Normally I rush back from a convention and write up my notes as soon as possible and publish them straight away. But because Furnace was such a packed event for me and I wasn’t able to publish as I went along (and I didn’t publish my planning and preparation section before the event) there’s just so much I need to write about. It’s turned out so long that I don’t anyone could read it in a single session. So I’ve decided to split this report into four sections published with a few days in between each one.
Introduction and history
Apparently the British Army had a garrison of soldiers based in a Barracks in what is now know as Hillsborough, near Sheffield, in Napoleonic times. I don't know why. I'm not an expert on military history.
In recent years the barracks has been converted to an interesting shopping centre. The old parade ground forms the car park around which everything is built. The armoury and gaol of the barracks was converted into a very characterful little hotel known as the Garrison Hotel. I always says feels like a Motel built within a castle.
20 years ago some people started running a TableTop RolePlaying Games convention called Furnace. I don't know why it's called Furnace or if it's always been based at the Garrison. But it's always been based there for the many years I've been going. As far as I know it has always been purely a TTRPG convention with only a couple of strange outliers occasionally playing a board game or something.
It is not a residential convention but since it's based at the Garrison hotel it makes sense to stay there if you can.Being built for the army in the early Victorian Era, the building is largely constructed from large blocks of raw unfaced sandstone and is decorated appropriately. It feel like playing in a Castle. Best of all the old gaol cells, despite being on an upper floor, look and feel exactly like small Dungeons and Dragons dungeon rooms with each one being able to accommodate a single game.
Fortunately there are several other larger areas available for play and the guest rooms are more up to date.
This convention has always attracted an extremely high calibre of TTRPG Referees and been organised exceptionally well. This organisation has been refined over the years. Because of this it became extremely popular and has been forced to put a cap on the number of attendees. Currently almost exactly 100.
Furnace takes place once per year. But because of its popularity other people started running similar conventions at the same venue. Currently there are four such events. Unlike Furnace they're devoted to a particular game or theme. Furnace offers all types of TTRPGS, there there don't seem to be many of the more commercial games. (It isn’t dominated by Dungeons and Dragons.)
Detail of all the conventions currently held at the Garrison can be found here.
https://garrison.omnihedron.co.uk/
Organisation at the Convention is extremely labour intensive and attendee focussed. Because of the cap on attendees the organisers register every attendee by name and keep an extensive database. Several months before the event, they send an email to attendees to ask who wishes to submit a game to be Refereed.
The convention has 5 gaming slots, three on Saturday and two on Sunday. Some people choose to travel up and check into the hotel on Friday night but this is a more social event - meeting up for a drink and a chat in the bar - and there is no formal gaming.
Because of the plethora of excellent referees, everyone is limited to offering only two games.
This is so important to the feel of the convention, so I’ll stress it here. Furnace has many, many (possibly too many) excellent TTRPG Referees so they have to strictly limit how many games each one can Referees.
The "Games Tsar" - or as it happens "Tsarina" - takes the game submissions and allocates them to gaming locations and gaming slots, creating a large public spreadsheet. The organisers know almost every attendee personally and if too many games are submitted everyone trusts them to arrange things fairly.
This spreadsheet is published. Anyone refereeing a game gets to select a game they want to play in for each game they Referee. Then every player who is not Refereeing is asked to submit - via email weeks before the event - a list of the games they'd like to play in in preference order. The organisers then look at these an allocate people to games as fairly as they can. The method for dealing with any clashes is published on the web-site so everyone can see that it is scrupulously fair.
That way, everyone should be allocated to several games they have chosen to play in months before attending the event, avoiding the crowding or jostling for games that happens at so many events. With the ideal arrangement being to Referee two games, choose two Referee "pre-signs" and one Attendee pre-sign. That way you have all 5 of your games sorted before your even attend.
It must be a lot of work for the organisers but works incredibly well.
Planning for Furnace 2025
When I decided to start attending conventions regularly again, Furnace was one of the first events I looked into. I'd always really enjoyed it. Even though it was still in the first half of the year, the convention was already booked out. All one hundred attendee slots gone nigh on 6 months before the event.
Looks like I’d missed my chance to attend the 2025 Furnace and I’d have to wait for 2026. But I asked to be placed on the reserve list.
Luckily for me, someone must have cancelled - and had the decency to inform the organisers - and I was contacted to inform me a slot had opened up. I instantly filled in the on-line registration form and booked in.
Of course I’d missed my chance to offer to Referee any games. I offered to fill in if, for any reason, any Referees dropped out of the event, but I suspect the Furnace reserve Referee list is long and impressive.
The next thing I looked at was to book into the Garrison Hotel but, as I’d expected, it was fully booked.
If you know TTRPG events are based in a hotels, take a look at their booking pages. They’re always fully booked on the dates of the events. TTRPG conventions are good business for Hotels.
So I looked around for a cheap hotel nearby. There were none. Ended up booking a night in a cheap chain hotel in the centre of Sheffield and resigned myself to using a Taxi to get in and out. I only book for the Saturday night. I choose to travel up to Sheffield from Birmingham on Saturday morning and straight back Sunday evening. I don’t choose to pay for an extra night’s stay if I don’t need to.
From then on I checked the Garrison site every day to see if there’d been a cancellation and a room wad available. It never was.
I looked at the Spreadsheet and made my selection of games. Of course some of the games I wanted were already full but even so I was spoilt for choice. I sent them in and sat back waiting for the date to come around. Not Refereeing liberated me from having to do any preparation.
Then something absolutely remarkable happened. I was emailed out of the blue from a friend I’d played with at conventions years ago. He’d been checking the spreadsheet and noticed I hadn’t been allocated a game in slot 3. (I hadn’t noticed that.) He said he’d increase his number of players from 5 to 6 and create new pregenerated character especially so that I could join in. I bit his hand off without even checking what the game was. I knew it would be good whatever it was. (As it turned out, I was underestimating.)
People at Furnace are really, individually, looked after on a personal level. It’s like the TTRPG convention equivalent of “Cheers”.
We all received an email asking if we wanted to buy a branded Furnace #20 gaming bag. As I was still using my Furnace #10 bag, I ordered one.
Though I knew Referees would supply dice - and everything else if needed - I looked up the requirements for every game I was playing and threw them into my Furnace #10 bag alongside minimum toiletries and a change of smalls and I was ready to go.
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