How did the Strategicon OrcCon RTT tournament go???

[Spinachcat]

I was very excited to hear in the February 4th Weekly Update that PB was hosting or supporting a HUGE Robotech event in Los Angeles. I was surprised I did not hear about this sooner considering the size of the event. 76 participants is massive. I know some Warhammer 40k tourneys in Los Angeles have gotten 50+ people, but those are heavily promoted. I did not even know we had 76 RTT fans in LA. Guys and gals, you gotta speak up!!! The local game stores would love to see a fraction of you. Even if only a 20% of you could meet monthly, we could grow a regular local event.

Here's the blurb:

Strategicon – February 12-15, 2016
Convention Name: Strategicon – Orccon.
Dates: February 12-15, 2016; Presidents’ Day weekend.
Location: Los Angeles, California.
Website: http://www.strategicon.net/
Supporting: Role-playing games and a major Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Build and Paint Workshop and Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Tournaments. Note: Last year's RRT tournaments were 300 and 1000 points each. Anticipating 76+ participants for the RRT tournament thus far.
Contact for Details & Registration: stratcon_ccgs@strategicon.net

I did not attend, but I told two of my friends to check it out. Did any of you go? Anyone have any pictures from the event?

This is great news for Robotech Tactics and I don't understand why it wasn't promoted more, especially in light of the Wave 2 issues. If RTT can draw sizeable tournaments with just Wave 1 minis, that is amazing news for Palladium moving forward. Hopefully PB can host a huge GenCon event this year!

[The Beast]

From what I've been reading, RTT wasn't promoted at all. From the boards here, it seems a fan was planning to do an event, that PB said they'd support, but there was never any listing in the convention site's game list. And on a couple other sites, there were some posts from people who said they went that they didn't see any RTT games being run.

[ScottBernard]

Oh man, this is just too funny. Thanks spinachcat.

[Alpha 11]

So, then, what...?

[Spinachcat]

From what I've been reading, RTT wasn't promoted at all. From the boards here, it seems a fan was planning to do an event, that PB said they'd support, but there was never any listing in the convention site's game list. And on a couple other sites, there were some posts from people who said they went that they didn't see any RTT games being run.

Please tell me you are kidding.

Strategicon has hosted BIG minis events before. I've played in several 50+ player 40k events over the years. Heck, I ran their huge D&D tournaments for years that had over 100 players. I've been part of their RPGA Battle Interactives with 15 tables of 4e players. They host LOTS of regional events for many games, especially for Settlers of Catan They have a big Build & Paint promotion every con with free donated minis to kids called Paint & Take.

This is really sad.

How did they get RTT listed in the Palladium Weekly Update if there was no coordination with Strategicon???

Why even talk about 76 participants if the convention had not already allotted the space and personnel??

This really isn't the kind of PR that PB needs for RTT.

[MurderCityDisciple]

The power of imagination!!

If you imagine hard enough it becomes reality.

[wilycoyote]

Spinachat, I really hope that your post was being sarcastic...really sarcastic

For the record Lt Pebbles and others have confirmed at the Strategicon event, with the Room organisers that there were zero repeat zero RTT events booked at all. Indeed as far as I can see there were no Palladium events of any sort at the venue They even noted that last year there was only a small showing of four people even after the wave one launch in the US

A 70 plus player tournament would be massive (5 or 6 times the numbers at last years open house?) and so should have pushed PB and their promotions team into hyperactivity. The sheer logistics of such a tournament would almsot warrant a hall to itself. Ahhhh but wait nothing was done therefore suggesting that this "no show" was plainly known and the big, big news is patently a big old whopping untruth

Add to this that as yet there are no firm news about Adepticon and Gencon.....???

Does rather cast whatever plams Palladium have to reignite RTT in a bad light even before they get started

[Forar]

The word for Adepticon, as of the last Newsletter, is as follows;

AdeptiCon – March 31-April 3, 2016
Palladium Books® in exhibitor area
Convention Name: AdeptiCon.
Dates: March 31-April 3, 2016.
Location: Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel in Schaumburg, Illinois, (Chicago area).
Website: http://www.adepticon.org/
Supporting: Wargames and tabletop gaming. Palladium Books® is in attendance with a booth selling the Robotech® RPG Tactics™ main box game, RRT expansion packs, exclusive figures, and role-playing game products, as well as running demos, having display pieces and being available to chat. We are hoping to bring RRT co-game-designer Carmen Bellaire with us to run RRT demos and chat with gamers.

Seems they'll have a booth to sell stuff and run demos, but I seem to recall them asking the community for someone willing to step up and organize a tournament. I guess that part fell through? It's in 6 weeks, I imagine the convention space is plotted out and spoken for. Even a tournament of the size of last year's (roughly a dozen people as I recall? 20 spots but only 10 showed up or something like that?), they'd need a considerable amount of table space to have half a dozen or more games going simultaneously.

They're also lined up for a variety of other smaller scale tournaments, but most of those seem to be RPG focused.

And then there's Gencon;

Game Masters needed for Gen Con Indy – We want your game event submissions by this weekend, but keep them coming

Help us celebrate Palladium’s 35th Anniversary with even MORE Palladium gaming events at the 2016 Gen Con Indy than ever before.

Game Masters wanted. We are looking for Game Masters to showcase all of Palladium’s RPGs: Rifts®, Robotech®, Heroes Unlimited™, Palladium Fantasy®, Nightbane®, Dead Reign®, Beyond the Supernatural™, Splicers®, After the Bomb®, Ninjas & Superspies™ and all the rest. Also looking for people to demo Robotech® RPG Tactics™ and we would love to see a Robotech® RPG Tactics™ tournament if any of you are willing to organize and run one.

Sounds like they're hoping for a community run tournament here as well (err, because they are).

Isn't Organized Play supposed to be in the hands of the Megaversal Ambassadors? That was what they said would be the case when Ninja Division was quietly removed from the duty.

Game Masters, please contact Palladium Books and/or Gen Con Game events coordinators Jeff Ruiz (NMI) and Patrick “Jake” Jakubowski now through February 14, 2016. In order to get into the Gen Con Games Pre-Registration and the onsite program book, Gen Con needs ALL game information by Mid-February. That means it is ideal for Palladium’s event coordinators to have them in already, but you can still get events added till February 14, 2016, and still get maximum exposure and benefit from them. Note: Game events submitted AFTER FEBRUARY 14, 2016 are not likely to get listed in the Gen Con Pre-Registration and onsite program book. If you want your games filled with people and to have one central location for all Palladium related events, you need to get them to the Palladium coordinators this weekend! And certainly no later than next weekend. Jeff and Jake are waiting for your game descriptions right now!

Seems that ship has sailed. Even if someone still stepped up for a tournament, they'd need to work out space (that may already be accounted for by existing events/free play areas), and have to rely on their own advertising skills and whatever reach the Newsletter has.

Not to say someone shouldn't do it, but they've been asking for this for a month (Jan 15th update seems to be the first requesting a help with an RRT tournament).

Guess they didn't get a nibble from the community or the MA's attending Gen Con.

Perhaps it's all the RPG sessions they have lined up?

[Forar]

From another forum:

"i was at OrcCon (each Strategicon event has a different name, the other two being Gamex and Gateway) on Sunday for the painting contest...
wandering through the miniature room where the contest was hosted, i saw Blood Bowl, Man-O-War, Guildball, AoS, 40K, Zombicide: Black Plague, Blood Rage, one other CMON box game, Dust Tactics, Star Wars: Armada, Imperial Assault, X-Wing, Sails of Glory, some Battlestar Galactica board/mini game, Team Yankee, Frostgrave, Infinity, and a few others...
no Robotech in sight...

in the dealer room, i didn't see any Robotech RPG Tactics boxed games or expansions for sale...
nothing on display anywhere, as far as i saw...
it would have been nice to see the minis in person, as i'm still on the fence about buying any...

nothing about Paladium or Robotech in the Program at all... "

[Tiree]

Yeah, Dundracon was held that same weekend in the Bay Area, I did not see on PB event in the catalog (both RTT and RPG)

[CaptKaruthors]

Sounds like they're hoping for a community run tournament here as well (err, because they are).

Isn't Organized Play supposed to be in the hands of the Megaversal Ambassadors? That was what they said would be the case when Ninja Division was quietly removed from the duty.

Any MA can take the Organize Play packet I made (see the other thread I posted weeks ago) and run an event now with relative ease. All the prep work has been done for their part. Contained in that packet is a solid foundation and all the things you need...including the missions. The only thing a MA has to do is to commit to running an event at one of these conventions...and secure the space, tables and terrain. The rules, etc. they don't have to worry about. Heck...even PB themselves can run an event at Adepticon if they had the drive. Carmen could run it. All he needs to do is talk to Hank Edley and figure out tables/ and or space. They could even run a small event at their booth if they really really wanted to. They can use the packet I provided them so it should be relatively easy.

[Alpha 11]

This..., is just sad. It sure looks like RTT is on life support, and is wouldn't last much long.

[jaymz]

Carmen is actually working for another company and isnt exactly available to run events for palladium anymore.

[Forar]

It has been pointed out to me that the deadline for Gencon submissions is actually mid March, so if someone wants to, they can still totally commit to running an RRT tournament.

Seems the sliding deadline was similar to the Grab Bag deadline; they say it's coming to an end repeatedly, but it has actually got another month to go.

[Spinachcat]

Spinachat, I really hope that your post was being sarcastic...really sarcastic

Not in the slightest.

I haven't been to any of the Strategicon conventions for a few years (they run 3 cons per year), but I was previously their Marketing Director, I ran the D&D tourneys and GM'd games there for many, many years. I knew the con well, and in the past, it always had large impressive minis events. 76 sounds ambitious and I should have assumed that was 76 player slots for a 3 round tourney.

Most con games count "player slots", aka a table of 6 players in a RPG is 6 player slots, but if that RPG had two sessions, there would 12 player slots even if the same 6 people played in both sessions.

For minis tourneys, it was not uncommon for 30 players to face off during 2 sessions for points and the top 10 or 16 to compete in finals. Thus you would have 30 players for slot one, 30 players for slot two and 16 players for the final round and that would be 76 player slots, but only 30 people.

Considering the 5000 backers for RTT, I can easily imagine 30 RTT players showing to a con of 1500-2000 attendees for a sanctioned event with prize support. For those who don't know, Los Angeles has a long history of an active minis gaming community. It would be reasonable for Strategicon to host a major Robotech event.

Also, don't forget that LA is the home of Harmony Gold.

Does rather cast whatever plams Palladium have to reignite RTT in a bad light even before they get started

It's very worrisome. I hope PB figures out what happened with the OrcCon miscommunication and resolves it. Strategicon has their next convention - Gamex - in May for Memorial Day. They should launch a tourney either there or KublaCon in the Bay Area that weekend.

Yeah, Dundracon was held that same weekend in the Bay Area, I did not see on PB event in the catalog (both RTT and RPG)

The Bay Area used to have a very active MA demo team who ran PB RPG events for years. What happened?

[glitterboy2098]

a thought, before people start going off the deep end?

setting up an event for convention is a fairly complex task just for the person proposing it. you have paperwork, you have deadlines, you have fees.. not to mention that this all comes after the person running it arranges to actually be attending.

for an event of this (potential) size, it gets even harder, because it would require the convention to rearrange a fair bit of stuff, as has been pointed out. which means there is quite a bit that could have happened to prevent it from occurring.

the organizer could have failed to get the paperwork or fees in by the deadline.
the organizer could have gotten it in on time, but the convention turned it down.
the organizer could have suddenly found himself unable to attend, and the event was cancelled.
etc.

as far as the lack of presence in the schedule booklets or online.. remember that printing being what it is, those booklets are produced well before the convention. and events submissions/alterations/cancellations can and do continue well past the time the schedule is sent to the printers. even major conventions like Origins usually have the problem of their schedule booklet not matching up to the actual final schedule. sometimes with major events being dropped or added. and Online sites are not always kept completely up to date for every change. HTML editing and server space can get pricey so most places try to minimize how many times they go in to change things. (found that out first hand in 2004.. half of the events at Origins i wanted to be in going by the online and printed schedules either were not there or had been rescheduled and wound up conflicting with each other)

so lets wait to find out what happened before spinning conspiracy theories, ok?

[jaymz]

The Bay Area used to have a very active MA demo team who ran PB RPG events for years. What happened?

Iirc that was by Gary, the guy threw under an Abrams two Gencons back over "issues" with the RRT events. I wont say more openly. I already feel like i am being gunned for after being blocked from posting on the palladium facebook page along with number of rrt backers for posting too many complaints in the comments section of tge weekly updates. You can pm me if you want more details on that.

[Morgan Vening]

a thought, before people start going off the deep end?

*snip things that could potentially go wrong*

so lets wait to find out what happened before spinning conspiracy theories, ok?

I'm not seeing conspiracy theories being portrayed. Spinachcat in his earlier post explains what the issue is. That promoting an event that seems to have had no support, and to promote it as the largest by a significant margin, was not a good move. Especially as has been pointed out, even a cursory check at the time of the posting (a week out from the convention) didn't show any evidence that it was happening.

Compound this with the not great showings at Adepticon 2014 and POH 2014. And a failure to have an event at Gencon 2014, Adepticon 2015, and what looks to be so far (with a request for a volunteer in last week's PBWU), Gencon 2015. Palladium need to be making sure these events happen (along with several other changes. but that's by the by), if they want to get that ball moving on Organized Play. That there appears to have been only one event since the Palladium Open House, and I've seen nothing regarding it. If it ran, how many attended, what the results were, etc.

Promoting events that disappoint or fail is one thing. Promoting events that just don't seem to exist? Not good at all. Especially if one or more gamers showed up at Strategicon after reading that announcement in the PBWU, got there and heard that no, there was no event, there was never an event, the guy who would normally run it is apparently in Scotland.

EDIT: I did a look through the events PB listed as "Upcoming Palladium Books® Convention Events" that states "Below are just some of the conventions hosting Palladium game events this year.". Of the 9 events listed prior to GenCon, we have...

Two Conventions have two RPG games each (SaltCon, RageCon).
Two Conventions have no events lists, at least in an easy to find manner (KatsuCon, Anime North).
One Convention doesn't appear to exist online (International Tabletop Day Event Hosted by RAGECon).
Four Conventions that have event lists and don't show a single RRT or PBRPG event, as of now (Strategicon, Pensacon, CoastCon, Adepticon).

That's not a good looking ratio for the RPG side (four events over nine conventions). Less so for RRT which seemingly has no events up to and including GenCon.

[Forar]

Most con games count "player slots", aka a table of 6 players in a RPG is 6 player slots, but if that RPG had two sessions, there would 12 player slots even if the same 6 people played in both sessions.

That may be how things are organized behind the scenes, but when Gencon says they have 256 slots for a tournament, they have 256 individual seats, at least to start.

Advertising a 30 player game (to use your example) as a 76 'seat' game would be... misleading. And would differ from how PB has advertised their previous RRT tournaments; I seem to recall Adepticon last year had 20 slots, and they were actual slots (though I believe only 10'ish were filled). Open House, same deal.

Obviously there weren't dozens of RRT players standing around forlornly, so it's an academic matter, but given that they were touting this as an event potentially three or four times larger than the previous largest tournament for the game (and that's being generous, possibly 7 times?), that's not a good time to play with the reporting.

Actually, let's go back and see *exactly* what they said.

Supporting: Role-playing games and a major Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Build and Paint Workshop and Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Tournaments. Note: Last year's RRT tournaments were 300 and 1000 points each. Anticipating 76+ participants for the RRT tournament thus far.

Emphasis mine.

76 participants. Not "76 seats for a couple dozen participants over the entire tournament". If I play through 3 rounds, those may be 3 seats being filled, but I'm not "3 participants", I'm the same one in 3 different seats.

[wilycoyote]

Spinachat, apologies, looking at it I was coming down a little heavy on you, but I was amused to think that at this point there could be a thriving RTT community hidden from general view, who could somehow revive the game

I can see you have an upbeat opinion of the situation, but it is fair to say, I do not share your optimism

[TagsPB]

a thought, before people start going off the deep end?

*snip things that could potentially go wrong*

so lets wait to find out what happened before spinning conspiracy theories, ok?

I'm not seeing conspiracy theories being portrayed. Spinachcat in his earlier post explains what the issue is. That promoting an event that seems to have had no support, and to promote it as the largest by a significant margin, was not a good move. Especially as has been pointed out, even a cursory check at the time of the posting (a week out from the convention) didn't show any evidence that it was happening.

Compound this with the not great showings at Adepticon 2014 and POH 2014. And a failure to have an event at Gencon 2014, Adepticon 2015, and what looks to be so far (with a request for a volunteer in last week's PBWU), Gencon 2015. Palladium need to be making sure these events happen (along with several other changes. but that's by the by), if they want to get that ball moving on Organized Play. That there appears to have been only one event since the Palladium Open House, and I've seen nothing regarding it. If it ran, how many attended, what the results were, etc.

Promoting events that disappoint or fail is one thing. Promoting events that just don't seem to exist? Not good at all. Especially if one or more gamers showed up at Strategicon after reading that announcement in the PBWU, got there and heard that no, there was no event, there was never an event, the guy who would normally run it is apparently in Scotland.

EDIT: I did a look through the events PB listed as "Upcoming Palladium Books® Convention Events" that states "Below are just some of the conventions hosting Palladium game events this year.". Of the 9 events listed prior to GenCon, we have...

Two Conventions have two RPG games each (SaltCon, RageCon).
Two Conventions have no events lists, at least in an easy to find manner (KatsuCon, Anime North).
One Convention doesn't appear to exist online (International Tabletop Day Event Hosted by RAGECon).
Four Conventions that have event lists and don't show a single RRT or PBRPG event, as of now (Strategicon, Pensacon, CoastCon, Adepticon).

That's not a good looking ratio for the RPG side (four events over nine conventions). Less so for RRT which seemingly has no events up to and including GenCon.

Well as Anime North has not come even close to finalizing our events yet........we haven't posted anything.

When the time comes we will post things.

BUT PB will have a nice area to run any events they wish........I have seen the floor plan and that is almost final.

[glitterboy2098]

in regards to conspiracy theories..

i was hoping to head off the kind of overreacting that was being done in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=97&t=150226

where some posters were treating the news more like it was an intentional falsehood by palladium.

[Forar]

Oh please, if by "conspiracy theories" you mean the "mystery deepens" style stuff, that was clearly said in a joking fashion.

And yet here we are a month later; still no information on Wave 2, and apparently the biggest tournament for RRT ever didn't exist.

So at least that's consistent.

[Tiree]

Yeah, Dundracon was held that same weekend in the Bay Area, I did not see on PB event in the catalog (both RTT and RPG)

The Bay Area used to have a very active MA demo team who ran PB RPG events for years. What happened?

If you are talking about Novastar, I'd ask him. But he doesn't come here to PB, so you would have to hit him up on RPG.net

[zyanitevp]

So, I was surprised to hear that there was going to be a tournament in my backyard, without any involvement from myself, but I figured that PB knew I was having surgery on the 16th, and knew I could not attend OrcCon that weekend.
I did reach out to a couple of friends that went, and just read their email- not one RRT event, not one game seen.
When I am well enough to talk again I will try to find out what happened, but this was inexcusable to me.

As far as MA's and organized play, the biggest stumbling block was getting approval- I turned it over to Jake, another coordinator, a while back.

[Forar]

Get well soon, Z.

[rosco60559]

Gb, what else are backers to think? A year ago we were told we'd get info on the state of wave 2. Now for a rough example I understand being lead around for an answer if I demanded to know how much gold is actually in Fort Knox, if not told go away it's classified. The info for wave 2 should be shared to help hype it, not **** off the people that were promised a back stage pass about the development.
Now take a peak at the cons listed. Most of those pb says they'll be there. Pb is only listed at gen con and adepticon as a vendor. They missed the boat by a huge margin for adepticon who regularly updates their event list. So there is literally no rrt listed at any of those cons, no conspiracy needed pb is relying on the demo guys way too much and refuse to do it themselves. Rrt is pretty well done, there may be a bit of a heart beat if wave2 ever shows but it'll look more like a false alarm instead of possible full recovery.

[wilycoyote]

Just to add this is not a conspiracy theory as you allude to in your post GB, these are the actual facts.

Palladium have been talking big about the relaunch of RTT , but it would seem to be that this is again just words and not backed up by actions.

The Conspracy Theory is that this is also indicative of their progress on Wave 2, a lot a well meaning rhetoric, but very little to show in cold hard facts. Three years in and still no test pieces for all the W2 product, nevermind the resin bases/objectives? Therefore, can you wonder why a growing number of backers are showing a increased amount of concern about progresss?

[Spinachcat]

76 participants. Not "76 seats for a couple dozen participants over the entire tournament". If I play through 3 rounds, those may be 3 seats being filled, but I'm not "3 participants", I'm the same one in 3 different seats.

I see what you are saying, but I thought its *possible* there was confusion between "players" and "player slots" which does happen a lot during convention planning. RPGA in 4e hosted these 8 hour "Battle Interactives" and we often had to wrap our heads around how many players would be allowed, versus how many GMs needed, versus how many tables needed and "player slots" is how we worked the math to determine room space and timing.

I admit that I was mistakenly trying to offer some benefit of the doubt.

Spinachat, apologies, looking at it I was coming down a little heavy on you, but I was amused to think that at this point there could be a thriving RTT community hidden from general view, who could somehow revive the game

I can see you have an upbeat opinion of the situation, but it is fair to say, I do not share your optimism

No problemo! I'll hit you with an Acme anvil another time!

Having done lots of convention promotion, I can verify that there is a sizeable offline gaming community who never visit forums, never join FB groups and who never engage in their gaming hobby online. I know this sounds bizarre to those of us online, but I did in person interviews years ago because I really wanted to understand huh??? our marketing campaigns weren't getting the response we expected. I can confirm that there among Gamers, there are subdivisions - Gamers who attend cons, Gamers who belong to forums, and Gamers who are completely isolated beyond buying stuff at the game store.

Its very hard to communicate with the hidden gaming community.

[ScottBernard]

Its even harder when theres no attempt at communication at all.

[Forar]

Ages ago, a Blizzard representative commented on the number of their WoW userbase that came to the forums. I believe it was roughly 1 or 2% of a fairly ... enthusiastic (if not fanatical) group that actually visited with any regularity, and even less posted, and even less than that posted regularly. It came up under the idea that the forums were representative of the game's overall playerbase, when it was far from the truth. Forums and other such gatherings are highly self selecting (by definition). Wargames and RPGs can both be very social circle oriented, but competitive wargaming requires getting that word out broadly, especially when there's nothing resembling a massive user base to rely on for word of mouth.

That said, I don't recall the event being advertised on PB's Facebook, and it doesn't seem to be on their Twitter. Sure, it got mentioned in the Newsletter, but it's not like there was a substantial effort to get the word out. There doesn't appear to be a tournament at Adepticon, and Gencon has a few weeks left before they lock down as well. So in 2015 there were 2 small tournaments for RRT, and in 2016 it looks like there will be zero at major conventions.

Which, hey, doesn't really affect me, I'm not a minis tournament kinda guy anyway, but it calls into question the amount of work and support being given. Okay, so sometime this year (TBD) they're supposed to 'relaunch' RRT, maybe 2017 will be better, but I won't believe it until I see it. Just like wave 2; show, don't tell.

But I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be enjoying my quarterly chats with Chuck for a long while to come.

[rosco60559]

forar, the date for putting in for the adepticon events passed and kevin kept asking for someone to run a rrt tournament for a month past the cut off date. it's shaping up to miss gencon this year as well. the re-launch is clearly not happening this year. not really having much faith in it ever happening, definitely no faith if wave 2 doesn't get done soon.

[WilhelmRochRedDuke]

I'll be running 4 events at gen Con this year and there are several other events listed, including a large battle on the SDF-1 on Saturday. There are two others as well including some RPG's set up.
https://www.gencon.com/event_finder