that these are professionals, semi-professionals, or otherwise substantial figures within the industry. Of course, they would not pay entrance fees for any session that they GM, but on top of that, I would give them one session free for each session that they GM – encouraging them to bring and demonstrate their latest products, and enhancing the contribution they make to the convention, overall. Ideally, this should mean that a guest has his entire weekend filled with gaming and related activities without having to part with a dime, simply by staying with the optimum mix of activities – but affording them the flexibility to vary the convention’s idea of “optimum” to suit themselves.

Panel registration

If panels are to be about 1/3 of a game session in length, they should cost about 1/3 of the session fee. At least two different panels should be underway at any given time simultaneously, so that convention-goers have a choice of what to attend.

Videos/DVDs

If possible, panels should be recorded on videotape and sold on DVD on the final day, so that if you wanted to attend a panel but couldn’t, you can do so retrospectively. “Profit” levels on these should be as near to zero as possible – because every time the resulting DVD gets played, the convention is promoted. Next best would be to upload the panels to youTube.

Furthermore, if the DVDs / videos are made more generally available (at a slight premium), it provides a mechanism whereby those who can’t attend the convention can still support it. That’s a win all round, in my book.

How to get these made on the cheap? Make contact with a school, technical college, or university in the area that is offering classes in video production, and try to do a deal – you supply the event, they supply camera, lighting, and sound crew and equipment. You want these to be reasonably impressive, because this is how those who didn’t attend will see your convention – and maybe decide it’s worth going to in a year’s time.

In Reality

I started by saying that I have no evidence to suggest that any of these ideas would work in real life. In fact, I can see practical difficulties that would need to be overcome in many cases. These are not insuperable; for example, I can see how a tailored SurveyMonkey “survey” could be used to pre-register attendance at different events. I don’t think any of the practical issues are insuperable.

Having them be practical for the particular convention under discussion is a whole different kettle of fish. But hopefully, they – or someone – can glean some advice of merit from my ruminations and recollections.

At the very least, as I stated earlier, I would hope to kick-start a discussion of these ideas. Heck, that would even make an interesting and useful panel at a gaming convention – “How to make next year bigger and better, or what you want from future versions of this convention”….