What if an EO asks that no one wears masks at the table? While an EO has the right to not wear a mask during their events, you have the right to wear a mask at any event you attend. If an EO persists in asking you to remove your mask, you should contact the nearest Event HQ to have them resolve the situation.
The corporate speak seems to be allowing a "soft" mask mandate enforced by EO's while allowing GenCon corporate to push off all responsibility on EO's.
GM, looking at player: "I'd like to kindly request that you wear a mask for this event." Player, looking at GM: "No, thank you."
An awkward four hour game ensues.
Yikes.
You have it within in your power to avoid this situation in it's entirety. Will there be a few exceptions at some events who forgot to list their request? Of course, but we believe they will be far and few between.
Mike
And this is an issue that generates enough anger without such bait and switch stuff happening.
Alternatively, in order to ensure that GM and players are comfortable, it is probably best to find another event without this request.
Agree with the sentiment though.
Will a refund for the event be issued if you decide to not participate?
Why are you even allowing any ambiguity? Either enforce a blanket "mask required mandate" or a blanket "no mask required." I am not keen to have to sort it out at each round based on the EO's preference. Keep it simple.
Is it a little bit of a harder road for both us and some of you? Sure.
Is it in reality going to be a big deal. We don't think so (We have some experience here) :)
Mike, I know this will be the policy going forward. All gripping aside. Sadly.
One thing I would suggest is that Gencon puts what you posted on policy and Q&A into the printed handbook given out at the convention. Preferably the first or second page so all will have a copy in their hand and no one can complain 'I didn't know this'.
Doing so should help cut down on disputes as it will be in the hand of every attendee.
Beyond that, Thanks Mike for your efforts and good luck with the gripping......
Curious how this will work with large EOs. For example, if Baldman Games does not request masks, will individual DMs be allowed to request them once we are seated at a table? Players don't always know who their individual DM will be until they arrive at the event.
Why is the Mask option being added to the Text field and not as a selection in the form?
Here is the user story for your wed site dev team As a Gen Con attendee I want the mask option as a field that I can filter on when searching for games to sign up for.
It may be too late for this year but I agree with the previous 2 comments.
Perhaps a simple yes/no field with something like "Masked Event".
Note that if possible, I would not expect Gen Con staff to filter through every single description and then redo the already submitted events but simply to do put a default "No" in each of the already submitted events and then send out a generic email to all the EOs that if they prefer their attendees to wear masks to submit the event changes.
As an aside, I'd like to tackle the question about "EOs requesting masks for Mike" using simple language even though, yes, I know Mike answered it already.
If the EO asks you to wear a mask, wear the F-ing mask please. If you have such a strong stance against masks, don't wait for the start of the event to show up and "hope" the EO doesn't want you to wear a mask. Either contact the EO ahead of time (if email or website is listed) or perhaps show up 10 minutes early to check. Yes, I agree, the EO should make it known to the attendees but mistakes happen and someone could have told Gen Con but with over 10,000 events to deal with, even a miniscule .1% error rate means there would still be >10 with errors.
I avoid wearing masks whenever I can but that doesn't mean I'm going to be disrepectful to someone running a game who wants it. They are volunteering FOR YOU so do something for them and wear the mask or don't participate in their event.
As soon as one party raises their voice to argue, that's when you get Event Staff involved.