The Forge Reference Project

Topic: GothCon Report
Started by: Peter Nordstrand
Started on: 4/12/2004
Board: HeroQuest

I ran HeroQuest at GothCon (Gothenburg, Sweden). A drop in event. I had brought a number of different scenarios, but I ended up running mostly The Assassin (described very briefly here). Drop in events for roleplaying is fairly unusual at Swedish cons. Usually you sign up for events beforehand.

GothCon is held in a school in central Gothenburg, which means that the rooms aren't exactly cosy. I tried to make things a little bit nicer by putting tablecloth on tables, as well as a lot of HeroQuest books to flip through and maps to look at. (A lot of people really liked the map from Dragon Pass, BTW.) I put a BIG sign outside saying only two things: HeroQuest and Drop In!

Friday: Success!

The con began on friday, and I had a room all to myself. It began a little shaky, since it took a while before anyone showed up. I came prepared, however. I had made flyers displaying the HeroQuest logo, and a brief lighthearted blurb. I talked to people in the corridors, and coerced the ever present Men in Black to promise to hand them out as well.

My first players were a father and his daughter. The father had played a lot of rpgs 20 years ago, and they were at GothCon to play together. Although they somehow managed to not really get the main moral dilemma presented, they were both very charming. They did come up with a most entertaining revenge scheme, however. This was not at all the scenario I had in mind, but they seemed to want something different, and I was happy to oblige. Prepping with r-maps and bangs rather than plot makes it very easy to adapt. Not exactly nar play, but a lot of fun.

Once the first game got started, people kept dropping by, wanting to play or just flip through books or observe what was going on. It felt good. Someone remarked that the tablecloths made the room feel more like a café, which proves that it was a good move, I think. Next year, I'll bring carpets and candles. :-)

There were more people wanting to play than I could accomodate. In the end, all I could do was to point out to interested parties that "I'll be here during the entire con, please come back tomorrow."

Only one of the four (!) groups that I entertained during this day did not entertain me back. Perhaps I will discuss them at some other time. There were several problems involved I think. I treated them courteously, but cut the game short by introducing the climax ASAP.

Spotting a Trend
People's attitude towards HeroQuest is changing, or maybe it has changed already. I think that the positive attitude I have been sensing on internet forums lately is only the tip of an iceberg really. Something has happened in the real world as well. When I've run HeroQuest/Hero Wars events earlier years, there has always been a significant minority of ... well, how do I put this ... complainers. This year they were nowhere to be found. All I met was gamers wanting to have a good time gaming. And the old RuneQuest grognards that I met were no different; in fact they were the greatest bunch of players I've met on a con in years.

Anyway, has anyone else sensed this change of attitude?

Saturday: Disaster!

There are two kinds of people: Those who get headaches, and those who get migraine. The headachae people will never understand what the migraine people goes through.

Anyway. This fucked up the entire day. A huge disappointment. I did not run a single session. So, all in all I only ran about half as many games of HeroQuest as I had planned, which is kind of sad considering the display of interest that I detected.

Final comment
I desperately want an easy to learn Gloranthan boardgame! It would have been great to put it in the hands of the people that I couldn't accomodate. I guess I'll have to make one up myself.

That's all for now,

Cheers,

/Peter N

Edit: Corrected spelling.