I'm looking for house rules and/or play styles that are meant to make D&D 3.5/4E convention gaming more fun. I don't run RPGA stuff, just 4-hour events at Gencon. I'd love to hear your ideas, and then steal them.
I'll start with what I call "Chocolate Rules". I'll freely admit I stole this from a woman who ran a 7th Sea game at a local con in Wisconsin.
Every player gets 2 Hershey Kisses at the start of the game.
On ANY d20 roll, if the player is dissatisfied with the result, she can eat a chocolate and add an extra d6 to the roll. She can do this more than once if she likes (on a particular d20 roll) until she gets the result she desires (or she runs out of chocolates). Chocolates can be earned during gameplay, replacing XP since XP is pretty much meaningless in a one-shot game. Also, to encourage players to work as a team, players can voluntarily give their chocolates to another.
The trick - every time a player eats a chocolate, the DM gets one to use on the villains later.
The benefits.
1. Chocolate. Yum!
2. I find that as DM, I can be a bit tougher on the players and not be as worried that they're going to suffer TPK. In the final encounter of the night, I can use my own chocolates to put the hurt on the PCs and give the game a more dangerous feel.
3. The chocolates act as a measurement of how challenging the game is. If the players are breezing through the adventure and not using any chocolates, I can step up the intensity until they start using a few.
4. Either combat goes quicker, or at least there's less "whiffing". I just hate those adventures where everyone's dice is cold and it takes a while to get a hit on anybody.
Drawbacks.
1. The sugar rush from the DM eating way too much chocolate.
2. Players can pool their chocolates together and have one PC do some insane roll. Usually only a problem if the encounter is hinged on one roll. The DM has to make sure that the encounter has multiple levels to it so that no one roll breaks the adventure.