How do you start a pick-up game at a con?
I am no stranger to cons. I’ve been going to Origins every year since 2000. Because of scheduling conflicts, I’ve eschewed Origins this year for GenCon. I’ve read lots of posts over the years talking about people running or getting into pickup games. In all of my con experience, I have never been offered nor got involved in a pickup game. My questions are two-fold:
How does one find and get into a pickup game?
How does one go about recruiting if they want to run a pickup game?
(Both of these questions asked under the auspice of doing such at a big convention like GenCon or Origins–I know how to call up friends and get a pickup game going locally!)
Well, what level/edition are we talking about?
I am thinking it might be fun to just bring a copy of one of my dungeons, and hold up a sign.. you know “Meet at ____ at 4pm for a game!”. Recruit passers by. I’m already playing a ton of RPGA stuff, but I left slots open just for fun. Let me know if you are going to do this. haha, I might try it myself…
I did exactly this at PAX, and it was a blast. I had nothing with me – just my dice and a few friends, only one of whom had played 4e before. I asked the WotC people if they had any stuff they could lend me, and after a bit of scrounging they found a photocopy of last year’s free RPG day module, complete with pregens.
Then it was just a matter of wandering to various rooms where D&D-related stuff was going on, or out in the hall where people were waiting to get into Delves, and loudly asking the room if anyone wanted in on a one-shot.
I ended up with two strangers who’d just finished the official “learn to play D&D” one-shot and had their pregens in hand (turned out they were the same as the module ones), plus four of my friends – two of them complete newbs to any form of gaming.
We went into the room where Encounters was, found an empty table with some extra maps and tokens and pencils, and just started playing. I hastily read through the module while the two slightly more experienced players gave a brief overview of the mechanics to everyone else. Since there were only five pregens, we ended up with two wizards – both of them blaster builds. This led to much hilarity, as you can imagine.
We had a great time. I had to improvise a good deal of stuff on the fly, since the module was pretty bare bones. The new players took to the rules quickly and had fun with their characters. Complete success.