From: horne@physics.su.OZ.AU (Geoff Horne)
Subject: Re: Timetable blues
Organization: School of Physics, University of Sydney, Australia
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 03:53:43 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.110159.1@wombat.newcastle.edu.au> engjs@wombat.newcastle.edu.au (James Smith) writes:
>I went to Necro last week.  I payed to play 12 sessions of games, and
>ended up playing 5, mostly because of timetabling problems.  I'm not
>blaming the organisers; I know from past experience what timetabling
>can be like, and they did try.  At least they didn't land us with the
>dreaded Arcanacon system.
>
 <stuff deleted>

In many ways I can sympathise with your problems but (and i know i'll open
a _huge_ can of worms here) lets face it, timetabling is a bitch...
and individuals are the worst offenders
now it is not so much that the cons are team oriented but on average
a single game will get around 90-95% of it's entrants baing in teams
This is neither encouraged or discouraged, it just happens.
I'n fact If you want ot blame anybody, blame the peple who invented
RPG's - I mean picture this:
	Can you play a game bu yorself <no>
	Do you regularly play with a group <yes>
	do you regularly play with the same group <yes>
	in a con who would you rather play with:
		friends <yes>
		strangers <no>

	this is a problem, some might say, but unless it is a freefrom
that only allows individuals, I have always found that the teams that enter
are groups of friends who know how each other play and prefer to play this way
like it or not people are entering cons to play a new and different module
by (usually) people they know and are in it for the competition (usually)
they are not in it to meet people.

	So this leads to the timetabling Problem:

>are not part of a team, and/or you do not know the people running the
>con, you get problems.
>Let's see.  First session I'm playing
>Dungeon of Death with the Useless Tomatoes.  Who are the Useless Tomatoes?
>I don't know who they are or what they look like.  Okay, how do I find
>them?  There's no sign saying 'Dungeon of Death people come here', nor
>is there any desk labelled 'Dungeon of Death.' 

I was one of the DM's of Dungeon of Doom (not Death)
the module was written, a) as a tribute to a lot of past con modules, b) for
a team who could get organised and, c) because we were short of ideas
When i mean an organised team - i mean that you hat ot have a group of players
who could coordinate their play - ruthless effeciency was the only way to play
dungeon of doom, if you tried to go it alone you got fragged - so i that
sense it was biased against individuals - but like i said earlier, out of
11 teams of 5 we had only (i think) 4 individuals enter.
	So what you have is a case where you have to either put an individual
together with a lot of other individuals - (bad idea in DOD) or try to find
a team that is short a player. This is, however, very easy - as a lot of teams 
end up a player short.
	As is always the case, If we were doing the timetabling - our game
wouldn't have any problems - but then you have to consider the other games.

	Enter the con organisers...

	A game organiser/writer has enough problems sorting out DM's and modules
and maps and last minute changes anr rooms to have time to sort out teams
this is the con organisers job - they (and it is one hell of a task) have to
cross reference all teams and make sure that they have no clashes. This is 
usually easy as a team will/should have sorted out it's clash problems before
they send in the entry form (I always do) and timetabling is a breeze
	Individuals however have to be squeezed into the gaps and when you
consider that there are sessions that are more popular than others, there are
going to be some sessions that will already booked out by teams - since an indi
can't be sorted out until a team in limbo is found - it ends up that an indi
will not be able to play that session (unless enough can be found to make a 
whole team). as is the usual case an indi will end up getting bumped.
	If you are entering any con you can still expect timetable clashes
if you are playing nore than 75% of the sessions.
	Necro had a total of 11 sessions - to expect to play 12 0f them
is absoutley absurd and gets loads of laughter from the organisers. to expect
to play more than 6 of them without problems is also wishfull thinking
	However I digress...
	Assuming you have been timetabled - you then have to find your game:
DOD had a table and a sign and there were people there on fri morning from
8.30 - however, after 9am we had to go and run some sessions so we couldn't
hang around and wait for people to turn up when they felt like it
that's what the central desk is for - (if there is one) If you really
wanted to find us all you had to do was find the rooms we were using - not
hard - and ask someone in them where to find thegame organiser.
-----this is not the preferred option -------------

What _Should_ happen is there should be a con organiser or assistant ot a desk
al _all_ times to answer questions and direct people in the right direction
(this of course never happensi, but Necro was a very bad example of it)
the next best option is to do what ends up happening: at the end of each
session we all go out and hang around under the sign (that said D O D) and
wait for the next group to show up and say "what's happening"  -if you do this
you will get no problems - even if you don't know who else is in your team
the DM will and everything will work out - BUT IT HAS TO HAPPEN BETWEEN
SESSIONS - 

	Necro was shithouse as far as the organisation went, and there was never
anyone to answer questions, but most people had no problem - what it needed
was a registration day or something where time could be spent on just
sorting out problems - but i'll go on about that another time

please let me know how you feel about these ideas








--


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        Geoff Horne               |      Egotism is the anesthetic that
  horne@suphys.physics.su.oz.au   |       dulls the pain of stupidity
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