OH '09- anyone running a game ....

[J. Lionheart]

Bringing Pregens, absolutely. The time it would take to review players' characters to make sure they're acceptable would eat away waaaaay too much gaming time, besides the fact that there's a 95% chance they wouldn't really be what's needed. I've only ever played one convention game which allowed personal characters, and that was a PF game by the late, great Erick Wujcik where it didn't matter how powerful you were, because the only solution to the scenario was based on thinking.

It's a bit of meta-GM'ing, but one-off games work much more smoothly if the GM can assure in advance that somebody in the party has the right skill, nobody has the wrong magic spell, etc. It also allows the GM to pre-familiarize themself with characters and equipment, so the precious few hours of gaming you have are focused on fun, not studying character sheets and rulebooks.

[Augur]

Absolutely! I'm running three games (see sig below) and bringing pre-gens for each.

Speaking of games, when's Wayne plan on posting a games schedule for this Open House like he did for the 2007 Open House?

[Spinachcat]

Bring your characters, but be ready to respect the GM's decision to only allow pre-gen characters. Looking over characters and approving them takes time. In a 4 hour game, time is at a premium.

At the last OH, I got to play two of my own characters - but they were at pickup games at the hotel.

Back in the early 80s, it was common for people to bring their home characters to convention games. Unfortunately, the munchkins spoiled it for everyone so nowdays I very rarely see convention games that allow home characters.

All of my games use pre-gens, not only for balance among players, but also because I like to tailor the characters to the storyline of the adventure that I am running.

[Xar]

I'll be using pre-gens.

[Augur]

I'll be using pre-gens.

Looking forward to playing with you again!

[Xar]

I'll be using pre-gens.

Looking forward to playing with you again!

Me too, my friend!