At the Nov. con I came across this individual standing by a table and talking to a gamer. Since I'm a writer, 1 eavesdropped and discovered that he was talking about the events put on by the membership at conventions. He had some pretty strong opinions. When I got a chance I braced him and asked him to write an article for us about convention events. He demurred, saying that once the membership read the article he would be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. (His exact words.) After some convincing that I would not revel his name even on pain of death, he wrote the following. Event producers, listen up' He makes some valid points, and we (myself included) can get a better idea how we can improve on staging our events. First let me apologize for my misspellings and poor English. (No problem that's why I'm here, Ed] I'm not out to "get" anyone, I just want to say that I've been coming to LA wargame conventions since the early '80s, and I have watched how people do things. Some things they do are stupid. Let me tell you before I start, I do not own any figures, I work as night guard so I have low income, and my apartment is too small to store them. My health isn't the greatest, and it has affected my physical appearance, somewhat so I look like a "nerd." But I still love to look at the figures and play games with them. That said, I wonder why you people ruin such potential beauty, by being so mean, bad tempered and unreasonable? In the last couple of years the only game I felt truly welcome and appreciated was Rich {de} Rosa's Word War One game. He is a good guy who is not pushy, and is very helpful to novices. The big problem is his game takes all day. When I come to a convention I want to play 4 games in a two day period. I work Saturday night so I can't play in the evening. I always miss the chariot race game because of this. Steve Phenow and John Currin's ACW group {Drum Barracks Battle Group) is another "big game" group. The battles are so long that they go late into the evening, and I can't play that long. What I like about them is they are friendly, the lead solders are well painted, and their boards are always the best looking in the convention. I don't like their card drawing system for movement, and I think the rules are hard to understand. But when they {Steve & John) are judging the game, both are firm on their decisions. I think this makes for a better game though they may not have as many friends as those judges who try to please everybody. I recall a large Empire game a few years ago. It was a battle between the Russians and French on the snow. They put down a large white sheet, and put out thousands of troops. I like Napoleonics and Frederick the Great periods, because the troops are so colorful, so I was really wanted to play in this game. What a disappointment! First they arrived and started setting up, late. Next an argument become heated about where to put some terrain. One side said it was not accurate and demanded it to he removed. The other side said no. The game master listened to both sides and never made a rule. Then once the game was ready to start, both sides complained about the snow movement. We played three turns, before we had to give up the table. While they taking down the board, they were still arguing about snow movement! My worst idea of gamers at cons are those guys who will only let guys that know a lot about the game. If you've never played {those rules) before, you can't play with them since they can't take the time to explain the rules. I also don't like tournaments. Because you have to bring your own favorite army, you can't play if you don't have one. {Not always true, Ed.) I think there should be special cons just for tournaments. Finally there are the air war people. I always play in air war games because they are over so quick. But I don't like being shot down because I wasn't sure of a rule, then having a guy who beat gloat about it. I know it's just a game, but it still makes me sore. And that's all I'm going to say about it. How can you game masters improve? Play your game at home before the convention. That way you can weed out problems with rules. {Great idea, Ed.) Be nice to everybody. Not everybody knows you, or are members of your clubs. If you have someone playing in your game who doesn't paint or have figures, don't assume there is a lack of interest. It might just be that person wants to participate, but there are reasons to stop him from doing so. Back to Table of Contents The Messenger February 1996 Back to The Messenger List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1996 by HMGS/PSW. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com