[MarcoSkoll]

2015 Inquisitor Grand Tournament
Warhammer World
Saturday 30th May.

We have three standard tables and Spyral Prime booked.

Event pack V1.0.1 (29th March)

Possible attendees:

• Cortez
• greenstuff_gav
• (+1)
• Heroka Vendile
• Holiad
• Kaled
• MarcoSkoll
• RobSkib
• (+ newbies)
• TheNephew
• Van Helser

~~~~~

Original post (February 17th):

... well, hopefully they're going to happen.

I've pre-emptively shot an e-mail at Warhammer World, asking whether they'll still have our heretical kind around after they've completed their renovations. I'm hopeful that they might, as their events staff have always seemed pretty accommodating in the past and it's not like we're asking to play someone else's game.

However, if not, we will have to restart our conversations about alternative gaming venues in a reasonably central location.

[greenstuff_gav]

i for one support this kind of thinking!
from what i gather if WHW won't allow out of print games, Foundry encourage old school stuff so i doubt they'll have trouble.
Radstock is still an option and have a plethora of terrain but being down south was an issue last time!

i've still got The Eramus Affair which is a print-n-play campaign ready to go for anyone that wants to run it; my time is rather more limited these days so putting a campaign together would take longer!

[Cortez]

I hope that we can find a venue for some Inquisitor action as it would be a shame to just let it die completely.

WHW or an established gaming venue would be the best, but I would probably be able to use the village scout hut near where I live, although we'd have to bring plenty of terrain. Might be easier to get to than Radstock.

[Van Helser]

Excellent idea. I am dead keen to run a campaign day this year. I am completely open to any venue, as an extra hour or two's travel makes little difference in the grand scheme of things to me!

Ruaridh

[MarcoSkoll]

Well, as I'm not now overdue to take the dog out and I've done dinner (pancakes, obviously), I can elaborate on my own thoughts...

~~~~~

A very basic option would simply be IGT 2015. It probably won't have much "grand" to it with the current level of forum activity, but it gives everyone a chance to do a bit of everything and doesn't need one person to write the entire day.

As discussed for (the non-existent) IGT 2014, the non-existent 54mm range these days means that a prize pool is difficult to handle (particularly if anyone wants to pay on the day), so the best that would be up for grabs would be kudos and anything people were prepared to donate.

I'm prepared to have a hand in running this, but I would also want to participate as far as possible (excluding myself from any prize winning, should prizes so exist). Aside from actually wanting to play some games, the numbers would be marginally healthier if everyone was as involved as possible.

(I'd also love to see some 28mm players come along, although as much as I want to see the full panoply of Inquisitor at one event, I'll be content with any event we can manage at the moment).

~~~~~

Option two is that it once was proposed that we could on some occasion have just a general meet-up, where players/GMs could arrange scenarios between each other in advance. This never came to fruition, but it could actually be a pretty worthwhile event, to let some more intricate scenarios be run.

Should I ever get the Warhound finished, this kind of event would be a rather tempting time to run the "God Machine goes to War" scenario I have planned.

~~~~~

I have also for a while had plans to run a linked series of three events centred around a large Imperial campaign.

Each event would be relatively self contained, so could be enjoyed even if players couldn't make it to all of them, but there'd be some plot threads running through the whole series that would provide a larger sense of continuity than some other 'Clave events have had.

However, I would want to have the first event in a fairly complete form, and good drafts for the later plot (which would of course change with the player's actions) before I announced dates.

[greenstuff_gav]

i'd prefer option one, then look at option three if we have any attendance (warhound!)

as to prizes i've got a few spare miniatures i could throw in; my recasting of the range has stalled due to finance issues (but the collection is nearing completion!) but thinking outside the box, would it be worthwhile contacting someone like Nicolas or possibly NachoMon for some commission work? i for one'd happily donate toward prize fund ontop of my entry fee!

on the other side, wasn't there talk of no entry fee and scrounging prizes last time?

[MarcoSkoll]

Who likes good news? ...Everyone? Then good news, everyone!

Hey there David -
Thanks for the email. We are still more than happy for folks to come and play any Games Workshop games here, including Specialist games.  We do ask that all miniatures and core game rules you use are either currently published or were once published by Games Workshop, but other than that - feel free.

Nick Bayton
Warhammer World Events Team

... well, that's an abridged version of the e-mail, but the core of it is that despite the renovations, a slightly reduced gaming area and Inquisitor being out of print, they'll still have us.

There's the normal stipulations about GW models only and no longer having 54mm specific terrain, but we've always worked around those fine in the past. (Well, we did have one of the staffers ask about my NPC Guard last time we were up there, but they didn't have any problem with what are essentially army men buried under some Cadian parts, and that's as close as I can recall we've ever come to an issue).

on the other side, wasn't there talk of no entry fee and scrounging prizes last time?

The absence of any 54mm range is a bit of a limitation on the idea of having voucher prizes like we did before.

It is theoretically still an option - I know some people used them to buy conversion fodder like Contemptors and Taloses (or whatever the plural is), and I myself used it to buy things like art books, Fenrisian Wolves (for use at 54mm scale, but they're still pretty massive for dogs/wolves even then) and some stuff for 28mm characters - but I'd want a decent consensus on whether it was still something people wanted.

More "trophy-like" prizes could indeed be more viable at this stage - things like commissioned artwork, the customised Nerf gun Ruaridh did last time, or that sort. Another possibility I have considered is picking an art piece from the rulebook and doing that as a one off model. However, slightly dependent on time.

There might have to be a bit of discussion about how we funded that kind of prize pool though (presuming the IGT is remaining non-profit, matching value of prize pool with value of entry fees would be a little difficult when we often don't know exact player numbers until the day).

[Cortez]

Personally I think going for an IGT style format would be the best i.e. everyone brings a scenario and plans on GM'ing one game, this format is probably the easiest to plan and isn't really dependant on numbers. I'm not really fussed about prizes or keeping score though, especially as there are fewer people around these days (emphasis should be on having fun).

On the other hand I would like to play that Erasmus affair of Gav's at some point. So I'm fairly easy to please.

[MarcoSkoll]

I'm not really fussed about prizes or keeping score though

I think I'd be interested in keeping score even without prizes. I've found the friendly competition is quite a good motivation at times.

(Although if there are people who'd rather not have the possibility of "losing" the event, that's entirely understandable).

[Heroka Vendile]

perhaps a more casual IGT with 3 scheduled game slots as opposed to the usual 4?
There's always the chance for a knock about game in bugmans (if it survives the refurb) at the end if people are desperate for that 4th fix.

[MarcoSkoll]

Three games can be done far more comfortably in a day than four, but within the IGT format it might throw up a different problem.

I'm quite a fan of the common approach of three players and a GM to a table. Three players means:

- More creativity at the table.
As I've said before, Inquisitor is possibly the most enjoyable GMing experience I know. While players can surprise you in a PvE RPG (the last time I GMed the Dark Heresy group, the plot for the ground team got rather heavily thrown when the characters decided to try to *hire* the suspect mercenary company), it's not often the plot diverges far (the spire team's plot largely followed the cues, beyond some unexpected shopping for a dress!). However, with the players pitted against each other, even the GM is finding out what will happen as it happens.

- The intentions of each player are easier to disguise.
The core of my "Countdown Run" scenario at the last GT (which is one of the best games I feel I've ever run, and eventually won me the GMing prize) was pretty simple - one of the players is a traitor, work out who/don't get found out, then escape - but entirely dependent on more than two players.

- Some "Mexican stand-off" in the mix
I mean this in its pure sense - in a three way stand off, being the first to shoot is risky. You get the first shot, but you leave the remaining gunman with only one target.
(I'm not suggesting veteran Inquisitor players need a disincentive from violence, but their characters often do).

The issue here is that a three round format where only one in four people gets to GM in a round means that not everyone gets to GM. The alternative would be two players and a GM to a table, but that misses out on all of the above and only really supports multiples of three well.

If we're not taking the scoring too seriously, that's not a problem, but it may be something that has to be considered.

[Holiad]

Despite my inactivity on the forums, I'd be quite happy to bring along a few characters to any event.
 As for type, while I enjoy the theme of campaign days, I have a bit of a soft spot for the slightly more formal IGT format. For me, the lack of a strong overall theme is made up for by the extra variety in the scenarios, and more than the campaign events, they pushed me to make an extra effort to be a better gamer. I built models, and characters around them, specifically for the painting contest, and I paid extra attention to how the characters would work a game both individually and as a warband knowing I was being scored. More than that, they made me pay attention to parts of the game I would otherwise have largely ignored-my biggest GM contribution to other events was running someone else's scenario, but at an IGT I had to write my own scenario, make it flexible enough to accomodate warbands of unknown idealogy and relative power levels, and make it fit into the time available, and I actually found I often enjoyed the challenge. So I'd agree, it's quite important that everyone has to GM at least one scenario, and to keep them considering the possibility of having to fit in a third player. I also agree that three player games often give a better dynamic for inquisitor, while two player games often devolve into a shooting match. In particular, its a lot easier to include weak warbands in a three player game without their opponent simply blowing them away and focussing on their objectives in peace.

[Heroka Vendile]

The issue here is that a three round format where only one in four people gets to GM in a round means that not everyone gets to GM. The alternative would be two players and a GM to a table, but that misses out on all of the above and only really supports multiples of three well.

If we're not taking the scoring too seriously, that's not a problem, but it may be something that has to be considered.

So how about we average peoples scores across their 3 games, regardless of whether they GM or play it's still scored out of 40 I seem to remember. Sure not everyone may get a shot at GMing, but if the idea is to make it a little more casual but still structured just so an event of some sort actually happens, I think that's fine so long as everybody understands.

[MarcoSkoll]

I'm not sure I'd want to leap into format changes without a consensus (although I do concede that trying to fit four games into a day gets pretty tight, and it's probably entirely possible to complement that with some people who would willingly not GM).

Still, exact specifics aside, something IGT-ish seems like our starting point.

[greenstuff_gav]

also we've had some fairly new players at the last couple of meetups; maybe worth giving people the option not to GM; we should know how many don't have to GM beforehand and allow begging / pleading / bribes (into the prize pot!) to avoid GMing...