On Mar 12, 2007, at 5:16 PM, David Artman wrote:
And on the gripping hand... I guess you haven't read my Rabbit Profile
lately?
http://rabbits.looneylabs.com/?RabbitUserID=DavidArtman
;^)
Fair enough :)
Well, to be clear, that's pretty much what the con sign-up sheets and
schedule said, initially. It was only in response to having almost no
one at 8pm, that I began to pitch it as "just come by."
Yeah, I've had that happen with games I've tried to run, too, and I
usually find that if not enough people show up to begin with, you
should be willing to accept defeat and not keep trying to wheedle
people into coming. If there are already people there, just play
other games with them; that will at least keep them there a little
longer, and so you might reach critical mass eventually, and if not,
well, at least you had fun playing the other games.
Very interesting idea; I'll consider it.
SO... maybe I could have done it as some kind of "aggregate score"
tournament, based on wins in games played all session? That would
actually incentivize folks to stick around, too: the more they play,
the more wins they can rack up.
Yep, I'm pretty sure that's similar to how the floating tournaments
work at Origins. See <http://www.wunderland.com/WhatsOld/2005/WN.
06.02.05.html> and <http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Games/
ILoveHomeworlds.html> for more details.
Hmmm... and I could even let each
pair/triplet/quad of players choose what they wanted to play, and
weight the points award for a win based on relative play time
differences between the games (ex: a win in 4-player Martian Coasters
would be worth two or three points, as compared to a win in 4-player
Treehouse).
Yeah, doing different games would make things more difficult. The
floating tournaments at Origins give a bonus for the first time you
play a particular player (that is, the winner gets 2 points if that's
the first time those players have played). Maybe you could add in a
bonus for the first time you play a particular game, to give an
incentive for people to try different games.
Here's how I might do it (I've been thinking of running an Icehouse
Pentathlon for a while, but never quite worked out the details, but
now the idea of a floating free-form all-games Icehouse tournament is
pretty appealing):
Every player (win or lose) gets one point the first time they play a
given game.
The winning player gets one point per opponent beaten for two and
multiplayer games.
In a two player game, the winner gets 2 points if this is the first
time they've played that opponent in that game.
That encourages people to play lots of different games, and mix up
their opponents in two-player games. The one point per opponent might
be too much for winning multiplayer games. Maybe just one point for
winning would be enough. And maybe you could get 2 points if you beat
a player you have not played before in any game, not just two player
games, so there would be incentive to cycle those groups around, too,
and invite new players to join in.
Oh, I see why that might not work:
some Rabbits demo things other than pyramids! (I forget, sometimes, so
strong is my obsession.)
Yeah, I get a little pyramid-eyed sometimes, too. Icehouse pieces,
and Icehouse games, are just too cool for words.
Oh, well... yeah, we'd want to have a game-independent wiki, wouldn't
we? Anyone know if the icehouse.org site admins--or LL themselves--can
add a new folder and another wiki install, for us?
Well, the icehousegames.org site admins are one guy (Mike Sugarbaker,
aka MiSuBa), and I'm not sure he has the time to do another wiki. A
few months ago the LL folks asked if any Rabbits would be willing to
run one in their free time, and no one has stepped up yet. I could do
it (I've set up a few wikis before), but I'm not sure if I'll have
enough time to keep the software up to date, deal with spam issues,
and so on.
You know, I really should just step up to the plate and do this. I
have a cheap web host that will even let me create separate user
accounts (so I could create a rabbits account to give access to other
admins if I needed help administering without allowing them access to
my own account), and it's even got a one-click install option for
MediaWiki.
I am becoming
wiki-happy, lately: it's SUCH a great way to publish group
proceedings
online that I am pretty much shifting my own site and any with whom I
have pull to that mode of operation. The bulletin board is dead!
The bulletin board (and mailing list and stuff) are still useful, but
a wiki is the best way I've found to consolidate the knowledge and
wisdom of a group of people all into one place.
Using only smalls would be a bit tougher, but I'm game. (heh)
David
Yeah, I think smalls plus a Treehouse stash would be a lot more useful.