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TOBCON IV

Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2020 3:14 am
by Toby Pilling
It's still seven months away, but I wanted to announce that TOBCON IV will be taking place at Northfield community centre in London this August Bank Holiday weekend (Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th). Attendees are always a mix of regulars and newcomers, so all are welcome. The event involves playing in or GMing four WFRP sessions (any and all editions of WFRP are played) over the course of two days - each session 4 hours long.

Under various guises (TIMCON, WIMCON and now TOBCON) this event has been going on for over a decade and is as far as I know the only WFRP event in the world.

At the last TOBCON, some attendees mentioned other websites and forums that they thought I might want to post on to recruit more players. I'm afraid I don't have time to do that, but if anyone else has the ability to do so, they can feel free to market it where they want, as long as they link to this original post so that people can PM me.

Obviously, feel free to PM me if you wish to get more details, or just post queries or statements on this thread. Do try to let me know if you intend to come and if you are willing to GM a game, to help me plan the event. I normally ask GMs to send me their scenario synopsis by the end of May, so will post more here nearer the time.

Toby

Re: TOBCON IV

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 9:37 am
by Rangdo
I'll be there. Put me down to GM twice.

Re: TOBCON IV

Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 11:39 am
by Toby Pilling
Because of the lockdown issues over the Coronavirus, Shadowcon has been cancelled (or more accurately, will run online). As our venue has vanished, I'm afraid that Tobcon IV shall be delayed until next year.

If anyone wishes to run an alternative WFRP con online over that weekend, be my guest - it would be a good idea, but I am not familiar enough with online gaming technology to run it myself.

Re: TOBCON IV

Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 12:24 pm
by Rangdo
A shame, but not unexpected. :(

Re: TOBCON IV

Posted: Tue May 26, 2020 6:47 am
by tadcan
That's what I've been expecting to happen, esp. since Irish cons have also been cancelled until autum. Also if I went, it would be against my governments recomendations and I'd be obliged to self-isolate for 14 days when I got home. Is there enough people interested in attending an online convention to start the planning proccess? We can't let Nurgle win... :lol:

Re: TOBCON IV

Posted: Tue May 26, 2020 6:59 am
by Hyarion
I'm up for a virtual convention. Depending on the format, I'd also potentially be interested in running a scenario.

Re: TOBCON IV

Posted: Tue May 26, 2020 7:32 am
by Wyrmslayer
Zoom has proved to be the mvp of lockdown. Hadn't heard of it before. Our club shifted to online play once our community house shut. Tried roll20, but for all the system based mods you can install, it's clunky and slow. Seems to be the way it's browser based, with info going back and forth. The audio/video is awful, tried that with audio and video disabled and using what discord provides to cover that but found once you go that route you might aswell abandon the while thing in favour of zoom.

Only really works for "theatre of the mind" play, trusting a players dice rolls. Very clear audio/video, with an option for a gm to post links to prepared things in a group or player specific text chat, our pull them up and "share screen" to all. The free one has a 40minutte limit normally, think I read that limit has been lifted but not certain of that. Fortunately for us one of our number has access to the paid version for work.

Re: TOBCON IV

Posted: Tue May 26, 2020 7:54 am
by Orin J.
Wyrmslayer wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 7:32 am Zoom has proved to be the mvp of lockdown. Hadn't heard of it before. Our club shifted to online play once our community house shut. Tried roll20, but for all the system based mods you can install, it's clunky and slow. Seems to be the way it's browser based, with info going back and forth. The audio/video is awful, tried that with audio and video disabled and using what discord provides to cover that but found once you go that route you might aswell abandon the while thing in favour of zoom.

Only really works for "theatre of the mind" play, trusting a players dice rolls. Very clear audio/video, with an option for a gm to post links to prepared things in a group or player specific text chat, our pull them up and "share screen" to all. The free one has a 40minutte limit normally, think I read that limit has been lifted but not certain of that. Fortunately for us one of our number has access to the paid version for work.
zoom's one of those programs that schools made into a big deal because it has a lot of ways to monitor/spy on the users, so it's important to be careful with it. here's a pretty good guide to the various issues so far and how to mitigate them right now: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-sec ... ivacy-woes
short version, don't trust the program and installer themselves if you don't have to and run it in your web browser. and of course assume anyone/thing trying to get on it or get you on their group you don't know already is trouble.

Re: TOBCON IV

Posted: Tue May 26, 2020 9:19 am
by Totsuzenheni Yukimi

Re: TOBCON IV

Posted: Tue May 26, 2020 12:00 pm
by tadcan
My group has been using roll20 with voice/video turned off, so we can use the maps, player tokens, dice roller, character sheet, with either discord voice or hangout depending on technical issues. Having no video tends to take make the audio sound better. Like Tobcon we could have players pre-assigned to games with an email with their link, time, GM, character sheets etc. The GM's and organiser would have to do a dry run through for there games a week beforehand for a dry run through. Then on the day the players meet thirty minutes before the start time to sort out the inevitible technical issues. We could even do a Friday night pre-game chat night. And since it wouldn'd be confusing at all we could name it TADCON I. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Re: TOBCON IV

Posted: Sat May 30, 2020 5:38 am
by tadcan
So maybe my joke didn't go down so well... I'll start a new thread to start planning the event.