The official Gameday 29 attendance count is: 41

Given the many cancellations in the afternoon, that’s a really good number! And it doesn’t even include a few of the people who drove down from Madison. A few people commented to me that it seemed like Gameday felt “small” this time around, but it really just the small number of events in the afternoon. If anything, the fact that we had such a good turnout, yet the events still felt “intimate” is a great thing.

So…

I want to thank: our hosts, Games Plus; all of our volunteer GMs; and everyone who showed up to play. It was great to see both old and new faces, and that people were traveling from far and wide. I can’t tell you all how much I appreciate that.

I want to send out big thanks to our Burning Empires group; I had a BLAST. Bill’s heroic GM’ing, Willow’s face-punchingly-awesome rules mastery, and David’s sly criminal mind made for a thoroughly enjoyable game. It was really cool to see BE in action and flowing quickly. Not only did I have fun, but I feel like I learned a lot about the game. I know folks were worn out by 6:30, but I seriously could have kept going. Thanks!

Thanks again, everyone. And keep an eye out for news about Gameday 30, or as I think we will call it: Gameday XXX.

Share your memories and thanks

Gameday 29 event planning and GM sign-up thread on ENWorld

Just post your idea in this thread and grab yourself a table!

To grab a seat for an Gameday 28 event, post in the ENWorld thread linked above.

If you want to run an event for Gameday 28 (and you know you do), go there, read the first post, and then start contributing!

I’ll create a thread on ENWorld at that time and send out the thread to this list, as well as post the link on Facebook. Once you receive the URL, post in the thread if you’d like to run an event. The initial thread post will have details about submitting events.

And now: some new stuff!

First, I’ve made a map of the games room at Games Plus. Take a look.

The tables are labeled, A-I, and each table is marked with its ideal seating. Now we’ll determine in advance which table you’ll be at for your event, plus we can better match event size to table size. So, yes, if you’re running a smaller event, you’ll be running it at at tables A or B; a typical six-player event, you’ll be at C-G; and, Games Plus permitting, big events or wargames will be at tables H or I.

Second, I’d really like us to shoot for at least six events in each slot (morning and afternoon): five “GM + 6″ (or larger) events and one “GM + 4″ or larger event. Assuming we have those six, we can add on more events (of any size). This gives us a baseline of accommodating 40-42 attendees, GMs included. (“GM” can of course, mean “person running event”; your game need not have a GM role.)

Again, this is the ideal. Obviously, it depends on what kind of events people want to run. Still, the more players we can accommodate, the more people can attend. The more people we bring in, the more Games Plus loves us.

Okay, hopefully this all makes sense. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

See you on Monday!

RPG preferences

The first and most important question asked what RPGs people are interested in playing. Respondents rated various RPGs on a scale from “Not interested at all” to “Yes, please run this!” While the list presented was pretty exhaustive, I nonetheless overlooked a few games. Deadlands/Savage Worlds was mentioned by two respondents in the “Other suggestions” comment area, but no other RPG was requested by more than a single respondent.

So, here are the Top 10 RPGs from the list I presented:

1. D&D 3.5/Pathfinder
2. FATE (Dresden Files, SotC, etc.)
3. “Indie” RPGs
4. Call of Cthulhu (BRP)
5. CORTEX (Supernatural, Smallville, etc.)
6. Mutants & Masterminds
7. Other d20 (d20 Modern, SpyCraft, True20)
8. Paranoia XP
9. Shadowrun 4e
10. Trail of Cthulhu

Overall, there wasn’t a steep curve as far as the difference between the most-desired and least-desired games; it was a gradual descent. I.e., the ratings for the 11th-15th RPGs on the list were not that much lower than the 7th through 10th.

The key learnings from this question are, IMO:

• If you are going to run D&D, 3.5 or Pathfinder is possibly the best bet, with “Old School” D&D running a moderate second and 4e a close third. That said, there were actually a lot of respondents (44%) who specifically did NOT want to play 4e. However, I would not shy away from 4e if that’s what you want to run. 4e is too popular overall to ignore.
• Lots of people want to play Call of Cthulhu, especially the classic BRP edition.
• Lots of people want to play supers, M&M in particular. I have noticed that supers events have been pretty sparse at Gamedays past.
• Dresden is hot right now. Run Dresden, and people will flock to your event.
• d20 games, other than D&D and Star Wars, are more popular than you think. (Star Wars was actually not very popular in this poll.)
• There is definitely a contingent of Indie gamers that frequent Gameday.

Here are the full results. Unfortunately, since I am using the free version of my survey service, the word “SAMPLE” is deliberately placed over the results table. Still, it’s mostly readable.

Genre Preferences

The next question asked was about genre preference: “System aside, are there particular genres you would like to see more of at Gameday?” Overall, there was no great disparity between any of the options; all genres seem to hold some interest. The “Big Three” were, in order: Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror. The “Next Three” were pretty close to these, score-wise: Urban Fantasy, Pulp/Noir, and Superheroes. In general, it seems that any genre is a safe bet.

Here are the full results:

Mature Content

Next, respondents were asked about the maturity of the content presented in events at Gameday. They were given a scale from “G” to “R” (a la movie ratings) and asked what level of “mature content” they were comfortable with. 41% of respondents were comfortable with “R” content, 35% with “PG”, and a little under 3% wanted “G”. Others simply had no preference.

Overall, it seems that respondents were comfortable with anything that was not gratuitous, but were not especially seeking out such content. They general feeling seemed to be that as long as the event was not making anyone at the table uncomfortable, said content was okay with them.

However, the few respondents who did object to mature content were fairly adamant. So, I think the key learning here is that we all need to be courteous to those around us. As the Gameday FAQ states, it is recommended that you be up-front about the expected age-appropriateness of your event.

Board Games

Next, we asked “Do you like to play board games at Gameday?” The options were a simple yes or no, and the divide was pretty even, though “No” had the edge with 52.9%. When asked to elaborate, there were many different board games mentioned, though it was Descent that got more than a single mention.

So, should you run board game events at Gameday? Maybe. You are obviously narrowing your potential audience down, but 50% ain’t bad. Still, the preference seems to be for RPGs.

Other Types of Events

In the same sprit, we then asked about preferences for other types of events, such as CCGs and wargames. Only 13 of the 34 respondents even answered the question, and among them there was no one type of event that was clearly the winner. More than half of those who answered wanted neither CCGs nor wargames, but rather minis painting, seminars, even “frisbee outside”.

The lesson here seems to be that there is very limited interest in events not involving RPGs or boardgames, with the possible exception of minis painting… and I mention it only because I know it’s done well in the past. So, yes, run an event in this category and you are taking a risk.

Facebook

Last of all, our “bonus question” asked if a Gameday Facebook page would be useful to you. 52% said yes, while 38% didn’t have a preference. This tells me that it’s worth a try! Ergo, expect to see some Facebook news in the future.

Thanks!

So, there you go. I hope that this information proves useful to anyone with interest in running an event for Gameday. Expect to see this sort of preference survey become an annual ritual.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/295404-chicago-gameday-27-october-23rd-sign-up-play-now-8.html

To those of you who were not abel to make it this time around, I hope to see you at Gameday 28! Speaking of which, I should have a date for Gameday 28 in the near future.

Lastly, I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I will be sending out another survey, one specifically focused on the kinds of events you’d like to see at upcoming Gamedays. Your participation is encouraged; the more data we have, the better we can make Gameday.