I’ve been thinking about the con a lot as of late. Honestly, I probably been over thinking it, but that is just my OCD nature kicking in. Because of the shuffler this year has been different from the last two. To talk meaningfully about it I need to start with a little history.

About eight months ago a gaggle of Good Omens GMs got together to play games, eat food, and talk shop about Good Omens Con 3. Overall, we had been really happy with the last two conventions, but some of us received complaints that the games (which at that time were first come, first serve) filled up instantly and players couldn’t get in. Part of this we realized was our own fault. Good Omens GMs (including yours truly) had signed up for our own games. It makes sense, we like each other, we want to play with each other… but it meant less space for everyone else. So that was our first change. Unless there is a no show and someone needs to fill a seat, you won’t see any members of Good Omens playing in any of our games. Which means, again, more room for you.

The big systematic change though, was adopting a shuffler. It is the only way to ensure that everyone would have a chance to get into the game they wanted. To keep our sanity and to still allow for last minute sign ups, we opted to close the shuffler on July 1st and then allow anyone else to fill up the open spots in a first come, first serve basis. This seemed (at the time) to have all our bases covered.

Well, now it is 7/11, a week away from the con. The shuffler is closed and all the results are emailed. Or at least all of the results you might expect have been emailed. But I have some findings of my own, based on my experience that I want to share.

  • Not everyone loves the shuffler. As soon as it was announced, I received a letter from a long time player who essentially said that he couldn’t make plans to come to Oakland for the day if he didn’t know whether or not he was going to get in a game. Hmm… I hadn’t thought about that one. Yeah, if you don’t find out till after 7/1, it does make it hard for people who have to travel a long ways or have to make arrangements for child care to attend an event on 7/18. So, just as the old system has detractors, so does the new.
  • Some games are really popular. I mean really popular. This isn’t meant to toot my horn (or anyone else’s in particular) but we have games that literally had three times as many people who tried to get in as the game could support. This is really only data that I could have collected with a shuffler. Otherwise, with the old system, as soon as a game was full we’d never know about the silent demand that didn’t bother emailing because the game already showed zero seats open. What does this mean? Should we run some games twice? Should we move to a four hour slot instead of six? Should we look at making Good Omens Con a two day event instead of just one? I’m not sure about any of these, but this information has got be thinking all of those possibilities.
  • I don’t like telling people “no”. It’s not like I didn’t know that before, but his system really highlights the fact that you have to tell some people “Sorry, you didn’t get into any games”. It’s even worse when someone didn’t pick a second and third choice (or if they picked the same game for all three choices). The system essentially tries to get you in your first choice of game, but if you don’t make it tries to get you in your second choice, etc. So if you only made a first choice and didn’t get in, the shuffler didn’t have any other options for you. I shook the magic gumball machine several times looking for outcomes that didn’t involve “no game for you” answers but there were always some. As is, every seat is filled, which means the fewest possible people were turned away. Still it makes me sad to even have to do that.
  • Drop outs create an interesting ripple effect. One benefit of the shuffler is that once the results are tallied and we email everyone it becomes a second confirmation that they didn’t get before. They get a “hey, remember this game you signed up for a month ago… well you’re in!” email. The advantage of this is that if something has come up and they can’t make it, this serves as a reminder to let us know, so we can allocate their seats to other people who previously didn’t get into a game. Note to all of you who can’t make it but haven’t told us: Please let us know; there are others who want your seat! (smiley faces of levity attached)

So that’s it for now. If I have any other amazing revelations, I’ll post more about it in the forums. If you have a moment to share your thoughts, please go to the forums and do so. I’d love to hear them and they will definitely affect our decisions as we plan for GO Con 4 next year.

See you in a week!