Capn's Weekly Discussion thread

Boards have been too quiet lately, so I want to fix that. I propose a discussion thread about things I want to discuss that i'll post up every week or so.

Here's number 1:

Our local tournament scene. What's the deal? We have a huge base of players to draw from across a wide range of stores, but we seem to max out on 6-8 attendees.

Thoughts?

(please keep all forum and etiquette rules in mind when posting.)

I agree this is rather odd. I can understand with the larger tourneys. Scrounging up $60 to play the last patriot games was tough, especially in this economy. If we can find ways to keep the costs down we might be able to increase attendance.

Doing smaller events might be 1 way to go. I know Hobbytown was running rather frequent tournaments, but since I never played there I would usually not see the event notice until too late.

For warmachine it's simple. small community

But seriously, I'd think it's scheduling conflicts. I know I work two Saturdays and off one so it's sometimes hard to commit to the events. I can normally ask off, but right now it's hard to justify the 6 hours missed when I'm only getting 30-35 hours a week because of the lack of stuff to do at work.

As for money, I can see the argument about the cost of the events. However, the larger events only happen twice a year. The small events ( Siege on CHG, TSE's game day, Name of Warpig's regularly scheduled event) tend to only have 4-10 players. IDK on this one though.

Realistically, you've only got about 3 regulars (will show up to just about everything):
Bdix
Me
Matt

Then you've got people who've had work and/or life come up:
Andy
Shane
Sterling
Will
Jeremy
Al
Matt
Bradford
Steve

How many other people are in the community? I only know of another dozen or so, most all of whom work weekends.

Brian Preece had 6 people show up. He was #6.
1 person showed up for Fantasy Ard Boyz.
4 people showed up for 40k Ard Boyz.
8? showed up for CHG's last tournament.

Honestly, from a store perspective, I'd be hard pressed to justify holding a tournament. You don't see the revenue or attendance numbers, and only about half a dozen people will regularly show up.

Don't forget burnout... I just need a break for a while!

One thing to note is that up until about two years ago there weren't that many smaller tournaments. From what I remember there was only Sooiepalooza, Patriot Games, and then usually a smaller Halloweenies event in the area.

Hobby Town started hosting smaller tournaments every couple of months, and when they had luck with that the local tournament scene really took off. There was about a tournament a month - either fantasy or 40k (40k had a lot more luck than Fantasy at the time - I almost be it would be flip-flopped now.)

I remember talking to Dennis about this and he was a bit wary of it. He said that he didn't know if the amount of smaller tournaments would be good for the local scene. His reasoning was that if the players started to look at it only as a tournament game you would see the casual play start to die off.

To me it looks like the opposite has happened - the longer it has gone with there being this large amount of options for small local tournaments, the smaller the turnout has become. I wouldn't say that it is burn out (though Jeremy, Matt, and myself are taking a bit of a break from 40k after BOLSCon) but that the local players are almost spoiled for choice. It isn't as big a deal if you miss a tournament - it isn't going to be the only one for the year, there will probably be one next month or the month after.

My guess is if we continue to see a decline in players showing up, there will start being fewer 40k and Warhammer tournaments and other systems will start to surface. War Pig hasn't had a 40k tournament yet because of this a few other things - for one I am waiting to get everything up and running smoothly (almost there!), space is also really at a premium at my shop - those of you who have been in will know what I am talking about (it isn't as bad as Gallery of Champions back in the day, but it is no where as big as Castle House.) Another reason is lack of interest, I really haven't had anyone busting down my door wanting to play in a 40k or Fantasy tournament - right now Malifaux has really taken off and looks to be the next candidate.

Another thing I think has hurt the tournament scene in the past has been awareness. Before the Hogs forum showed up there wasn't a cross-community platform to communicate to the player base. each store had it's core members and invited other people that they knew, but there wasn't a way to let new players know of the events.

This is my perception, so I could be wrong.

I did have an idea that I wanted to throw out there. For a larger event (like Sooie or Patriot) what about making it a community event? That is to say, instead of having 1 shop put it on (such as TSE) what about pooling resources and holding an event together. We could expand it to include other games such as Malifaux or even Magic o broaden the player base and have sort of a mini dealer room where all the local shops could set up.

Just a thought. I've never run a tourney and I'm sure that there are logistical nightmares I am unaware of.

Maybe we could start advertising across central arkansas. The Russellville/Little Rock/Conway area has a huge community with pretty much zero tournements.

Plus. we would get more army choices around to mix things up. I'm not really sure what that would take, but I think it would be a great step for the community.

Small tournements are fine with me. The one last weekend at TSE was a blast, and I know that everyone there felt the same way. It was a casual couple games with a slight competitive edge.

If we want to talk about doing tournements for larger numbers, maybe we should talk about starting another big one besides Patriot (Im discluding Sooie because I dont play fantasy). The showing for that event is always huge, and if we hyped another one between the months of November-Febuary sometime I bet we would get good responses.

I have a feeling I'm about to be flamed for this. Be kind to me

I think Brent summed it up pretty well, we have the players but conflicting schedules make attending the smaller tournaments very difficult. I work all day Saturday (6-6) so I have to ask off to attend these, which I can do once in a while, but definitely can't do every month.

Blake's suggestion of trying to expand our player base might be a good idea, but that hits upon the same problem as work schedules. There's only so often people are going to be willing to drive X hours to play 40k for a day.

Honestly I'd think 3 or 4 larger tourneys over the course of the year, with a few small holiday/release based events in there, would be the better option. With Patriot in June and Sooie in Oct(?) we could fit in another larger event in February with 4 months between each event. Alternatively we could push one of the two forward/back a month to make it 3 months between each event and have 4 events a year (alternating Fantasy/40k).

Personally I would love to see 10-15+ man tourneys every/every other month, but I know at least I wouldn't be able to take part in those regularly for about a year...

I dont want to see the smaller tournements die although...its a good way to atleast meet players and get to know them, and the cost of those smaller ones is alot more affordable.

I think we are about to enter a part of the year where people are going to be more available to play (basing this off of last year). With Summer alot of people were out of town, and this time of year is the start of the school year (I know alot of the players are teachers and students). Give it about a month and I bet we will be a rebirth in interest and larger tourney turn out.

bdix wrote:

Give it about a month and I bet we will be a rebirth in interest and larger tourney turn out.

QFT. I agree fully.

Holding 4 larger tournaments is a bad idea. It takes alot of work to plan those, I mean alot. But the big problem is timing. You don't want to have one on the same weekend as another GT. That's just bad joojoo competeing for another tournaments players.

Disclaimer
The following comments are not meant to offend in any way or single anyone out.

In a nutshell it boils down to politics. Whether anyone will own up to it or not, who knows, but some players just won't play outside of homebase for whatever reason. There is nothing wrong with showing some shop loyalty, nothing. But there has been some underlying issues that I personally hoped would have gone away by now. I won't comment on this further, so don't ask. Those in the know, know what I'm referring to.

Everyone should know that a little competition between shops is a good thing. It means more exposure, more games to play and more places to play them. I really feel some the players don't appreciate the fact they have a place to play at all. When I first started playing Warhammer I had to drive to Ft. Smith just to buy stuff. So having multiple places to purchase stuff AND play, well now I feel spoiled. But I also know that if these stores don't receive our support, that will all disappear.

Another issue that was briefly touched on was casual play. Some players just don't like tournaments. ok, I get that. I understand why those players don't play in the bigger events, but not so much the smaller ones. More than likely they will be playing the same people they probably play in casual games. So, I don't get it. When I play in a tournament, I play to have fun first. If I win, that is just a bonus. I like to win just as much as the next guy, let's face it, noone likes to lose.
And there are other ways to show support for the local tournament scene, especially in the larger events. The tables need to be set up and taken down, things to hand out, and some the out of town participants may need some transportation to and from the airport. These are just a few of the things to consider.

Frequency of events is also an issue. If you have to many to close together, the players will start missing them and "catch the next one". I personally ran into this issue when I was running events Gallery of Champions on a regular basis. And as was also stated earlier, frequency can lead to burnout. Which will obviously effect tournament attendance.

In closing, support your local gaming store. Playing at another store in no way means you are being disloyal to your favorite store. Just remember the community as well. Please and thank you.

I'm seeing a lot of positive discussion here (except for that brief moment when I thought QFT stood for 'quit effing talking') and I like it. CWDT is coming to a Hogs board near you!

As for the topic itself, I'm divided on this. I agree that more big events would seem to draw a larger crowd, but then you have to figure out the logistics of running a large event. The amount of larger events is going up as well, so it kind of pulls at the local players in different directions. Even Patriot, our one larger local event, was down in attendance last year. This, of course, could be attributed to the announcement of it being a two-day event when no one in the local area was really pushing for a two-day event.
And now you have the internet to compete with. Offer to run a big event, pull in players from a few hours away, and then have one blogger show up, have a bad day, and next thing you know - BAM - you're on BoK's blog as a douche.

I understand the scheduling issue. It's a concern a lot of gamers deal with.

Does anyone think altering the smaller tournaments a bit would help? Maybe running something more like Nova Open or doing completely custom missions? I'm really getting burnt out on the 3 round RTTs that are picked 3 out of 5 missions. Ed Note: I don't want to do a team tournament.

Describe these alternate styles you are talking about

I am also interested in talking out these deep rooted hatred issues against team tournaments that you and Brent seem to share . In the several team tournaments I have participated in, they are definitely the funnest type to attend.

I dont have a deep rooted hatred of team events, I'm just not a big co-op mini gamer. That's why I have an Xbox .

I also feel like because we have such a limited field of tourney goers now that a team tourney would half the field.

If we promote it like they did in Conway we could get some huge numbers. They had 10 teams with a total of 20 people show up. I know there is a gaming community that is starved for tournements down there, and we could easily pull in 50% of them just by calling down at their shops and asking them to promote it. This could apply to a bigger tournement too. If we did a Halloween event, I bet we could promote it and get 20+ people.

Great! Get it organized. I'll show up AND play.

See. I don't hate team events.

capnwoodrow wrote:

Great! Get it organized. I'll show up AND play.

See. I don't hate team events.

lol

I'd probably try also... OK it's official. Blake your the EO for an event in a month... GO!! GO!!

J/K

It's called empowerment.

If you rely on me to run a team event, it'll never happen. Why? It's not something I'm motivated to do. If someone thinks they can get a 20+ team tourney in a month - great! I'll help out anyway that I can. Terrain, judge, play. I'll do it!

In the spirit of new scenarios, can we take a page from the new Fantasy Book and make the terrain more interactive.
Or put a 40k spin on it. For example, what if each player could put a mine field out there somethere. Before the game, write down where it is and when triggered, show your opponent. They could be anti-personnel or anti-tank or even put one of each out there.

I really will get one organized, someone just give me a place to put it and a date. I have strong ties with 3 or 4 players in conway and know a couple players in russellville, so actually I probally would be the best person to do it.

Start thinking on what date you want it and consider it done

Quote :

In the spirit of new scenarios, can we take a page from the new Fantasy Book and make the terrain more interactive.

I'd have to argue against this, though ignore my opinion as you wish since I can't attend as regularly as Brian anyway, honestly the interactive terrain is one of the things that's making me dislike 8th ed Fantasy. There is very little actual reliability in the game any more, unless you play high elves, everything (including the new terrain) is ridiculously random except the combat phase. I've experienced 2/6 games now where the random terrain has been the winner, not the person on the winning army. Example: Mysterious River (of Light) decimating support units, or Mist-Wreathed Swamp eating whole units of low int models.

Honestly I think anyone attempting to force that system into a tournament setting is asking for trouble. Just my 2¢ there.


As for a Team Tourney, I'm not immensely interested either for similar reasons as above. It's a little to random/gimmicky for my taste. But don't let that stop you, I'd probably end up playing in one too if I could find the time and a teammate anyway.


In regards to a NOVA format tournament, I would be all for it. One thing you may want to look into though, I've heard the Sports scoring was a little wonky.

what type of tournament(fantasy, 40k, what)

PhantomPhoenix wrote:

In regards to a NOVA format tournament, .

This rule got a chuckle out of me.

Quote :

All players must attend the event showered and wearing deodorant; respect your peers!