User Blog:
Writing Convention Scenarios

I was recently asked to write and run a short scenario for the Rogue Trader RPG at a local convention. The process of writing the scenario got me thinking about a number of rules of thumb that I tend to utilise when putting together one-off convention games. I thought it might be good to share these rules with you, in case any of you out there find them useful.

1) Keep It Simple

The more complex your scenario the more time it will take to get through it, and the more likely it is that your players will go off on a tangent or spend too much time on red herrings. And the more time you devote to elaborate narrative descriptions, the less time the players will have for role-playing and making decisions.

If your scenario is going to include combat, bear in mind that your game's combat time (in an out-of-character sense) always moves more slowly than narrative time. And make sure you only introduce combat scenes that further the story - conventions games leave little space for random encounters.

I tend to find it is helpful to split these kinds of games up into a series of acts - for example a three-hour game could be split into three one-hour acts, with one or two major scenes in each act.

Note that keeping your game simple doesn't mean making your game dumb. Although your story may on paper look quite linear, that doesn't mean you can't include elements that keep your players guessing until the end.

2) Watch your pace

Pacing is perhaps the hardest thing to get right, and it's not just about moving as fast as you can.

It *is* important to keep your players moving so that they don't spend too much time dwelling on a particular scene or devoting too much time to a particular story element. Since you're running in a limited time slot, the last thing you want to happen is for the game to time out before the players get to the end of the scenario.

However, it is also important to give your players time to breathe and to role-play the attitudes and the reactions of their characters. This is particularly important at the beginning of your scenario after your players has been handed their characters. They will need some time to work out who they are playing, and how best to express this to the rest of the group.