Building a Community!

clu · Building a Community!

Since being recruited into the ranks of AGOT player I've often seen threads about how to build a community. Now having some experience at running events for other games and the greatest game (AGOT LCG for those slow on the uptake) I've finally gotten an idea of what it takes.

I mentioned on another post that I'm once again building an AGOT meta in Iowa. The 'old' players have mostly moved away or become lost in their studies. Since I first started playing (thanks Luke...) only four maybe five of us are still in the area (hey we were hitting twice-day-tournaments with 16!). So once again to the rebuilding... (we'll call it meta generation 4, maybe 5!)

1) Build on what you've got [here's a list of things you need]
- regular play space
- product!
- advertising (you know a poster or list of events somewhere)
-- you may have to start your own meta thread with FFG
-- also note that the best advertising is folks having fun playing!

2) A Nightswatch
- Enthusiaism (it's infectious. when Lucas was down here it went from 2 to 16, me included)
- Nice person (you don't cringe when they might say something)
- Works well with others (newb friendly)
- Patience (Sometimes it take 1+ years!)
Notice I didn't say anything about rules or dedication to winning. The rules will be learned. (It helps if you look over their shoulder from time to time). Winning will come once experience takes hold. As far as signing up folks for NW. Right now it doesn't matter. Express enthusiaism. The rest will come...with patience!

3) Time
- It won't happen overnight
- scheduling tournaments when people can get together
- it doesn't have to be weekly (with the latest generation I started bi-monthly. they requested weekly and now we get 4 minimum weekly)

4) Have fun
- they don't have to be tournaments! getting together to play is just fine!
- introducing weird tournaments is fun & takes the 'pressure' of winning off for the week
- use the FFG tournaments (they're figuring this out too! the only thing that's slowing it up is growing pains)
- if you have a jackinanny let them know they need to change! If it gets to brass tacks tt's better to kick someone out than let them drive 5 people away!

clu

Creating the idea of an event is important to the longivity of a game. To make these work you need at least two weeks of advertising to your players so they can prepare. (notice I never said anything about prizes. if you want to push an event give a prize, otherwise playing for the sake of playing should be enough!)

For the sanity of the players introduce events in a even tempo. i.e.
week 1= Standard
week 2= Event
week 3= Standard
week 4= Event

There are two different ways you can do this. One is the type of tournament.

Types of Tournaments
Peasant- Only commons, uncommons & chapter packs may be played!
Theme- You must play 18 cards with the same trait. Those cards ignore out-of-house penalties when being played!
Highlander- You may only play with one copy of each card in your deck!
Noble- You can run only 5 rares in the deck!
Pure Blood- Everyone must run the same house
Classic- All sets are legal!
Battlefield- A location is used by both players that is immune to 'everything'! (best used when the location changes round to round)

You can tell how exciting these are by the exclimation marks! Plus there are more variations out there. Bonus idea...use more than one 'type' to make a truely unique tournament! (I currently like peasant, theme battlefield)

The other is function of tournamet.

Function of tounaments
Wandering Crow- introduce/demo the game to players
- have extra decks available
- best used for melee events
- peasant decks work best
Competitive- refine your playing skills
Story Line- how a player does effects the next tournament
- see post below

Wildcard tournament is the DRAFT
File this under an event tournament. We love to draft in my meta. At least one week a month we draft with different sets. I hope FFG continues to support drafting because I believe it is the best way to play any card game.

clu

It's hard to create an on-going event tournament without some fore-thought (or run on sentences it would seem). Tournaments that effect the rules of the preceding tournament need to be planned. Here is one story-line series that I ran that was a blast to play in.

WARDENS week 1
A deck must consist of house or neutral cards. (no out of house cards)
Choose three unique characters (preferably theme appropriate)

How the Wardens scoring works...
You score 1 pt everytime you play one of the chosen characters
You score 1 pt everytime you remove an opponent's choosen character from play
You score 3 pt for a win
You score 2 pt for a lose
You score an additional 3 pt if you have 2 chosen characters in play
You score an additional 5 pt if you have 3 chosen chracters in play (not accumilative with the 2 character bonus)

WARDENS week 2 (or results of week 1)
Players must now choose to do the following

Non- House winning Players- Choose 1
-Treaty winning house
-Run 3 of the winning house choosen unique characters in-house & not play any in-house uniques
-Change House to a House that wasn't played
-Change House to the winning house

Winning House Players-
- Choose one unique each from each Non-Winning House
- Those characters/locations become in-house AND your choosen uniques
-You cannot play with the choosen in-house uniques from week one

if you want an example see this...
http://criticalhitgames.myfreeforum.org/about39.html

WARDENS week 3-
rinse and repeat!

for us the fun of the tournament lasted 5 tournamets. After that it became too confusing and too much work! In the long haul it was a blast. we even worked drafts into the format by a play declaring a house before the draft. after the tournament who ever won got a bonuse like...(see next post if you're interested)