Held my first league tournament Tuesday night at Gameology in Montclair. It went reasonably well, but - - - are gamers just much flakier than most groups?

I spent eight previous evenings, every Tuesday and Thursday at the game store Shang-hai-ing and teaching the game to everyone I could. About 16 people learned the rules and seemed to enjoy it. The game store employees learned and taught some other people. In that time, three core sets were sold to two players. I announced the tournament weeks in advance, sent out emails to everyone on my "learned" list, and the gamestore sent out emails to their ENTIRE mailing list. Tournament was free, and prizes for everyone ! Last Thursday I got committments from both of the guys who bought core sets to be there Tuesday for the first League tournament.

You can see where this is headed, can't you? Tuesday evening only one guy showed up for the tournament. Another guy just happened to be there anyway, but had paid no attention to my two and Gameology's one email announcement, never saw the posters, and was surprised to learn there was a tournament. NEITHER of the two guys with core sets showed up, in spite of their promises days earlier. Nobody phoned or emailed to say they coudn't make it.

So we had only two players. First place chose an unopened asylum pack over the lapel pin or the deck box. He ordered a core set. 2nd place player chose complete asylum pack common sets of Cthulhu, Hastur, and Neutral cards.

Next tournament is scheduled for Tuesday the 23rd. I really hope my turnout will increase.

Chick

Nice little report.

I'm definitely one of those flaky players...for this game, for A Game of Thrones, and for my other game, Monsterpocalypse.

For me, it's just that when real life makes demands on me (which is frequent), my gaming is sacrificed first. And since LCG/CCG gaming is the gaming I do with people who aren't my friends or family (because they are casual board gamers, nothing more) that means I'll tend to be even more flaky because I don't have strong relationships with those I play with (yet).

It seems like the most successful metas are those in which friends play together, and people who play together become friends.

I wish I had even one other friend who would decide to organize some league nights here with me, but I have no such luck.

But I hope you'll keep trying, and eventually you build a group that shares some friendship and fun, and then people don't want to miss a night!

Also, the individual nature of these games is part of it, I think. Like, with casual sports leagues the team is counting on you to make it to practice and to games, so there is the sense of responsibility there. But if I miss a LCG league night, there's less of a sense of responsibility. Then again, there are games like Legend of the 5 Rings where it seems like people do want to show up and play in order to not let their clan down or something.

Whatever, I'm just thinking out loud, trying to understand my own flakiness.

Good luck keeping it going!

Sorry to hear that, it's always depressing when tournaments don't go off. With the LCG's emphasis on kitchen table players and casual games, it's going to be hard to get regular groups together. A lot of casual players who don't put a lot of effort into decks don't feel the urgency to play those decks to see how they'll work so they don't make a big effort to show at tournaments or weekly games. Without a dedicated core who show up just about every time, the occasional casuals won't bother either and the game dies. Terrible prize support doesn't help either.

Donald

Nice try Chick. Keep us posted.

My neighborhood friendly local gaming store is just not that friendly. Get a bunch of gaming dweebs together, and you may get crazy enthusiasm. But you also get boogers, mossy teeth, and introverted specialized gaming. And, in my case, a big snewty Simpsons Comic Book Guy holding it all down. I think he does keep an important store in business and recently for the first time had the AP at the right time at the right price. And there's a huge gaming room downstairs and an organized looking Magic league play program.

Every time I go, and it's so close to my house, I have a nice enough time, but like very few of the conversations I hear. I say to myself then, "I'm trying to be patient and enjoy a store full of sci fi fantasy and gaming, but this is my time, and this environment sucks." So, anyway, that's my beef. Someday, maybe I'll try out what Chick is doing. If I see some success Chick, I will be more motivated.

ps. not sure why the dig on the prize support. I understand it's been a problem. But Chick had some cool stuff any of us would want.

I've been running tournaments in a range of games over the years. A couple of observations:

1: It takes a long time get the momentum running. When I started Friday Night Magic I had 1 player, then 2, and it took about 3 months before we started getting a real significant number of attendees every week.

2: Consistency is important. Players have to know when the tournament will be held. If you can do something every Tuesday at the same time, people begin to put this in their mental calendar. "Oh, it's Tuesday - I bet there's a CoC game at the store!"

3: Prize support is important. When prizes are involved the players take the tournament more seriously. The prizes have to be something desirable, but not necessarily expensive. Many games have "special" versions of cards or miniatures for prizes. Maybe a different paint job or different graphic, or a card that can only be acquired through a tournament.

4: The same people shouldn't win every week. This takes many borderline casual players out of the picture. One way to handle this is through a "fellowship" or "sportsmanship" award that is just as desirable as first and second place prizes.

5: Community leadership. When there is that one player who the others respect getting into the game then the others will follow.

Now, that said, I've been having a very difficult time getting a CoC league running. We have sporadic attendance because we have not been able to find the right day/time for all the players. If there were some cool prizes I could probably bribe people into playing, but right now I don't have the resources or know what that should be.

Thanks for the comments, friends, I'm encouraged and resolute.

Regarding prizes, the league kits are pretty darned good value. $15 out of pocket gets us two very cool lapel pins, a poker deck, and lots of cthulhu poker chips !! Also, I have been purchasing five copies of every Asylum pack, saving one as a league prize, and separating out all of the "spare" commons (after my playset of 3 + 1 for the binder) into faction sets. I organized Prizes For the free tournament as follows:

First place, choice of an unopened asylum pack or cthulhu deck box or a lapel pin.

Second place, choice of three faction sets of all commons from the asylum packs.

Participation prizes, choice of one faction set of all asylum commons or one poker chip.

My second place player seemed very excited about the cards he won, eagerly reading them out loud and showing them to me ! But he didn't spring for a core set - - - not yet anyway - - - pusher man is patient.

Chick

chicklewis said:

Then why bolster it with APs?

I'm not picking on Chick and I do think his using the extra commons for a prize is a great idea, but...Unrelated trinkets and junk won't promote the game. The deck box is the only thing in there connected to the game and it's marginal. 'We have this great card game we want you to play, so here's a deck of regular playing cards to traditional game with. And a couple chips to play extremely low stakes poker with.' 'hey, what's that Cthulhu lapel pin for? I got it from some poker company...' It just makes no sense. If only they could invent some kind of promotional cards you could use for playing the game.

Back in the CCG days of CoC, FFG on ocassion gave away for tournaments special promo cards. Their prize support also used to include "Sanity" certificates that could be used to purchase said promo cards after a month or two on their web-site. I'd love to see that occur again. I still have stacks of Mr. Six (I'm not quiet sure how I ended up with so many) that I give away along with my old CCG commons when I demo the game.

Dark Young, Donald is refering to exactly the promos you speak of. I take Donald's point. Promos do alot more for the game as prize support than a cthulhu trinket. The change is for the lesser. I agree. Now there are some awsome non-card cthulhu items out there. The trophy is one. To me, the deck box is great. And I'm not sure what the poker cards are, but if they're playable and distinct, they are highly collectible.

When a great ball player is traded away and then returns to beat his old team, one always says, "Why can't we get guys like that." I think that's the vein intended.

Sounds as though some of us didn't see my review of the league kit, so here it is again, modified to be more correct. The poker deck is just excellent and CthulhuLCG specific, and the poker chips are pretty nice, too.

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New CoCLCG League Kit contains:

1 Adventure League Survival Guide

14 Faction Leader cards - oversized, two for each faction.

55 (approx) plastic Cthulhu 'currency tokens'

2 Cloissonne Lapel Pins (Cthulhu and Hastur)

16 CoCLCG Poker Chips

1 Call of Cthulhu Poker Deck

Survival Guide is three pages (six sides) beautifully laid out and color printed. It is almost a League Rules Book, more like a league 'suggestions' booklet. The overall idea is that league participants receive 'currency tokens', one to start, one for each league game played, and another for each win. The currency can be spent to purchase (for one game) special abilities listed on the player's faction leader card.

Faction Leader cards are 4" X 7", color-printed on thin cardstock with nice big illustrations of Thomas F. Malone, Professor Albert Wilmarth, Richard Upton Pickman, Cthulhu, King in Yellow, Yog, and Shub. Below the pictures are three various purchasable special abilities, priced at 1, 2, or 3 'currency tokens'. Most of them are yawnable, the best is Malone's 3-cost choice called "Government Policy - Each time you play a Government character from your hand, choose and wound a character controlled by an opponent."

The currency tokens are 1/2" diameter, 1/8" thick, green plastic disks with the Cthulhu faction symbol laser-cut into one surface. Nicely made, but a bit 'fiddly'.

The lapel pins are very attractive, made of metal, about 1" in diameter, with the faction symbols in green (Cthulhu) or yellow (Hastur) Cloissonne. The background color is a rather cheery shiny silver, a strange artistic choice, but possibly less expensive than black. I'm wearing the Yellow Sign on my lapel right now. These will make GREAT and desirable prizes.

The poker chips are very heavy, look and feel good. They must be made out of some ceramic instead of plastic. Both sides are decorated in full color with the 'running away from the dimensional disturbance' image from Arkham Horror. I like them but don't quite know what to do with them. Guess I'll offer them as prizes.

The Cthulhu Poker Deck is just the BEST. Standard size poker cards with suits of green, yellow, purple and red ! Each of the 52 cards has different zoom-in closeups of faction card art in glorious color. Some of the images I don't think I've seen before ! Yes, Victoria Glasser is on the yellow queen card. Four jokers carry Kovalic art. There is NO way I'm going to offer this deck as a league prize, I'm afraid I like it much too much to let it go.

The kit is overall great value, imo.

Comments ?? Questions ??

Chick

Agreed - the League Kit is well developed and interesting. However for CoC players, there is a novelty aspect to a Cthulhu themed deck of cards and poker chips, but they don't relate directly to playing the game - you can't use them in your next CoC tournament. Well, maybe the laser cut Chtulhiu tokens on stories or for wounds.

There are three different levels of hobby gaming, I think (and they are not clear cut and distinct - they are steps in a continuum):

Playing at home with friends/family

Playing in public with game-friends

Playing in tournaments

The tournament play gets hard-core participants and usually requires interesting prize support to drag people out from the woodwork.

Public "league" play CAN be successful and get people out, but in my experience it is more difficult to get a regular response.

On the other hand, you have to be very careful with prize support. I remember one game company who was very generous with their prize support and drew people from miles away to participate in the weekly tournaments. Then they as they had to reign it in a little for economic reasons and the fans got very upset with the company and the game. Baslically the players had been spoiled by the prizes.

So when developing prize support one must be careful to make sure that it is desirable, but also sustainable over the long haul. Also, not TOO desirable so that carpet baggers don't come in to your store just to win prizes away from the regulars.

The pins should be acceptable to all. Metal and Enamel faction symbols are both exclusive and classic to our game, have permanence, and are new. The chits and chips are seemingly a bit too far, all these pieces and parts. The clunky core domain drain statuettes hit me thus.

The poker deck sounds just ridiculous to me. Like football players in baseball caps, it just screams whatever.

The over sized art I understand. Certain images may seem tired at once, but really are cornerstone icons of the game. The more we see the same old Ancient Ones, the more embedded the history of the game. These evocative images are identifiable and likely will hit the widest audience of anything in our game. Though removed to passers by, they are now more conscious of our niche. The old t-shirts had this effect. One day you're at a frat party, or in a grocery line, or both and someone says, "ia! pfthang! You can't pay for the beer with a coupon." That's the goal.

Those ability cards are just strange. Why not include a bottle of space mead, like billy beer. Just as arbitrary. But we could be on to something.

How about an old fashion promo that all may eventually collect. Nothing new there. But get this: it is only legal for tournament play when won and stickered as such. A blank space could accomodate a sticker mailed only to servitors - name of store and tournament and date and servitor signature. it could be all serial number and hologram. Now that promo card would be super, especially with a mean ability.

Shoes wrote:

"How about an old fashion promo that all may eventually collect. Nothing new there. But get this: it is only legal for tournament play when won and stickered as such. A blank space could accomodate a sticker mailed only to servitors - name of store and tournament and date and servitor signature. it could be all serial number and hologram. Now that promo card would be super, especially with a mean ability."

Yeeeha ! Dramatically cool idea.