Allowing GMs to reserve seats at their tables is not something we will be implementing in the near future. There are many, many other things we would love to improve about our registration system that are higher on the priority list and, ultimately, that's not really the core thrust of events at Gen Con.

The convention is (very broadly) about organizing folks who don't necessarily know each other together to play games. Setting up a system to allow folks to run private or semi-private events would be nice in some specific cases, but drifts further away from that core mission and is not a high priority.

Until our approach changes, the policy stands: run your event as you submitted it. If you are planning on having 5 players seated at the table running games, do not submit an event for only 3 players.

Again, if you want to run a game for some people you know and some folks you don't, you can just recruit those players directly yourself (even here on the forums) and then just walk up to an event HQ onsite to ask for an open table, and then you would get exactly what you are requesting entirely within our stated policies.

"I guess I'll just be a bad person" is not a stance that ends well, in almost any circumstance. Please avoid the headache that will create for all of us.

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Derek Guder
Senior Event & Program Manager
Gen Con LLC

[This post has been removed]

Remember that this is a family forum, and scatalogical or other insults will not be tolerated. 

Roderick Robertson
Forum Coordinator 
Gen Con, LLC. 

I know if I and my friends managed to score all 4 seats for a '4 person game' because we wanted to play together, we might not appreciate it if 2 other people sat down because they had reserved spots. Particularly not if my group consisted of six people, and the other two would have liked to play as well. And if the other two showed up and asked the GM, and the GM said no, and then two other people sat down because they are related to him. Hmm.

At the very least, to be ethical you should reveal this fact to your players. Put it in the game description: "Come raid the dungeon with my two uncles."

You were told for multiple reasons why you weren't allowed to and shouldn't do this, to which you responded with a variation on the theme of I do what I want, and y'all can't stop me. Well, it's not like a 14 person company with forum ids tied to your user account can't figure out which game you're running and inform you that if you can't follow the GenCons rules you can't run your game at GenCon. 

Seriously dude. If you were just planning on breaking the rules anyway, why on earth did you open your mouth about it? A prosecutor would love you, your defense atty would not.

This honestly makes me really interested in how Gen Con deals with this kind of stuff. Like do they just ban the person from running events in the future? Cause I know I would be unhappy if the game just stopped in the middle of it cause the GM broke the rules.

My guess would be let an event run if it's discovered or reported while the event is going on, or even scheduled, so the players aren't affected. But then prevent him from running again in the future.

Our response depends on a lot of factors, and we don't like to interrupt an event in progress, either.

We can and have done so, however, depending on the severity of the situation.

In general, when you ask a question and get an answer, you are expected to follow the instructions you are given. Intentionally flouting them would not be considered to be "in good faith."

Considering this question was asked and answered, and that Gen Con is not planning on reviewing its position or changing its policy, this thread seems to have run its course, so I'm not sure much more fruitful discussion will come of it.

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Derek Guder
Senior Event & Program Manager
Gen Con LLC