Convention sign up systems

An appeal for calm:

When you have a gaming event, you need some way to allocate players to games. There are two broad approaches to this:

1. Pre-booking - the games are advertised well in advance and then players can book into individual games before the event takes place. (There is a SUPERB, free, on line facility that handles this for you called "Warhorn". But this post isn't about Warhorn or the PFS.)
2. You sign up for individual games at the event.

There are of course, mixed economies. Limited presigns with some spaces kept for allocation at the event is common. But these two approaches are broadly the alternatives.

Neither approach is right or wrong. There is no perfect way of handling game allocation. Each has its own pros and cons.

Presigning - you know before you go if you've got the games you want to play or - in the case of the referee - if you've got players. Makes your planning easier and you can decide whether or not it's worth going to the event. Makes the event look more organised and professional. Forces referees to think ahead and plan ahead, encouraging them to be more professional in their approach.

And prebooking is pretty much essential for large conventions.

However, as a referee, sometimes planning ahead can be difficult. It goes against spontaneity. To decide months in advance what adventures you feel like playing is hard. By the time the event comes around you might fancy running something different.

Also, prebooking favours those "in the know". There are some excellent offerers of games out there. People prize participation in their games. They hover over the website waiting for the bookings to go live so that they can get to the front of the queue to get the games they want. This seems fair but it means that casual gamers never get to experience those games. Also, it can sometimes look a bit like stalking when the same players choose the same providers games over and over again.

Being huge, UK Games Expo uses a prebooking system for its RPGs. It is a superb system. However, there is a couple of seconds lag when payments are taken as the system communicates with the banks about credit cards. Sometimes referees are so popular that so many people are trying to book their games at the same time that extra bookings are made during the lag. That's why you sometimes see "-1" bookings. I think I've seen up to -4 bookings at some point. This means at least ten people, probably more, online simultaneously trying to get into 6 available spaces.

By definition players who are new to the hobby or who aren't able to commit to a particular event months in advance receive a more limited choice.

And there's the problem that often people book a slot in a game and just don't turn up. Sometimes this may be unavoidable - due to traffic etc - but there are people who book slots speculatively without making an absolute commitment to turning up. Even when an event is chargeable, like at Expo, people will buy tickets and not turn up at the table.

Signing at the event - unlike prebooking, which uses a pretty standard template - there are myriad variations upon systems used for signing at events. Sometimes game details are advertised in advance - whether formally or informally. Sometimes you don't know what you're getting until you see the sign up sheets. Often there's a free for all as the sign up sheets go up, which may involve "shoving". Sometimes there's "muster".

But most of these variations occur because the organisers are seeking to be "fair" to everyone.

Signing at the event favours people who are more spontaneous in their approach. Referees can get a cool idea for an adventure on the train on the way down, write up a quick sign up sheet and stick it up. Players can just turn up without preplanning, browse what's available and pick something.

The variation in approaches makes each event special and unique.

There are always people who will seek to take advantage of particular sign up arrangements to get into the games they want. But, in general, these arrangements gives everyone - including newcomers to the hobby or event - a more equal chance of getting into more popular games or play with more sought after referees.

However, it IS more chaotic. You cannot guarantee when you pay for you train ticket, hotel and entry that you're going to get into any games you want. Referees can offer games and get no players. You're then left rooting around for a space to play in another game which - by definition - will be one of the less popular ones. This has happened to me several times and can be particularly galling when you've spent ages preparing an adventure and/or transported special or bulky resources for the game.

There is no silver bullet. No ideal solution. If there was, it would have been universally adopted by now. Different people favour different approaches. Personally I'm happy with any system as long as it's clear and the organisers do their best to make it fair. I slightly favour signing at events over prebooking but I'm happy to participate in events that prebooking games.

Actually having different events offer different systems means we get to cover all bases. Popular events which book out to the "professional" gamers at some events might be available to new or casual gamers at others.

Problems occur because everyone wants to get into games they want to play. Unfortunately some people forget that everyone ELSE also wants to get into the games THEY want to play. And they have an equal right to do so. Some people get upset if the system of allocating games at a particular event doesn't automatically let them play in exactly the games they want. They'll moan, complain, boycott the event - throw their dummies out of the pram, basically.  This has nothing to do with the system of allocating players to games. It's more about selfishness and unwillingness to try something new if they don't get their first choice. Everyone has an equal right to play in a great game - especially newcomers to the hobby. We want to be inclusive, don't we?

One final thing. What DOESN'T work is to try a mixed economy of prebooking and sign at the event as two parallel systems. Some large events completely segregate "organised" and "classic" games - each having their own systems. And that seems to work.

Others integrate them - for example prebooking some spaces and reserving the others for signup at the event. This also seems to work.

What doesn't work is having some games presigned but saying people are free to offer games for signing up at the event.

Gamers fall into three groups. Those that favour presigning and will book their games in advance. Then there are the die hards who determinedly wait to sign up at the event.

In the middle is a large group waiting to be led. They just give the website a quick peruse. When these gamers see the prebooked games filling up, they panic. They don't realise that there are going to be more games on offer for signup at the event. So they fill their weekend with presigned games.

The upshot is that, come the event, most players are signed up to prebooked games. You can offer a game for people to sign up at the event but you won't find many players, if any. Over time people stop offering spontaneous games and they're squeezed out in favour of the presigns. I've seen this happen at two conventions that I know of and it can lead to resentment.

Organisers need to choose one method or the other and stick to it, rather than trying to be all things to all people.