Pre-Signing Problems and Possible Solutions

[dpmcalister]

I won't be posting any more comments on this subject because I don't want to be moderated on my own forum.

[thtraveller]

I am not seeing the issue with playing in a lodge. In my experience it gave a better gaming experience and made it easier to role-play than playing in the noisy gaming rooms. Granted you can't as easily pop out for sign-ups or to the bar, but it seemed more than a fair trade when I did it.

[Silhouette]

I just really don't care for playing in a lodge. Aside from having no easy access to the facilities offered such as bar/sign-up board/etc. it also means I can't say hi to some people when my game is on a 5 minute break, and I quite like the social aspect of the con too. Call me crazy, but after traveling over from Holland I do like to spend some time with the people I've met at previous cons, whether that's in a game that I run and they pre-sign for, a game that I play in that I pre-sign for, or somewhere in the main hall during breaks.

And while this is only my second Conception, I am getting a leetle frustrated with this discussion, which seems to be bent on making people feel bad no matter what their preferences regarding sign-ups are.

Did anyone (Aside from Nick Reynolds, who will be in a game of JotSS next con I see him even if I do have to pre-sign him up somewhere...) actually miss the opportunity to play a game during a slot? or did they just miss out on the only game they wanted to play that slot, all other games be damned? Because nothing frustrates me more than hearing three people complain about not having a game, and then hearing Duncan offer several games with three or more slots available during muster. And then not hearing those three people say 'sure, we'll give it a go'. And then still hearing the same people complain.

So... yeah... I'm sorry my games signed up within an hour of being put up on the board, but out of the 7 games I ran, about half went up without a single name on it, and the rest only had one or two.

[thtraveller]

And while this is only my second Conception, I am getting a leetle frustrated with this discussion, which seems to be bent on making people feel bad no matter what their preferences regarding sign-ups are.

It does seem that way doesn't it. And while this is my first Conception, I had heard indirectly of previous complaints about pre-signups. So this subject is infamous.

[w00hoo]

So... yeah... I'm sorry my games signed up within an hour of being put up on the board, but out of the 7 games I ran, about half went up without a single name on it, and the rest only had one or two.

I believe there used to be a 'rule' at Conception that a sheet shouldn't go up more than a third full. It was something like that anyway. (I have a vague memory that there were problems with compatibility with Living and Freeform games so it was diluted/removed. Also not sure it was a rule rather than an advisory.)

I've no problem at all with a sheet going up with a name or two already written on it. You get people who've come to the Con to play particular games, make the effort to search out the GM's, ask nicely, offer sexual favours (well, if someone like Gaz or Brenda is GMing I guess ) and generally doesn't abuse the thing. That's fine.

A game being fully arranged, filled, and run isn't my cup of tea. I refused an invite to a 'just us in the lodge' game in favour of giving the muster lottery a go because it doesn't sit well with me. Like a good hypocrit I will make it easier for the organisors to get in to a couple of the games I run because I like torturing them... but I'll not fill the sheet with them, morals being fickle and all that.

Filling a game without it hitting the boards may seem to cause no problems, 'hey, these 7 people were going to be filling some other game up anyway, what does it matter?' but there are down points. Predominantly it's very obvious. It gets talked about a lot on the boards here, it's something that obviously happens and has gained momentum over the last few years. You can look through the posts and see 'this person's running for these, her for them, him for those' and like it or not it can look like friends run for friends and the rest can pick up the scraps. This can mean that GM's people want to play with appear to run games for the same people through the 5 days and others don't get a look in. It'd be easier if the GM's weren't good ones, but oddly people aren't so interested in pre-signed invitationals with the crap GM's. Aside from the GM's it also means people you might want to play with just aren't around, they're busy on stuff they arranged some weeks previously.

All in all, it's a shame (not, shaming, a shame) a big Con like Conception is a chance to meet new people, play with a big group of people and experience lots of games. I've found the last few years that there has been a subset of people I just haven't got to play with, at all. That makes the Con somewhat less than it might be for me and this being the internet I feel perfectly justified in whinging about it a bit.

Should anything be done about it? Could anything be done about it? Probably no and definitely no are the answers there. Unless every sheet was forced to go through the Con desk and couldn't be put in with more than X names filled in there would be no way to enforce things ('I can't put a sheet up full, but I'm putting the sheet up in 10 seconds, you stand there, right, I can't stop you filling it once the blue tack is secure and there...') Even with that people would just arrange games in their lodges (I think the majority of pre-filled games are run there anyway) and just not give the Con any money for the game so it wouldn't stop things, it'd just make it worse.

At the end of the day, it's for everyone to decide what they are happy with. Who knows, at some point I might get fed up putting a sheet up blank and taking pot luck on who my players might be and instead do some legwork beforehand and cherry pick them instead. I'm pretty sure I could fill all the sheets I wanted to run that way. At the moment, that feels wrong to me, so I do something different. As the issue is never going to go away all that's left is for people to make their choice but hopefully be aware of what that choice actually means.

[JennImpey]

We generally have one pre-arranged game each year, of course we use game tickets so money still goes in the pot, but the reason we have that game is because our four children are also in the lodge.

It's always an evening game, and it is the one chance that my hubbie and I get to play together. It's also often delayed by getting the four kids to bed, and this was the first year it wasn't disturbed by one or more of them waking up part way through.

When the children were smaller (ie last year and before) it was often a very disrupted game, and that requires understanding players and a GM who can keep hold of the plot despite many pauses. Even now it has the potential to still be like that, and this year our GM had to put up with an over friendly six yr old, covered in a rash, wearing only underpants . . .

Another side to it is that the older two children sometimes stay up for the first part of the game - so we need to trust the GM that it's a "safe" thing for the children to hear, because even if they have gone to bed sound really carries in those lodges For similar reasons we need to know that the GM and players are also "child friendly" - as I said, the 6 yr old is over friendly with everyone, and there is also a 4 yr old, an 8 yr old and a 12 yr old to grapple with (11 people in the main living area is a wee bit cramped!).

We don't do a sign up sheet - because frankly fitting an explanation of the above on there would be pushing it!

For us it seems to make sense, and I hope explaining why may help the debate a little.

[Kaiserjez]

Yo,

Sorry if I've upset anybody with my poorly conceived internet nerd rage, I consider nearly everybody on these boards my friends and the last thing I would want to do is piss of my mates.

Dave, I hope the fact that we disagree on this point is just that - a disagreement between mates.

[ncmreynolds]

Did anyone (Aside from Nick Reynolds, who will be in a game of JotSS next con I see him even if I do have to pre-sign him up somewhere...) actually miss the opportunity to play a game during a slot

I was only stirring. I wanted to play some Jaws and something using Fate (which PDQ sounds similar to) but when I didn't find any running with slots free I just did something else. I did stick myself as a reserve on Rays last game but all the players turned up.

[Silhouette]

Did anyone (Aside from Nick Reynolds, who will be in a game of JotSS next con I see him even if I do have to pre-sign him up somewhere...) actually miss the opportunity to play a game during a slot

I was only stirring. I wanted to play some Jaws and something using Fate (which PDQ sounds similar to) but when I didn't find any running with slots free I just did something else. I did stick myself as a reserve on Rays last game but all the players turned up.

I know I probably should've stuck a smiley in there somewhere because I wasn't entirely serious on that part

[DigitalMage]

I had thought that all sign up sheets had to go via the con desk for table allocation, and shouldn't have gone up on the board directly. Am I wrong in this?

If that is the case, and if the con organisers wish to enforce no pre-signups other than GMs etc, then perhaps sign up sheets must be handed into the con desk unfilled - they are then stamped and if handed in early enough kept back to allow GMs to pre-signup. At the appropriate time a con desk person puts the stamped sign up sheets up on the board. At this point the only pre-signups should be GMs being rewarded for running games.

Now here comes the draconian part.... con desk people regularly scan the boards for sign up sheets that aren't bearing the official stamp and cross out every name already signed up and then stamp the sheet. This means all subsequent sign ups are open to everyone.

Of course this could piss a lot of people off if someone signs up on a non stamped sign up sheet not realising that it would mean their name would get crossed off.

Another issue that would also arise is that those GMs who wanted to run a game for their 4 mates but was also willing to let 2 other players play the game, would perhaps now run that game in their lodge just for their 4 mates and not charge tickets. This of course means the con actually loses two places in games - so fewer games available - and the charity may lose out on some money.

I don't think either way is perfect TBH.

[w00hoo]

I had thought that all sign up sheets had to go via the con desk for table allocation, and shouldn't have gone up on the board directly. Am I wrong in this?

Don't think it was a hard and fast rule. It's how I did it because it was a lot easier to get a table. I sorted my table as I handed the sheet in.

Now here comes the draconian part....

I don't think either way is perfect TBH.

And that last bit is the thing. There's no 'right way to do this' that every one will like. The aim of Conception is to make money for charity. Forcing games underground so they don't generate tickets won't do that. So at the end of the day allowing games to be run however people want to has to be the best way of acheiving the aims of the Con. When the Con is over, people will comment on how it happened, some people won't like it. All you can do is recognise *this is how it is* and accept it. At the end of the day, if you decide it's too much for you to bear then go to a different Con, I'm pretty sure Conception will still fill the space

As it is, it's not something I like, but it's something I can accept and live with.

[Ldyparadox99]

My 2 cents? People putting other people's name on a sheet when that other person had no idea their name's on it was much more of a problem than the pre-signups. It happened to someone in my lodge a few times.

And, I'll say that my sheets went up half full. Why? Because I was running a game for 2 folks in my regular gaming group as an "inbetween" game in their campaign since there was 1 surviving character last game. We thought it would be fun to have some random elements in the story AND give 2 gameless folks a game. The other had names on it before I even hit the game hall...I'm not going to exactly tell folks no, they can't put their name on it until it's properly hung. If they were perceptive enough to see I had a sheet and it was a game they were interested in, good on them.

[ijdod]

If I may...

I agree with Dave and on some extent with woohoo here. I don't personally think it's in the spirit of the con for games to be posted nearly-full.

The fact that this does come up each year does kinda indicate that there is a problem. If not in the actual pre-signing, then maybe in the fact that there's no specific policies about them explicitly stated.

I think we can say it happens, but without actual numbers it's a bit hard to say it's actual problem. I do know that even if they go up empty, some games will fill up *very* quickly. I saw 4 games go from empty to full in under 10 minutes after being posted, with a good number of fresh names on quite a few others too. I do not know what others saw, but could it be that, for instance, somebody coming to the hall 15 minutes later might conclude that those games were presigned even though they weren't? In that light I'm not sure that banning pre-signing, all other issues aside, would actually solve the issue.

Is there any reason we can't have both, though? I mean, there's plenty boards. Can we maybe consider using one for pre-booked games (take any slots there if they're open) and the other several remaining boards for games that are not pre-booked and posted with all slots open?

I'm not sure there actually are plenty of boards; all seemed pretty much filled up with the 3 slots of regulars and living games. Not sure what this would actually accomplish either; other than moving 'full' games to a reserves only board (and then moving them again if a player drops out). Once a name or two is up, you can't really tell if it's presigned or not anyway.

If the whole issue is about getting into certain games, it might be a better idea to somehow keep track of which games are in higher demand than supply, so GMs might anticipate and run one.

[Kaiserjez]

I really am not trying to be obtuse but what's the fuss about?

Game A has 6 people who don't know each other having a game and paying for their tickets.

Game B has 6 people who know each other having a game and paying for their ticket.

If there were gangs of dissafected gamers wandering around the trade hall, mournforly wailing for games to play then I could understand some of the complaints. Are people really so bitter that they must decry as having badwrongfun managing to play in games you want to with people you want?

If playing with your mates goes against the "spirit of the con" then it really isn't the kind of con I want to be going to anymore.

[cade_tosscobble]

Just for information, not meant as an argument either way:

There are now a regular group of perhaps 6 or 8 people who have cottened on to the fact, the new signups go up just after muster, and when I come with the new sheets are eagerly, but politly I might add, waiting to sign their names straight onto a new sheet.