Thread for do's and don'ts of running ACTA:SF at conventions

[billclo]

Now that I have a couple convention games under my belt as it were, I wanted to set up a thread where we can share our experiences and do's and don'ts with others.

Things I learned this weekend:

1) if the venue allows alcohol, don't schedule your game for a Friday or Saturday night. Half my players in the evening session were drinking; a couple were visibly affected, and one guy who was supposed to run the planetary defenses needed constant assistance - he was so drunk he could hardly count how many dice he needed to roll and what constituted a "hit", let alone how to roll to resolve said "hits". He was wasted. He may have had "fun", but it was slowing the game down in a major way. So, in future, I plan to only schedule sessions in the late AM/early afternoon.

2) Have more player cheat sheets; one per side is not enough. Every player needs a set.

3) Clipboards for every player are a must. Thankfully I had enough.

4) Expect your finely tuned scenario to fall apart when the players don't do what you expected. It's typical in my experience for the players to not cooperate, and go off every man for himself to kill something. While they may have fun doing their own thing, the scenario may fall apart. As long as they are having fun and ships go boom, it's okay from their perspective, but it is frustrating from a GM's perspective.

5) Try to only have a couple ships per player, preferably of the same ship type. Having a new player run 3+ ships was causing some delays. Give the larger squadrons to the more experienced players. I found that 11 vs 10 ships in a running battle was barely doable in 4 hours, and the somewhat larger planetary assault with 12 vs 7+ defenses bogged down. Keep the game smaller if you want to finish in 4 hours.

6) Ride herd on the players, and when they seem to be socializing more than playing the game, you have to step in and nudge them back onto what they need to be doing. If you can move over to the other side of the table and help resolve combat in an isolated section of the battle, do so.

 

[GamerDude]

1) if the venue allows alcohol, don't schedule your game for a Friday or Saturday night.

Many of the convention's I've run at are these "full-featured" cons - read "saturday night is a fetish costume drunk-fest between the ball and the room parties". But Never has a venue ever allowed alcohol outside of very specific areas (ball room, the individual room hosting a party) and never ever allowed it in the gaming areas.

But yes, if alcohol is allowed outside of these specific areas I would follow your advice. Maybe even have a rule of no alcohol allowed at your table (if the con will allow that).

5) Try to only have a couple ships per player, preferably of the same ship type. Having a new player run 3+ ships was causing some delays.

I've run groups and run sets of 1v1 games at my convention events and, I've personally found setting up several games on the table, each just 1-on-1, with the bare minimum you need to have fun works great. 1-on-1 games can go quicker because they are less involved and there are fewer ships to keep track of. This worked extremely well at Gencon, just 2 federation and 2 kizinti ships. Their fleet roster on a single sheet of paper, and a second page for the cheat sheet.

Here's the rub: Are you just trying to run a big 4-hour game for many people to enjoy together *or* are you running demos to teach people how to play? The big games are great but really only the few people you've set up to play get to try it out. If you using that big game to play then you have to allow for people to drop out and new players to get into the game - without disrupting the game. This is much easier to handle with several 1-on-1 on games. (I've had up to four of these small sessions going at once).

6) Ride herd on the players, and when they seem to be socializing more than playing the game, you have to step in and nudge them back onto what they need to be doing. If you can move over to the other side of the table and help resolve combat in an isolated section of the battle, do so.

Amen Brother! Socializing can be the death of a game, but its more of a problem when the number of players in an individual game are kept low (because the action moves fast enough to need their attention).

 

[billclo]

I may run some demos at Origins, say 1 player vs 1 player or 2 players vs 2 players, with a cruiser or 2 frigates per player. The game doesn't work really well in very small battles, IMHO. 3-4 ships per side is the smallest I want to run.

My plan was to have a big, fun battle, while teaching some people the game. But having a teaching demo first, then run a larger battle later might be a better idea.

Yes, the venue (hotel) not only allowed alcohol in the gaming areas, but the hotel sold booze as well. AND there were kids roaming the gaming areas, though at least I never saw any kids/teens who had been obviously imbibing. I would guess the convention either gets alcohol/food sales kickbacks, or a reduced hotel rental rate to host the con if the hotel can sell their food/alcohol to the guests.

 

[Allerka]

Most gaming conventions I go to (i.e. Adepticon and the NOVA Open) allow all the drinking you want, as long as you're legal age. The hotels they're at sell their own, and TECHNICALLY it's supposed to be only hotel-provided drinks, but the enforcement is pretty slack, partly because both conventions have just WAY too many people at them to really do it. I don't mind drinking; I can't drink at my normal gaming stores, of course, and I've found "Drunken 40K" is actually exceptionally fun (i.e. I tend to get a LOT more excited over lucky rolls and such). Probably helps that my friends I play it with and I all know the rules well enough that it doesn't impair our ability to play. Certainly, if someone is much newer at the game, the last thing you need is to have someone too drunk to think straight.

Another major distinction is, if I'm playing Drunken 40K, it's just me and my friend I'm playing against. Obviously, a group game of ACTA would be much more prone to hang-ups if everyone's getting distracted and whatnot, just like an Apocalypse-scale game of 40K.

Definitely agree on the cheat sheets. Even after a dozen or more games I need mine all the time.

As for the scale of the game, it seems to work fine at any scale, though obviously the metagame shifts dramatically depending on how many ships each player has. A one-on-one fight gets intimate, if a little repetitive because you're basically just circling each other trying to out-shoot your opponent, but it works fine for teaching the basics of the rules, and obviously doesn't overwhelm the new guy with different abilities and loadouts.

For a group game designed to teach a bunch of people at once, I definitely wouldn't do more than 2-3 ships a player, keep it to like 300 points or even lower depending on how many people are involved. I took the one mission in the ACTA rulebook with the secret objectives and tweaked /expanded them extensively, so basically each individual player had their own secret objective to try and fulfill within X number of turns (generally 3-4 turns), at which point they warp out and claim victory (i.e. get a free ship or something). This lets the game continue to run, and players can drop in and out without having to feel like they need to set aside half the day to learn (or keep playing with a fresh battlegroup), and even walk away with a prize.

 

[GamerDude]

I may run some demos at Origins, say 1 player vs 1 player or 2 players vs 2 players, with a cruiser or 2 frigates per player. The game doesn't work really well in very small battles, IMHO. 3-4 ships per side is the smallest I want to run.

1v1 and 2v2 work nicely for teaching, as I've found over the years. Of course (as we did in the GP booth at Gencon this year) teaching games should be short - as Matthew put it "2 min of intro/explaining, then get to rolling the dice). I tried to limit a teaching game at about 30 mins/3 turns. I printed up a bunch of the ship stat sheets and let the players keep them (they also got to rename the ship if they wanted to).

My plan was to have a big, fun battle, while teaching some people the game. But having a teaching demo first, then run a larger battle later might be a better idea.

That's similar to how I did Hackmaster RPG at cons. Friday night was "come make characters" that you could use in the games, and then ran the sessions on Sat/Sun. Great fun for all and it gave the players exposure to the rules twice - getting questions answered etc.

*But* a big part of this is your personal style what you are comfortable with. Me? I've found the huge 4-hr fights with people dropping out (and in) experience levels from "what game is that?" to "Been playing since Day One" makes life difficult for all. Takes people with a good temperament to handle the situation well.

Yes, the venue (hotel) not only allowed alcohol in the gaming areas, but the hotel sold booze as well. AND there were kids roaming the gaming areas, though at least I never saw any kids/teens who had been obviously imbibing. I would guess the convention either gets alcohol/food sales kickbacks, or a reduced hotel rental rate to host the con if the hotel can sell their food/alcohol to the guests.

*sighs*

I have nothing against someone consuming alcohol - but I do believe there times/places where it is inappropriate (like at a game/full featured con). I think we don't have that problem because of the liquor laws in WA/OR/MT (Portland) forbidding it.

Al B.   [B-)

 

[Lincolnlog]

Heavy drinking (actually you can remove heavy) at a Con is more proof that this hobby is becoming increasingly gray haired. I have nothing against people drinking. But public drinking and gaming doesn't mix. This leads to damaged models & terrain, fights, puking and an extremely poor example to any youth in attendance.

I ran 3 games at Diecon in June, which doesn't allow drinking by the way. I supplied a cheat sheet to every player. I had clip boards, pencils, grase pencils for eeach player. I set a nice game placard in 8X10 picture frame, with a picture of the front of the rule book and a description of the game.

The games all went very smooth until the last one. I had a couple of guys (brothers), one wanted to play and the other didn't. The one that didn't was distracted and caused the game to drag. To add injury to insult I was exhausted after 2 full 3 hour game sessions, and now into the third.

My lessons learned, don't run back to back games. Run one per day perhaps. Allow yourself time to play and browse the dealer area. I plan to run ACTA-SF at the next Diecon, bu no more than 2 sessions, and will probably limit it to one.

 

[billclo]

Heavy drinking (actually you can remove heavy) at a Con is more proof that this hobby is becoming increasingly gray haired. I have nothing against people drinking. But public drinking and gaming doesn't mix. This leads to damaged models & terrain, fights, puking and an extremely poor example to any youth in attendance.

Definitely the convention was full of grey hairs. A decent amount of younger folk, but nothing like an Origins or Gencon I think. I agree that public drinking and gaming isn't a good mix.

My lessons learned, don't run back to back games. Run one per day perhaps. Allow yourself time to play and browse the dealer area. I plan to run ACTA-SF at the next Diecon, bu no more than 2 sessions, and will probably limit it to one.

I think that I may only run one 4 hour session per day. Even having an hour between sessions didn't allow enough decompression time, especially when lots of folk were wandering over to inspect the game and ask questions. I barely had time to eat. So either 1 session per day, or two with a 3-4 hour time out between session might be the better way to go at Origins. Even better, schedule a game to be playing in between those 2 sessions you run.

 

[scoutdad]

Heavy drinking (actually you can remove heavy) at a Con is more proof that this hobby is becoming increasingly gray haired. I have nothing against people drinking. But public drinking and gaming doesn't mix. This leads to damaged models & terrain, fights, puking and an extremely poor example to any youth in attendance.

I have ran events for many games / systems at many cons over the years. I've never had a problem with drinking. In fact, all of the cons I've run events at do not allow alcohol in the gaming areas, so it's a non-issue. While I have nothing against drinking in general, if I ever do attend a convention that allows such, comments will be made to the organizers and I probably wouldn't go back.

I ran 3 games at Diecon in June, which doesn't allow drinking by the way. I supplied a cheat sheet to every player. I had clip boards, pencils, grase pencils for eeach player. I set a nice game placard in 8X10 picture frame, with a picture of the front of the rule book and a description of the game.

Sinilar experiences here. I ran multiple sessions of ACTASF at NashCon back in May... including the 60+ ship event "The Battle for Kh'rtis Rock!" Every player had a cheat sheet, all ships and laminated ship cards; and there were dice / dry erase markers / special action counters for everyone to use.
Generally speaking, the games went quite smoothly. We did have the occasional passer-by stop and begin to expound on how the Star Fleet Universe was F'ed-up and didn't match the Star Trek Online Universe and that the whole thing should be changed so they matched (Change the SFU, not STOL). We got through those little interruptions though.

My lessons learned, don't run back to back games. Run one per day perhaps. Allow yourself time to play and browse the dealer area. I plan to run ACTA-SF at the next Diecon, bu no more than 2 sessions, and will probably limit it to one.

WIMPS!!!!!!! :wink:
I ran 2 straight sessions on Friday... 4 on Saturday... and another on Sunday! And plan to repeat the task this coming year... and probably run twice that may sessions at Origins the following month. :shock:
Seriously though... I had a lot of help doing that. Most of the members of my local gaming group were at NashCon and they were a tremendous help. They helped with set-up / tear down between events... and they helped keep thing moving along when people wanted to stop paying and start socializing. I couldn't have done half as well without their assistance.

 

[Lincolnlog]

Scoutdad:

Already have Nashcon blocked out in the 2013 Vacation assuming it's Memorial Day Weekend again.

You have more stamina than I do! I want to get around and experience more games. When ACTA-SF was newer, wanted to just play it all the time. And don't mis-interperet, still want to play it alot. Shoot still like playing SFB and been playing that since 1981!

Got a hard time recently from one of the locals guys because we didn't run ACTA-SF at Archcon. But, the Archcon guys have priced themselves to the point where it's just too dang expensive. I think its intended more for if you want to put on your Klingon (those aren't treal Klingons, Klingons don't have ridges on their foreheads) costume and walk around and go to the dance or what ever! But too expensive just to game.

Looking forward to Command Con this weekend, unfortunately, no ACTA-SF. The guy that was supposed to run decided he wasn't ready.

 

[scoutdad]

NashCon 2013: - May 24 - 25 - 26th

Again, the only reason I can run so many sessions is the help I get from "the guys". It's easy to do when 5 or 6 others come over on weekends to help create 4 (and now 8) identical terrain pieces, for three different maps - so we can have 8 identical set-ups for the tournaments.
And they helped ride herd on 12 participants in the huge Battle.

We've slacked off on the ACTASF at Casa de'Tomas a bit ourselves and have gotten back to some of our old favorites.

Looked at ArchCon... but just couldn't make it work. Maybe next year.

 

[billclo]

I have ran events for many games / systems at many cons over the years. I've never had a problem with drinking. In fact, all of the cons I've run events at do not allow alcohol in the gaming areas, so it's a non-issue. While I have nothing against drinking in general, if I ever do attend a convention that allows such, comments will be made to the organizers and I probably wouldn't go back

Normally I would agree with you. Unfortunately there is a severe shortage of conventions in this area, with a 3+ hour drive being normal. The organization that runs the convention run 2 events a year there, with one more in Virginia. If there were any viable alternative conventions that had large (several hundred to several thousand) attendances that I could run games at and have enough players, I'd tell HMGS to forget about it. But they have decent attendance and it's only a little over an hour away so I can't be quite so picky.

But I will definitely run my games in the early afternoon and skip running in the evening due to the drinkers.

 

[Lincolnlog]

billco:

HMGS has relaxed on allowing non-historicals. They used to be extremely focused, and actually had a percentage of non-historical games allowed at one of their events. That area draws the largest crowd, I've heard Historicon is huge, but I've never made the trek. I have to bid vacation time, and believe it or not with 25 years I'm still low in seniority. Getting vacation time mid-summer is difficult.

Nashcon is also an HMGS event. By the way we ran an HMGS con here in St. Louis back in 95-96? It was the largest attendance Heart of America Chapter ever had. Politics destroyed it and there was no repeat. The local gaming club ran all con's in St. Louis from then on.

 

[Lincolnlog]

NashCon 2013: - May 24 - 25 - 26th

Again, the only reason I can run so many sessions is the help I get from "the guys". It's easy to do when 5 or 6 others come over on weekends to help create 4 (and now 8) identical terrain pieces, for three different maps - so we can have 8 identical set-ups for the tournaments.
And they helped ride herd on 12 participants in the huge Battle.

We've slacked off on the ACTASF at Casa de'Tomas a bit ourselves and have gotten back to some of our old favorites.

Looked at ArchCon... but just couldn't make it work. Maybe next year.

We'll make Nashville the last stop on our car trip (which we'll actually take this year).

I really wouldn't concern yourself with Archcon, I would say try for DIECON instead. It's held in the same venue (Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville, IL) but its all gaming versus Archcon which really always has been a Sci-Fi fan convention. Personal preference I guess.

 

[scoutdad]

billco:

HMGS has relaxed on allowing non-historicals. They used to be extremely focused, and actually had a percentage of non-historical games allowed at one of their events. That area draws the largest crowd, I've heard Historicon is huge, but I've never made the trek. I have to bid vacation time, and believe it or not with 25 years I'm still low in seniority. Getting vacation time mid-summer is difficult.

Nashcon is also an HMGS event. By the way we ran an HMGS con here in St. Louis back in 95-96? It was the largest attendance Heart of America Chapter ever had. Politics destroyed it and there was no repeat. The local gaming club ran all con's in St. Louis from then on.

The HMGS - Mid-south is speciafically lookignto expand beyond historicals only. The target audience for historicals is rapidly diminishing. That's the primary reason we're being courted to come back in '13.
Star Trek is a known entity and has a widespread appeal. I've been given my choice of a private gaming room or double the floor space as last year in the main gaming hall (and the prime spot, just inside the double doors across from teh convention centers main entrance). Guess which I took?
With double the space, the Saturday tournament can now handle 16 players.
4 tables, each 4' by 8'
That lets us do two 4x4 maps at each table.

And the All day Friday event - The Battle For Kh'rtis Rock will be played on single, huge map with fully painted / detailed fleets and terrain.
With it being just insode the door, it should be a big attention getter. And I hope to have a side table demoing Kzinti / Gorn / Romulan / and Orions - just to show off the minis.

 

[GamerDude]

Heavy drinking (actually you can remove heavy) at a Con is more proof that this hobby is becoming increasingly gray haired. I have nothing against people drinking. But public drinking and gaming doesn't mix. This leads to damaged models & terrain, fights, puking and an extremely poor example to any youth in attendance.

I am going to really go against the grain here and take extreme exception to the use of this term "grey hairs" in all its variations. Just say the 'older portion of the gaming population' or something.

Also, My experiences have been that (at least in today's American society) the younger the person (gamer) the greater the likely hood *they* are the ones who want to drink, and drink heavily, and do it wherever they damm well please. I've watched this attitude help destroy the relationship between a con and their hotel because of not just excessive drinking but hiding it to drink where alcohol is banned, dumping their six packs of beer bottles (and fifth's of whiskey etc) in common area trash receptacles filling them so full that they just start dumping it on the floor.

I ran 3 games at Diecon in June, which doesn't allow drinking by the way. I supplied a cheat sheet to every player. I had clip boards, pencils, grase pencils for eeach player. I set a nice game placard in 8X10 picture frame, with a picture of the front of the rule book and a description of the game.
...

Sounds like overall a great job, you can't help someone sitting down but just not wanting to be there (except to ask them to leave).

FTR - I'm 52, been gaming since I was old enough to hold cards/roll dice, been retired for the last 11 years, and am still quite blonde not grey (except my beard/chest - go figure).

I've been involved with publicly, teaching games for over 14 years (longer just teaching family, friends), and at conventions for over the 12 I've been running "learn-to-play" and sanctioned tournaments for RPGs, CCGs, D&D and other WotC Minis, etc. These are my personal observations. If I were to categorize the few 'troublemakers' I've had at my tables all I could do is say "gamers" - of all ages sizes genders orientations belief sets etc.

That said, here's "Al's Do's and Don'ts For Running *anything* at a convention"

1. Know your system inside and out
2. Know your scenario/adventures inside and out
3. Leave yourself a gap between sessions
4. Have a complete set of handouts for every session
5. Have all the handouts etc. that each player will need
6. Be at your table at least 15, if not 30 mins, before your start time so you can set up calmly. (nothing like the stress of rushing to set up).
7. Have all the supplies you think you'll need - then increase the quantities by 50%
8. Dress "professionally" meaning clean clothes not torn, nothing that is an attempt to be cute and vulgar (like "FCUK" on a t-shirt), hair (head/facial) neatly trimmed (length is up to you). and so on.
9. Intro is basically "hello, I'm so&so, this game is 'THE GAME'" point out handouts they have) and then get the dice rolling.
10. Watch your time, I use to use a clock with alarms, now I set a series of alarms on my cell phone each labeled so I know where I am at.
11. This is not about the players staying on the path of the adventure so much as them walking away going "omg that was *awsome!*"
12. Don't be afraid to gently nudge the players back on-track: more "keeping the game moving" than "wait, you're not following that straight line dictated by the plot"
13. Allow a few minutes (5? 10?) at the end for wrap-up, people grabbing their stuff, heading to their next event.
14. Group sizes:
    • RPG - up to 6 (unless you are confident with more at the table)
    • Minis/Board/Traditional Card - Actual Game/Tournament - how many can play and have fun in time of the event. Players shouldn't be dropping out/jumping in it kills the flow of the game.
    • Minis/Board/Traditional Card - Teaching to play/Demo event. Multiple small games. 1 or 2 players per side, just a few ships/smaller simple decks/trimmed rule set for a board game. They are there for the basics. Basically 30 mins per teaching game, up to four games running at the same time.
15. Don't be afraid to ask a disruptive player to leave. Talk to them first, quickly but if they are being disruptive it's your right as the GM/Event Host to have them leave - removed from the table if the situation warrants it. (only had to do that TWICE in 12 years.)

Some of these points may not fit your style, and you might have something great to add. This is just the quick version of my checklist and style for running events. I have a kit that I check and restock when I get back from a con, and keep packed so It's there to use when I go to a game store or even someone's home to play. I'm down to keeping power strips, extra paper, cheap mechanical pencils & erasers for the players to use (like 20-something pencils for a few dollars). I have an HP Deskjet 1000 I take with me (cost? $29.00 plus tax) and cables etc.

My biggest thing is the the time before my first con of the year (I do the same ones for a year, Feb is when new ones start) I'm busy going over the new adventures, ensuring I have the character sheets completed and printed out, along with handouts etc. With the printer I'm going to move to printing at the table see how that works. (well cheat sheets I don't want them taking I laminate).

For ACTA:SF at Gencon I printed up 2 copies of the two-page cheat sheets, slipping them in a document protector with cardboard inside and then carefully taped the end closed. Nice stiff reference card that wasn't going to get all torn up.

Well guess that's enough from me, hopefully I've given some helpful pointers. Oh, my ACTA:SF events were 1v1 (or father/sun working together on one side), two ships per side (Feds vs Kizinti) at 380 pts each. Since I didn't know what the ships would be until I got into the hall on Thursday, that night I spent 3 hrs making up the cheat sheets for the four ship and then printing out about 20 of each on the open computer. Worked quite well.

Peace Out!
Al B.   [B-)

 

[Lincolnlog]

Gamerdude (Al),

Grayhaired is a term we came up with when I still had some dark hair. I'm the same age as you, and gray is all I have left.

You seem to have a pretty good system for prepping. I usually start getting ready for a major even about a week in advance. I have a huge roller tub that locks, and as I prep each item it goes into the tub.

I like using the inexpensive mechanical pencils too. But for the actual games I have laminated ship charts, and it's all grease pencil. After the game, paper towel, wipe it all down and it's ready to go again. Of course with all the errata and some quality control issues on my part, I've had to print and relaminate some cards multiple times.

I have laminated cheat sheets for each player. I start the session with an introduction, both myself and the game, then do a short scenario briefing, then do an over all rules briefing with the cheat sheets. The cheat sheets I use are so well done (not by me got them off someone here on this board), that they hardly need me anymore.

The one guy finally got up and walked away and his brother took over his ships. I wouldn't say he was disruptive, but he definitely wasn't into the experience.

 

[rcbecker1]

Ok I feel the need to chirp in on this subject.
Im a gray haired guy or at least whats left of it includding facial hair such as my handle bar moustace. I started demoing and learning the in's an outs when I owned a game store back in the 90s since then I tend to demo at cons. Recently back to running demos at a local game store.
When Im at cons I tend to run simple one on one games the first two days of the con. Next day I start to see players from previous game demos coming back to learn more and try different ships or forces. usualy on the last day I run a larger game with multiple players who are now regulars, to battle it out which by then they are convinced this is the game for them. Now once and a while you see players who cant play at home because they dont have anyone to play with so they come to the later games to get there fix once a year.
I bring all supplies and extra's. One thing I do is I have built a demo team myself and we go as a team. So each person knows how to run all the games demoed by our group. now each person has there own games they demo and then take turns with breaks. What this does is if i have to go to the bathroom in the middle of my 4hr event one of the others can step in and back me up so I can leave and go to the facilities. which goes both ways. or if my event has too many people show up I have support rather than be over whelmed and I can do the same for them.
Another thing is, we work hard to help young gamers meaning under 13 and ussualy a mother or father play to help keep them involved as the next generation of gamers and keep the family bond. many have really thanked me for this as its hard to find games where they will tolerate children.

Now this tends to make a long day but thats what Im there for. If i was there to just play I wouldnt run any demo's at all since theres a game for every hour of the day.

When I go to a game store I always take a partner so I never just stand there looking for some one to walk in. If there is no one at the start we play then as someone shows interest my speall kicks in talking about the game how cool the minis look and the great company thats brings this to us. from there I slide out move the interested party in as i explain how every thing works and help them through a few turns if another person shows interest my partner slides out and in goes the next new guy, same routine always leaving me with someone for the next interested person to play with and allowing multiple games and demos.
Ray

 

[billclo]

I'm starting to look at what I'm going to run at Cold Wars in March, and had a question for you more experienced GMs:

Do you really think it's feasible to run a 1v1 game in 30 mins? I mean, it might suffice to teach the basic rules, but a 1 ship vs 1 ship in 30 mins seems awfully quick to me. I could see more like 1 vs 1 with one ship per player in about an hour (allowing time to explain the rules). It's certainly not going to allow much subtlety in tactics with one ship per side; basically whomever wins initiative will be in a good position to wail on the enemy (especially if the side winning initiative is the Klingons).

I had been thinking of 1 vs 1, max 4 players (2 games) at a time. Each player gets 2 D7 or 2 CA, allocating 2 hours for the demo. If they get done with the game early, let them switch sides. I'd figured on running this sort of demo twice, and then run a larger game later on for a finale.

Thoughts?

 

[scoutdad]

Bill,

I've run 2-on-2 demos in 45 mins.
I use a 3x3 map with 6" deployment zones on each side.
No terrain... basic rules only (so no splitting weapons between different targets, etc).
Give each player a reference sheet with basic SoP, Attack Table, System Table, and Critical Hit chart. Then on the other side a brief rundown of Special Actions and Special Traits. Plus a half size laminated ship card with two identical ships (smae ship simplifies learning firing arcs, triats, etc).
5 to 10 minutes to give the basics and answer questions, then they're off. Combat range is virtually guarenteed on turn 1 and you just go from there.

 

[billclo]

Bill,

I've run 2-on-2 demos in 45 mins.
I use a 3x3 map with 6" deployment zones on each side.
No terrain... basic rules only (so no splitting weapons between different targets, etc).
Give each player a reference sheet with basic SoP, Attack Table, System Table, and Critical Hit chart. Then on the other side a brief rundown of Special Actions and Special Traits. Plus a half size laminated ship card with two identical ships (smae ship simplifies learning firing arcs, triats, etc).
5 to 10 minutes to give the basics and answer questions, then they're off. Combat range is virtually guarenteed on turn 1 and you just go from there.

Hmm...

Maybe 2 vs 2 with 2 ships per player in a 2 hour block then? After an hour, let them switch sides and carry on. You think 4 CA vs 4 D7 is viable in such a short time, or maybe use D6's vs NCL's? I'd think D7 vs CA would bring more interest because they are "classic ships" in a classic match-up.