Tabletop RPGs @ PAX

Aneurysm · August 2005

Help me out on this one.

I saw alot of people playing D&D in the tabletop room, but I fail to see how such games are organized so quigkly. I mean character creation alone can take hours of tweaking, and coming up`with back story. Not to mention DM's coming up$with maps and such.

So when }ou want to run a tabletop RPG at a con, how is it done?

And are there any Mage players on the forums? If so, how about some Mage tabletop for PAX '06?

Dog · August 2005

I dropped into one of the pick-up games for about 45 min. The DM had pre-rolled characters made for the correct level, so I took over a cleric whose previous player had left. Other players came later and the DM let them roll up new chars. (It doesn't take long if you don't sweat the story -- just choose a class/race, name, and a quirky personality trait, and you're set.)

There were a couple of impediments that stood out:

1. The constant turnover of players (including myself!) was distracting and slowed progress to a crawl. We were constantly trying to bring new people up to speed with what had happened previously, explain how to roll up characters, etc. Just as people got involved and started role-playing, they would leave for a panel discussion, etc.

2. The scenario was open-ended. If you know your players are going to stick around for a while, it's okay to give them free roam. If you have to deal with people dropping in and out, and new/inexperienced players, it helps to have a lot of DM-driven action sequences.

3. Immature players. One guy in particular was constantly talking OOC (e.g., "are there any girls there? because if there are I want to do them!"). Honestly the game would have been about 10x more interesting if we had turned on the rogue and gutted him. At least something would have happened!

Looking forward to next time, if I can find a more serious group!

Yoshua · August 2005

It helps if the GM comes with a scenerio that can be played out within about 5 hours or less. I'd put the outside limit on how long a game could last on about 7 hours if everyone is really interested in playing to the end.

And yeah, pre-rolled characters are basiclly a must.

apotheos · August 2005

The guy running D20 Iron Horse knew exactly how to do things right.

That was pretty cool.

panksea06 · August 2005

I was totaly pumped to play, I brought a bunch of stuff, walked through the Tabletop Room every few hours, yet never sat down to play.
Just too much stuff going on.
I was kinda disappointed that no DnD action was happening in the Double Tree rooms post concerts.

And as a side note for next years games:
What level did people play?
Was their a shortage of DMs?
I saw an epic 13 player group, how do the mondo parties work out?

cyraxwins · August 2005

i ran an eight an a half hour game,,,

t3h_sp00n · August 2005

Rabbitual, I was the rogue. I would not have appreciated that. We were going to continue it after the Saturday concert, but 1.) we were worn out and 2.) we couldn't collect any people to play that late. Next year, I'm bringing D&D people to start a campaign. We will make a D&D game to REMEMBER. You have my word.

cyraxwins · August 2005

t3h_sp00n wrote:

Rabbitual, I was the rogue.

You were?

different game josh..

t3h_sp00n · August 2005

cyraxwins wrote:

t3h_sp00n wrote:

Rabbitual, I was the rogue.

You were?

different game josh..

Really? Sounds a lot like our game from Saturday.

Dog · August 2005

t3h_sp00n wrote:

Rabbitual, I was the rogue.

I didn't take any pictures at the table, but the DM was the guy on the left here:

...and since that picture was originally posted by cyraxwins, I think that means I just stuck my foot in my mouth.

If you guys are there again next year, I'd be happy to join a session with less turnover. I was sorry that I had to leave before finding out why we woke up in that godforsaken field.

iconherder · August 2005

I really had alot of fun at PAX and spent most of my time in the boardgames/D&D area. I really enjoyed the Iron Kingdoms demo game and I agree that is exactly how these things need to be run, just a little bit longer.

I had a tough time getting into a pick-up D&D game, I didn't see any games running the way they were outlined on the PAX website with pre-made chars besides the Iron Kingdoms game. When I did get in a game we had fun for an hour or two before the concert started, but we never managed to get the group back together so it just fizzled and died.

I would be really interested to see volunteer DM sign ups for next year's PAX and have sign-up sheets with time slots for playing some games, maybe even small prizes for best roleplayer (the best way I've seen of doing this is private votes go to the DM, who then weighs the vote with his/her own opinion and gives a reward).

The problem with D&D in this kind of environment is that combat takes way too long. I think most games would need to focus more on roleplaying situations and have 1 or 2 combats in order to be successful. If the game is designed to take about 2 or 3 hours and there are pre-made characters (which can lend well to a cool RP experience) then I think it would work better.

moirla · September 2005

thanks for asking, because I honestly had the same question. I left all my dice and stuff at home because I didn't know how things would work. (although DDO solved the dice problem)

And what is the proper ettiquette for joining a game?

cyraxwins · September 2005

Sorry the game sucked...

perhaps next year will be it's finale?

Penny Arcade

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