Would you like to know how we find the game masters for this year's Fastaval scenarios? And would you like to help?
Are you curious to know more about the process of how individual programs are added after the sign-up closes?
Then read on here!
First step: Game planning
As soon as sign-up closes, the group planners (in 2024 Simon Steen Hansen and Anders Frost Bertelsen) start creating groups for the different scenarios. These groups are based on participant priorities, room capacity and ensuring that all scenarios have a minimum of five events. Many groups, but by no means all, will have gamemasters who have signed up in advance. This is either by agreement with the author(s) or because they want to play that particular scenario for some other reason. We call these potential groups.
Second step: Game master distribution
Once the potential groups are set up, the work is handed over to the game master organizers (in 2024 it's Thor Fejerskov Jensen and Marie Oscilowski). It's their job to find as many game masters as possible so that as many potential groups as possible are finally created.
The puzzle is put together with the following caveats:
- All authors have been asked to find game masters for at least five teams themselves. This list will be prioritized if there are too many game masters signed up for a scenario.
- Some people have signed up for more scenarios than they want to play. So they let the gamemasters choose which scenarios they want to play. They will typically prioritize the scenarios that need the most game masters, the scenarios with the fewest groups in total, and the authors who have the hardest time recruiting more game masters.
After this, the organizers have an idea of how many game masters are actually missing. This is often somewhere between 60 and 90. The game master organizers have about 10-14 days to recruit as many game masters as they can.
The resources they draw on will be Facebook posts. Both in Fastaval's and Alea's official groups, but also in "Scenarie: vær spilleder på Fastaval", on RPGForum and on Danske Rollespillere.
In addition, some have signed up as Super Game Masters, which means that they need to be contacted to possibly take on more jobs.
Last but not least, there are personal relationships, where they either ask people they know or look through participant lists for people they know from previous years can be persuaded to play instead of playing.
Third step: Assigning activities
Once the game master organizers have found as many game masters as possible, the task goes back to the group planners, who finally assign activities to all participants. The more you help out at Fastaval, the more karma for activities. This means that if there's a scenario you really want to play, the best way to secure a spot is to lend a hand yourself!
We can always use game masters!
If you'd like to be a game master, we'd love to hear from you! Write to the game master organizers at spilleder@fastaval.dk, they welcome all the help they can get.
If you are a new game master and don't quite know how to play, the game master organizers also have a nice guide and good advice for you so that you feel confident in playing.
