The best answer would be for the first nights activities to be a bit lighter than the other two nights. Just enough to get the players "stuck in" - they find the info that leads them to the box, but not the box. Save that for night 2. Night 3 becomes the recovery of the box and saving of the 'net.

That way you have enough time for the introductions, the picking, and the questions and then you get a prologue to the rest of the adventure.

FanPro runs a ton of regular non-scored non-tournament games at cons, including the Missions series. The tournament is designed to be different, and the concept certainly won't appeal to everyone.

Because if it weren't it wouldn't be a tournament. Tournaments have been around for RPGs since they started becoming big. It's a way for some players to show off their expertise. Others like them because instead of having to try and cram a lot into 4-6 hours a tournament lets you play the same mini-campaign for three nights straight.

That happens no matter what. If Fan Pro puts something out or sanctions a high profile game there will probably be people complaining about it. Not just because people like to complain (they do) but because nothing is perfect, but a lot of people still expect it to be.

That depends on how the story is written. Most of the time, your idea is right on the money. The Vatican Run two years back was done that way and really set the stage for the players to try and figure out what the hell was happening. What we are doing next year is going to fit more with the style you are talking about.

It's the same way I feel about tournament play in just about any game, actually.

Since before that, really. It's a holdover from the fact that the RPG hobby is a descendant of the tabletop wargamming hobby. When they started holding RPG conventions, they asked themselves "well, what would you do with a bunch of gamers when you get them into one place?" and their previous experience told them: hold competetive tourneys.

OK, well if thats just a small portion of the activities then well, thats ok. I was just wondering. I just didnt understand why you would have something called a tournement for a game that isnt normally scored.

I dont mind tourney games if there is a way to clearly score the thing and not just use opinions. I play table top games and I fight on the weekends, so swinging my cock around is not a problem.

I can almost say Im not a munchkin, everyone has a moment of weakness. But I like when the GM dares me to play something I dont normally. I encourage them to make characters for me to play, I dont care, its just about getting to together with friends and having fun. I already act like an ass, playing characters that arent me is nothing new.

Im still wondering how do you show off your expertise or what ever you want to call it, when you are being lead by the nose down a trail to hit invisibile flags to gather points? The only difference is how lucky the dice rolls are for one person or the next. And how could it be scored fairly in the first place, a crappy GM would let a semi compotent team pretty much do what they want to the opposition. Where a good GM will wipe the floor with a bad team, of that good GM will be easy on the pack of retards and let them "escape." Which leaves roleplaying as another factor. What is good RPing to one GM is bad to another. So its a pretty crappy way to score a scoreless game. I guess rotating GMs around would average the scores and maybe level it but it still seems silly.

Where with tabletop games you know who wins by the results of each battle.

To some people it does. Those people are cordially invited to not participate in tournaments.

Touching on a few of your points:

The tournament is, indeed, a small portion of the Shadowrun events offered by FanPro. There are one shots being run from 8am throughout the day (and there is even a Midnight run offered). There are also Missions games that go on all day. And this year the Missions crew tried something different: an 8 hour event where the first 4 hours were LARP-like and the remaining 4 were back at the table. Hell, we even have a 2 hour comedy show called Who's Run Is It Anyway.


The scoring system in place is constantly being improved on, but the con team did (in my opinion) a very good job with it this year. It's a combination of many things such as RPing Ability, Accomplishing Goals, etc.

(And that is not to say they must do "this, that, and the other" to get points... it's just a rating on how well they did in getting through the mission laid out in the beginning. We had a group two years ago that were able to successfully complete the goal for that round in about 90 minutes.)

But the Grendel and the team try to drill into the GMs how they should be scoring teams with a system that limits how much opinions can affect scores.



As for being led by the nose... well, I will say that is never our intention and, in years past, that has never been much of a problem. What I try to do is map out the major plot points that will happen during the adventure and then try to add in all the material for things the players may try to do. Eventually those things are going to lead them to the end points for that round but we want to make it seem like they are finding all this out on their own. Two exceptions to this:

1. Round 3. Round 3 doesn't have "set" endings per se. Yes, there are usually a handful of ways it could wrap up that we cover. But the players can often do things we never anticipated and we let it go as it will. An example from this year: one team strapped thermite grenades to the storage array and put the unconscious NPC next to it and blew them both to bits. Amused the hell out of me when I heard that and the GM went along and gave them a wrap-up that fit the events.

2. Way off the mark/Lagging Behind. Back when the Tournament was elimination style, this wasn't an issue. But we want every team to be able to experience the full adventure and see as much of what's happening as possible. If the players are lost and already 3 hours into a 4 hour round... yeah, the GM is going to try and give them not-so-subtle nudgings and pullings to get them towards the end game of the round. Best example I can give is this:

Two years ago I GM'd round 1 of the tournament that I wrote. The players were investigating the dissapearance of a prominant church member. There were people to question, things to investigate, etc. Unfortunately, they missed clues or didn't really question the NPCs involved. They ended up back where they started trying to figure out what to do. Knowing that the game was running behind, I had the Johnson-type NPC (a Bishop in the Vatican) come in and berrate them for sitting around when they had no real information to give with the subtle nudging that they go and really "question" some of the people. That got them back on track and they finished the round easily.



This year we were hamstrung by my getting the tournament done late, the GMs not having enough time to familiarize themselves with the adventure, and GMs that were lined up dropping out at the last moment leaving us scrambling. Now we're working to make sure it doesn't happen next year.

Thanks for the uninvite. But as I have said before, I dont like cons/game shops so I wouldnt be at one anyway. Was just curious how you make a non-scoreing game into a game that can be won.

James did a good job explaining the general idea of how. It's a point based system that measures the overall round, how they might perform in the scenes that happen, etc. If the Round happens to involve a job where the Johnson says "Sneak in, grab the paydata, and don't get seen or caught" and the players go in guns blazing, they're going to get less points than a team that pull a full-on ninja.

This sounds like an excellent idea until you realize how a group approaches a new run. That night is dominated by the meet, legwork, and planning.

As a GM that ran a two day one shot, I can report the first day had very little planning when an opportunity presented itself, but still took almost the entire 4 hours. The second day was more combat, that believe it or not some players are wanting, and trying to extricate themselves from the mess they were in.

With your new job each night, I think you are going to get railroaded even harder through the meet, legwork and planning stage.

I can not believe this comment. What a fucking primadonna you must be. A superstar who will not be associated with less than a flawless production.

Or a spoiled brat that takes his ball and goes home if it looks like he is on the weaker team or the soldier that deserts when the going gets tough.

Fact - a month ago when they were desperately seeking GMs , you should have stepped forth with your fucking cape blowing in the wind to volunteer to save the fucking day.

Fact - unfortunately they got me, who admitted he had never GMed SR4 or even played in a 4th edition game.

Yes, things looked terrible and maybe to keep their standards, FanPro should have cancelled all the games they could not cover and limit the Tournament to tables they could cover. They did not. Money grubbing? Maybe. Look like losers or failures without even trying? Maybe. Optimistically hoping beyond all good sense that super GMs like you and not losers like me would step into the breach? Probably.

It really is too bad you and whatever other super GMs/spoiled brats couldn't come forward. I did. I tried. My groups had fun. So did I, and I enjoyed playing with them.

I've seen this asked before and I see a couple of partial answers.

It is a tournament. There are awards for first, second, and third place as well as individual player awards.

This year, I think the prizes were:
1st place - LE BBB
2nd place - Street Magic
3rd place - gift certificate for FanPro product

I would like to know 2nd and 3rd place teams. I heard Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot came in first, just want to see if my other group placed.

At $3 a slot, 6 slots per table, and 20 tables they made a whopping $360. I doubt you can point to money grubbing in that setup, since their output for compensating GMs and renting tables probably came to quite a bit more than that.

Charon: I love the idea. I'd play in it (I mean as a GM).

Don't forget the cost of the prizes!

(Yes, I know that technically, the prizes given out didn't "cost" them anything, it was just stock they had on hand, or in the case of the LE BBB, stock that they had set aside specifically earlier to give away as prizes later, but that's stock that they could have sold and made money off of and didn't.)

Whaddya mean it 'technically' didn't cost anything?

You still have to credit your stock without debiting your sales account so it's a net loss.

Not that a few book are a big deal, but it's still an expense.

It's precisely 'technically' that it cost them money.

I'd probably want to play instead because I haven't played SR in more than 12 years. I ALWAYS GM since our original GM introduced us to SR and disappeared 5 session laters. *sigh*.

But free style GMing based on a few set pieces (NPCs, objective, motivations of the major players etc.) is my normal MO so I'd feel at ease GMing that way. It'd be kind of cool to compare note at the end day with other GM to see what they came up with using the exact same box of tools.

If you find that idea interesting, you should take a look at the Iron DM competition. Yeah, it's for D&D, but I love the basic concept.

Please, do not quote me on this, but I don't think FanPro makes anything off the tournament tickets sold. Dunner would be better able to answer that.

And here I thought it was just the large number of free drinks that made you say that would be a good idea for SR at Gencon.

That was kinda my point, but rereading it I can see where it might be confusing. I was trying to say (and only partially succeeding it seems) that FanPro spends more than they make at GenCon.

Note that the ticket money goes to GenCon, not FanPro.

If I had the time and desire to learn the d20 rules, I'd definitely compete in Iron DM. If I thought we could find enough players and GMs to try doing this for SR, I'd be pushing very hard for it.

Third place went to Team Thaumaturgy Out Yo' Ass. Officially, we were recorded as "Thaumaturgy Out The Ass", but this was erroneous.

Every story has two sides, of course, but wow, just wow.

I mean, the "lady in Red" could she have been any more insulting with the constatnt dears, honeys, etc...?

Wow. I would have ended that game in a fit of violence. Real, not imagined, and probably got thrown in jail.

Wow.

And the majority of people who played in and enjoyed the tournament with it's assorted flaws is thankful you didn't play nor are a Tourney GM, SL James.

Ghost has some legitimate problems with his GMs and the tourney itself, and I feel for him. I have played now in the Tourney for 5 years and every single year (including this one) I have had negative experiences with either a GM or a player.

Know what? It's not the railroading that destroys the morale of the game, nor unprepared GM's or any of the thousands of mistakes that get made. What destroys a game is having a player or GM or both that can't jsut play for the fun of it. Repeated OOC bickering, especially between a GM and a player is the absolute worst and most jarring thing that can happen in a session. If I were GMing (and I have run my own SR tourney twice at Gencon) let me tell you that player would be receiving very low cooperation scores and possibly bad roleplaying scores.

My group played all three sessions and had a blast. Did we see flaws in the run? Sure. Were we occasionally completely bowled over at the mistakes that were made? Of course. (That's why we named ourselves Whisky Tango Foxtrot) Were each one of our GM's different, with all the contradictions that entails. Yup. But, we had a good time. And in the end, it's because of that, because of the quality players that I have had the privilege of playing beside ( players that I wish I could invite into my home game that I GM) that I keep returning. Sure, I had the holy grail of trying to get a podium finish all those years. Sure, I experienced the frustrations of not knowing exactly why we didn't wind up there. But in the end, there was never a question in my mind that I would return to the Tourney the following year and try again. Because, it is fun; it is it's own reward.

My suggestion: if you didn't have fun at this year's tourney, figure out precisely what bothered you and if it was a chance bad GM or you hated the story or character you played give it one more try. In my experience, this year's was little different than previous in quality. If you don't like the setup of the tournament, then don't bother coming. Many of us actually enjoy playing with multiple GMs, enjoy the storylines and, most of all, enjoy the quality players we get to play alongside each year. Don't ruin it for us.

Vlad