Jackercon XI Post-Mortem

[kaitoujuliet]

And mortem really is the word.

Okay, so what happened?? Why did no one play?

I understand why not so many games were proposed (though really, it turned out to be pretty simple). But of those that were proposed, did any of them actually run, apart from gammonstark's D&D Adventurer's League games? (And where did people sign up for those, anyway, since they seemed to be largely full before being posted?)

Speaking for myself, I proposed two games, as far apart as I could get in style, system, level of complexity, and even time of running, and nobody signed up for either one. I know nobody signed up for D.T. Pints's Cthulhu game either.

Was it the games? The time of year? The schedule? The changes to Google Hangouts? Were people not getting the e-mail reminders? Or has the level of interest just changed that much since July?

EDIT: To be clear, I don't mean for this post to sound accusatory. I'm just confused, since Jackercon X was such a success, and wondering what would have made it better.

[sbloyd]

School. I really wanted to play, but I had some major projects due last weekend and this weekend.

I think the hangouts thing might have spooked some folks, too.

[kaitoujuliet]

Nov 7, 2016 8:03:15 GMT -8 sbloyd said:

School. I really wanted to play, but I had some major projects due last weekend and this weekend.

Just to be clear, I didn't mean for my post to sound accusatory. I'm just surprised and confused, since Jackercon X did so well.

I'd happily rerun either or both of the games I proposed, if that would help. Or do some "interlude" games.

[sbloyd]

I myself am looking around to check interest in a Mage ongoing game.

[maxinstuff]

I put a game up - a little interest in the concept but no one bit.

My guess is the timeslot was no good. I ended up running my weekly game instead.


As far as post-mortem goes.... I dunno really.... certainly many people seemed confused about how it should work.

More than anything to me it seemed as if D.T. Pints could use a hand.

[Houndin]

My $0.02

I didn't even find out about it until it was already running. I did see a lot of discussion about how to register games, and websites and such. But didn't realize that it was scheduled. That and it's a crazy time of year for me.

[ayslyn]

I was all excited about this, and then was informed that my father decided he would be visiting us for the last three weeks.

Killed my RL game schedule as well.

[kaitoujuliet]

Nov 7, 2016 13:14:36 GMT -8 maxinstuff said:

I put a game up - a little interest in the concept but no one bit.

My guess is the timeslot was no good.

Yeah, I actually wanted to sign up for that one, but GMT +11 on a work night is tough when you're GMT -6 (actually -5 during that week, due to Europe going off daylight savings earlier than the US).

Nov 7, 2016 13:14:42 GMT -8 Houndin said:

I didn't even find out about it until it was already running.

Out of curiosity, how did you hear about it?

[mysticfedora]

I would have loved to, but bad timing. My parents were in town and then all that family stuff came with them.

[tomes]

I knew ahead of time that that week was going to be shit. It hasn't helped that I haven't been actively able to keep up on the forums for the last weeks, so I didn't even remember this was scheduled.

Would be great if there was something easy to use re sign-up and scheduling, but I could make that comment on almost every convention ever.

[kaitoujuliet]

Nov 8, 2016 14:01:04 GMT -8 tomes said:

Would be great if there was something easy to use re sign-up and scheduling, but I could make that comment on almost every convention ever.

What sort of interface would you like to see?

[sbloyd]

As a first cut - something that lets GMs "reserve" time slots for games, with descriptions and parameters (#players etc). Player signups. Display by day and time slot, with attention to which games are full. Some way for GMs to set up/invite to whichever virtual table is used (seems like Hangouts still works?).

Off the top of my head, anyway.

Maybe just a robust spreadsheet would work? Assuming navigating it was made easy.

[maxinstuff]

I would say to just get the gaming part going - ideally you want a central place where games can be registered, so that players can look at a single "calendar" or program and see all the games in their own local GMT offset, how many places remaining, and tags for system/setting/etc.

Maybe a shared google calendar would be OK, but that would be awfully manual.

Beyond that, extra stuff is a bonus IMO - but with good enough organisation you could have a truly online convention. Panels might be cool, listeners/participants discussing a certain topic and streaming it for the lulz.

Depending on the platform - there could be prominently displayed banners/ads for affiliate stuff too, so if con participants bought something via those links the show would get a kickback. Maybe there could be some placements from show sponsors too (a competition with a set of dice as a prize or something?)

[kaitoujuliet]

Nov 8, 2016 15:21:28 GMT -8 maxinstuff said:

extra stuff is a bonus ... a truly online convention. Panels ... prominently displayed banners/ads for affiliate stuff too ... placements from show sponsors too (a competition with a set of dice as a prize or something?)

All the stuff about taking it to the next level could be fine, but I'd be happy just to have games happening that people play in. I was really itching for some gaming all last week, which made it frustrating that it wasn't happening. (And I'm never able to do the spring con due to RL stuff, so I don't see any chance of doing it again before summer, unfortunately.)

[maxinstuff]

Nov 8, 2016 17:44:37 GMT -8 kaitoujuliet said:

All the stuff about taking it to the next level could be fine, but I'd be happy just to have games happening that people play in.

Oh absolutely. Games have to actually happen!