Lessons from Running Games
A couple years ago, COVID and my friends' life paths diverging from mine snuffed out my real life gaming commitments. I kicked off an online game of Stars Without Number with a couple of dear friends and that kept me afloat for a while, but online games turned out to be an only mediocre substitute. Then, about a year ago and after much deliberation, I began pushing introvert me out of my comfort zone, hanging out at the local pen and paper night at some pub, and shortly after attended my first pen and paper con in town (where I played one game and then left, because there was no quite-perfect-enough game in the second slot, what an idiot I was!)
In autumn, I piggybacked a ride with a bunch of, at this time, relative strangers to a neighbouring town and ran my first game at a con. Around the same time we also resumed a monthly open table in town, at which I have hosted a bunch of games over the course of the last year. After running a couple games at last weekend's local con, I came down with an acute case of introspectivitis. Ugh, this is beginning to feel an awful lot like a cooking blog…
The following lessons are my own, drawn from the past year or so of running and playing a whole bunch of games in a number of systems, ranging from Lasers & Feelings, Pine Shallows and Knave to Pathfinder 2e, and settings, running the gamut from by-the-module mediaeval fantasy to wrestling crocodiles in dystopian Miami. May both you and I take something away from this!
From the outset one has to keep in mind the constraints of one shots in general and convention/open table games in particular. Often, there's a tight schedule and going over time just isn't possible. For a four hour game, I try to stick to three to five scenes, less if character gen is done on site. People often recommend bringing pregens, but for rules-light games I enjoy building them on the fly—assuming you take care to skip unnecessary steps, like buying gear or coming up with extensive connections to NPCs. For this you need to be proficient in the system's char gen. If you're unsure, bring pregens.
One shots are great to experiment, to try out new things, to push yourself out of your comfort zone. It's important to do all that! I experienced, however, how things can fall apart if you push yourself too far. If you need to keep looking up rules in the game, aren't familiar with the world you're playing in, not comfortable with genre tropes, things will grind to a halt and eat into your time and into everyone's fun! Push yourself, experiment, but make it a conscious effort, focused on one aspect or two.
Don't feel obliged to take on more players than you're comfortable with, either. Advertise for exactly as many slots as you are comfortable with, and don't feel bad for rejecting additional players. This isn't a competition.
Lastly, in terms of pre-game considerations, your game needs clear goals from the get-go. Save the dragon, seduce the castle, blow up the princess. Communicate them ahead of time, in your game's advert and again once everyone's at the table. If you have done major changes to the system in use, mention that. I once played in a Cyberpunk RED game with everything but the basic dice mechanic filed off— not exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to play Cyberpunk, you know?
Once everyone is at the table, ask for introductions; important beats are names and experience levels. The names are important because while playing essentially anonymously can work, it's weeeird. Sometimes you want to address the player, but without a name you're down to pointing or throwing candy, neither a great option. My intent with learning about the players' experience levels isn't so I can filter them out, though you might want to, but to get a better feeling for which things I can take for granted and which ones might need explaining. The different kinds of dice, for example; the rhythm of describing an action, figuring out the required mechanics, and stating the outcome, or all those other implied bits and pieces that experienced players probably know but which you can't reasonably expect of new blood. I've found it helpful to seat less experienced players closer to myself, if only for the ability to point out things on their sheets. Also state how long you'll be playing and if there'll be breaks, for example for lunch if your game runs from 10 to 3.
Communicate clearly and brazenly what kind of behaviour you expect from the characters (and by extension, the players). What tone and atmosphere will you be aiming for? What are the stakes? Is death to be expected?
After handing out or making the characters, restate the objective(s). It shouldn't be a railroad, one of this hobby's key concepts is freedom, after all, but given it's a one shot it's okay to be a bit tighter about this than you'd usually be. I found it to be a very solid middleground to simply spell out different paths the players might take, like 'there are two good ambush sites, which one will you pick?' Oh, and introduce the characters when the time's right.
During the actual game it's your job to herd your players like cats. Keep things moving! Keep asking what the characters are doing, shift the spotlight around, don't be afraid to casually remind the players of things like the explosives in their backpack. You don't have time to go into extended meandering, so keep pushing them, gently. Not like a hammer, but like a breeze making everyone look the same way.
Irrelevant scenes and encounters go on the cutting block. To preserve momentum, it's okay to narrate transitions you'd play out in an actual game; this is also a great way to get back on schedule if you're nearing the end with too much story left. I'd rather end on an end than squeezing the entire second half of the game into mere fifteen minutes, so I keep an eye on the time all the time. The alternative to ending early is to narrate the game to an end. Either way, the game needs a conclusion!
Unrelated to the whole time thing, you're the table boss. Managing the players is your job, like it or not. You mustn't hope that another player speaks up about some idiot behaviour and you shouldn't wait until it escalates to unbearability. Trust your gut! If someone's being an idiot, handle it. Con games already suffer from being made up of mostly random people, no need to make it worse by keeping unbearable ones at the table. I advise an empathetic talking-to first, away from the table, maybe during a breather, before you break out the big kick-from-table shaped guns.
At the very end, thank the players. Maybe ask for feedback. Step away from the table.
After a good night's sleep, you can reflect on it: What went well? What will you do differently next time? Take something away for the next game, but don't treat it like an exam. If everyone had fun, it was a good game. Well done!
Bonus exercise: Can you guess which of these lessons I had to learn the hard way?