How to run Nuts at a convention?

[atomicfloozy]

In 2 1/2 months, there will be a local game convention, the first in my area in over 2 years. And I'm thinking about what game I should run at the convention. One of my options is to run a game of Nuts set on the Eastern Front. I've never run Nuts at a convention before and have lots of questions.

1. How did you run the game, was it a head-to-head, or a cooperative game with all of the players on one side? Which do you think would work best?

2. Did each player command a full squad, or just a section? I ask because I'm setting my game in early 1942 where on paper a Soviet rifle squad had 12 people while a German squad has only 9.

3. Did you give the players any additional assets such as a HMG team, or anti-tank rifle team?

4. Did you use any tanks or other armored vehicles?

The game I'm thinking of running will take place in the First Rzhev-Viaz'ma Offensive 8 January - 20 April 1942. I'm choosing this for the more open terrain rather than the street fighting of Stalingrad, besides Stalingrad has been done to death.

[squidlord]

Honestly, the last time I ran a THW game at a convention, I ran All Things Zombie as a drop in/drop out game that was supposed to run for hours but ended up running nine.

One of the great advantages of running the more focused games is that you can have more people come and go without so much of the overhead. I essentially ran through character generation in three minutes as people would show up, handing them a 3 x 5 card, and have them wander onto the board and pursue their own interests, scavenging for weapons and gear, hooking up with other people, killing zombies, and generally having a good time. As people would drop out, they would end up handing their character to whoever was nearest so players who hung around the longest generally ended up with five or six figures under their control, which provided a really cool dynamic.

Right up until the moment I put the foot-long helicopter model on the table and told them that they had three rounds to make it to sector six and board the helicopter because in five rounds the nuke was going off. Oh, and by the way, the helicopter only has six seats.

Cue the ensuing panic and bloodbath. It was amazing.

People I run into around the fandom locally still talk about that event.

If I were going to run NUTS, it would definitely not be head-to-head. Put everybody on the same side. Give them a reason to cooperate against the enemy. They will be more invested in looking out for each other if it's in their best interest – and you can actually get more people on the table that way.

I would probably have each player command a fire team, not even a section. Keep the figure count low so as not to overwhelm people. And again, this lets you have more people around the table to rock out.

If someone wanted an HMG team or antitank team instead of a fire team, I would probably be perfectly happy to let them do so. Not everybody, obviously but first-come first-served when it comes to the big guns. I wouldn't expect anyone to ask for an AT team until the enemy tank was revealed, so you might want to hold that off.

Personally, for this kind of set up, AFV's might be a little too spicy. You could deliberately introduce them late in your session slot, which would give people all sorts of ideas about how they can get proper defensive positions and forces onto the table.

Because THW is really so fast and easy to put out onto the table and so easy to distribute between people as they come and go, I don't tend to run those sessions in a traditional way. I want a situation which is extremely fluid, where people can walk up, watch the game for a couple of minutes, say "can I play" and be handed something to go right at that very moment. I love that sort of thing, so keep that in mind. One of the often unspoken expectations of the really traditional tabletop wargame is that once it starts, the players are locked in. Which is not nearly as enticing as "once it starts, wait until the end of the turn and you might end up in charge of your own fire team in the middle of a bad situation that someone else got them into." Throw in some partisans from one side or another just to keep things interesting.

Other than that, have fun.

[easyeight]

Here's a local game club NUTS game I ran with mostly newbies, but experienced gamers who can pick up game systems pretty quickly.

1. It was a co-op game
2. Each player ran a US squad or team + their Star
3. Scenario: D-Day - cross the beach, take the 'ville

sbminisguy.wordpress.com/2018/08/14/two-hour-d-day-the-beach/

[stryderg]

Flashcove put on a Nuts chaos game at one convention:
Each player gets a fireteam, half squad or weapons team. And each player gets a different set of "secret missions".
ie:
There's a broken down car in the middle of the table, search it for a code book.
There's a broken down car in the middle of the table, search it for food
Fire your machine gun at the enemy until it runs out of ammo so you can retreat (without getting shot for retreating).
You only have 2 rounds of ammo. Shoot the enemy captain.

So each player may expect an adjacent team to do something, but they don't and you don't know why.
Once your team is wiped out, or accomplishes it's mission, you can get another one at the start of the next turn.

This works better with people that have played a few times because it's a lot to keep track of.
But a stand up fight with everyone on the same side works, too.