I will Living Greyhawk no more!

[MarauderX]

Then again, everyone probably thinks that they are the best role-player of the group. I was in one group where the vote was split between me and a rather loud guy, and he was voted best player once the abstaining vote was cast, although all he did was run ahead of the group and almost get killed by a troll - twice. When the person who abstained voted for him, he explained that HE should have gotten the best player for being the "strong, silent type" and didn't feel right about voting for himself so he voted for the character class that was most like his because he thought there was an 'understandng' there. I was the party wizard and felt like the babysitter trying to round up the other PCs as they were trying to fly through this dungeon as fast as possible with no regard to teamwork. Having a milktoast DM doesn't help either.

Also it just seems that the extrovert player always ends up winning the best player award more often than not, and when I am feeling open and wild the vote goes my way. I don't think I will be playing in LG for a while, not because of the rules changes, but because I can trust my fellow players to not be so selfish.

 

[heirodule]

There is no more voting

There is no more voting

 

[TalonComics]

Re: There is no more voting

There is no more voting

What they said. The best player vote no longer exists. I would say this is a good thing as many players treated it like a competition.

~D

 

[Feanor Starym]

I've been running/playing LG for some time now, and yes, there is a fair bit of paperwork, but it's all worth it.

I have had good games and bad games, and, as with regular roleplaying games, it all comes down to the people you're playing with as well as the DM. Some DMs can really kill a game, while some can make even the worst module a joy to play.

Recently for example, i had a GM who absolutely ruined a game for me. We got less than a 1/4 of the way through the module in the 3 hour convention slot. To boot, he almost killed us. There was a creature with 15/+1 damage reduction, and none of us had magical weapons. Not only did he not allow us to damage it with fire from improvised weapons like torches, he didn't allow us to suggest combat tactics at the table, like using Aid Another to help the Barbarian(who was the only one able to deal 15+ damage) to hit. It almost ended in a TPK, except that the Barbarian finally rolled a crit.

Want to make it worse? The whole time he was going on about "why couldn't we roll crits?"

This is the second time i've had him as a GM, and it's the second time i've had him do this to me. The first time he GMed, he didn't even know how *initiative* worked... After showing off the fact that his name is in the playtester credits for the 3E PHB. This from a person who's senior in the RPGA.

On the other hand, i've had some really good GMs. I played a game of LG where the DM just ran with what the players pulled off, and we had some of the best role-playing i've EVER had. And even with all the good roleplaying we had, we still managed to finish the module in the 3 hour time slot.

Once again, as with any other kind of roleplay, it depends on the group you're playing with.

 

[WizarDru]

I've played in exactly one LG game, and it will probably be the only one I ever play in. I can be forgiving about a DM who's ignorant of the rules, provided he's not ignorant, period. However, I was disappointed in the module ("Brendigan's Blood"), the DM, and some of the other players. The whole mentality of the game was simply not fun, and while I understand that this can vary wildly based on your DM, the module and group....I simply don't have the free time to waste on a game of RPG craps. I had high hopes, but they were for naught.

While I was spending an hour trying to get the city guard to not kill another PC on the spot following a near-TPK prevented only by a token-NPC intervention, my friends were playing a non-RPGA game and whooping it up, knee-deep in a battle with Frost Giants and Winter Wolves.

My game ended with one player being put on probation, pending a review of the local triad's justice guild (or some such). Their game ended with a saved town, victorious heroes and big pile of dead bad guys.

I really want to play more in the LG...but the entire affair has convinced me that the planets need to be in some weird alignment for all the factors to come together to make a good game, and I just can't wait for that to happen. Kevin (aka PC) can't cover the whole organization himself.

 

[Henry]

I'll add my brief experience with the RPGA.

I purchased a membership from 1999-2000 and let it lapse, because I did absolutely nothing with it. In my area, I had to travel too far to play any games, and the cost of play at the time was also a negative factor.

After the lapse, I played one open tournament game (Finger of the Wind) in 2000 with the then-new 3E rules, and had a blast. The people were great fun, the DM was good at improvising results, and everything clicked. My experience has been to play "classic" events, with pre-generated characters, rather than the campaign variety, because the less people worry about keeping track, the more they are open to enjoy themselves.

The moral of my story is: there is so much varied experience in the RPGA, that it is a shame for someone to quit over one failure. Two or three I can understand - the RPGA might not be for you. But I wouldn't let one bad experience be a standard setter.

 

[WizarDru]

Well, Henry, you've highlighted another problem with the RPGA that I have: namely that it's so disorganized, I didn't even know there were different classes of games.

It certainly wasn't apparent at the cons that I've been to, and the events I have seen were so disorganized that I'm not sure the folks running it knew there were, either. The lack of organization leads to a general barrier to entry to lots of folks. The RPGA has trouble diseminating information in a useful and consumable fashion.

When I attended that game, it was assumed that I knew all of the RPGA's procedures, such as time units (which I misunderstood based on reading), credits and other things, down to the sheets at the end. No one was inclined to explain these things to me, and it was obvious that other, more experienced players sitting with me either didn't understand themselves, or were unwilling to show me how. The DM obviously didn't even fully understand how 3E combat worked, let alone how to manage the player who considered having his dwarf sit on the porch and smoke pot to be a master act of roleplaying. I never recieved credit for the event, nor the points that I was to accrue or even an understanding of what those things would do for my character. Trust me, if it were merely a bad module or a poor DM, I wouldn't have soured on the experience so badly. It was the overwhelming accumulation of events.

I only manage to get to one or two gaming conventions a year, at BEST. I may try a 'classic' game, if I can find one, but I'm not sure. At this point, I'm not even sure if I'm a member of the RPGA any longer or not, and have no way to tell. The main thing I wanted the RPGA to offer me was the chance to be a player for a change, instead of a DM, and to enjoy the game. If the RPGA can offer me such an event, then I'll gladly do so, and tell anyone who listens that I did so. I really want the RPGA to give that experience of playing outside my local group, and having fun. For that reason alone, I may try again...but I don't intend to try five or six games that are no fun to make that decision. First impressions count for a lot, and my initial impression of the RPGA was a succession of frustrations and failures.

 

[D'karr]

Disorganization is a huge problem.

I live in the region of Geoff. Until recently going to the Geoff website yielded no new information. The site calendar has not been updated since June of last year.

How is someone supposed to figure out where local conventions sponsoring RPGA events are going to happen if your local region is not even bothering to put up an update?

Going to the RPGA website and looking for a calendar of events yields hundreds of events. How do you know which one of those is local? Clicking on each one individually? That is a huge waste of time. I clicked on three events that caught my attention. On in Hawaii, one in Vermont and one in Illinois... Like I said before there are hundreds of events. I'm not spending several hours clicking on events just to find a local one.

If the regional leadership is not providing updates and the national leadership doesn't have an organized calendar, how in the hell do you find out that there is a convention 3 weeks from now that will sponsor RPGA play for your region?

It leads to great deals of unnecessary frustration.

 

[KidCthulhu]

Here's a little history from someone's who's been in the RPGA for almost 10 years, but almost NEVER plays at cons anymore.

When RPGA was founded, all the adventures were what they now call "classics", pre-generated characters, with no character continuance outside of the story arc. You played the character personality you were handed, and it was fun.

Around '95, Living City began, and really changed the nature of the organization. People loved being able to have a continuing character. And if you live somewhere where you don't have a regular game, I can see the attraction.

But what happened was that role playing was no longer rewarded, and all those players who's style is more "kill, loot, harvest the exp" came running in droves. Think about how hard it is to control a regular table of 4 campaign, now multiply it across the US, Canada and the world, and you get some idea of the nightmare of cheating, point whoring and munchkining that was LC.

Living Greyhawk tried to change some of that, by putting stricter controls in from the beginning, writing less treasure heavy games with more mental and role playing challenges. Unfortunately, the same players who made LC what it was all wanted to play LG.

If you want to role-play at an RPGA event, sign up for a classic. The real thrill of playing whatever hits the table, improvization and role-playing are still found there. Or play LG only with people you know. Some of my friends have formed a party. They only play together, because they know their play styles mesh, and they have a blast.

As for the removal of voting, I consider it a damn shame, and a bow to the inevitable. Clearly the organization has not been able to cajole, bribe or beat it's LG players in to role-playing, so it's just giving up trying. Classics, at least, should continue to vote.

It's a shame, but the munchkins seem to outnumber the craftsmen, and that's the sad truth.

 

[MarauderX]

There is no more voting

Not with the DM we had. He made us use voting to decide, which was strange, but we all agreed since I'm sure we all thought we would win. And as DM he didn't even vote, like he wasn't there the whole time. Wasn't good, not going back for a while.