Hello guys. It was suggested to me, in light of running a VASL tournament in lieu of our regular in person or "face to face" (ftf) tournament, the Nor'Easter, and the fact that many other tournaments are being forced to cancel or postpone their dates, that I might be able to give some helpful hints on how to proceed with running a live VASL tournament over the same dates as an originally scheduled live tournament. If anyone else in the organizer community is considering this, hopefully some of this will help.
The New England ASL groups YASL (Yankee ASL) and the Bunker (Creators of Dispatches from the Bunker) host a four day tournament every year in Massachussetts known as the Nor'Easter. As late March approached, we were looking forward to our 24th iteration of that tournament. Unfortunately, Covid19 burst upon the scene and our current history took another turn.
We decided to cancel the tournament due to the health risk and even though a short time later, such cancelations became mandatory, we never really regretted the decision past the fact of wishing it had not come to that in the first place. The hotel was co-operative and did not demand our money, other vendors we had dealt with were equally co-operative in these difficult times and we set our sights on next year.
One of our long standing members, Charlie Hamilton, suggested we try a VASL tournament and after some thought, I decided to take a stab at it. I was unsure going in how well this might work, but in retrospect, I am glad we did do it. Should you find yourself in a similar spot, here are some things I learned in the process.
Communication is always important, but never more than for something of this nature. Our default for voice communication was Skype, as that is what the majority of VASL players I deal with use. As a backup, we also had an agreement that so long as BOTH players in a match agreed, another voice system could be used. I gathered email addresses for all players and a couple also volunteered their text numbers, which in retrospect, I would make as an optional field, as it made staying in touch with those players easier.
Format of the tournament. There has long been two formats for running tournaments, scenario lists and open, choose your own formats. The Nor'easter has always been the former and this was a great strength in this format. The scenario list was full of shorter scenarios for the morning rounds and slightly larger ones for the evening rounds, by design. The structured format of timed rounds gave everyone a good idea of when they would be playing and if they finished a round early, when they would be needed back on line. Combined with email contact with each pairing of players for each round, this kept the players in touch with one another and no one went AWOL. A big plus.
An open tournament would have been more difficult to manage in this manner and more people might have been left falling through the cracks.
I had two key wingmen for the tourney. Ralph MacDonald who pre-prepared E-V-E-R-Y scenario in the tournament on VASL boards and laid out a beautiful HTML format to assist the players, that was first advanced by a user named Ghost Pacman on this very forum. It was a huge time saver and given that not all the players were old hands at VASL, a truly enormous help. I requested Ralph not pre-pull the pieces as I have still run across instances where pre-pulled pieces give difficulty in deleting concealment counters, possibly due to ownership issues. Mileage seems to vary on this, but with 24 participants, someone was bound to experience this.
The other was my gamer per diem, Larry Flaherty, who was present to ensure there was never an odd man out for very long. He helped us avoid that awkward situation and was beyond gracious to offer his time in that fashion and make things run more smoothly.
So definitely, get some help from your group. It is a big job and the more assistance you get, the easier it will go. Also, don't play yourself. I was going to, but decided against it, and I am very glad I did. It would have been unfair to any of my opponents and would have made the job of TD much tougher, making for a worse experience for all.
I asked the players to please prefix all their VASL rooms with the letters NE- and then the room name. This was huge because it made locating the Nor'easter games in a now very crowded VASL game room much, much easier. Most of the players also put the names of the players in the match in the room name and given how helpful that was, I would have asked for that too, had I thought of it.
Don't underestimate the time it takes to keep this rolling. Due to not being able to stroll up to a table and check on things, or ask a friend of someone where they might be, communication and time management are real important from the organizers point of view. I know I hit this one before, but it bears mentioning again. Also, be prepared to adjudicate a game, especially in your winners bracket, as it is the only way to keep things rolling to the benefit of all.
Make sure you have detailed records and when you have a round just started and everyone running, mark yourself away in the main window and GET SOME SLEEP. You are going to need it and the quick naps were a big help.
Last, not needed, but if you are going to report your game results to ROAR, do so in real time as the results come in. This allows you to stay on top of it and avoids having 60 games to worry about at the end of the weekend to add.
One thing you have going for you is that your participants have already laid this time one side as vacation days from work and let's face it, right now spare time on people's hands is at an all time high.
It wasn't the same as a face to face tournament, but it was a lot better than no tournament at all. Glad we did it. I hope in some way, this helps others who are considering this route. Good luck gentlemen.
The New England ASL groups YASL (Yankee ASL) and the Bunker (Creators of Dispatches from the Bunker) host a four day tournament every year in Massachussetts known as the Nor'Easter. As late March approached, we were looking forward to our 24th iteration of that tournament. Unfortunately, Covid19 burst upon the scene and our current history took another turn.
We decided to cancel the tournament due to the health risk and even though a short time later, such cancelations became mandatory, we never really regretted the decision past the fact of wishing it had not come to that in the first place. The hotel was co-operative and did not demand our money, other vendors we had dealt with were equally co-operative in these difficult times and we set our sights on next year.
One of our long standing members, Charlie Hamilton, suggested we try a VASL tournament and after some thought, I decided to take a stab at it. I was unsure going in how well this might work, but in retrospect, I am glad we did do it. Should you find yourself in a similar spot, here are some things I learned in the process.
Communication is always important, but never more than for something of this nature. Our default for voice communication was Skype, as that is what the majority of VASL players I deal with use. As a backup, we also had an agreement that so long as BOTH players in a match agreed, another voice system could be used. I gathered email addresses for all players and a couple also volunteered their text numbers, which in retrospect, I would make as an optional field, as it made staying in touch with those players easier.
Format of the tournament. There has long been two formats for running tournaments, scenario lists and open, choose your own formats. The Nor'easter has always been the former and this was a great strength in this format. The scenario list was full of shorter scenarios for the morning rounds and slightly larger ones for the evening rounds, by design. The structured format of timed rounds gave everyone a good idea of when they would be playing and if they finished a round early, when they would be needed back on line. Combined with email contact with each pairing of players for each round, this kept the players in touch with one another and no one went AWOL. A big plus.
An open tournament would have been more difficult to manage in this manner and more people might have been left falling through the cracks.
I had two key wingmen for the tourney. Ralph MacDonald who pre-prepared E-V-E-R-Y scenario in the tournament on VASL boards and laid out a beautiful HTML format to assist the players, that was first advanced by a user named Ghost Pacman on this very forum. It was a huge time saver and given that not all the players were old hands at VASL, a truly enormous help. I requested Ralph not pre-pull the pieces as I have still run across instances where pre-pulled pieces give difficulty in deleting concealment counters, possibly due to ownership issues. Mileage seems to vary on this, but with 24 participants, someone was bound to experience this.
The other was my gamer per diem, Larry Flaherty, who was present to ensure there was never an odd man out for very long. He helped us avoid that awkward situation and was beyond gracious to offer his time in that fashion and make things run more smoothly.
So definitely, get some help from your group. It is a big job and the more assistance you get, the easier it will go. Also, don't play yourself. I was going to, but decided against it, and I am very glad I did. It would have been unfair to any of my opponents and would have made the job of TD much tougher, making for a worse experience for all.
I asked the players to please prefix all their VASL rooms with the letters NE- and then the room name. This was huge because it made locating the Nor'easter games in a now very crowded VASL game room much, much easier. Most of the players also put the names of the players in the match in the room name and given how helpful that was, I would have asked for that too, had I thought of it.
Don't underestimate the time it takes to keep this rolling. Due to not being able to stroll up to a table and check on things, or ask a friend of someone where they might be, communication and time management are real important from the organizers point of view. I know I hit this one before, but it bears mentioning again. Also, be prepared to adjudicate a game, especially in your winners bracket, as it is the only way to keep things rolling to the benefit of all.
Make sure you have detailed records and when you have a round just started and everyone running, mark yourself away in the main window and GET SOME SLEEP. You are going to need it and the quick naps were a big help.
Last, not needed, but if you are going to report your game results to ROAR, do so in real time as the results come in. This allows you to stay on top of it and avoids having 60 games to worry about at the end of the weekend to add.
One thing you have going for you is that your participants have already laid this time one side as vacation days from work and let's face it, right now spare time on people's hands is at an all time high.
It wasn't the same as a face to face tournament, but it was a lot better than no tournament at all. Glad we did it. I hope in some way, this helps others who are considering this route. Good luck gentlemen.