Spaghetti ConJunction 3b - Saturday 19th October 2019
TLDR: Small friendly casual two-slots games day at a bright easily accessible venue in Birmingham. Good referees and players.
Full disclosure: I’m one of the organisers of this event.
Four years ago travelling to and from the wonderful Concrete Cow in Milton Keynes, me and a couple of “convention acquaintances” of mine from Birmingham - but from different spheres of the #TTRPG hobby - found out we’d all been toying with the idea of setting up a small convention. A good pun for the name, a bit of brainstorming and the discovery that the perfect venue had just opened up and Spaghetti ConJunction was born.
This was our sixth one.
It’s a one day, two-slot games day held at Geek Retreat - a dedicated gaming cafe - in Birmingham. Two slots because the venue’s times don’t allow us to fit in three game sessions. But that’s not a problem because Birmingham is pretty easy to travel to and closing earlyish (8pm) lets people travel to it and back home in a single day from quite a distance away.
From the beginning we were determined to emulate what we saw as the successful Concrete Cow template. Pre-convention promotion but no actual decision as to what games are offered or who plays in which game until the day itself. I was particularly keen on this because - as someone who goes to lots of conventions - I’m often asked to submit games months in advance. I also see the game-playing that goes on as people are desperate to get into “prime” games which excludes the very people I want to encourage - those new to the hobby and/or conventions.
On the surface the day is pretty easy to organise. We just turn up and the venue give us the top floor. Job done.
But as any convention organiser will tell you, the devil is in the detail. There’s stuff you don’t realise until you try to do the job. As someone whose been commenting on #TTRPG conventions for many years, I’ve glad I help run even such a small event because of the new viewpoint it’s given me.
One of the original “three amigos” has now moved away from Birmingham which leaves two of us to do everything now. To be honest this is a bit thin. If one of us had to drop out for any reason the other would have to do it as a one-man band.
Anyway, my partner as always did a superb job of promoting the event and we got loads of people offering great games. We met 8:30 at a bijoux tea house around the corner from GR to run through arrangements for the day. He brings the raffle prizes, I review the anti-harassment policy with him. We both panic a bit.
The big problem with running a casual unticketed event without prebooking is that you always get nervous because you never KNOW who is turning up - if anyone. We could have too few or far too many attendees.
However, when we finished our breakfast and turned the corner to the venue there were a crowd of about 20 people waiting outside. One flaw of the day is that the venue doesn’t open up until 10am - even for us organisers - so there is some waiting around outside. Sorry!
Then everyone comes in together so I have to start issuing tickets whilst other people set up the room. It’s all rather a mad rush. Luckily our attendees are such lovely people that they queue and wait politely and don’t mind being co-opted into issuing raffle tickets or setting up tables.
By the time I’d gotten everyone in, the table with the sign up sheets was set up. There were ten games on offer, more than we needed for the 30-40 people present so I decided not to offer a game of my own. As a con organiser you have a duty to let other people Referee.
I also found out I’d made a personal mistake. I’d offered to run a “Blakes Seven” game in the pre-con promotion and then forgotten it and brought two different games I wanted to run instead. And people were asking specifically for that game. They took my apology with far better grace than I would have done. But it’s a feature of these more casual events that you won’t always get the game you want.
Sign ups were as usual. People were called up in small groups based upon the numbers on their entry tickets and a random list. Equally fair/unfair to everyone and stops people pushing in front to get the game they want.
Runequest, Firefly/Scum & Villainy and Dungeon Crawl classics filled up right away. Four games got no sign ups at all even after referees pulled their games and signed up to play. Tales from the Loop and a modern update of 5th Ed got minimal players and were able to start.
I chose not to play. I spent the morning signing in late arrivals and finding them places in games. I also folded all of the raffle tickets and liaised with the venue. There was new management. The previous guys were lovely but this group were better. Just a bit better but better. They’d taken the effort to close the doors to the upper floor and printing notices to put on them explaining that it was closed to casual cafe punters for the day. That meant we didn’t have to turn away groups of MAGIC players looking for a spare table.
The buzz in the room was lovely. Every was clearly enjoying all of the games and whilst some got noisy at key moments, everyone generally played with good grace. There was a stead flow of “gamers food” and drinks up to the con. Because of the limited access early on, the first slot runs from 10:30 to 2:30 so you really need to eat lunch during the game. But - hey - you’re in a GAMING CAFE and the food here is DESIGNING to be eaten while gaming.
By the end of the morning slot at 2:30 we had 5 full tables of gamers. We announced that the raffle was to be drawn at 3:15. When the raffle prizes were put out jaws dropped and there was a flurry of requests for more raffle tickets.
People either stayed and chatted or nipped out. We’re in the centre of Birmingham. You can find ANYTHING you need within a 5 minute walk.
At 3:15 we did the raffle. I HATE #TTRPG convention raffles, especially when they drag on. But I got through all 29 lots (29!) in 3 mins and 10 sec. That’s 6-7 seconds per lot. Beat that! In fact we were through the raffle and all signed up for games by 3:30.
A few people had only been able to come for the morning. Some only stayed for the raffle! So we had fewer players in the afternoon. Seven games were offered. The Aliens game filled up with 7 players immediately. A second game of DCC was also popular. A play-test of a new game which hadn’t run in the morning got players in the afternoon. And I garnered four players for a game based on the TV series “The Year of the Rabbit.”
One of the great things about the lightweight “Code” rules I write, publish and play is that I can reskin them for multiple IP’s really really easily. So Matt Berry’s sweary, gritty, Victorian, police procedural comedy was a doddle. We had Mabel Wisbech, Detective Wilbur Straus, Flora the Contract Killer and Murky John the “tosher” hunting a missing “Prince Albert”. In this case it was a massive iron clad warship spirited away from London Docks in the middle of the night.
No one chose to play Inspector Rabbit so the game started with him being brutally ejected from a first floor window in the media res first fight scene. John “the elephant man” Merrick’s theatre was successfully defended from the protection mob but only by Flora luring them into the abandoned building opposite and blowing it sky high.(1)
Then the team were set the mystery of finding the missing warship. They successfully tracked the Prussian spy ring who’d used their cover “London City Tours” to steal it away. Unfortunately none of the spy ring survived when Wilbur Strauss blew their premises sky high (2). Luckily the firm’s safe survived the blast and the papers within allowed the group to track the missing ship. By a stroke of fortune (yah gotta love my game system) the airship carrying the - now mysteriously shrunken - ironclad had come down on the cliff of Dover and was easily recovered. The mad scientist behind the theft had escaped, however, on a giant pigeon.
The final scenes were a mad Harryhausen extravaganza of giant pigeons, tiny lions, human sized monkey, gigantic tarantula etc. The group cunningly sidestepped the giant bees and “the case of the Bonsai Battleship” was duly wrapped up. Half an hour early (7pm). But every seemed happy.
Most games finished early and we tidied the room helped by the Geek Retreat Staff.
So a small - 40 people, 5 table - two slot games day. But c.£200 raised for Birmingham Children’s hospital - they’re beginning to love us and actually sent me a reminder letter this year asking if we wanted anything from them for the con. The players were wonderful. A truly lovely bunch. Referees were ace. The Geek Retreat Staff were lovely. And - you know what - the convention organisers were pretty good too.
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