Last weekend, (Friday, October 19th to Sunday, October 21st, 2007) I attended and ran a D&D gaming event at VCON, the longest running annual Science Fiction, Fantasy and Gaming convention in the Vancouver area. It was the first time I've ever done something like this and, while the preparation was time consuming and putting it on was exhausting, I don't think I've ever had so much fun organizing and running an event before.

 

My event was a D&D Duelling tournament, loosely based on the D&D Open Duels event that has been held at PAX in Seattle for the past three summers. I was unable to attend PAX this year due to finances combined with not actually living in the Seattle area an longer, and I was really choked that I would not be at the duels. But hen I thought about the fact that I knew I planned to go to VCON - I was never a regular attendee but being back in Vancouver made it almost a no-brainer this year - and I suddenly had this bizarre thought that it might actually be fun to try bringing D&D Duels to VCON. So I took the plunge and contacted the Gaming Coordinator in late August/early September and arranged to put on my event.

 

I spent the better part of the next month devising the rules for my event, starting from the rules for the 2007 Open Duels event and tweaking them to eliminate stuff I didn't really like, add bits I felt were missing and tighten things up here and there.  I made my customized rules available online and then started spreading the word and working up scenarios for the duel matches.

 

VCON, being a fan run event, isn't quite as slick as PAX, even if it is over six times older (2007 was the 32nd VCON), and they don't have any sort of official online community (no forums or the like, and not much traffic through their Facebook group). As a result, I had trouble getting the word out and even when I found places to post notices (like the Vancouver D&D Meetup message board or the Vancouver Gaming Guild forums) either no one seemed to be interested or the people who thought it was a cool idea weren't planning on attending VCON. When no one had signed up in advance I was getting seriously anxious, so I made the decision to relax the requirement for early, digital registration, and allowed people to manually craft a character at a table I set up next to my registration table with pencils, erasers, a stack of paper character sheets and copies of each D&D 3.5 book allowed in the tournament. In the end, six people participated in the Spellcaster tournament on Saturday and four people participated in the Martial character tournament on Sunday.

 

I developed six different scenarios in total - two were to be shared by both tournaments, two were designed for the spellcasters and two were designed for the martial characters. They mostly worked out the way I expected although one - a skill based challenge intended for both tournaments - seemed simple in concept but was almost too complex to run. Look for details of each scenario and how well they each worked out in future posts.

 

I had so much fun I'm going to do it again next year, although I will have to fold in all the things I learned in the process, such as:

 

• Creatures with a natural fly speed have a seriously unfair advantage
  This is also the "Pixies are SOOOOO banned next year" rule. The most seriously "goobed out" build was a Rogue Pixie that ran in both tournaments (it qualified as a spellcaster because it had maxed Use Magic Device skill) and only failed to win in both due to unusual circumstances. Look for full details of this and the other top builds in a follow up post). Creatures with a natural fly speed can overcome circumstances that those with magical flight might not be able to deal with nearly as easily. The Pixie's natural fly speed "broke" three of my scenarios - that is, the character's ability to fly allowed her to complete the tasks much much faster than anyone would reasonably expect. In one case, she finished in the first round - her opponent didn't have a chance to do anything!
• Participants need to be given a clear list of all allowed templates
  By giving participants a clear idea of what special abilities they could be up against they have no one but themselves to blame if they are outmaneouvered by another character's special ability or special quality. Example: not packing silver weapons to counter lycanthropy. This year I said templates that didn't change the recpient's type to undead or construct were allowed but what templates this left wasn't immediately obvious to particpants, and at least one participant was almost completely screwed because of the special qualities of a template his opponent had.
• Scenario details for each match must fit onto one page, double sided
  Participants won't bother to read anything longer than that, which just makes life more difficult for the judge. Not only that but if the details really require that much text the scenario is probably too complicated for a duel.
• Clearly define not only what grant characters points in a match scenario but also what DOES NOT grant points
  Assume participants will find and use every possible loophole and then try to proactively plug as many of those holes as possible.

 

I'll be posting more about the duels in future posts - I plan to provide the stats and strategies of the top builds for each tournament and will also be sharing the maps and details about the scenarios I ran.  Keep your eyes peeled.

 

:-j(enni)