From: jph613@huxley.anu.edu.au (John P Hughes)
Newsgroups: aus.games.roleplay
Subject: Re: Timetable blues
Date: 11 Oct 92 03:45:16 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: huxley.anu.edu.au

Hi Folks

Now that I've finally caught up on my sleep after Necro, I'd like to make a few comments about convention timetabling.
In the past, I've used just about every convention tabling system in
existence, manual - Arcan-arcon, Sydcon, Cancon, and electronic - the Necro
Hypercard stacks and Cancon database programs.

None of them work.

>In article <1992Oct9.040930.15359@sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au> braca2@cspyr1.cs.adfa.oz.au (BRAY CHRISTOPHER) writes:
>>There are computer programs that you can buy or write, I believe, that will
>>timetable for you.  A few alterations and I'm sure that you could get a
>>convention going. 

>>And if conventions were to share this (shock, horror) then it would 
>>simplify it greatly.  It may reduce the flexibility, but if the program 
>>is good then it will allow for sudden changes.

We considered using the Macquariecon program for Necro this year, but it 
assumes that there are unlimited gms (and unlimited rooms) available
for each session. We didn't want to use Arcanacon scheduling (which
puts the emphasis on designers and players, and inevitably means that
you don't get to play all you enter in) so we did it by hand. Four days worth,
straight off the plane, jetlagged as hell. If you were wondering why 
Michael Hitchens wasn't smiling much at Necro ('part from the British Lion -
but that's another story) there's the answer. Four days.

Some people have made comments on this topic assumming that con organisers
don't talk to each other or share ideas - this is, quite frankly, bullshit.
If anyone found a system that works well, I guarantee that every con would
be using it within twelve months. Scheduling is the bane of every convention,
and by far the most common cause of player dissatisfaction. We'd love to 
be able to use a computer program. However, for such a program to work, it would have to:

handle finite rooms and finite gms for each game.

crosscheck gms who are playing to ensure they are not required to gm in a
session whee they are playing.

Handle individual entries, scratch teams where many different timetables
coincide, and may have to coincide for a second or third session.

Handle part teams, where only three or four may enter, but five turn up
on the day.

Handle teams who can't play on friday, or Saturday morning or whatever.

Handle the 'social gms' who want to have a finger in every pie, and so
volunteer to run two sessions of x, three sessions of y, and two sessions of z.

Allow each designer some flexibility for the percentage of gamers (perhaps
20%) who miss her game due to sleeping in, running late, or deciding to play
a freeform at the last minute.

Even if the program could handle this, there are other factors as well. What
about the teams who are gming, and have maybe six three sessions between
them, all at seperate times. One team at Necro had a situation like this, but
wanted to play nine sessions!!!!

Then there's the entry curve. It goes like this. Necro this year had around
250 players. By the late fee date, only about 150 players had entered. Very
few entries came in over the next few weeks. Therefore, designers who
had recruited gms found they'd only have to run a few sessions, and so decide
to play. In the week before the con we get another 50 entries. At registration
we get 50  more. A good percentage of these are gms who've decided to play.
So designers find they actually have all the teams they'd agreed to run, and
that the spare gm sessions they had are gone because gms have decided to play.
Result: a shortage of gms and no flexibility in scheduling teams. We warn
peole about this every year, and every year most ignore us. In the worst
example at Necro, one designer asked the ORGANISERS to run sessions for him
on a day's notice, without playtesting or even discussing the module, and in
my case without understanding the system or having previously gmed in the 
genre. When this happens, everyone gets pissed off, not the least the organisers. In this particular case, all four of that particular designers gms had decided to play.

What's the solution. I'd love to know. Lets hope this discussion can generate
some fresh approaches.

AND HOW ABOUT SOMEONE REVIEWING NECRO? Reviews have been generating some
controversy of late, what with my review of Arcanacon complaining about
lack of playtesting, and the one published in the Convention Clarion telling
people what 'good game design' was. Not only is this a chance to give me
a taste of my own medicine, but constructive criticism can always be acted on.

Cheers.

John.


J. P. Hughes
Archaeology and Anthropology
Australian National University.
  



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