Building a Con Game - Help

[Rechan]

So I'm wanting to run a Dresden Files game at a convention. I've not run a convention game before, and yet I still want to give the system a whirl and show it off. But, I have looked at both free adventures (Neutral Grounds and Night Fears) and neither suit my tastes/thinking.

That means I need to design a scenario.

Now, as I understand con games go, it needs to be short. Simplistic. Simple plot, easy enough to be carried th rough with little to no places for hitches.

Also probably the easiest way to build it would be to start with a villain and work towards the PCs.

On the topic of the PCs. Because of the convention I'm going to, among the pregens I want to offer several with an animal motif. One or two weres, a pooka or kitsune based Changeling. Of course this raises the question of why PCs of that overall link are together in the same general place, and I don't know the in-game answer to that, or what their motivation is.

As far as the plot itself, I want to avoid the obvious "some evil sorcerer is going to/has broken a Law of magic".

Beyond that I have no ideas. Suggestions?  

[devonapple]

Ideally you want something that touches on all of your pregen characters. You actually have an advantage, being able to decide what you want to do first and then provide your pregen PCs with Aspects that will serve as good hooks for that plot.

Dresden is strongly magic-themed, so don't be afraid to take the evil sorcerer cliche and use it as a launching point for something unique. "Why" the sorcerer is causing trouble is as interesting (if not more so) than "what" he is doing.

DFRPG doesn't lack for baddies: Red, Black and White Court Vampires; Fairies; Lycanthropes; Cultists; mortal Criminals; misguided Vigilantes.

[InFerrumVeritas]

I highly recommend doing a "box set" type adventure.  Think of a set, like a hospital, university, school, sports arena, zoo, etc.  Have the adventure set there. 

Then come up with your primary antagonist.  You've got plenty of choices.

Finally, come up with a way to hook each character.

Be liberal with fate points to bribe the players into jumping onto the rails of your adventure, then let them explore more once they get into the set. 

Have a simple story with a conclusion that can be reached many different ways.

[Rechan]

Ideally you want something that touches on all of your pregen characters. You actually have an advantage, being able to decide what you want to do first and then provide your pregen PCs with Aspects that will serve as good hooks for that plot.

Right! Now the trick is coming up with what that is. This is why I'm here.

Dresden is strongly magic-themed, so don't be afraid to take the evil sorcerer cliche and use it as a launching point for something unique.

Part of it is that it seems somewhat old hat. I want to do something different from "Warlock and/or cultists". Also I want to avoid heavy spellcasting in the game, both for players and for myself. They're complicated and would possibly bog down a con game or combat. Although one PC I had thought might make a good focused practitioner.

What I'm looking for here is actual concrete suggestions for Plot and other elements of the game, as opposed to general suggestions. What idea suggestions do you have?

[Todjaeger]

Having run several DFRPG con games for ConnectiCon, as well as having several prepped for Anonycon and ICon (which didn't get off ) and also having also prepared more games for ConnectiCon this year, I have a little practice writing Dresden games for conventions.  Incidentally, I've started to build up a 'library' of one-shot Con games which I can run if/when needed.

For a decent Dresden con game, the first is that pre-gen characters are basically a must.  Not enough people are regularly playing (at least where I am) for people to be able to bring their own characters, and while character generation for Dresden is fairly quick, would still take time for 6 people to do, particularly if they're not familiar with DFRPG and/or the Fate engine.  Given that the standard convention game slot is ~4 hours, there is little enough time as it is since the basic rules need to be explained for those not familiar with the Fate engine.

Now, to create decent pre-gens, as well as determine what the scope of the problem/threat is, you have to decide what the 'level' of the game is.  I generally run introductory games at the 'Feet in the Water' level, since it keeps powers fairly low-key and easy to explain and keep track of.  The skills themselves people should be able to basically understand just looking at the cheat sheet in the back of the book or if printed off the .pdf, incidentally, I also make sufficient copies of the cheatsheet to hand out to players for them to refer to during the game, and then keep afterwards.  I'm hoping it spreads interest in the game to other potential players.

Now, once the level of the character has been determined, then you need to determine the scope of the threat and it's nature.  Now of course Dresden Files being the Dresden Files, a Lawbreaking sorcerer, or evil cult are definately easy routes to go.  They are by no means the only path to adventure that can work in four hours.  I recently ran a game for the ConnectiCon Game Day which was a four hour slot and had a mixed party consisting of a Minor Talent with Ghostspeaker and Soulgaze, a Nixie-born Changeling with Aquatic, and a pair of Pure Mortals (a cop and a security guard/'pirate') investigate the theft of large quantities of food, including pizza from booths at a Renn Fair.  During the entire time, the party didn't end up getting into a single combat, since it wasn't needed.  The party certainly had opportunities to have that occur, but it turned out not to be necessary.

There are all sorts of plotlines which can be used.  Everything from finding and exterminating a scourge of Black Court vampires and their Renfields, or smashing a cult of Lawbreakers and giving the leader a neckline 'haircut' for those interested in a combat/magic heavy game, to finding out what a ghost or spirit has been riled up and claiming/putting it to rest, or determing that the source of strange effects or accidents somewhere is because a child has just hit puberty and their power has started to bloom (boom?!).

Ultimately the choice depends on what sort of game the GM/storyteller likes to run and feels comfortable with, but there are number of different ways to do it, and the only right way is the one which feels comfortable.

-Cheers

[Rechan]

Thanks for your points, Todjaeger.
 
With power level, I plan to do "Up to Your Waist" or "Chest Deep". This opens up (or makes it easier) to do supernatural things like Wereforms and Changelings, since those are the characters I want to have to begin with. Naturally I'm going to offer some pregens.

I highly recommend doing a "box set" type adventure.  Think of a set, like a hospital, university, school, sports arena, zoo, etc.  Have the adventure set there.

Then come up with your primary antagonist.  You've got plenty of choices.

investigate the theft of large quantities of food, including pizza from booths at a Renn Fair.

Hmmm.

That does start getting the ol' idea ball rolling. An idea of perhaps having a Ren Faire pulled into the Nevernever/Faerie by a Faerie who wants to see how well the mortals can play their parts. Or perhaps a Zoo where Something has swapped the animals and humans - the humans are in the cages, with the animals' minds, and the animals are free and have the humans' minds. Or a Theater where a spell is being cast by the musicians/actors all unknowingly engaged in a giant ritual that's culminating towards Something.

[Team8Mum]

There are a set of pregened characters on the design a character thread. They were writing for my hangover city game running this weekend at expo, but you could probably strip out the specifics and have them as a group of paranet characters. The one 'problem' with Fate is that charter gen does take time. My hubby is running old school D&D this weekend - he did his entire character pack in the time it took me to do one laundry character and they took half the time of the Fate one.
Alternatively throw the request at the thread

As a bare bones you need
1) an excuse for all the characters to be in the same space
2) a threat for them to face
3) a reason for them not to just walk away from the threat and leave it to some one else (easier with Fate than with most games because of ,those wonderful aspects you can compel)

Remember you don't have long so a simple '3 act play' works best. Hook. Exploration. Show down.

Then I always have a rudimentory plot line - which is the way things will pan out if the players DO NOTHING (I don't always write this down but I do have it)
Of course they won't do nothing so anything sketched in there will change in response to their action as the bad guys reformulate their plans as the PCs mess them up. So it pays to keep things fluid. Con games are like schrodingers cat. Even if you provide characters you have no way of knowing the personalities that are going to sit at the table. So being to rigid can be disasterous. You might have planned a deep investigated adventure but if the guys at the table are all 14 year old who want to play pokemon and are here by accident that is not going to work. Conversely if you plan a combat heavy gun festival the the players turn out to be studious types who want to talk through everything with out picking up a dice... You get the point.

The key is to listen to the players and drift the game towards their expectations of play.

That said sitting down at the table with a completely clean sheet leaves you directionless so lay out the following...
1) the hook- the opening event or action that alerts the pcs to The Threat.
2) the exploration stage- a series of smaller events that will give the players the clues they need to identify the bad guys. Hopefully they will come across these as they go looking for more information but if the PCs are particulary slow or "having a blond day". These event CAN FIND THEM.
(I have fond memories of being attacked by possessed tagilatelli during a cthulhu game when we decided to go get lunch rather than track down the bad guy)
Judge to have one for every 30 mins of play. You won't use them all but they will give you something to throw at them. If you have any really key events that are crucial to the plot (Hint have just 1) have this happen on or shortly after your half way time point as a mini climax.
They do not need to encounter all of these but you can use them to lay the trail to...
3) the end game. Big show down opportunity where the PCs get to save the day.
Actually the details of this can usually be pretty vague at the start of the adventure. ("Show down in the hide out, some mooks and the bad guys Igor") Because if the PCs are any good their own speculations will write this for you as you are going along. Something like the phrase "OH god I hope it's not Faries, I hate going into the Nevernever." Can result in a planned  show down at the warehouse transforming into the gate way in the warehouse straight into Mabs realm instead.

For me, the arrival of The Big End game is determined more by the time left at the table than the players investigative skills. I set my watch to beep 1 HR before the slot ends then take them there are the next opportunity. No one likes a gmae that runs short - leaves the Playerss feeling cheated. And over running messes up the next slots.1hr usually gives me a 10 mins of Bad guy boasting so they know they are doing the right thing in taking them down, 20-30 min BIG FIGHT and a 15mins of close down and every one leaves the table in time to grab a drink or use the loo before their next game.

edit to add...
my list for this week end to avoid calling all NPC's Bob...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14681070/Sues_Names_Cheet_Sheet.pdf

Just in case any one else woudl find it useful

[Richard_Chilton]

I'm of two minds when it comes to pregens.

Part of me wants everything pregenned - all skills, all aspects, everything ready so the player can just grab a sheet and start playing.  But then I looked at the bits that Evil Hat put out.

And that's the second way to go - leave off a couple of Average and Fair skills so the players can pick them themselves either before or after play begins.  Leave the Guest Star slots open so the players can fill those in themselves.

The first method leads to a faster game start, the second has the players investing in the characters by finishing them and shows the players part of the character creation process - but at the cost of slowing the start of the game and having to explain character creation when you're working with pregens.

There aren't a lot of cons locally (the next one that I'm likely to get to will be in September) but for those who have run con games - which method did you use and how did it work out?

Richard

[Todjaeger]

My first con running Dresden was ConnectiCon last year, about three weeks after the books were released in hardcover (and about two weeks before my pre-order was delivered...)  As such, I had nothing to go on from Evil Hat in terms of what to have ready to run.

Interestingly enough, what I'd created on my own was similar to what/how the free Case Files are setup.

I basically had the pre-gen characters created with their power levels, dictating the amount of Refresh and Skills, as well as the upper skill limit.  I chose the template for each pre-gen and made sure the selected templates had the required High Aspects and Powers, then chose the major relevant Skills and Stunts.  I also chose the character's Trouble, Background and Rising Conflict Aspects.

Aside from this, I determined how the different character would know each other, and then I'd have a roughly 1 page summary of the plot, determining what the motivations were and the major areas of interest along with brief write-ups for some of the bad guys/minions.  Aside from this the only other thing I'd really have written and developed would be the top bad guy.

There's no point trying to fully develop everything, since a con game is only going to be about four hours long, and who knows if the players are going to stick to the plot as written.  One of the sessions I'd planned was called Dreams of the Mason House, loosely based off the story Dreams of the Witch House by H.P. Lovecraft and the game bore striking plot similarities to the one shot Night Fears.  The plotline as written lasted about ten minutes into interacting with the players, and the players never even got to the Mason House.

-Cheers

[Team8Mum]

I use pregens up to first story, then print out 2 extra copies of the first story with the players hand to 2 other people at the table so they can read them and decide how their character would fit in to those events, and then write an Aspect based on that. - Basically the 2 'Guest stars slots'
That gives them chance to write 2 more aspects.
In previous games I had left open spaces for skills but the players didn't fill them in and that left them short on skills, so this time I said they could swap skills if they felt there was anythign they thought was missing based on the idea they had for the guest star slots.
That way they get a feeling for character gen but it does not take too long.