(Editor's warning: On this page we're going to mention what we haven't liked about some games we've played in. In doing so, we're basically taking shots at the work of other people. Just remember that this is simply the opinion of a bunch of weirdos from Tennessee - maybe other people like the kind of things we don't, and it's KORG events that suck. But this is how we feel, so we're not going to hold back here).

Sometimes you play in an event at a convention and it isn't much fun. If you've been to Gen Con even one time this has happened to you, unless you either didn't play in very many events or you got incredibly lucky (I guess we shouldn't rule out low standards, either). There are several mistakes people make when creating convention events (we've made some of them ourselves, unfortunately). Some of the most common are listed below. Since it's probably instructive to read about examples of bad ideas in action, here are some event mistakes KORG members have suffered through.

• The RPGA Effect: The RPGA is really, really dedicated to having Role Playing (capital R, capital P) in every event. That means every character must have strong role playing possibilities. So far, so good. The problem is that often these hooks are crippling to the rest of the party. For example, in one RPGA event KORG members played in one of the characters had a phobia about water, so much that he would do anything to avoid getting on a boat. So of course at one point the only way to continue the adventure was to get on a boat. If the player of that character played up that hook to the hilt they'd never get on the boat, and could never finish the adventure. Unfortunately, the RPGA has a habit of rewarding role playing at the expense of story line - if your character plays up their foibles to the point that the party is endangered or unable to finish their goal you have a great chance of winning the event or advancing on to the next round of play.

  Role playing is fun, but if you're going to have an event in which role playing is paramount you need to realize that not much else can happen. Setting up a situation in which there's a goal to accomplish but each character has elements that will sabotage that goal is likely to frustrate and annoy players.

• Soliloquy-itus: One of the most common mistakes designers of events make is to have lots of long sections where the GM reads to the players, during which they have no opportunity to do anything but listen. Occasionally this is necessary (often at the beginning of an event) but you should avoid this whenever possible. Role playing games are not books or movies - the players need to interact as much as possible. If you've got long sections of prose you might consider printing out copies for them to read to themselves - often the information sticks better that way anyway.

• All Or Nothing Rolls: It's the first hour of a Gen Con event. You get bitten by a viper. The GM tells you to make a saving throw or the poison will kill you. What's wrong with this picture? The problem here is that the GM is letting a single die roll determine your entire fate. If you get unlucky you're dead, and your party is out a character. There are a number of "all or nothing" rolls that can have too much bearing on a character's success, including saves against poison, death magic, and disintegration, attack rolls by someone wielding a vorpal sword, and spells such as Hold Person that will effectively put someone out of a combat. When you're designing an event you must be careful not to allow a couple of unlucky rolls early on to screw characters or the party. Sometimes it's okay late in an event - there can be a lot of excitement in knowing that you've got just got to make a roll. But casually littering an adventure with such rolls can make players feel like their dice rolling, rather than their play ability, is what will make them succeed.

  Something that goes hand in hand with this idea is the fact that sometimes designers don't realize how roll dependent an event is. Having a monster that does 1d100 damage is a bad idea in most cases. Generally it'll do about 50 points of damage, but every now and then some unlucky soul is going to take a 90 point hit. In a similar way, sometimes designers seem to assume that a high level party with great saving throws will never miss one. So they'll throw a really nasty spell (something of the "save or die" variety) at a party, thinking that since everyone will save on a 3 or 4 it's no big deal. The problem is that when you get 6 people rolling dice, and each has a ten or fifteen percent chance of failing, there's a distinct possibility that someone will get unlucky.

• Sequels: When an event goes well, you often want to capture the feeling again in the next adventure you write. This leads to folks doing sequels to their events. Unfortunately, sequels are rarely as good as the original, and the longer they go on the worse it gets (think "The Phantom Menace" here). There are a number of problems with making sequels to events. For one thing, the story often gets stale. Since the same characters and villains return again and again, the players get the feeling that they're not really in control of the action. After all, the GM isn't going to let them kill off the antagonist of an eight part event in part three, is he? Another problem is that people who haven't played earlier editions of the ongoing story can feel lost and intimidated. Even those who played earlier events in the series probably won't remember much of it. This sometimes leads GMs to start off the event with an ever-lengthening "What has gone before..." soliloquy that rattles off events and characters the players can't possibly keep track of and frankly don't care much about. Having a twenty part epic adventure played out over a decade or so at Gen Con is an idea that sounds really cool, but on close examination doesn't work out so well unless the people behind it are really, really good and very careful about how they run things. (One possible exception comes from the world of superhero role playing games, in which sequels are perhaps expected. The trick is that what happened in past chapters shouldn't be required reading to play in the later ones).

• In-Jokes R Us: When a GM or group has run several events the tendency is to start putting in-jokes into the script. In-jokes are things that the people that have played before, or the GMs themselves, will find interesting and amusing. Although this can be pretty harmless if it's done lightly, too often it degenerates into a situation where people who don't get the in-jokes feel left out and bored. One of the things KORG does when reviewing events is to be ruthless about removing in-jokes (and truth be told even then we've slipped in one or two subtle ones).

• Too Many Players: Sometimes GMs want to have as many people as possible play in an event, so they'll let 10, 11, 12, or even more sign up. In AD&D terms there is pretty much only one type of adventure this will work for: hack and slash. Even then it requires a fast paced adventure and a GM that's willing to work his tail off to keep everyone involved. In any kind of adventure where there's a modicum of role playing having 10 people is a sure ticket to boredom. The problem is the GM can't pay enough attention to everyone - if all the people in a 10 player party want to do five minutes of role playing when they meet the elf king, for instance, the tenth one has to wait 45 minutes to get a word in edgewise. And since there are inevitably some players who talk more than others, you end up with players who basically sit around for three hours or so not doing much. This can happen in smaller groups, of course, but it's much easier for the GM to draw out quiet players and give them a chance to interact when there's less demand on his attention. Generally KORG events will have no more than 6 players to a GM, and sometimes there are only 4 or 5.

• Mysteries: Many event creators like to write up mysteries (usually involving a murder) that the players must solve during the event. While this sounds like a cool idea, in practice the mystery doesn't translate well to convention gaming. The problem is that to solve a mystery you must examine clues and question witnesses and suspects. Any reasonable examination or questioning, however, takes time. Lots of time. Which often leads to one or two characters monopolizing the GM for half an hour while everyone else waits for a turn. To make matters worse, it usually turns out that the players have no clue how to solve the mystery unless the GM throws them some huge, obvious hints. The "solve a mystery" event is quite a popular event to run, but seems to have a high ratio of bad experiences to good ones. One notable exception to this rule are the Court Murder events run at Gen Con. The folks that design them really know what they're doing, and if you like live action I highly recommend them. The way they get around the inherent problems of mystery events, incidently, is by providing in different character's background information the clues needed to solve the mystery, so that the players spend most of their time role playing among themselves without any GM intervention.

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