The Crystal Ball view of KapCon '22

[mashugenah]

KapCon has evolved over the decades into a very efficient machine for doing what it does, which is providing a venue for a splurge of one-session games of 3-hours duration. This year with no pre or post-con drinks, no verbal notices between rounds, the retirement of the nomination and voting systems, and it's truly a lean dicing machine. I've never

Comments

[anonymous]

We definitely need more volunteers. I was bad at organising them this year (hence front desk, but that's a warm body job), but we had people during the con to staff the door during breaks I think. we had a couple of people who offered, and I need to actually make sure they get brought in, somehow. If only because disseminating con skills might lead to more cons

[anonymous]

Also: I've had one GM offer a "long con": six linked games of awesome. And last year we had Conan doing two cycles of an Aliens two-parter. If people want to do that, we can accomodate them. Likewise if you want to do the whole con as a West Marches-style hexcrawl in three-hour slots. we'll just give you a room and tell you to go wild.

The future?

[ext_5270327]

I too am very interested in the future of the Kapcon experience - albeit I've been out of (any) cons for quite some time now (young kids

Re: The future?

[mashugenah]

I can only really speak for myself, which is to say that I found the disruption around regular gaming slowed my whole process hugely. In terms of quality or variety - basically now any individual sees so little of the holistic experience that it's hard to generalise. I think this is one of the difficulties we used to have less when there was a bigger discussion pool so we could hear about things before and after.

I missed the pre and post con drinks, but I've never really found the interstitial times very useful because I've always been rushing around trying to sort things out or get food, or just take a break between people.

Kapcon

[ext_5655311]

I think it's fair to assume that for as long as the good folks who currently do all the hard work (Idiot/Scott et al.) it will follow the same model of 'we have a venue, you bring the games and we'll help sort people into them

Re: Kapcon

[mashugenah]

And that was the origin of Fright Night, if I recall, and equally, its demise. We'll see what Jan and Hamish do with CONfusion this year - they have a quite different model in mind, where actually gaming is only a component.

I think whether KapCon changes or stays the same, more helpers around the core will be needed. And really, a lot more than just a new face at the briefings as they used to do before Scott did the whole enchilada for the past few years.

Re: Kapcon

[ext_5655311]

Well I think there's a bit of a deal to be done on that. If the current incentive of a preferred game slot isn't enough then people might be more willing to volunteer if they get a say in how the 'con runs...

Re: Kapcon

[ext_5655311]

...or add $5 to the ticket price and hire a couple of students to do registration and game allocations for the weekend.

[anonymous]

It's interesting reading the perspectives of those who have been involved with and going to KapCon for a long time, and comparing it to my own as someone returning for only the second time

Onboarding

[anonymous]

Onboarding is something we consistently have trouble with. In the past, we've produced a trifold "KapCon players manual" in an effort to help with this, with hardcopies available on the day. But it didn't happen this year (we didn't have Norm to remind us). One obvious thing we can do is update it, put it prominently on the website as well as including a link to it in every registration ACK, plus have copies available at badge pickup.

(One of these years we will also make the switch to a more intuitive room numbering system. But it was not this year...)

The website is another known weakness. At one stage Adrexia offered to build us one in SilverStripe, which was used for the larp cons at the time (and I'm even familiar with the backend), but I was dubious about its ability to display 45 different games and 70-something sessions in a manageable way. Eventually, we're going to have to change though - Drupal is definitely past its use-by.

- idiot

Re: Onboarding

[mashugenah]

Add that to the list of jobs for which you need some kind of human. Is there actually a defined list of the known tasks?

Re: Onboarding

[anonymous]

Yes. Norm did a a really good job of documenting what needed to be done, and put together a "KapCon Bible" to assist future con-runners.

- Idiot