Megacon / Orlando FL, Convention Report Options

[bitrunner]

This weekend, March 5-7, was Megacon in Orlando FL. This convention is similar to Dragoncon: Comics, Anime, Media guest stars, and of course, Gaming. The gaming was lead by Unity Entertainment (miniatures/cards) and SunQuest (Roleplaying).

This is probably the largest convention for gaming in the Orlando / Central Florida area, and many attendees arrive from all over Florida and from out-of-state. Total gate is about 12-15,000 people with about 10% being gamers.

We had an outstanding turnout for the SRM events. We had a couple of people that were totally new to Shadowrun! About 60% of the players had been involved with Virtual Seattle to some degree, and 40% were Shadowrun players that were now interested in SRM. This is a good sign for the campaign, as many Shadowrun players did not want to participate in Virtual Seattle because it was under the RPGA. 90% of the players returned each day of the convention in order to play ALL THREE adventures that we offered, and everyone, including the GMs, had a great time.

I even had one player that showed up on Friday night and Saturday morning that had already played the first adventure being offered, but just wanted to help others in generating characters and assisting where needed, including dragging around all the books so I didn't have to do so myself. I'd like to send a shout out to Joel (aka EOTLF here on dumpshock) for his help!

We had originally scheduled 1 table on Friday night, 1 Saturday morning, 2 Saturday night, and 1 Sunday morning. We could have easily filled 2 tables each time. Luckily, no one was turned away that wanted to play!

The Detailed Break-down:

Slot 5 / Friday 19:00 - 23:00 / SRM00-01 Mission Briefing
GM: Rich Osterhout / #104

We had a greater than expected turnout for the event. I ran 10 people (technically should have been 2 tables, but i didn't want to turn anyone away. Oh, and I'm the Campaign Director, and an outstanding GM, so I can do this... :P ).

from the 10, 4 had never played Shadowrun before!
These 4, plus 4 others, created new characters at the convention - I was on site early prior to the event to assist these people in generating their characters. SunQuest, the sponsors of the convention, maintain a character creation center and continue to supply 2 full sets of the basic books needed for character generation (left over from Virtual Seattle days). I suggested to them to purchase the latest printings however, as their books are over 2 years old and therefore have many errata in them.

Everyone had an outstanding time, and also rushed back to registration to sign up for the other two events happening that weekend.

Slot 6 / Saturday 09:00 - 13:00 / SRM00-01 Mission Briefing
GM: Rich Osterhout / #104

We had a greater than expected turnout for the event. I ran 8 people - the maximum for a SRM event.

From the 8, 2 had never played Shadowrun before!
These 2, plus 5 others, created new characters at the convention - I was on site early prior to the event to assist these people in generating their characters.

Everyone had an outstanding time, and also rushed back to registration to sign up for the other two events happening that weekend.

Slot 8 / Saturday 19:00 - 23:00 / SRM00-02 Demolition Run
GM: Matt Phillips / #116
GM: Nathan Stiles / Non-Commando

We had a greater than expected turnout for the event. We had 2 tables for the event, 6 and 7 players respectively.

Player response was highly positive.

Nathan is part of our playtest group and generously acted as a backup GM, which we needed for the large turnout for this event. It also allowed me to go home for much needed rest.

Matt and Nate also ran the adventure basically cold - having only received it the night before! They did an outstanding job, of course, as the professionals they are...Many thanks go out to Nate and Matt for their assistance!!! :D

(PS: yes, this adventure should be out on the streets soon)

Slot 9 / Sunday 09:00 - 13:00 / SRM00-05 A Dark and Stormy Night
GM: Matt Phillips / #116
GM: Nathan Stiles / Non-Commando

We had a greater than expected turnout for the event, especially for a Sunday morning slot. We had 2 tables for the event, 6 and 7 players respectively.

Player response was highly positive.

Matt and Nate once again stepped up to the plate and hit a home run! This adventure was written by Matt and Nate was involved with the playtesting, so both of them were able to run it with no problems...Good job guys!! :D

Oh, and for those that played at Nate's table - you are all bad, bad people - i'm sure you will get what's coming to you!!! :P

(PS: this adventure will ALSO be available soon. Yes, it is tagged as #5, that's not a mistake - it is also meant to be a more challenging scenario than the first two or three. Matt just happened to have his finished before the other authors, and therefore it got used....)


Total Convention Results: SunQuest was very professional and supportive of the SRM campaign and events. They provide the use of a character creation center and 2 full sets of the core rule books for generating characters. They also believe in supporting the GMs with a free soda and snack during their event. They were a pleasure to work with again.
The only downside is their marshalling system, which they have not done well in years - as an "independent" event (ie non-RPGA) we were marshalled out last - this meant almost a half hour delay in starting on Saturday morning, which was a total mess (because of having to wait for early morning registration of the convention to open, and mustering out a dozen tables of Living Greyhawk).
I suggested that next year, the SRM tables be mustered separately under Commando control at the actual tables where we hold events, since we have 3 or less tables in any one slot.

[Sentinel]

Argh I can't believe I missed it!! I live in Orlando but had no desire to go play Greyhawk so I skipped Megacon!

[RobertB]

Let me just give my thanks to all the folks who made the Megacon event possible. I had fun on Saturday. It's nice to finally be able to play instead of GM.

Here's to finally seeing some Shadowrun events at conventions. (Looking forward to DragonCon.)

Thanks again,
Robert (aka Satin)

[Tierran]

Whew, finally back from Spring Break. I was at MegaCon last weekend and just want to give Rich and Nate props for an awesome weekend. (I'd give the other GM props if I played with him...but I didn't...well, I better give him props anyway in case I ever play in his sessions...) I played in VS last year at MegaCon and my group had an awesome time at Nate's table, so when we got to MegaCon this year, we were all stoked for M:S. I got in all 3 missions :)

Rich, I was pretty impressed how well you handled the 10 of us. Had a great time in mission 1 even if I didn't do anything other than gain a myself some time on the big screen ;)

Mission 2 and 3 I played with Nate and lost my first M:S character. I was really broken up about losing that pregen. ;) But I got to the Con at 8 am to finish up my new character in time for the third mission and that was great. Of course, the whole group was great so it just added to the enjoyment. That module is just...messed up. That's all I can say about it.

And we are bad people aren't we? I hope we get what's comign to us...in about 30 years. Because I don't want to mess with that any time in the near future.

Hope to see all you guys at the next Con...and hopefully Brick, Cloak, Grat the Bat and Broken Dagger will all be there for missions 4 & 5! (If I survive both of them, this will make my longest running SR character :D )

--Dave
"Broken Dagger"

[Deacon]

I swear, Demolition Run wasn't supposed to be that hard... :grinbig: