Counting GMs for Pickup Games

[Ben Robbins]

We're going to have a lot of pickup games this year. We already know we're going to have a full house of gamers: the trick is making sure we have enough people comfortable running or facilitating games. Otherwise we have a lot of gamers just standing around.

So we're taking a headcount to see where we stand:

- Post in the matching thread for each slot if you are going to run or facilitate a pickup game. Don't say what you're thinking of running (you can kick around ideas in Brainstorming, but if you have a specific plan in mind you probably should just schedule it). If you change your mind, just delete your post or edit it so the admins know to delete it.

- Don't post if you want to play in pickup games, but aren't comfortable facilitating or running one.

This way the reply count in each thread should tell us how many facilitator/GMs we've got for pickup games in each slot:

FRI-01

SAT-01, SAT-02, SAT-03, SAT-04

SUN-01, SUN-02, SUN-03

[Ben Robbins]

Added threads for all the rest of the slots, in addition to FRI-01 and SAT-04.

Are you pro-pickup games? Stand up and be counted.

[cwilbur]

I'm posting here because I'm horrible at following directions, and you're not doing things the way I think they should be done!!!!111!

Actually, I'm just avoiding posting "me too!" in all the GM pickup timeslots, because it's not 100% true. I don't want to run in every slot, but if there are slots where I'm not already scheduled to play in something and there's a GM shortage, I'm happy to say, "Hey, anyone for Fiasco/IAWA/carry/Polaris/A Penny for my Thoughts/whatever else?"

[Ben Robbins]

but if there are slots where I'm not already scheduled to play in something and there's a GM shortage, I'm happy to say, "Hey, anyone for Fiasco/IAWA/carry/Polaris/A Penny for my Thoughts/whatever else?"

That's exactly the gist of it. It's saying "I'm not planning on being in a scheduled game that slot, and I'm bringing games I'm capable of throwing down." Who actually does what is totally decided on the spot. The pickup-police won't hunt you down and arrest you.

Previous years leaned heavily towards scheduled games with pre-arranged signup, but in the past year the groundswell has been to go back the other way, towards unplanned pickup games, so we're trying to help that work. With 100 people.

We want the schedule to show that pickup games are a viable option. If people want to encourage pickup games rather than games where all the players sign up in advance, showing that there will be people interested in running games in those slots will certainly help. But if there are better ways to do it, we're open to suggestions.