Yes, I know I’m pretty early, but I do have ideas, so why not share them.
First, talking to different people at RopeCon and somewhat on this blog, I’ve learned two things:
1. Some of the most valued GMs are part of our Guild.
2. There are people out there looking for new games, but are worried about the GMs and other players.
So, I thought we might provide a service to help out those who don’t want to use the classic heuristic of staying away from fantasy games. This might sound very conceited and might actually be just that, but than again, if we are not the best people to do this, I don’t know who is. Well, at least we are arrogant enough to do this (although I haven’t talked to Ville about this yet, and I didn’t tell anyone I’m going to publish this this early).
My basic idea is this: We get a rubber stamp for next year and stamp the games we believe are up to our standards… whatever those standards may be. Probably just base our recommendations on recommendations from people we trust to know what games are good and which GMs are worthy of our stamp.
What we would probably need to do is to make a page of all the games we recommend and explain our reasoning, whether it is based on a recommendation or its there just because we didn’t want to leave out any of our own GMs (I’m big on reporting possible bias). Now, depending on how secret we want this to be, the stamp doesn’t necessarily need the address, although since we definitely are not above self-promotion, it probably will have the link to this blog at least.
But here’s the problem: We don’t really want to piss of any GMs, but stamping their enrollment sheets when they don’t necessarily know what its all about, might leave a sour taste in somebody’s mouth. Then again, if they really go to the link and see what its about, I don’t think very many would mind. Convention organizers of course might, but as we are just trying to bring quality players and games together to heighten their experience, they really shouldn’t. After all, they want repeat customers.
At this point, I’m just throwing this out there, looking for feedback. Feedback from the guild was pretty good, but people I talked to (including Lauri) were drunk at the time…
Or you could team up with others, who (hopefully) are going to arrange Games on demand -service. Basically it’s about running games without the need for the players to sign up in beforehand. Games on demand has been pretty successful in Gen con and we have the expertice to make it happen in Ropecon as well. Some talented GMs with quick low-prep games would be required, however.
This does not need to be “or”. We can (and quite possibly will) do both. Aki ran at least one game with minimum preparation at last Con.
I don’t see why not… I like to participate in at least a couple of games myself, and I’ll probably run a few scheduled games too, I’m not sure how much free time I’ll have.
We are doing this. I happen to remember the conversation and thought it was a good idea. A stamp with a link would be a good idea.
It’s too arrogant for my comfort. I’d say we only post our opinions on the blog before the con, and hand out flyers at the con.
Really, my own experiences of any GMs at the con are very limited. I only know some really good ones. I’ve held prejudices against some – based on whatever flimsy excuse prejudices are usually based upon – until I actually met them. I’d hate to leave good people out of this silly stamp scheme for stupid reasons, or only because I don’t know them.
I’m not expecting perfection and hopefully neither is anyone else. We’ll just do what we can the first time and then learn more from the feedback.
The idea is to use the tacit knowledge out there. Based on usage data, the subject is of great interest to many people. Sadly, without more comments, I can’t really say what drives them here, but since we probably don’t have that many readers, at least some of them are interested in where this is going.
… and passing flyers… nah… no one reads those anyway. You need something more intriguing to reach people.