Writing Scenarios for Conventions (advice from my GOAT)

May 28 • Advice

GenCon is coming up in just a few months (will anyone from this group be there? Let's meet up) and all the GMs are hard at work working out the details of what they'll be running for the masses.

I have never run a game at a con (next year, maybe). My games tend to be years-long, elaborate, overwrought, etc. So there's something very romantic to me about the idea of writing a 3-hour scenario that other GMs will pick up and run. It would have to be a perfect little Swiss Army knife of tools and mechanics that anyone could run without explanation, the layout would have to be readable and compact, the premise would have to be interesting, etc.

And all that sounds pretty tough to write. But we had a chance to sit down with Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan recently (who is my favorite adventure designer of all time and I think should be seriously in the running for the best to do it) and ask him how he writes convention games. He's been doing it for about 25 years now, so he's a font of knowledge.

He was kind enough to share with us a PDF resource that I think you'll all find interesting. It's his guide for writing convention-style games, but I found a lot to learn from it about designing sessions of play.

In it, he talks about planning on a 3-hour time block, which scenes to include (and which ones to cut), the dynamics at play in the party and the character group, and how to get the party involved in the action.

Some of it is only relevant for cons, sure, but I think a lot of it will be helpful for GMs trying to write tighter and more action-packed sessions. Check it out:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wh3tlhs7fmpytfm6kpm7f/How-to-Write-Con-Scenarios-the-Gar-Hanrahan-way.pdf?rlkey=mgzmjl7gbx1fbmsu8loafeha5&e=1&dl=0

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