Tuesday 23 July 2024

Roll4Con 2024

Roll4Con 2024

   Roll4con was The Game Chamber's inaugural gaming convention, well they called it a convention. I would call it a gamesday, there were no convention-like sides, it was just a main course of miniature based games.

   Back in May? they asked for volunteers to run games with the requirement that games accomodate 4 players per session, which I thought a not unresonable request and we were asked to commit to run 2 games at 10AM and 2 PM (they could be different games).

   Aside from my game (Wiley Games: Fistful of Lead: Reloaded) all the other offerings were big game company games. I would have liked to see more indy games, but it was GMs choice.

   Day started of on a sour note. I went by the venue the night before to set up my terrain. When I arrived in the morning I found someone needed room to unpack their stuff, so had shoved alot of my terriain aside to make room, (so he could unload, I guess), and left it for me to fix.😒

  Most games had 2 at least players, though several in the 10AM session, had none. Many of the 2 PM games had no players, I think only 2 or 3 games had players (I could be mistaken since I left early)

   I was so busy running my 10 AM game, I didn't have time to get pictures of it (start to finish less than 90 minutes)

   Here is what happened in my game: 

   The "Lawmen" walked down Mainstreet to confront the Dixon gang, which were sleeping off the weeks' frivolity, at the All Right corall. The Dixon gang must be seasoned drinkers as none of them failed their hangover rolls. The opening shots quickly saw 2 of the lawmen downed, then another one and another one. Rusty was the only Lawman still in the fight, mainly because almost every time he shot he would run out of ammumnition (he ran out 4 times, 3 times with his rifle and once for his pistol), he did manage to put one of the Dixon gang down before being swarmed by the rest of the gang. He got knocked down, then then Dick Dixon with a shotgun moved in close and opened fire ending Rusty's suffering. The Lawmen player had terrible dice the entire game when he need to roll high he failed to so and when he needed to roll low he failed to that as well.

   My 2PM game had no sign ups nor walk ups, so I stuck around til 2:30 Packed up and departed.

Here are some pictures of the other games being offered.

The Venue, The Game Chamber

The games room

Silver Bayonet


Infinty


Fistful of Lead: Reloaded

X-Wing

Battletech

Lord Of The Rings

Battletech: Alpha Strike

Fallout, Wasteland Warriors

Bolt Action

Star Wars Shatterpoint

Marvel Crisis Protocol

  There was room for 32 games (16 per session, that's how many 6' x 4' tables they have) for a maximum of 80 players and GM. There were not that many attendees, probably 40 to 50. Some GMs must have learned early they would have no players and either cancelled their games or just failed to show up. In spite of the low turn out it was very noisy, shouting being necessary to communicate with my players. 

   The low turn out was, IMHO, due to several factors.
    * Lack of adverstising. Most of the players I know did not even know the event was happening until I mentioned it.
    * The registration process. The process was go to the Store's website, find a game you liked the look of, buy a ticket and show up day of and hope there were other people playing (in case of just one player, I guess the GM was supposed to be their opponent.)