Top Five Tips for Running Convention Games
One of the things that I really like doing is running participation and demo games at local conventions. This gets the games I play out in front of a larger audience. If I am lucky, perhaps new players will get into the game themselves.
Now, the games I play are not necessarily Games Workshop related, but rather games that others might find a little more obscure. What makes them obscure is that they are harder to find and I want to change that. Getting them out at these events does exactly that.
There should be no difficulty for people to get into various Indy and Historical games. For the cost of a single Warhammer 40K army, you can get into multiple systems with multiple armies. Win-win!!! That said, they can’t get into the game if they don’t know about it!
Top Five Tips for Running a Convention Game
In this post, I give tips learned from three years of running participation games at conventions.
Now, let’s take a look at those tips.
1. Be Prepared
- Your table does not have to be a masterpiece, but a good presentation helps generate interest in both your table and the game you are promoting.
- Paint all your minis. It’s about presentation. If you can, have all the minis painted. It makes for a more special and memorable experience for your players. Plus, it just feels good to get your painted minis to the table.
- Make sure you bring all of your accessories such as dice, measuring devices and gaming aids.
- Get a good night’s rest before the event if possible.
- My wife’s advice for the above list is to pack your items early so all you have to do on the day of is put them in the car.
2. Know the Rules, but don’t rule by the rules
- Know the rules of the game you are demoing.
- That said, speed and flow of play are more important than getting every detail right.
- Make some house rules or state that not all the rules will be followed in the interest of speed and engagement.
- No one likes waiting 20-minutes while you look up a rule. Just house rule the result or “dice-off” the outcome to keep things moving.
- Be up front about what rules you are following and what you are altering or avoiding. The goal is to give a flavor of the game to your attendees so they can decide if they want to pursue the game further.
3. It’s about attitude
- Be as engaging as you can. You want people to like the game and have fun.
- Try to keep things and keep people’s attention. Yes, sometimes it can be like herding cats – depending on who is at the table – but do your best.
- Know that you can’t make everyone happy. Some people just like to complain.
- If they don’t like the experience, accept it. Everyone has different tastes. Ask for feedback on what you might be able to do differently next time to keep their interest. Learn from those who complain. Try not to take it personally.
4. Accept Feedback
- Getting good at running demo games requires practice and feedback.
- If you are new to it, ask the players at the table what they thought of the game.
- Also ask them about their thoughts on the demo. What did you do well? What could you do better next time?
- Build on that advice the next time that you run a game. Continuously try to improve upon the experience that you give to your players.
5. Hand Sanitizer
- My number one tip for anyone attending a convention in general is to bring hand sanitizer.
- Many people look forward all year to certain gaming conventions. Some people would rather come to the event sick than to miss something they have been looking forward to all year.
- You need to keep yourself safe from those germs. The number one protection – Hand Sanitizer.
- This goes no matter whether you are running games or trying them out. Keep your hands clean to avoid the gamer funk after the event.
Wrapping it up…
Hopefully you enjoyed my top five rundown of tips related to running games at Conventions and Demos. If you want a bit of a deeper dive into the same subject, I have an article on Must Contain Minis about my experience of running games at conventions. That one lists even more advice and focuses on Frostgrave – although it is applicable to pretty much any gaming system. I also host a page detailing upcoming gaming conventions in my area (Ontario, Canada).
Thanks for reading and until next time, Happy Gaming Everyone!!!
Read more about great Indy and Historical games on my site!
Must Contain Minis is my personal Website. If you like this post, be sure to check out my site. You can also follow me on Social Media. I am very active on Facebook and share posts of a wide variety. I upload my best pictures to Instagram and am fairly active on Twitter.
My aim is to promote gaming with companies outside of those that already dominate the gaming market. You can find a wide variety of games there from Indy to Historical.
