043: - Should You Go to a Tabletop Convention? What Gamers Need to Know – with Gary ‘Gaz’ Bowerbank - Claim to Game

Episode Transcript
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>> Clint Scheirer (00:00):
Tabletop role playing games? I thought
that was something you played in your basement with a bunch of weirdo
friends and Cheeto fingers. Dangerously
cheesy. Not so Gary
Gaz B from the unconventional GM's YouTube channel
and also 1/2 of the UK's premiere
RPG tabletop podcast. What would the smart
party do? He has a plethora

(00:23):
of experience. We got a plethora of sandwiches for ya
going to gaming conventions, gaming events, pretty
much anything where youre not just sitting in your basement with your
weirdo friends. Lets have him tell you why you should go to a
tabletop gaming convention and everything else you need to know.
Lets go make that claim to game M.

(01:12):
True confession. I have never been
to a live gaming event at the time of
this.

>> Gaz (01:18):
Talk what are you doing with your life?

I don't know. Maybe I'm taking care of kids under
the age of nine. I
regardless I want to go to a
convention. We have a lot of really great conventions here in
the U packs Unplugged. Gen Con.
there's I think several other paxes. There's an Origins
conference. It's all over the place.
I think I live here in well I don't think I know. I live here

(01:44):
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
And they recently had the
U Gygax.
What's it, what's it called? Luke. Luke Gygax. Put
on a.

>> Gaz (01:55):
Have a Gary Con.

Gary Conhan. That's the. I was looking at your name on.

>> Gaz (01:59):
There and I was like I should get free invites. Frankly I'm
quite insulted.

Yeah, you should get a free invite to Gary Con. So like
there's cons everywhere.
But you told me in a previous conversation
that you've been to tons
of conferences in your your gaming
career in your lifetime. Tell me a little
bit about what you love about them, what makes them worth going
to instead of just playing a home game with with

(02:24):
your friends which is finde in itself.

>> Gaz (02:26):
Yeah well I might flip the script on you a little bit when you say you've not
been to any have you been to like get local game story
events or anything like that or just literally liter. Oh wow.
Okay.

I go into my local game stores and nerd out with the people
who work there and talk about all the games that I love but I've never
actually signed up for a game because I've always been of
that mindset. Like I can do that myself. I can run that
myself and I think I'M missing out.

>> Gaz (02:50):
Yeah, I mean for sure. So the thing
is with events is they're a mixed
bag. So that's the first thing you're got toa take. I mean I know
a lot of people are really comfortable with their like home group or whatever and
just don't wanna risk stranger danger or
perhaps worried about how things might work out. So there is a
slight element of that when you would do anything,

(03:10):
but the rewards are quite great. So
for example, my co host that I have an unconventional
GM's guy, I met him through going through a convention for
example and that sort of thing. So it's exposing
yourself to a bunch of new people, new ideas, new ways a
playing different games, all kinds of things
and there's all kinds of different sizes and shapes. I'm sure

(03:30):
we can get into that. But for
me'is that meeting other people. So
like you can kind of get comfy and you're great. But it
would, it's like having a burger for your dinner
every day and you might love burgers. Welcome to Good Burger, Home.

Another Good Burger.

>> Gaz (03:45):
And that's great and I'm happy for you. But after like 10 years do you still want
a burger or do you want to try a curry or a lasaga or
you know, a salad maybe? So
sure, you might have a meal that you don't like, but I'm
guaranteed if, if you eat enough meals you'll find something you like.
So that's the beauty of going to different convention events is that
you get different styles. Also you get to experience different

(04:06):
people's play styles and how they do
things. So either as a player or a gym m you can pick up tips and
hints and see how people do things. You might say how people
do things and go, I don't want to do that. That's, I
don't agree with your style of play or it's just not to my preference or whatever
it might be. It's a way of connecting with people about
fin out games you might not otherwise know about, about getting real

(04:26):
experience of things that you haven't experienced before.
So for example, if you want to play a game and you've seen
it on the shelves and maybe you've read it and just think, I
really like Apocalypse World as a classic example. A lot of people have
read that and gone okay, Everydy Talsmith is
amazing. I've read the book. Still not quite sure what I
do. But you can go to an event, get someone to
run the game for you who's really experienced with it and then you'll have a really good

(04:48):
insight into whether that game's for you or not. Or it might open up an all you
world to or you might think okay, I've tried it now and that's not
really something I'm down for. But it's a way
of experience new and different things and people.

I heard a few things in what you just said. So connecting to
people, learning about
strategies for how you would run a game or play in a
game that you might want to or to go play a game that
you've never played before and don't find
yourself playing it with your home group or maybe don't have the right
group of people to do it with. What's a game you did that with?
What's a game that you're like you've wanted. You wanted to play

(05:22):
forever. And then finally it
was being run at a convention and you're like sign me up.

>> Gaz (05:27):
It's probably less so these days because
I play online. I've got the conventional YouTube channel. We'd play lotads
of different things there. And I've been going to events for so long
now, like easily 30 years if not
more. I can't tell you what the original games were there
want but like in the early days it was more or less anything because
I had quite a small set of games that I played. And then

(05:47):
you got to a convention. This is before the days of the Internet. Like
your younger listeners might have to cast the minds back or
this is the before times before you were re even born. But we
didn't. We can just go on like you know a website and buy things
you had to go to an event and this, this was a prime thing
for conventions back day was to buy things like you'd find out what
was actually available cause you hadn't read about it in a magazine

(06:08):
that you wouldn't know so you could pick up
games for purchase was a good reason to go to a
convention back in maybe the 80s or 90s.
and then obviously to play as well. So I think
the main one I've tried to play that I still not had a satisfactory
game from that's when I could think of is Mage the Ascension
or one of the versions of the White Wolf mage game

(06:29):
where you play a magician and you pull together spheres of
magic and but can basically bend reality and create any spell you
want given certain restrictions.
I've always wondered like how do d you do that? How do you make that
good? How's it compelling when you can change
reality? That kind of thing. And unfortunately, as yet,
I've still not yet had the experience, but I'm
searching for it. If anyone out there is thinking of everyone emerging to let me

(06:51):
know. But it is a way of checking
things out. And then the conclusion I've come to with
Mege, for example, is it's too much hard work to get a
good experience out of it. and there's many of other games I'd rather play something
else. But it saved me having to learn
and try and get people to sign up for a campaign and run it for a home group
and us trying and fumble away through it.

For example, I've heard of Mage, the Ascension,
and I have some people that have tried to get me to play it.
Now, when you said that you haven't had a satisfactory experience
in the bending of reality, are you talking about like
you've played the game and the storytelling
didn't feel like it matched that level
of like gravity of a situation where all

(07:31):
of reality is bending?

>> Gaz (07:33):
it's, it's the what do you do?
So, and any game you play, like, what's the premise?
What do you. What do players do in that game? That's the first thing I want
to know. And why I get upset with some games that I read when they. I don't know what
I'm supposed to do in this setting. Again, it's another older
game, but Nephilim was a really interesting game. We had
lots of past lives. And you could create a character that was

(07:53):
part. Used to be a Babylonian princess and then an
Eastern criminal. And maybe it was a nightight
in Charownes's empire. It's like, I've made this really cool, interesting
character. Now what do I do? And that question was never really
answered for me. And in Mage, it's kind of. You can
do what you want. So we'presented in the session I
remember from Janenkan UK with some kind of meta mystery. And

(08:14):
I tried to use some magic to do something. She's like, oh,
why don't you just roll enigmas and find out who the murder is?
Like, okay, I'll do that then. And that
like any obstacle we could just defeat. And so it's like, well,
where's the challenge then? What are we supposed to be doing
that's compelling for me? Cause I've got something to. I need
to do that's a challenge. And I can't just Sol with magic, perhaps,
or requires, inventive uses of magic over a

(08:36):
period of time and it wasn't there. The trouble
I've had at convention games with some wolf people back in the day, in
the olden times, hopefully it's better now, was
they really took the storytelling thing to heart so they would
tell you stories. And I, as a
player, want to join in. Now some people are happy going and playing a
convention game and basically absorbing a story and,

(08:57):
occasionally rollling some dice. I'm more of an active player and
I want to join in on whatever's happening. So for me, that's
not my sort of thing. And that's not to say that that's how all mage games are
played. I'd like to think it isn't,
but I've had several experiences of it and each
time I'm struggling to see what's my premise, what do.
What am I invested in as a character, what do I want to achieve,
what's stopping me doing that? And I haven't seen a

(09:19):
really interesting way of doing it yet, which isn't to say
it's not out there, it's just I haven't seen it yet.

So this is interesting. So you had an
experience at a convention where it felt
like what you wanted to do was sort of push
to the side. as a gm, when
you have players, how do you help them
find their premise and also give them
agency and not just tell them what they should be doing,
but allowing them to explore the game.

>> Gaz (09:47):
Well, I guess my lead into this is, an
anecdote I'll tell you from. I think it's 2000. It was
Manchester, it was the UK Genom was there for one
year. And, they had the RPGA, I think it was, that
organized all the games. And they did that in a way where you got
everybod a massive scrum and it's like, who wants to play col Cthulhu? And
like loads of hands that go up. And then they try and put people in a game and he wants
to play Dungeons and Dragons, okay. And they do that sort of thing

(10:10):
and they deliberately split people up. So if you went with
your buddies from home, you wonn't be allowed to play with them because there was
some kind of point scoring thing in the RPGA that we didn't
care about. We just wanted to play with our friends. But likeh, no, you might game the
system so you're not allowed to play together. So they
forcibly moved into different groups. And there's
more I could go into with that, but it was an unpleasant
Experience and frustrating. And I confronted the

(10:33):
organizer at the end of it. To say he is all the things wrong
with your system and the way this works had come out just isn't
good enough. I'm unhappy. These are my
reasons. And to his credit, he stood there
for a good half an hour, hour, an hour long. The conversation lasted and
took all that, but in the end said, well, if you think it should be done
differently, why don't you do it like you

(10:53):
show other people how it's done than if you've got a better idea. I was like, o,
fair point, actually, I'll do that. So it was from
then that I started GMing at conventions. I
mentioned that storyus in my mind immediately then was like, well, what
do I want? If I was a player, what would I like to see from m the
games? And I'm going to demonstrate how you can provide that as a gm
and hopefully over time other people will pick up

(11:14):
on that and you'll share ideas and you know, I'll get. There's a higher
chance of me getting the games I want to play if I show people how to run
them the way I like. Which again is a preference
thing to a certain degree. But there's also some behaviors that
are, are worthwhile regardless.
So for my games at conventions, the first thing you have is a strong
premise. So we, we know what the mission

(11:34):
is. That's basically, it's like you have to go and get this thing,
you have to rescue this princess, you have to
stop the invaders taking over the castle, whatever
it is, in whatever system or game you're playing, there's a strong
premise. And then I often lead my adventures based on the
characters. So the stuff on the character sheet that you have
should be directly relevant to the game you're
playing, particularly the session you're playing.

(11:56):
So if you have enemy Black Alame Meade written on
your sheet, the pirate Black Alame Meade should turn
up in that session. Otherwise why is it on there and that sort of
thing. So you can direct all the advantages, disadvantages, whatever
background story you want to put on there relevant to things that are going to
come up in the session or giving players the
opportunity to hit those buttons and go, oh, this guy's interesting.

(12:17):
Or I've got this sword called, Dorita's
red tail. Whr. Where does that come from? What's the all that about?
Well, someone's going to turn bl for it back in a minute because
you took it off his father or something. So
you Just em edge your characters with some hooks so you don't want
to overwhelm people. Cause quite often a convention sessions two to
four hours and there's least so much you can get in, especially if you've

(12:37):
got five or six players. But if each player's got a
couple of things that are hooks that tie directly to the
scenario and we know what we're doing when we set up, you say,
okay, we're playing Deadlands. You are the good
guys. There's g some weird stuff around here. and you're going
to this town because it's haunted and the reverend
of the church has sent you a letter saying please help us. No one else can.

(12:57):
Right. You're the white hats, you're the good guys. You're there to help
people need to solve a gas problem. Everybody knows
what the mission is. Good. Everybody signed up for it. Let's go and do
that.

So this leads me to another
question that we were talking about back and forth in
email. Sometimes you have some interesting personalities
at the table.

>> Gaz (13:16):
M.

Right. And what do you do when you
have a player in one of your games at a convention that
doesn'tnn pick up that ball? I think
that was the term that Robin Laws used when I was chatting with him
almost a year ago. He was saying, you know, if there's
a premise, if there's a story, if this is the
mission, you pick the ball up and you run with it. You

(13:40):
don't slap the ball down and say, I'm going to go back to the tavern
back at our home base. How do you, how do you
redirect somebody in a way that still makes them
motivated to want to play and not just shut down or give
you, give you the lip.

>> Gaz (13:54):
Right. So it can be tricky. I've chatted to Rubbin quite
a few times now. I'm big on his premise acceptance. I think that's
right. So the first thing to say is there's a lot
of problems in game or in session that
are solved by having a, grown up
adult human interaction with the other person
and lots of people trying, well, if I use this system, maybe
that'll fix it. Or yeah, my players having a real hard time role

(14:16):
playing with this system. What system can I use to get to, to rolepl play? Well,
the system's not going to do that for you quite often as the GM as
well, the other players won't say anything. They'll look to you as
like social secretary. They want to arbiter things. So if someone's
being unpleasant. they'll kind of all just shrink back and look
at the character sheets and work for you to sort out. But all these
things are solved by speaking to some answer. If you've laid out your premise
clearly and someone's refusing to engage, I

(14:39):
would have a little break and say sorry, did you? Perhaps I wasn't
clear. Let me rera what we're trying to do here. Like, are you
happy with that? And you might have to get to a point where if someone's just
unwilling to play the game that they've signed up for and you're
telling them what they are and you're being reasonable,
you've got a decision to make. Is like, well, this is the game we are
playing. You can either join in with that or not.

(15:00):
But if you're not doing, you're go goingna get very bored because I'm not going to include
you. I'm not going back to the tavern to talk about what's
happening there and I m don't really want any interruptions or anything like that. So
maybe this isn't the GE for you and we can talk
about safety tools and things like that. But one the key one that me and
Guy use all the time is open table. So if someone wants
to leave the game table at any time for any reason,

(15:20):
that's fine. There's historically been a problem with people
thinking I can't leave or it'be awkwardid or spoil things or
what should I do? Like honestly, just start out with your safety tools
and say open table. If this game's just not for
you or something's come up or whatever it is,
you can just leave. The only thing we ask is if you're not coming back, let
us know so we don't hangry around waiting for you. But

(15:40):
if you've got that already set out as a tool, then when
someone's been awkward, you can say, look, I don't know what the
misunderstanding is here. I can rephrase it for you. I can see like what else are
you looking to see? You can try and. But you have to do it just
human to human. You have to break out of game time and being GM player
and say, look buddy, this is the game we play. This is what you signed up for.
This is what was on the description of the sheet. I've laid it

(16:00):
out. Everyy else seems happy. What's, you know, what gives? Can you join
in with that? Are you happy to. And if you're not, you can always walk away
if you want, but the choice is yours. But we're playing this
game, and, that's how it's gonna be.

Have you ever had people take you up on the open table
rule?

>> Gaz (16:15):
Eventually, yeah. I mean, you do get some people who just, like, are then
sullen and go, suppose I'DO this.
They don't want to be railroad, if they call it. Or have the
ranc who just, like, you'telling me what to do. I was like,
no, I've set up a framework of what we're
doing and that, you know, if you're playing soccer,
as you guys would call it, football, like, you kick the ball, your foot, if

(16:35):
you're saying you want to pick it up and run with it. That's not the rule
of this game. So go and play rugby. I do American football, whatever
it is. But there'certain boundaries that you
have. Like, we're all agreeing to do this thing, and if you're not, go going toa do
that or be disruptive, go away. You know,
I've had people who've had a guy who's drunk who
started screwing up, like, the handouts on the table

(16:56):
and swearing and just being rud
had, to tell him to leave. And, it can be an awkward
conversation. Not everybody's as conf as perhaps I am. And
I'm not as confident some people think I am, perhaps. But
ultimately, you've got organizers. You can goti to help
you. You can ask the people around the table. You can try and appeal to him generally.
I mean, in particular one where we had Ann Norweigian guy. Happily, he

(17:16):
went to get a beer and got lost and come find you way back to the gaming
table. So that problem solved it yourself.

That sounds like the premise, to another tabletop
game. The Norwegian guy got lost, but you got toa go save them.

>> Gaz (17:29):
Noregians. Yeah. But, yes,
you can just get people who just hang around because they feel like they have to be
there or they don't feel they've got anything else they can do or to play, but
they're gonna be awkward about it. Again, I have
regular breaks in my game, so after an hour, if it still looks like they're
not happy, I can say, you don't seem like you're enjoying yourself.
Don't feel like you have to be here. I was like, no, no signed up.

(17:50):
Just, like, just have to explain. You're not helping anyone.
You're not happy. I'm not happy. Nobody else is
improving the session that they'having by having you being sulky about
it. So just go.
Unfortunately, all too often you have people who will stay like be
grudgingly because'they've signed up for their sessions.
We like no one's happy with this, including you.

(18:10):
So like why would you hang around? Like just go and do something else. You
know, check out the tread hold, go to the bar, do whatever you want,
get a burger, a Krabby Pattyedie
Kindle. I've done that before now he's a.

Norwegian guy when you find him.

>> Gaz (18:23):
Yeah, exactly.
I mean I left games before now and it used to be like a weird
thing. Like really back in the good old days. Like I say, sort of the
90s, you had to almost make excuses and I was
like text a friend to come and say IH got ca trouble so that
I could leave. And the gems going, oh, that's a real
shame all but we need you for this. It's like you clearly don't.
There's seven people in this game and we. It's

(18:46):
moving like molasses on a cold day. Like you don't need
anybody including me here.

We have a sweet spot for the number of people that you
like to run a game for.

>> Gaz (18:55):
Yeah, well, it depends on the system. But broadly for a
traditional style game, like five players is my
ma. and I d go for four normally. And
certainly for more narrative or in your games I tend to go four
players. And I think yeah,
we just. There's a weird thing with conventions that
four hours and six players has become a thing. I

(19:15):
don't know when it first started, I don't know who invented that number or whether it was
arbitrarily they come across. But that seems to be
like a standard in most big conventions. And I have
no idea why. Like games don't need to be four hours.
You can pack a lot into less than that. And if
naturally you've come to the end of a good session after three,
call it. So look guys, this is like everything we had and it

(19:36):
seems like we're a great time, let's do that. Otherwise you can feel
like, you know when you see some movies that have DVD
extras so you watch it for the extra content and think actually the original movie
is great. I see why they edited it. Like I don't need all this extra
paddinge. you know, I've had a game where someone tried to split
it into two sessions. Cause he was trying to give us our money worth and
inverted commas and that made, you know, a four hour session
last Six hours. And again, I could have been playing a different

(19:59):
game. So, yeah, and having
six players, if you think about it, if you're spending, say, five
minutes with each player and there's six of them, that's already half an
hour. So once you've got everything ready
to do something twice, I had a bit of interaction with your first hour'gone
already. I mean, it's a lot. Even with
FirePL players, it's not much less, but it's significantly less
that it feels like more people have got more

(20:21):
time. And, it's a bit of a tiebreaker. So you don't get a
3B3 situation where it's like, are we gonna go save the
princess or are we staying in the pub? Like, a odd number of
players gives you a tieaker. So they're going to decide on something quite
often. I mean, ideally they accept the premise and go and save the
princess anyway. But, like, I think
five, for me, it'the maximum. There seems to be like, some guys. You've
got this. I can run for seven, I can run for eight. It's like, I can.

(20:44):
But it's not as much fun as running for four or five because the
people involved in the game get more airtime, you get more screen time, you get to do
more, like, it's just much more fun. So why
would you run for eight?

I ran for nine one time because I thought it would be
fun. It was. I was
mentally and emotionally exhausted at the end of that game.
It was a, level 18 Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition
game because I was like, nobody ever goes past
15. Like, level 15 is where all characters
die. But I was like, not today. We're going to start on
18 and we will die if we have to die.

(21:16):
It was a lot.

>> Gaz (21:17):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. You've got to think that, like,
people switch off on LE interests. Like, I'm keen on trying
to get people to stay focused on a game, but if you've got a lot of people
in your game, just naturally anyone will lose
interest if it's been 20 minutes since they've had an
interaction. The temptation to look at your phone
or chat about the football or say, o, have you
been to the Trade Hall? I just generally talk about something that's not. What's happening at

(21:40):
the table is just great because we've all
got quite short attention spans and you can try and listen to
other players and be interested in the story, but if there's a lot of
you, it's just a long time waiting to be involved. Now
if you're the sort of player that lacks hearing the story, as I mentioned earlier
alludedt, you're probably fine with that. But for more active players
or people who want to be involved, that's the death, death

(22:00):
knell. They'll just lose interest. And it's not your fault as a GM at the
table probably. It's just that you've got too many people that you need to
try and keep track of all the time, constantly.

How do you pace breaks a at a convention, right? If
it's three hours of play, do you just every
hour, every 20 minutes like you said? Or
is that breaking the first. I remember Guy said
versilitude. We were loving that word last time when we were
talking. Like does that break the flow? What's your sweet
spot?

>> Gaz (22:26):
it could depend. It's more of a vibe thing for me. I've run a lot
of games now, over the many years of variety of different
systems with different people from different continents and all kinds of
stuff. I am. I'll try to in for about an
hour and see how it's going. And if it's a three hour
game and everybody's just like, can't get a
word in edgeways cause they're still chatting at an our point and they like,
everybody's like u we need to do this, we need to do this. Like I'm not

(22:48):
gonna cut it dead and say no, we have to have a break now.
I'll probably let it run to like the halfway mark, then we'll have a break and then
we'll have a second half if it's a bit more
languorous. People are, you know, oh, what should we
do? And I don't know. Or you've just come to the end of a decent scene
or there's a clear choice to make and people aren't really
sure. It's like okay, well this seems like a good time to have a break. We'll

(23:08):
take 5, 10 minutes, you can chat amongst yourselves, get a drink, comfort break,
whatever you need to do and then we'll come back to it.
So just feel how it goes, you know.

So I'm going toa take it a step back, right? You get the new
people, they're sitting down at the table,
you can give them the premise.
how do you break the ice? Like how do, do you
just jump right into the story? Do you do the whole like
hi, my name is Gary and I like,
you know, geez. Or, or do you go into I

(23:38):
mean, I don't know if you like cheese or not, but you know, how do you,
how do you break that?

>> Gaz (23:43):
Yeah, See, there's again an
odds. There's all kinds of sets of behaviors you'll find at
conventions where. Because if you've not been to someone before, you've got
how you and your homegr group are and you're into a
whole new world. You're not in Kansas anymore. Once you go into the real world,
she'll meet all kinds of people. And in their head, the
way they play potentially is how gaming done because that's how

(24:03):
they've always done it with their group, wherever they're from. And you get more
people who just generally know around. But there's people I
go on, I see at the Sheffield conventions, of which there's a few that happen
throughout the calendar and they just don't.
I must have known them for like 20 years, some of them. And they just don't
have any social skills. Should I say,
like they don't say hello. They will come to just sit

(24:23):
down, grab a character and just start playing. And then there's
no. They're just into role playing and that's all it is.
Which is fine if that's how they want to be. I just start by
saying, hello, I'm gas. Even if I know everyone
around the table, I just say hello, I'm
gas. This is what we're playing. This is the premise. Here's
some characters. I'll do a five minutes spiel on how the rules

(24:43):
work. I'll mention the safety tools.
So you decide how you wa wantn distribute the characters or I can do it for you.
Roll randomly, whatever you wanna do. Have a look at them, any
questions. And then at that point, normally as we re going through,
people say like, well, what's this do? Do we need a
fighter? Like just start asking questions and you can just kind of have a
bit of a natural conversation. Let that

(25:04):
slowly just bumble along until you've got to the point where everybody happy,
everybody got something. People ask rules, questions and things or
what does this mean? And what's that? And you just start
asking questions and giving answers and then you get to a point where're comfortable. And
then when I start the game.
So once we'sure we're goods. Okay, let's get
going. Let's introduce our characters. So even though
I've already explained in brief what all the characters are,

(25:25):
now they're all out on the table and people have forgotten because they've got Their own one
in front of them. I'll get each person to introduce their
character to everybody else. And some people
add real flourish and producer and stuff. Some people just
read what's on the back of the character sheet. Some people go, ah,
good with a sword and a bow and IFI
strength. Some people just don't
know what to do. And I was like, you can just

(25:48):
give us a one line like what you re wearing, what your clothes you
weari what do you look like? Anything? Or Another good technique
that guys use sometimes. Like which, you know, which Hollywood
movie actors playing you in this.

Oh yeah, casting, casting the character.

>> Gaz (26:02):
So you know, I had a monk in his Feng Tree game that was Jessason
Statham or something which just, just. I'm gonna make this thing
blee immediately like
perception.

What the game was a halfling barbarian is Jason Momoa.

>> Gaz (26:15):
Yes. Right. Just really small and
bulky. Yeah but that's like through
going through the procedure of the
just saying Hela was a human being first of all because some people
don't. Can't remember what they signed up for. She and Gaz,
we're playing this game. This is what it's about. Here's the
characters, here's the rules, here's some questions. But within

(26:35):
10 minutes you should be playing. And by that point, through the mechanism of
describing the game characters, you should have had some
interactions with people.

So being in
different, different conventions, I
recently. You got to go to the Kraken
convention in Germany.

>> Gaz (26:55):
The gaming retreat.

Yes, the gaming retreat. And I've heard so
much wonderful feedback about that.
I saw some pretty cool pictures of you playing with some pretty cool
people in a pretty cool like mansion
castle. Tell me about that experience.
Like what makes that so magical and just really
cool magic.

>> Gaz (27:15):
Yeah, well, I've had to tell some of the people, some of the guys who got there
are coming to Chaosium Con in the uk which is happening this weekend
actually at time of recording. and I've had to explain to them
like it won't be as good as the Kraken because that was their
first comment and they've already started at the top and everything now is
going toa seem like a pale imitation. But
to go back many years for m
probably think it was 13 years at round there was a convention called

(27:37):
Tentacles which was in Bakarak. It
was on the Rhine, in this castle begstalek,
which sits perched on a
mountain overlooking the Rhine snaking below. A beautiful
venue, but it's a Youth hostel.
So it was good when we were all younger cause you could
go and you know it's dirt cheap. It was
€99 for the weekend and bottles of beer were

(28:00):
like less than a year on stuff and all great. But
it was like bunk beds and the food was pretty
basic as you imagine from a youth hostel.
So when that's kind of wrapped up, Fabian who, he was
the main organizer like started looking around with some of his
friends and so like well want, we want to more grown up
things. So why I've said gaming retreat is that's what Fabian

(28:20):
calls it because it's more.
You don't have to be our age together there or my age
certainly. But for an older,
more refined audience you might want a twin,
you know, twin bedroom with enuite and you might want good food and
you might want, you know, just generally nicesr surroundings and things
like that. So I think it was about 10 years or

(28:41):
so. They happened across Schlossnhausen in
Beger which is out in the worlds of
Brandenburg. If you're geographically
astute listeners they can draw a line between
Hamburger and Berlin on the map and it's about halfway. So it's out in the middle of
nowhere. It can be a little tricky to get to.
But it is an old Schloss, which has been
revamped I guess renovated to a certain

(29:03):
degree. but it's lovely. Yes. so quite small.
they did get over 100 people at one point and that proved too many.
Like the guys who run the convention were saying like they
couldn't. They had every oven device
available on all the time to try and cook to accommodate
people. So it's down to about 60 or 80 people now.
But it's a few days, you can book extra days. Like I said the

(29:23):
accommodations probably 3 star BNB or something. You know you're
in a reasonable twin bedrooms
mostly most of them are suites. You get
three meals a day, you get coffee and cake at 4
o'clock. There's a big beer fridge that is full of
soft drinks and all kinds of different beers and m, there's
wine and what have you and there's tea and coffee on tar
time. For afternoon tea you basically pay a price up

(29:46):
front and then it's free at the point of use which is great
because then there's no like oh, should I get around,
Should I ask people if they want to drink? Am I going not paying for lots of things? Do
I have to carry euros around me? Because I'm not used to Carrying that. I'm
used to pounds or dollars in your case or whatever. So when
you're actually there, everybody can just do
whatever. So that's a great way of just like you get it from the

(30:07):
gaming table. He wants a drink, he wants anything because you, you should grab it and
bring it back to the table. So that's a great community
atmosphere. And it just over the years
engendered a good feeling of just Bonhommie becausee
it's in these wonderful surroundings out the middle of nowhere. He's
surrounded by forest and fields, certainly the spring
and summer wonder. If the weather's good, you can sort of drag the beer tables
outside and play out on the lawn under the shade of a tree or something

(30:29):
like that. And the open, the open air, all
wonderful. There's extracurricular activities like
axe throwing and stuff like that. There's guests
of honor normally once or twice a year. So the most recent one
had Ken and Robin. You know the Ken Robin
podcast. Yeah, Menion Robin name. Checked him
earlier. So they were there, they did some seminars. I ran a game
for them. You know, you can just hang out and chat to

(30:52):
them.

Yeah.

>> Gaz (30:54):
Because of the small nature of it, Unlike a big thing like Genenkan, we
have guessed that you might have to queue up just to get an
autograph or see briefly in those kinds of surroundings you
can just be sat on the sofa and see them, then plonk yourself between them and
go so then gums sheet. Here's what
I have a problem with or whatever in the
conversation going. Fabian tries to keep
about 30% of the attendance new to keep it

(31:16):
fresh, fresh blood all the time. So you re constantly mixing things
up and getting new people. And an ethos
of the retreat is that you contribute
something so it manages to keep
going. And it's so good because some
people contribute. So in my case I run lots of games
and sometimes do seminars or whatever else as well. But
I provide a lot of gaming content. I think between me

(31:38):
guy and a friend, Andrew, who went last time we were
providing something like 15% of the games at the convention. Something
because we just run a lot each. someone else might
be his job, might be. I'm going to just keep the beer fridge stocked up or
help with the game bookings on the website or you
know, just stuff like that. Like if you can contribute a little
bit, you get the Kraken and well, you know,

(31:59):
you're welcome with open arms. If you're the sort of person who turns
up and bonds about things Or I paid for this. Where'this where is. That's like.
Well you're paying for what you get. You're
paying quite a small amount of money and it works because people
help each other out and join in and if you get
on board with that then you'll have an amazing
time. And there's a great wealth of different games. There's quite often famous guest

(32:19):
there or others. Just love thisro aroundings great fe
accommodation. Just really good. It's like a little mini holiday
that you have. And I've been to everyone one but when there was Covid I
think there was s a little. Some people went about 10 people went but I
couldn't get out there because there's no flights. But Iide that I've
been to all the Krakens becausee they're amazing.

It sounds amazing. You've sold me.
Maybe one day I can be the new blood and, and I can go.
But you know Ken and Robin, I, I love those
guys. I really appreciate Robin's book for
Laws of Good Game Mastering. Like that is that
changed the way I look at my players. getting
to talk to Ken, I think I talked to him like 4th of July of last

(32:56):
year and what a fun guy. Like just a lot
of good humor. good.
He almost got me to love horror games
which is the opposite genre of
anything that I love. I would much rather stay
away from the horror genre. But he convinced
me that horror often invokes
fear which is a natural human emotion that can actually be

(33:19):
used very well in a game. And he does it
very well.

>> Gaz (33:22):
So.

Yeah, yeah, very cool.
Okay. This is a multi day event,
right? This is, this is like all inclusive
gaming event is what I'm thinking of in my head. It just sounds
fantastic.
What would you suggest for people who are
running multiple games? Right, you got.
I, I used to used to coach swimming

(33:44):
back in the day and I remember like the next lesson would come in
and then the next lesson would come in and you're like all right,
time to get ready for the next one. And even if you love what you're
doing, it can, it can get overwhelming, it can
get exhausting. What, what would be your suggestions to somebody who's
running multiple games? Like you and Guy. 15% of the
cracking games that are going on at a convention.

>> Gaz (34:05):
Yeah. No your limits. So if it's your first
convention and some places offer like you get a free
ticket or you get a free accommodation, you should Run X number of sessions or
whatever. But if you's your first time doing that, don't like
sign up to run seven slots of games
because you might find out that after two your voice has
gone, you're sick of standing up and you're
just sleepy. So that there's. That some

(34:27):
elements you have to like build up to it a little bit. But it
depends what, Depends what excites
you. So for me, I'm m more energized
generally when I'mjaming than when I'm a player. Because you're always
on like all the players are always asking your stuff. There's things to
think about. You're trying to lay out the next parts of whatever's
gonna happen in the story or reincorporating things the players

(34:48):
said or whatever it is. But you have to think about something.
So you'll be going. And then when you finish, you might crash a bit and go,
oh, just needs to relax now.
So it's Furnace or Seven Hills or there's some of the
Sheffield conventions, for example. That's five slots.
It's three on one day, two on the next. And I run the Saturday night
and the Sunday afternoon. Caus I found that typically

(35:08):
that's when basically the players are more sleepy. Cause
everybody's getting a bit tired by that point. But also
it's better for me if I'm in charge. Like some gems have been
subopimal but I get my. Like I said, I get my energy from it.
In May as Briggs term, I'm esttp or astj. I can't rem
which but I get my energy from other people.
That's what the extrovert e means in that mys bigig st.

(35:29):
If you're an I something then it means you will need time
away. So if you're that kind of personality, you'll
want to book in slots where you do nothing. For
me, I'm happy to fill my entire calendar with playing or running
and I'll just do it all. So you need to know your own limits and
get some kind of expectation there. Make sure the games
you're running is something you want to do because I'm quite prolific

(35:50):
now and been doing it for so long. People try and ask for things
or whatever. So it will be more
tiring if you're running something that you've had to learn
new or you're not really that bothered about learning really.
So pick games that you actively want to run, which can be
tricky because sometimes you have to submit Games far ahead of when the
convention is. And by the time it comes round
there've been 18 Kickstarters and you've got like a whole different set of

(36:12):
other things that you're interested in there. So it can be a bit
tricky, but definitely runs something things you want to do.
Don't always tire yourself. Don't be afraid of having
slots off when you don't play or run. You just
have just go and lie down or just peruse the trade
holl or just go and sit out for a bit, read a book or chill
out. So if you've never been before,
that's gonna be a bit trial and error. and then you have to know your

(36:35):
own personality a little bit as well. If you get energized by other
people, you might want to fill out your calendar and just do everything all the
time and make the most of it. If you know that's not
you, don't try and fake it till you make it because
GMing will make it extra hard. You can go and play all the
slots which will be less tiring than trying to run some of them as
well.

I would be the eye. I definitely need time away. I
need slots. I need to go sit under the shade
tree. Get the Kackn.
cool.
So there's a question that I like to ask
and I usually submit this ahead of time so I'm putting
you on the spot. I'm sure you're gonna love that. your, your
GMG skills are going to be coming out here.

(37:13):
It's a phrase activity that was
given by Eric Newsm. so he used to be an NPR news
consultant. formerly npr. I think he does his own
creative works now. but the idea is
creating a 10 word phrase
that really encompanies the
core of what we've been talking about today.
Conventions. People connecting

(37:35):
with others, learning new games, finding new
games, pacing yourself, not drawing yourself
out. If you were to give our listener
10 a 10 word phrase, it can't be less than 10 words. It can't be
more than 10 words. It forces the economy of words.
What would that ten word phrase be?

>> Gaz (37:52):
Going to conventions can
be fun, but PA yourself.

Going to conventions can be fun, but pace yourself.
Is it. Was it Shakespeare that said know thyself and to the rest of
the world be true, know thyself. I
probably butchered Shakespeare just now.

>> Gaz (38:09):
I'll just say yes and we'll take
yeah, yeah. And there's all kinds of different events. Right? So
that's why you asked you initially like have you been to anything in your game
store? Because a local event like a one
day thing or a couple games or one game a day, a game store
compared to jenkcon, vastly different things.
So saying I'm going to a convention can mean

(38:30):
a whole host of different things depending on where you're going.
So if you do go to a Genen Con
really like I would say that they're not necessarily
the greatest players to try games. That's more of a trade
show of going to meet people, the writers
or guests that you might be interested in or
perusing what's available or seeing some of the small press people who are can
have a stall there. You can discover things you've never seen

(38:52):
before but you're gonna be on your feet for a lot of the day and
you're gonna be bustling about going to different parts and like games
might be a different hotel than where the convention is and it's
gonna be a mad event and you're gonna be wedged in with a lot of people
cheek by gel. So that's one thing. But if you try
a local game day like a weekend con with maybe
50 or 100 people, that's gonna be a lot more chilled

(39:13):
out and you might just be able to go and play some games and there won't
be a tradestall necessarily or anything else to do apart from play
games. But that's a way of getting
some experience of other people in other games. So
depending on what you want to achieve, you might want to pick what event is that you're
going to because the different
experiences.

So vetting the event to match where
you're at or the listener U it can be fun but
pace yourself.
is there anything else that we're missing here?
Like is there anything that you feel like we
haven't touched on or anything that you feel like the
person listening needs to know about conventions,
gaming, anything.

>> Gaz (39:53):
So wow. I've got 200
podcasts behind Mera yourself cover. They be many
things. yeah. So don't be
frightened going I like trying speak to some people beforehan.
So for example there's a
convention called Furnace which happen was in Sheffield I'MENTIONED a couple of
times that's on his 20th anniversary in
October. And they open up another another

(40:14):
room in the venue so there's going to have eight new tables and loads more
people and there's a discord so there's people asking like I
want to run a game but I'm frightened. What I do like, what do people
want to see? Unfortunately there's quite a welcoming
communities. So people say, well you can run whatever you want. And there'you know, there's
this and that and so you can get involved in an event before
you turn up is one thing. So ask around and just

(40:35):
like people always seem nervous. People will say, o I've only ever
run for my home group. Like you've said. There's a guy did that at
a recent convention went to like he brought D20 &
D because he thought that would be the game to run. And it just so happens at
those sort of Sheffield events that's about the only game that
doesn't run most of the time. It's usually anything that's not D20 &
D. But he played or ran

(40:56):
some sessions, and I'll just give you his experience from
my point of view because it might inform other people. But he
ran three sessions out of five and he found that a lot.
And as I've sort of indicated that probably is. You probably need to
pull back on that. Don't worry about what game should I bring
that other people want. Alth you can ask to get a vibe so that you're
providing something that probably people are be interested and

(41:16):
you don't have to tie yourself to something. I could give him some
advice on the characters. So like one of my
good convention tips for D20 & D savage roles, whatever. Like
don't be first level orush starting characters. That's the temptation.
People often do that and they quite often rubbish characters
that aren't very capable. And for D20 & D like it
doesn't really start till third level anyway. So if you're not

(41:36):
running like be third or fourth level. Maybe
fifth.

Fifth is my fave because that's when the fighter gets the extra
attack.

>> Gaz (41:44):
That's when you can see a fireball or an extra attack or something.
Fireball, fireball, fireball. That
might be an interesting one, but that's where I pitch that. Same for
Savage Worlds, I'd say D be seasoned. See characters have
got four or five advances. You know, just make the characters
capable and be able to do stuff. Don't feel like you have to use the
starter ones that come in the book because that'll be easiest.
tail your characters to what you're playing, as I said.

(42:06):
And the guy that I've talked about all sorts sa after is
like got. He just sort of pitched the games wrong and the wad'set
it up and he'd done it so that if his home game were running
it, we're playing it rightther, they'd have had an amazing time.
But meeting new people, he's like, his eyes were open. The skales felt like,
oh, right, okay. People don't care about that and people wa wantna know about this.
And I had to sort of say

(42:26):
yes. For the players you had this time, maybe
next time it will be different.
So some of the things you learned, I think with general kind of hints and tips
you can pick up just by exposing yourself to other people
and others were, well, for this group, that worked out
that way. But if you'd been running it for me, I'd have been happy with what
you put in or that kind of thing. So, have a bit of
flexibility. You have to go in up open minded. don't be

(42:48):
frightened of having the open table rule if you're a player as well. If
something's not for you, don't feel like, it's my first time here.
I have to sit here for four hours with these five people. I'm not really
getting on with. I don't like the system.
So just feeling comfortable. Just say, look, I'm really sorry. This isn't
for me. Like, know I'm sure lot have a great time, but I need to
go. Like, it can be awkward, especially if

(43:08):
you're not, you know, extroverted or whatever else. But
like, do you want to spend four hours
there? Is the other thing that's the calculation to do in your head. He'like, is it
all right having a bit of slight embarrassment to walk
away and then have three hours of my life back? I'm just going to sit here
quietly and have m a terrible time.

I'm hoping people are giving themselves permission by hearing you
say that it is okay to step away.

>> Gaz (43:29):
and it's why I like to use and guys. Well, we use the open table.
So the GM said it then you are social secretary quite laug
the gym and people will look to you for their cues if it's an
awkward player or when you can have breaks or things like that. We're
all adults, well grown up. I mean, there might be some younger people
listening and feel free to join in as well. Kids, you're all
welcome at my time. Like if you need

(43:49):
a break as well in a game, just say, just say, sorry,
can I just need a comfort break. No one's gonna say
no. You have to sit there and like, you know, cross your legs
and try not to Wet yourself while we come.

Hold it in.

>> Gaz (44:03):
The thing I've seen historically is too many times when people
are playing into these unwritten rules that are
social just, it's just humans just ask like you're
all, you've all got permission to ask for things if you need
it or you know, not to be there if you don't want to
be or in a break you could ask in the gym and say
look, the pacing, I'm not really getting enough here. Maybe we

(44:24):
could get, could we maybe get through a little bit more or something or
all that kind of stuff. so yeah, make sure you
stay hydrated Steve, hydrate me.
Make sure you shower. It's a bit of a cle but there are people,
you know, I'm probably poping into UK Games Expo which is
a big trade show here in a couple of weeks.
They have like toiletries dotted around the main

(44:46):
hole like a deodorant and things like that. Because there's some people
who just haven't worked out that Sammy the
soap bar is your friend. It's like just. But you
know, these shouldn't be things we have to help
people. But if it gets one person to realize
that maybe after you spent four days in a packed
haul you might be a little bit ripe, perhaps have a shower
or stuff like that, that's probably helping. The

(45:08):
old classic was the 321 rule where it's three hours of
sleep, two meals and one shower.
I'm at the stage of life where it needs to be more than three hours of sleep
and probably more than two meals to be there
but definitely one shower. So there's just self care stuff.
Make sure you've got a bottle of water with you. don't be afraid
to duck out of things. but like
you will meet new people and some won t be to your taste

(45:31):
potentially. and others will be like I've got lifelong friends
I've met by going to conventions and as a GM and as a
player I've picked up tips and hints and
ways of playing and styles of presenting my game and stuff that I
would just never have if I'd been on my own. You
can see on the Internet there's people who've like I've been playing for 40 years.
I've run this D20 & D campaign for my friends and

(45:51):
we ace. But if you've just played with the
same five people for 40 years, I would say that you're probably not
as well versed as someone who spent a year going to some conventions and playing with
a bunch of different people in different games. You'll just pick stuff
up, you'll just be sat there and the gym will do something. You'll
think o that's great, I'm gonna steal that. That's an amazing
idea.
Which you just wouldn't get otherwise. And you know, you might see some other

(46:12):
things where it's like someone holding up a dark
mirrorr and the gym will do something and you'll think o
I do that and now I'm sat on this side of the table. That's
not great actually. I can improve upon that,
that sort of thing. And as a player as well, you pick up things.

You know, these are the things that we want. Right? Like this is
just turning the, the part in our brain where
maybe I wouldn't have asked that question. So I'm glad
that you mentioned that. I love self care.
it made me honestly I was thinking of doggie bags. When people
put like doggie bags out in front of their house, instead
of yelling at somebody for not picking up their
dog'poo, they're like, hey, I'm just going toa

(46:49):
put the bag there and maybe they'll pick it up.
Maybe they'll do what they need to do. So that, that was really,
that's a kind way to just say hey,
help everybody out. Let's all have a good time.

>> Gaz (47:00):
Little things like clean up after yourself.

Clean it up, clean it up, clean up the crap.

>> Gaz (47:04):
Like I've lost count of number of times I get to a table
or whatever. There's just coffee cups or Sada cans or whatever lin around. It's
like come on, we're all adults.
If you've eaten something like just take it with you. Throw it in the trash.
Like what's wrong with you people? So
the great thing about conventions is anyone can go. The bad thing about
conventions is anyone can go. So you will get some people who are

(47:25):
a bit rude or lazy or forgetful or are
in a rush, whatever it is. But if we all just try and be a
little bit kind and help each other out then everything's
better for everyone. And that goes in the table. So I've got
like a player advice I give quite often and for the
crack and they put that in the emails like 10 top tips kind of thing.
And it'stuff like playing up. So when

(47:45):
another player is doing something, you describing game how awesome that
is or that kind of thing. So for example, you had a big
strong barbarian or Something and you'trying to intimidate someone.
my character might be going like, oh, you don't. You don't want to mess with
him. The last town over. Like,
there's nothing left of the inn. Like, you better give him what he
wants. Like, I'm not causing a problem, but if you're

(48:05):
upset him, then we're all in trouble kind of thing. And
that's just my way in character of making your character
sound awesome.

Yeah.

>> Gaz (48:13):
So, you know, just do little bits like that where you talk. If you're
gonna discuss a plan of how you're gonna rage the
corporate, whatever cyberpunk facility.
Like, you can do it in character. You don't have to talk about it outside.
You can all get in your character and kind of add bits
of flavor about revealing stuff about your
character or describing the world or whatever it is.
It's all good stuff. Just. And these are all little bits and pieces you pick

(48:35):
up of, like, ways of improving the game for everybody's
benefit.

What was the last character you
played that you just fell in love with because
you liked how others built you up and how you got to
play it?

>> Gaz (48:47):
I don't know about the last one. One an example
I can give his, guy you mentioned a couple
times, he runs mouse guard occasionally. He's had a hiatus from it, but
we've got him to play. Played the game recently, and
he has a standard set of mice. So for, people who
don't know it's anthropomorphic. Mice fight against
nature. So the enemies are generally weasel or a snake or a

(49:08):
bear or something. And you're just little mice and you're fighting
against your nature because mice generally want to run away and hide and do things
like that. But you're the God mice and you're big and strong. And
my particular one that I always get is, kind of like the
hardened, grizzled veteran who's seen too much and he's only got
one eye. So it was quite fun. You know, another
one'like the young up, like, really sort of
enthusiastic new recruit who was like, yeah, come on, let's,

(49:31):
I've, seen things, man. You haven't been there when the owl came out of the
darkness shadow by the moon.
So I always have a great time with that. And there's another friend of our,
Neil Ga, who wrote Duty on and beat 2/4s. He sometimes
plays in one of the convention games. And similarly, he gets that
character. So a guy always finds that amazing that we both play that
grizzled veteran in a slightly different way.
But the vibes are there every time. It doesn't m matter

(49:53):
which one of us picks him up. And people tend to
buy into that. You know that to the young enthusiastic
Mouse is all kind of like doesn't get it. So
he's always trying to cheer me up and go like oh no, you don't need to be that.
Maybe we'll win this time. It'like just lost too mins
you know, you't understand. And so
you can have those little character interactions just by different

(50:13):
perceptions of the world. And that's, you know, Mouse gud lends
itself to that.

I think that has always been in my back pocket
of games that I want to play. So maybe'll I'll keep a
lookout and maybe I'll get to be the grizzled veteran next
time.

>> Gaz (50:27):
Yeah, well, we'll get guy to run it maybe on the
channel can be a guest player.

That'd be awesome. Yeah, I know. You're like, I could do a monologue forever.
I could listen forever. U Everything you've shared is really great.
Is there anything else that you feel people should know about
conventions or playing with others?

>> Gaz (50:42):
I'd just say it'd be generous with others and don't it's not as bad as
you think it's gonna be. If you're nervous, everybody will like if
you've not been to anything before, you always think I don't know where anything
is. I don't know who people are. Ah are think it be mean to me.
you know, I don just don't get it. I don't know what's gonna happen. So there's always gonna be
a little bit of anxiety or something, for some people,
but it's good fun. I'd started a small mid level one. If you can

(51:03):
find something that's maybe 50, 100 people, they're like a nice sweet
spot. just sign up for something cool that you
wanna try. Maybe don't run a game the first time you
go. Maybe just play some things. if you're someone like yourself, you might
want to like not play all this slots. I just sign for a couple of things.
Just one thing a day and the rest of the time I'll chill out and chat to
people, see if there's any social events. Like the Sheffield

(51:23):
conventions have a Friday night that's not part of the convention but it's
at the venue. So some people will turn up just to go to the
pub and have a Pie or whatever and hang out
and just talk games, ask people about
their home campaigns or where they come from or things.
Like there's like basic questions you can ask, which'just get
the chat going at the table. Even if everybody else is just kind of like star at the

(51:43):
caret and nobody want to speak. You can try and initiate the
conversation. You'll probably meet friends you'll see again. And if you end
up going to the same event on a yearly basis or whatever it is, you'll see
people you'end up with gamer friends who you don't
chat to about anything else or don. You probably don't
know like what the wife's name is or anything like that,
but you do know who the character was when you

(52:03):
played Earthdaw last year and that kind of thing. So
it's worth it for just the people you'll meet.
And especially in the connected world've got the minute with
online conventions or just being able to play online,
you might meet some other convention and then like we've just
done there where you say, I really wanted to try mouse guard. You go, okay,
well, I can't do it here, but maybe
in a couple of weeks or something we can just do it over zoom or whatever. You know,

(52:26):
we can have a game online. So it's a way of connecting with new
people. You get to make people from all around the world
as well. Generally depending on the sort of event you go to,
it's great for exposing yourself to, like I said, the indie games thing
I quite like as well. If you go to bigger events like a, UK Games Expo
and going to. I presume Jane can the same. There's a
whole, an alley in Inverted Camp, as they call it, but it's three or
four streets if you will, within the

(52:49):
nec, they're all independent publishers. You've all got
their little things going on, little handcrafted games or whatever, and
just going around there for half a day or something and chatting to people
and seeing what they've got, what they're up to,
really interesting stuff. You'll see all kinds of things you've not seen
before. And if you go to bigger events, there might be goody bags, you might
get freebies, you might get demos. There'll be all kinds of other things that

(53:09):
aren't games but are related to it. Like, I
don't know whether you had it in the uk, but we had a game called, well, a TV
show called Nightmare where some guy wore a helmet who
was one part of the team and had to go around like a
dungeon and the other players were all kids would like be like step
left, step left. No you're the left. Step forward and try and
guide them around this dungeon. That was like really bad CGI and stuff like

(53:29):
that. It's probably a very British thing but they've like
done a live version of ah that games expo and that sort of thing
or they have Viking reenactments.
There'll be all kinds of things. So yeah, pick a
convention you like the look of. Don't be frightened. Go
in with the level of engagement you want in terms
of doing games and don't be frightened about if it's not for you

(53:49):
when you get there or a particular session or what. Don't be AF FR
it's going like it's not for me. I've tried it though and Don't
let that put you off Other conventions you can always go somewhere else.
The mid level ones are good for games. The big ones are good for all
the splendor and just going for the event itself. There's middle sized ones
that do a bit ab both. Maybe don't try a residential one if you're
not sure about it. Maybe just find some one day thing.

(54:10):
But residential ones can be good too. Just for hanging out. Take
yourself something to do whether you whatever your hobby is. I
know people be like knitting or any kind of thing. You'll just kind of
hang out more or less listening to the games, doing their thing but
not not taking part in them.

My wife loves knitting so maybe she can come along and knit with the
knitters.

>> Gaz (54:28):
That's right. And another thing that the Crackken for example
is very good obviously have a board game library. I know that games
exponen others have that as well. So if you just want to
grab your friends if you haven't managed to hang out or you've met some of new friends or you want
someone to show your game you can Quite just go and find a table,
play a board game, chat, find out what the people have been doing.
What else is on. That's a really good activity as

(54:48):
well. There's just. There's tons to do. I think it's worth getting involved. Like I said
you'll improve how you play in Gem. You'll possibly meet
new people that you'll make new gaming friends or just people to
hang out with occasionally or play something online with.
You might pick up new games you've not heard of or seen or something to
investigate letter you'll Hear about m new Kickstarters or injingy
stuff that you've never seen before. There'll be little tokens of

(55:08):
a menor dice you can buy or all kind of
ephema that there seems to be these days with dice holders or towers
or a bunch of game related things that never used
to exist but now seem to be. There's a whole
cottage industry producing all kinds of stuff there.

toilet paper with D20s just printed on them.

>> Gaz (55:25):
Yeah, yeah, I've seen like D20 lamps, I'seen D20
money banks there. All kinds of stuff. There's cosplay
elements you can go at some places, there's shores
you can go to, there's talks, seminars, workshops.
There's a whole world out there waiting for you. So pick
something and give it a go. And he probably helps to take a friend. I
mean I'm not gonna lie. I can go to events on

(55:47):
my own. I'm that confident. I've been to enough now,
but it's usually better a few of you go and try
and try something out together this so you've got back up and
if nothing else you can take an emergency game as I call them in your backpack
and you can just find someone. Play amongst yourselves if you have to.

Awesome.
So a whole new world out there.
People might want to jump into
your world. There might be some people listening that
they're like, I heard that he does this thing called the unconventional
GMs. He obviously plays a lot of games. Where
can people find you Gaz, if they want to learn
more about what you do and what you offer as far as

(56:22):
creating content and enjoying this hobby.

>> Gaz (56:26):
Well, thank you for asking. unconventional gems is
it's about a year old now, something like that. That's me and Guy.
We run games in about two hours
or less with pace, vim, and vigor. So this is one of our
things where people like say they can't run a game in four hours
or it's impossible to play this game as a one shot. Well
we viewed that as a challenge. So if you go to YouTube, look for
uncommventional GMS'you'll find all kinds of sessions. We've done mainly

(56:48):
one shots, some extended campaigns, things like
that. But there we try and that's all raw
gaming if you see that's how we game normally.
There's no pretense, there's no script. This is just us having fun
with a variety of different people. We get all kinds of different guests on.
So definitely check out U gems. Also, I'm one
half of what with the Smart Party t Do, the UK's premiere

(57:09):
RPG podcast. There's about 200 episodes on
there. Interviews with all kinds of designers who've
got advice, we've got walkthroughs who've got general chats
like this where we just pick a topic. And me and Ben,
who has if anything, more more experience than me in
games. We'll chat about any kind of topic
from conventions to how to GM to how to play better,

(57:29):
all that kind of stuff. So a welfare you
can find me, on Twitter (X or X whatever it's
called now is, the smart under
party and you can also search me on Blue
Sky. I'll actually have to check what my handle is on
there, but if you look for gas, you'll definitely find me.
Yeah, yeah. Evil guys
at Beastguys Social.

Awesome. And I'll make sure that all the links are
in the episode show notes, including the unconventional GMs.
people have already listened to Guy by the time they listen to you
and you will be fan favorites for sure.
So thanks for your time today Gaz and I hope
to talk to you sometime soon. Thanks for being here.

>> Gaz (58:07):
Very kind. Thanks for the invite and we look forward to dragging you
onto the UGMS at some point to play a game.

U I can't wait. It'll be a dream. So remember kids,
listen to Papa Gaz, take a shower, stay
hydrated and go sign up for a Tabletop gaming
convention where you can have a great time with friends and
maybe make some new friends.

>> Gaz (58:25):
Friends, friends, friends, friends.

please hit like or subscribe if you liked what you heard today. And if you listen
on Apple Podcast or Spotify, give the CTG
five stars and a review. And may you keep having fun
as you continue to have a great time with friends and tell amazing
stories through Tabletop role playing games. Bye.

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043: - Should You Go to a Tabletop Convention? What Gamers Need to Know – with Gary ‘Gaz’ Bowerbank

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}043: - Should You Go to a Tabletop Convention? What Gamers Need to Know – with Gary ‘Gaz’ Bowerbank