lategaming

This year, Q-CON celebrates it’s 15th year.

It was sixteen years ago that I finished the ‘market research’ of conventions in Ireland (via Gaelcon and Warpcon - and getting illicit copies of their after-con reports from by Bothan spies). This was while I was the President of the RPG society, Dragonslayers.

It was a year later that I proposed the convention to the then-committee and we modify the constitution to create the “Convention Director” post and run a convention Q-CON 1 on a wing and a prayer. I organised the Megagame and ran games in 5 game slots that weekend. I got real tired.

For Q-CON 2 and 3, I took the mantle of Convention Director and in the face of promisers (who never deliver) and naysayers (who you should ignore) and no-confidence supporters (who stab you in the back) it was moderately successful. I burned through any good will I had built up and alienated people who didn’t even know me.

So why would I consider running a convention again?

Because someone asked me to?

Yeah.

NearbyGamers hosts listings of gamers.

Would you lot just sign up already?

The official video for Q-CON XIV was posted today:

It’s good to see it running as I did all the research for the first Q-CON by visiting cons around the country when I was President of ‘Slayers the year before. I amended the constitution, got it ratified and and then pushed the idea of running a convention to the folk. The following year we had Q-CON. Alan, who died last year, was President of the society and did a good job motivating the rest of us to work hard. I ran half a dozen games that weekend and had previously set up the Star Trek Megagame to be run down in the Mandela Hall. I was ‘Slayer’s first convention director and ran Q-CON 2 and 3 which both turned out to be really profitable in the end. Heh, who could have guessed. It wasn’t all easy and I hadn’t been aware until recently how close to the wire it had been.

Before his untimely death, Alan asked me to run it again…but commitments (like running a business, having my kids on the weekend) were too much to consider it. And, of course, I’d no goodwill left in the society and you NEED goodwill from the folk to get things done.

Mark notes that Diddlysquat is dead.

I didn’t know much about it, to be honest but reading the testimony of specky I’m reminded of lots of the silliness that went on within Crucible Design.

In the end, projects like this are fuelled by a small core of people (usefully termed schemers and collaborators.). Everyone else is pretty much surplus to requirements but as these types of projects tend to be started by friends, people can be a little over-cautious about being honest here. Allowing a project to slide (or worse fail) because you didn’t want to hurt the feelings of someone who isn’t contributing seems silly on the face of it. But we all do it (at least those of us who are human have).

The most annoying thing, when a project is failing or when someone is being asked to leave a project, is the tendency for some to be passively obstructive (or even actively destructive). I’ve seen this in the RPG industry as well as in The Real World. Failing to fulfill promises again and again, blame-shifting, becoming upset when duties are removed and yet, when the deadline comes, their inactivity causes the deadline to slide. Problems like this plagued our fanzine WildTalents and seriously delayed the production of every single book we ever published. And when I stopped propping people up, when I stopped doing the extra work to make things happen and when I refused to give credit where it was not due, then Crucible Design stopped producing books.

Q-CON, another project I invested hugely in (I did the preliminary research, coving everything I could from WARPS, got the budget for Q-CON 1, got the people together, ran Q-CON 2 and 3) was always beset at the start of the year by people who had ideas but no intention of implementing anything or completing anything. It meant that with 2 weeks of preparation (after 6 months of failed investigation by two people), I was left alone to run the convention and pull together the Star Trek Megagame. I had to rely on real people with real commitment to fun to get it done (and a wave goes out to Colin and Lesley on this one). Sure, we pulled successful profitable conventions out of nowhere but it wasn’t without a committee that was so supportive that they had a vote of no-confidence in my ability to run the convention which failed:- probably more to do with the individuals not wanting to have to take over…

When relations break down within a project, it’s best for everyone and best for the project if you take the steps to cut out the chaff. I wish I’d done it with Crucible wayback when but even now I find it hard to do probably because I’m not the git everyone thinks I am.

Really.

Now, identifying the difference between chaff and rot is difficult and I dont think anyone gets it right. Chaff are just people who serve no useful purpose. They probably slow things up because in a democratic committee you have to ask everyone’s opinion. Chaff won’t kill you but they may bore you.

Rot are much worse - these guys are scheming against you and against the success of the project. These are the guys who will plot with junior members of the team and do their best to make sure their name is at the top of the list of every success and nowhere to be seen in the event of a failure. When you’re presenting your work, at a convention or whatever, they’re usually the first out with the pen when someone asks for a book signing.

In my experience, the speed at which someone gets a pen to sign a book at request is inversely proportional to their contribution to the book and you can be pretty sure that if someone has their pen out before you ask then they likely were responsible for delays in the product rather than actually being productive.

Thing is: if you’re a team leader then you already know who the chaff and the rot are. Be honest with yourself.