'09CY POH ~ Question for Game Masters running a story...

[Spinachcat]

Hello PlainDre,

First, the best way to learn how to GM is to play in lots of games with good GMs. I was very impressed with the GM quality at the Open House so you will be in good hands with any of the freelancers or the volunteer GMs. Except for Carmen Bellaire because he likes to crush player's hopes and dreams like brittle bones in a mauseleum of the insane!

For the last OH, many of the GMs posted what they were running beforehand and then PB put up a page with the game schedule. At VIP night, the VIP attendees got to sign up for games in advance and then on Saturday morning, everyone else got their badges and signed up on the schedule sheets for games. I have no idea how they will do it in 2009. Also, lots of GMs ran pick-up games on the open gaming tables and several GMs ran games at night at the hotel. Notably Braden Campbell did a playtest of Thundercloud Galaxy and the afforementioned monster named Carmen caused havoc for our group in an awesome Rifts adventure. If you want a good overview of what to expect for games, cull through this forum for old threads about the Open House 2007.

BTW, I posted a thread on this forum about what games you want to play, so put in your requests just in case the GMs need some ideas.

One note though. Convention games are quite different than campaigns because they have to be self contained with a beginning, middle and end within about 4 hours. All the action has to be condensed and stories shortened. Think of them more like a 30 minute episode instead of a lengthy novel.

[Reelman]

All the Open House GMs are top notch and bring their "A" game. The styles may vary but something can be learned from one and all. Also, there will be panel talks about the craft of storytelling and GMing. I was pretty busy running games at the past OHs but the panel I did sit on was awesome and I learned quite a bit from my fellow OH GMs and hopefully passed on a bit of wisdom to those in attendance.

[ApocalypseZero]

I plan on running games that have been solid for me this time around instead of trying something brand new and experimenting with it there. My Black Market Retrieval game sort of sucked out for me (on my end, not my players).

I've also been toying with the idea of 'B.Y.O.C.' (Bring Your Own Character) and just running a Megaversal style game on the fly. I can only hope that if I do such a thing, everyone doesn't show up with Level 15's......Then again, that could be interesting. I might be labeled in the same way as Carmen though.

"But I'm Level 15!?"

"No, you're dead."