Thanks for the great comments Amy and Marc!
--On August 21, 2006 4:01:11 PM -0400 Marc Hartstein
<marc.hartstein@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I seem to have gotten a bit longwinded here, but I thought a few of the
things Amy said bore comment/discussion.
On Sun, Aug 20, 2006 at 04:12:12PM -0400, Amy LoCurto wrote:
>
> I learned a few things about Andy vs. Everybody that I would like to
> share.
> 1) set up lots of space, the first day I only had 4 tables, even with
> 6 the second day, we were full. Have a won/lost record sheet ready to
> keep track for Andy.
I still think, at least with a U-shaped setup like we had at GenCon,
that a large blackboard/whiteboard/posterboard for an "official"
scoreboard would be a lot of fun. If it's put somewhere that all the
players can see, it has the extra advantage that you don't have to worry
about the scorekeeper missing results because the players will help
police. And I just think it would be neat.
I think this is a great idea! I think Andy would appreciate having his
score writ large (sometimes, anyway ;) ) and it would certainly be exciting
for the players to see how well they're doing against him.
Otherwise, it's helpful if the players know who the official scorekeeper
Rabbit is. That way they can shout victories at that person and make
sure [s]he acknowledges them.
> 2) Andy prefers large games over small (i.e. if five people are
> playing against him in Fluxx, they are less likely to be waiting on
> him and therefore don't get bored) so although people will ask to play
> one-on-one against him, encourage larger games.
Great advice.
I got that sense very strongly as well, with the possible exception of a
token game of Binary Homeworlds. Andy, does your love of Homeworlds
exceed your preference for large games? Does the fact that Homeworlds
players will tend not to be much bothered by the waiting help here?
It's traditional at this point for Binary Homeworlds to be a part of the
Andy vs. Everybody repertoire, and frequently the game continues way past
the end of the event--but I don't think Andy minds. :)
> 4) Make sure you play a game against Andy too, it is way more fun that
> way.
But make sure your game doesn't create more downtime for the other
players (I struck a poor balance there on day two at first) or distract
you from keeping an eye on things running smoothly. I thought the Giant
Treehouse from Rabbits spread around the circle was rather perfect for
this.
GenCon was the first con with *lots* of Giant Treehouse, and I observed a
few very interesting patterns. First, there seemed to be two sorts of
players--those who just wanted to play to get the promo cards we were
giving away, and those who liked the game enough to come back and play over
and over again. I'd go out to check on the folks in the hall (Thanks to all
those Rabbits who helped running Giant Events in the hallway outside the
lab!) and there would be maybe six or seven people sitting around in a
semicircle, rolling the die, which would be picked up by the Rabbit running
the game. If they wanted to do something to the house, they'd describe it
to the Rabbit, and then the Rabbit would toss the die to the next player.
It was relaxed and fun, and people really enjoyed rolling the giant
Treehouse dice.
Other nice things about Giant Treehouse vs. Giant Icetowers as a 'standard'
giant demo game: each player needs only 3 pyramids instead of 15--working
in an extra player is easy; the big blue die rolling across the floor is a
real eye-catcher; takes up much less space; if a player suddenly has to
leave, it's not a big deal; play takes only a few minutes, so people are
more likely to stop and play even if they're busy.
> 6)If people have to "paytoplay" check the tickets when you collect
> them, someone gave me a ticket for the costume contest (pretty slick
> actually)
Oooh, good advice. I'm not sure I thought to do that every time I
collected a ticket. Kristin, you were looking for feedback on the "How
to be a Rabbit" paper. If this bit of wisdom isn't already on there, it
should be for any ticketed conventions.
Definitely good advice--the costume contest ticket was a free ticket, no
less.
> 7)About 15 minutes before it is supposed to be over, ask players to
> not start new games. Usually Andy has been working the booth and,
> although not complaining, probally should take a break and eat
> something with his feet up.
I'm going to generalize this last bit to advice for all Rabbits at a
convention. If in doubt, an employee of Looney Labs has been working
too long and needs to take a break, sit down, and get something to eat.
This was a goof on my part--AvE will never be scheduled right after Andy's
been working the booth in the future. Poor Andy was tired and famished by
the end of the day, and then he had to go play for an hour before he got a
chance to eat. :( We'll be more careful about this in the future.
> Shane (who started off what turned into a AYAW marathon with well over
> 150 players throughout the weekend - I think at one point there were 5
> villages)
There was at least a two hour span on each of Friday and Saturday nights
(when I was counting) with 5 full villages. That's 75 simultaneous
players. Saturday night I think we even got a bit above that, with a
couple of the villages bulging a bit to 17 players during a moderator
shortage.
Werewolf was frighteningly successful at GenCon--there is a picture in my
gallery:
http://gallery.empathogen.org/main.php?g2_itemId=593
It was hard to get a good angle to really show how many people were out
there. This was early on, all the villages were still at least 10 people
strong. You can see two villages on each side of the hall, and behind the
last village on the left sitting on the floor there was a whole other
village. It was crazy! Thanks to all the wonderful Rabbits who quite
successfully wrangled Werewolf for us this year!
> Most of all, we all need to say a HUGE thank you to our wonderful
> coordinator, who ran the Lab while the Looneys ran the booth, who
> covered any and all blanks in the schedule, covered for rabbits who
> had to be elsewher for "just 15 minutes", who opened up early, closed
> up late, "forgot" to take breaks, welcomed all of our visiters, worked
> with the GenCon staff to make the ribbons a way to welcome everyone to
> our room without the teadiousness (and expense) of individual tickets,
> who greeted and taught and smiled and hugged and cared for us &
> appreciated us. Josh really is "he who gets it done, and done well"
> in my book. So.....yeh Josh!
Hear, hear! Josh, you were amazing.
You guys are too nice. Really, I have to thank the Rabbits who were at the
event for all the hard work they did playing games with the flood of people
who came through our Lab, playing Werewolf all night long, and doing
Treehouse (and more) demos in the Booth, in the Lab, in the hall, in the
Library with the candlestick, etc. You guys are awesome!
Thanks again for a wonderful GenCon!
Josh Drobina (rabbit-support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Rabbit Coordinator
http://rabbits.looneylabs.com/?RabbitUserID=joshd