Question 1: I am crap at running at night. I have accepted this fact now. I am a morning person, even on minimal sleep. So I choose the early morning slots and just go with it. (I suspect that this is also useful for the con organizers, as I bet they get less people volunteering to run in those slots than in the night slots, as most gamers are night owls.)
Question 2: I'm more wibbly wobbly on the time... I came from a convention culture that had 4 hour slots. The end. No other options. I think that was also about the attention span of my college gaming group. So most of my plots tend to wobble around that marker. But in the case of the games I'm running this year, I have a vague understanding of how much time they'll take, based on previous experience.
For example, I ran the Hogwarts (Best Friends) game in 3 hours at Go Play Northwest, and it felt really rushed, because character creation takes about (at least?) an hour. I think Jeremy had a 5 hour slot when he ran BF at US, and that game didn't take the whole time. So a nice 4 hour slot seems about right for that game. This works well because there's only one short morning slot (Friday), while my Firefly game was on the Saturday morning slot last year, and I'll need the long slot on Sunday morning for Doctor Who.
I am a morning person, even on minimal sleep. Oh. One of those.
I think at least some of chargen is going to take place on site, and that on a gut call four hours should be about right for what I'm doing. I'm also developing modular plotlines so that I can either add one in or yank one out depending on how the party's doing.
How do *I* decide? I ask myself, "How much do I dread running this game?" which tracks directly to Is it possible to run it later in the con without dread of it shading my enjoyment.
I often run slot 2, Friday morning, because I started then long ago (see point 1, Dread) and it works out for me alright and maybe people expect it. Sometimes I can't eat from dread, and in the morning that doesn't screw me up as much as later on.
Time: I'm used to 4 hours. If I can think of something to drag out, like at-the-con chargen, I might go for a longer slot.
This is not something you asked, but it may be useful: this is what the slots are like socially.
Slot 1: People will come in late, possibly very late from delayed planes. People may come in starving because they went to the reception and it doesn't have "food" food. It's a little harder to get an intense game in this slot.
Slot 2: People may come in late, panicked from the way breakfast doesn't bring them their check forever and ever. Or they overslept and they show up an hour in. But an hour into the game people are usually awake and engaged.
Slot 3: Pretty solid. Though sometimes in the afternoon people get distractible.
Slot 4: Pretty solid. Effects of previous games may start to show: people may be pissed from past frustrations. Usually people will not be late to this, I seem to recall, as the dinner break is long enough.
Slot 5: Breakfast panic. Often slow to start, and can suffer from bad pacing if the GM thinks they're dragging out a shorter game to fit a longer slot. Pretty solid.
Slot 6: People are starting to get tired. May start late due to dinner slowness. If it ends early, this is a great time to go to the bars.
Slot 7: With a GM that can set tone and get things cracking, this can be the most awesome slot as everyone hypnotizes themselves into that mindset and plays to the hilt. If the hypnotic sleep-deprivation of the players isn't used for good, though, it will be used for evil/muddling around.
But in general any slot can be awesome with any GM. It's a crapshoot.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-07-22 10:43 pm (UTC)Question 2: I'm more wibbly wobbly on the time... I came from a convention culture that had 4 hour slots. The end. No other options. I think that was also about the attention span of my college gaming group. So most of my plots tend to wobble around that marker. But in the case of the games I'm running this year, I have a vague understanding of how much time they'll take, based on previous experience.
For example, I ran the Hogwarts (Best Friends) game in 3 hours at Go Play Northwest, and it felt really rushed, because character creation takes about (at least?) an hour. I think Jeremy had a 5 hour slot when he ran BF at US, and that game didn't take the whole time. So a nice 4 hour slot seems about right for that game. This works well because there's only one short morning slot (Friday), while my Firefly game was on the Saturday morning slot last year, and I'll need the long slot on Sunday morning for Doctor Who.
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Date: 2010-07-23 01:56 am (UTC)Oh. One of those.
I think at least some of chargen is going to take place on site, and that on a gut call four hours should be about right for what I'm doing. I'm also developing modular plotlines so that I can either add one in or yank one out depending on how the party's doing.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-23 05:55 am (UTC)I often run slot 2, Friday morning, because I started then long ago (see point 1, Dread) and it works out for me alright and maybe people expect it. Sometimes I can't eat from dread, and in the morning that doesn't screw me up as much as later on.
Time: I'm used to 4 hours. If I can think of something to drag out, like at-the-con chargen, I might go for a longer slot.
This is not something you asked, but it may be useful: this is what the slots are like socially.
Slot 1: People will come in late, possibly very late from delayed planes. People may come in starving because they went to the reception and it doesn't have "food" food. It's a little harder to get an intense game in this slot.
Slot 2: People may come in late, panicked from the way breakfast doesn't bring them their check forever and ever. Or they overslept and they show up an hour in. But an hour into the game people are usually awake and engaged.
Slot 3: Pretty solid. Though sometimes in the afternoon people get distractible.
Slot 4: Pretty solid. Effects of previous games may start to show: people may be pissed from past frustrations. Usually people will not be late to this, I seem to recall, as the dinner break is long enough.
Slot 5: Breakfast panic. Often slow to start, and can suffer from bad pacing if the GM thinks they're dragging out a shorter game to fit a longer slot. Pretty solid.
Slot 6: People are starting to get tired. May start late due to dinner slowness. If it ends early, this is a great time to go to the bars.
Slot 7: With a GM that can set tone and get things cracking, this can be the most awesome slot as everyone hypnotizes themselves into that mindset and plays to the hilt. If the hypnotic sleep-deprivation of the players isn't used for good, though, it will be used for evil/muddling around.
But in general any slot can be awesome with any GM. It's a crapshoot.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-23 06:26 am (UTC)