Financial Grants for gaming groups from WOTC?

[Ceresco]

The Miskatonic Student Union at University of Kentucky is applying for one of these grants. If we are awarded any grant we will most likely put it towards the cost of attending GenCon. We run a convention to raise funds to pay for rooms, a grant would help defray the cost of badges, which would be GREAT!

I think this is a great way to spend the marketing budget. It creates a bond between clubs and WotC that makes the hobby feel more supported by the industry. It is at the grass roots level which is how the hobby will grow. I was introduced to D&D in '79 by other gamers in my community, not at a major convention (GenCon was just a baby) or seeing the PHB in Barnes & Nobles (there were none).

If you were/are a college age gamer you know that funds are mighty short, especially if you're a graduate student! Even if it's only a couple of hundred that would cover the grocery bill for feeding ourselves at the convention. And one way I've found to get gamers REALLY hooked on D&D (or any other rpg) is to spend the "Greatest Four Days of Gaming" with 25,000 other gamers. What makes D&D and other games so great to gamers is the sense of community. What better way to build community

Overall I applaude the community outreach effort presented by WotC and hope White Wolf, Mongoose and other publishers will look into this concept for marketing, supporting and growing the hobby.

Respectfully,

Edward Kopp
UKon Coordinator
www.warhorn.net/ukon2007/

 

[Ceresco]

Well, I'm long out of school, but I looked at this program, out of curiosity.

My biggest question is: how many student gaming groups have a faculty advisor?

When I was in college, we formed our gaming group into a registered student organization, so that we could get a meeting room at the student union for games. But, we didn't have anything like a faculty advisor. Maybe other schools are different, but at Wisconsin, I think you only needed a faculty advisor if you were directly affiliated with one of the schools.

This program feels to me like someone at WotC had a good idea ("let's see what we can do to encourage play at colleges!"), but when it got fleshed out, the amount of red tape became overwhelming.

At UK we have a faculty advisor as required by the university. And as far as red tape, ever try to fill out a grant for government funding of research? WotC's grant application will be easy compared to academic grants.

 

[sckeener]

Hmm...grants for buying games would have been nice when I was in college. Instead we just used the money given by the school to go to conventions.

If I remember correctly, the only rule the school had for the money was that they couldn't own anything afterwards. Thus we used the money to get airplane tickets and pay for hotel rooms.

We only needed 3 people to form a club...it was a sweet gig. We had probably over 30 people though that would show up to play....

I miss Argh-UH sometimes.