I'm fascinated by one of Mike's comments in another thread, to which I can't be arsed to link:

Don't play games at Cons with people you haven't gotten to know. It's a "convention." Where you go to convene with people. And then play games with them. It's not a "anonymention." This isn't a chess tournament. It's RPGs.

If you've signed up for a game without really knowing anything about it (and that includes a fifty word convention schedule blurb), and it turns out to be something you didn't expect, then you are the problem. Suffer through it, and then play a game with somebody you know.

I'm fascinated, because it's so different from my experience. At Cons, I almost always game with strangers: not people I've talked to, just whoever turns up at the table.

I find it shakes me out of my comfort zone: I get to play styles of games I wouldn't usually get to play. Also, there's a weird energy about gaming with strangers: when I run LARPs, it's almost always the strangers, the ones whom nobody knows and who sign up at the last minute, who play the best characters.

What about you? At conventions, do you generally game with people you know? Do you sign up for games with strangers? Do you talk to people, then decide to game with them? And which, on the whole, do you find the most rewarding? I'm genuinely interested, so indulge me.

Graham

At StoryGames Boston and running/being in demos at GenCon, I've gotten over the fear of playing with total strangers. It is often awesome.

However, this past week at Dreamation (edit: not Dreamation, Vericon), we tried to rope a bunch of people into playing PTA with us, but it ended up just being those of us from SG Boston, who play with each other every week. Not sure what that was about. The game was fun, but we didn't get to share it with anyone.

I consider myself introverted in ordinary life. I generally prefer to have someone that I'm familiar with at the table, but I enjoy it if most of the people are new. Playing with people I know is somewhat safer in the sense of avoiding games that suck.

On the other hand, I had a lot of great times at Knutpunkt and AmberCon NorthWest with a bunch of complete strangers -- so maybe I'm partially being cured of my introversion. And I've made a lot of good friends meeting people at conventions, so I think it's a good thing.

If I didn't play with people I didn't know I would have never played in John's Conan game at KublaCon... uh, actually I would probably either not gone to KublaCon or sat in our hotel room.

I have to agree with John. I like having someone I know at the table, but I love meeting new people at con games. That's part of the reason I go to them. I certainly don't need to play with the same people every week.

And I agree with Graham about the energy that comes from gaming (and especially running) with people you don't know. You want them to have a good time so you get jazzed for it.

I have met and gamed with a lot of different people the past year through Troupe Berkeley, a SF East Bay Area Google Group that Elliot Wilen started up. That has become my extended gaming group, and we get some nice recruits at the EndGame minicons in Oakland.

It's a mixed bag for me. I want to play with more new people. Especially at large conventions. If I became independently wealthy, I would travel from place to place playing in as many different groups as possible. I learn so much from every new person I meet. Love it!

Whomever's at the table is welcome, and I don't always make a huge effort to get to know them. I'm glad when people stick around to talk, though. I typically get some people I know and some I've never met, and since signup is not in my game room, I basically have to expect to see a bunch of people I don't know. When I sign up for games, I'll definitely look for people I know and like running them, but it's certainly not necessary.

I was actually going to start a new thread about this, but my comments seem connected to the ongoing discussion.

I just attended Dreamation, and it was my first gaming-centered con. I'd been to other cons that had gaming in them (Philcon, for example), but this was the first where gaming was the primary concern. It was also the first one I attended for more than one day.

It was an interesting experience. Everyone I met, and thus played with, was a stranger. The only exception was eruditus, whom I knew from gaming with him in Philly, and a couple of my friends who I saw briefly on Saturday night.

Playing with strangers was absolutely no problem. The games I played in ranged from amusing to absolutely kick-ass. There wasn't a single session that I found myself bored with or uncomfortable in.

It was *in between games* that seemed to be the issue.

As quoted in the first post, people seemed to primarily be there to hang out with people they knew. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, obviously. But it did occur to me on several occasions how said people ever got to *know* each other in the first place...

What I observed was this: during games people were exceedingly friendly and open. But I would see those same people not an hour later in the hallway and give them a quick wave or a smile and get absolutely nothing in return. I wasn't expecting them to stop where they stood and start talking to me, but something more than a blank stare would have been appreciated.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. As I said, I had absolutely no issues while in-game, but between sessions, the whole affair became very cliquish. There was very much a feeling of 'us' and 'them'. And I felt very much a part of the latter group.

It wasn't completely universal. I had some very cool conversations with Ben and Matt and Dave and a couple of others after and between sessions, but I would say that the majority of people I met definitely fell into the pattern I've described.

My question is this: why did a community that prides itself on inclusion, that's always interested in growing and adding new members, come off as so insular and cliquish? If I hadn't been such a long time lurker, if I hadn't known indie games from my experiences outside of Dreamation, I think I might have walked away with the feeling that I had no place in the indie gaming community. If I'd just been a guy who'd attented the con to play some D20 or board games and wandered down into the Indie Explosion room, I think I might have walked away feeling as if there were no place for me there.

I'm not saying that someone whom you play a game with should be an instant friend of yours. I'm also not saying you need to hang out with people you have no interest in hanging with. I just thought it was important to give an outsider's observations of what "I only go to cons to be with people I know" might look like.

Thanks.

-- d

So, Pecc, I just finished observing the same thing, and I honestly think that 90% of it is that people are so excited to see each other, and so limited by the geography of the conversational space, that it creates these enthusiastic knots which appear a lot more impermeable than they are. At least I hope that's the case.

Anyway, if I was part of any conversation that gave that impression, let me lay down an apology right now. It's something I actively hope to avoid, but I have occasional geek blinders too.

-Rob D.

PS - The fact that I will be damned if I can keep the Dans and Matts straight probably doesn't help either. :)

Maybe before Dexcon we could start a thread for lurkers and newcomers

This is a super-cool idea. I'm glad that I met and got to talk to people that I've never before encountered in person; it's palpably different, though, to make someone's acquaintance completely cold, and somewhat frightening to meet someone who knows your online face but you don't know theirs for whatever reason. The constant cultural spectre of stalking looms, even when that's pretty clearly not the case.

Having a con attendees introduction thread that lurkers and newcomers chose to participate in would vastly improve that experience for everyone involved, I think.

Hey Dan, and Rob,

I've definitely experienced that awkward interface between the people who know each other well and are desperate for some quality in-person time, and those who are new to the scene and just want to make new friends and share the excitement. I often feel like I'm in both camps at once. My personal solution was to make sure that everybody I was talking to was introduced to everybody else as a baseline. I also tried to deliberately include people in conversations and help facilitate introductions whenever I could. None of this hurt my fun and I met some great people.

yeah, Dan, I wish I had keyed on that and included you. No doubt my buddy Matt found the same situation (yes, I even brought my own Matt). I think what was said was right on the money about wanted to connect with folks we seem to know a great deal about only online. There is also a sense for some folk of "I have this game I am trying to churn out and I want the persepctives of people I trust on the matter." So I heard a lot of shop talk which I think folks are less likely to turn to a stranger to have. Many of the folk I was associating with were either from here or my NerdNYC buddies and I had my wife and friend with me so Dreamation for me is an instant party :)

Even so, as I mentioned in another thread, I am way extroverted and I still didn't say hi to certain folk due to "I don't want to bother them" or "I'm on the way to an event."

It always depends on what is going down, etc. I prefer to game with at least one person that I know at conventions when the game itself is "suspect" (that is, I can't say that "I've played this game before" or "I've had nothing but successes when playing this game no matter who runs it or who plays"). If the game is something like Dogs in the Vineyard, RISUS, Shab al-Hiri Roach, or even Exalted (I dunno, I've never had a bad con session of Exalted) then I'm fine with gaming with total strangers. But if I'm doing D&D or even any small-press game that I've not had experience with, I much prefer to have at least one friend/aquaintence there.

But otherwise: Yeah, I go to Cons to:

1) Meet online/far-away buddies
2) Try playing new games that I haven't played before (RPGs and Board Games)

In. That. Order.

-Andy

The way I see it is that I have only so many hours to hang out with people I know well, get to know certain people better whom I know sorta-kinda from the net, and get my game on. I truly want to meet new people and make new friendships, too, but those are lower on my priority list than hanging with the people I already adore.

Also, blank stares are often due to having been up till 4 AM the night before or due to being overwhelmed by the sea of faces. I sometimes can't remember the face (let alone the name) of someone I just talked to. It's not personal, exactly. I'm just overwhelmed.

I'll play with people I don't know, but I try to do reconnaissance beforehand. I've been in lots of stinky con games and I don't ever want to have to face the awkwardness of The Ditch again.

So I'll note who's running the games that have piqued my interest and I'll scout the gamemasters well before the game and try to get a feel for what they're all about. If I get a bad feeling or even a meh feeling, I stay away and cancel my signup for that game. It's better to burn some con time idling in the dealer room or looking for a pickup game of something than to be trapped in an unpleasant thing.

There aren't so many gamers in Tucson that I can go to a con and play with strangers. Playing with fellers from across town you haven't seen in a while and swapping stories about the last time you played is part of the fun.

Hey Dan/peccable:

If I failed to acknowledge a friendly nod, I apologize. I really enjoyed playing with you and would have loved to have gotten to know you outside of the table. I actually experience it as a disappointing loss that I didn't get to know you more, just as you do, everyone else. I will definitely try to be cognizant of people who are hanging in the area in the future and try to bring them in.

==

Generally, there are people I have gamed with before that I wish I could game with more often (Judd, for example), but I don't rely upon getting into games with people I know. I pick the game I want to play first, then whoever's there, that's gravy. There is a certain delight to getting to play with some people I only ever see at Cons (like Awesome Steve with the Tattoos) but I find that picking the right games tends to preselect the right kind of right-thinking people.

When I'm GMing I also make an effor tto introduce people to one another. I think I might go one further and ask for a little gaming resume. Something like, "What kinds of games do you play? Do you usually GM or play? Do you have a regular gaming group?"