Has anybody else ever had people show up to your convention games expecting to be playing a completely different game based on a sloppy reading of the description?
I had a group expecting Apocalypse World because I used the word Apocalypse in the scenario name even though the game description was clearly something else.
I had someone expecting 5 Torches Deep come to a game of Torchbearer.
There was another time that GURPS Transhuman Space got mixed up with Eclipse Phase.
These sessions were by far the worst convention games I've ever been in. The players quickly disengaged, dicked about, fell asleep or left the game when it wasn't what they thought it was.
How can a GM stop this from happening? Or if it does what can you do if this is clearly happening at your table?
It's like saying that atheism is high faith because you've got to have faith in people and religion is low faith because belief in something necessarily reduces your faith in people.
I'm someone who started playing D&D under the slightly toxic railroad dynamic and when I spotted it I hated it. It's hat mentality that tells players that they shouldn't learn to GM lest they find out how the sausage is made so you'd never enjoy playing TTRPG's again! When I went online to figure out if I was wrong to reject this the most common answer I'd see was "In traditional RPGs you need to have high trust in your GM that they are railroading you for the right reasons".
I find it ironic that here "High Trust" is used to mean the opposite of all that bad advice to open myself to High Trust that I received way back.
A game jam from 2023-07-16 to 2023-08-19 hosted by Unknown Dungeon. The biggest tabletop game jam is back again for another year, with the 2023 One Page RPG Jam ! This jam is about making new, one-page table-top role-p...
It's back and there are 17 days left to submit a game.
If you don't already know there are a ton of one pagers out there. Lots of people know games like Honey Heist and Lasers and Feelings. Once a year there's a big drive to make more.
It's not a contest, nothing gets ranked or judged so it's a nice easy way in to game design. The optional prompt is Rumours and Secrets.
I've made a game called X's in their Eyes and it's a GMless competitive game about going onto a big TV talent show with the the aim of killing off one of the judges in a manufactured performance accident.
https://totallyguy.itch.io/x-in-their-eyes