Has the RPGA failed?

[MerricB]

Looked around the web site.

Took the herald GM test.

Man, some of those questions are very obscure if you don't have the books in front of you.

Have to do that again some times.

You should see the Master test!

Actually, the tests do a good job of expanding your understanding of the rules.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

I hadn't been to a con in years but went in 2003 and there were plenty of one shot games if I wanted to play Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, etc. But all the WOTC games I was interested in like Star Wars of D&D were Living Campaigns only, same for Spycraft I think. I may go this year to get in the C&C games since Troll Lord games is going to be there.

Star Wars has a peculiar problem: any new adventure has to get approval from Lucasfilm, who then own it (IIRC). Because the Living Force campaign has been (somewhat) popular, it reduces the desire to have to go through the hassle of doing it twice.

The RPGA's Mark of Heroes and Legacy of the Green Regent games have pregen characters, though without backgrounds. You can also create your own character for those games, and the starting XP/GP goes up every few months. The Living Campaigns require ongoing play from 1st level.

There are still Classic D&D games (with pregens), but I don't know how often new ones get added or how often they get played. I know that the first RPGA game I ran was a Classic game - Blood of Innocents.

Cheers!

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Dropping by a bit late, but thought I'd give my two-cents worth.

I was a member of the old RPGA (member # 18996), and I loved the old Polyhedron (my oldest issue is #12). It was my impression that the RPGA was there to organize and promote gaming and keep gamers in contact with each other. If you want to call it marketing, so be it, since marketing can be defined as the process of promoting a product/service

I just wanted to say that there is no doubt that the RPGA is now firmly in the camp of marketing - this is what was changed in 2002, when the RPGA became free. It was moved from the status of a club, to a tool of the marketing arm of WotC. They stopped charging for membership, and therefore were able to write off the expense of the organisation as a marketing expense.

While it may once have been debatable as to whether the RPGA was a marketing tool, it now funded and organised 100% as such.

No comment as to whether this was a good or bad move, however

Duncan

 

[kenobi65]

There are still Classic D&D games (with pregens), but I don't know how often new ones get added or how often they get played.

Classics are on the verge of going the way of the dodo. I don't think they've added any new ones in at least a year, and many of the ones currently in the system are due to retire soon.

--------------

Edit: There's currently 21 D&D Classics on the RPGA system. Of those 21:
- 8 actually retire *today* (8/31/05)
- 15 will retire by the end of 2005
- Only 2 were first released in 2004, and only 1 has been released in 2005.

Beyond D&D, there's 4 other Classics out there: two for Star Wars d20 (one was released in '01 and retires next month, the other was released this year, and retires at the end of next year), and two for d20 Modern (one releaded in '03, retiring at the end of this year; one released in '04, retiring at the end of next year).

So, in the past 2 years, RPGA has released all of 5 new Classic modules. By January of '06, there'll be only 8 Classic modules available for play.

---------------

The fate of Classics has been a topic of considerable debate in the RPGA. Oldtimers love Classics, since that's what they used to play all the time, and many feel that Classics provide a greater stretch of one's role-playing skills.

However, the RPGA has felt that the Living and D&D Campaigns are where most players' interests lie now.

In addition, some of the most recent Classic modules contained very little in the way of background info for the pregenerated PCs...Classic devotees bemoaned this change, but it looks to have fallen on deaf ears.

Last year, Ian Richards indicated that the RPGA would put more resources behind Classics if they felt the interest was there...but said resources don't look to have been applied, so one must assume that RPGA believes that the interest just isn't there anymore.

 

[qstor]

As far as a non-SW sci-fi campaign, it's possible that they would do something with d20 Future, but I'm not holding my breath for that, either.

I talked to SRM at GenCon and he mentioned they're looking at using d20 Future for the basis of a game. But nothing would be certain until Winter Fantasy.



Mike

 

[qstor]

Classics are on the verge of going the way of the dodo. I don't think they've added any new ones in at least a year, and many of the ones currently in the system are due to retire soon.

Right..There were no new classics at GenCon Indy this year. I don't think anymore are planned and the last few weren't as good as the ones in the past. From what I understand there were not roleplaying guidelines included with the characters just stats.

Mike

 

[StupidSmurf]

I just wanted to say that there is no doubt that the RPGA is now firmly in the camp of marketing - this is what was changed in 2002, when the RPGA became free. It was moved from the status of a club, to a tool of the marketing arm of WotC. They stopped charging for membership, and therefore were able to write off the expense of the organisation as a marketing expense.

While it may once have been debatable as to whether the RPGA was a marketing tool, it now funded and organised 100% as such.

No comment as to whether this was a good or bad move, however

Duncan

Ahhh, I see! OK...that makes sense! So then, if I read this correctly, it went from a club-marketing hybrid to a full-out marketing tool? That's a pity.

But for some reason it reminds me of a bizarre anecdote, something which happened back in the days of Milwaukee Gen Cons. There was some GenCon, Lord knows I've forgotten which, as they've begun to run together. A handful of us RPGAers got together one night and went up to the Polaris Room for quiet drinks and conversation, wanting to avoid the sports-bar rowdiness of Major Goolsbys and the crowded insanity of the Safe House. We ate mud-pies and drank a bit (the Polaris Room makes one mean Brandy Alexander) and had some good conversation. There must've been, oh I don't know, maybe ten of us, tops. As we all filed out, we remarked at how much fun it was, and hey, let's get together same time next Gen Con and do it again! The idea seemed to appeal to everyone.

Flash to next Gen Con...someone had actually turned the furshlugginer thing into AN EVENT. Yes. An event. With tickets. It was the "MECCA Midnight Mudpie Madness." My jaw practically hit the floor when I walked up and saw this large crowd of people. Definitely a Doubleyew-Tee-Eff moment. I slipped away unnoticed.

Just to show that, even though I really loved the old RPGA, it definitely had its share of "what the..." moments!

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Star Wars has a peculiar problem: any new adventure has to get approval from Lucasfilm, who then own it (IIRC). Because the Living Force campaign has been (somewhat) popular, it reduces the desire to have to go through the hassle of doing it twice.

The RPGA's Mark of Heroes and Legacy of the Green Regent games have pregen characters, though without backgrounds. You can also create your own character for those games, and the starting XP/GP goes up every few months. The Living Campaigns require ongoing play from 1st level.

There are still Classic D&D games (with pregens), but I don't know how often new ones get added or how often they get played. I know that the first RPGA game I ran was a Classic game - Blood of Innocents.

Cheers!

When I used to go to the local con regularly back in the TSR days, the games wouldn't be "official" RPGA events and such. They would be mostly created by the people who were handling the gaming for that event or the con, and would be a multi-day tourney with pregens with backgrounds. Now it's all handled by RPGA members apparently, in terms of the WOTC games, and they don't even offer non living campaign stuff. If it's out there they didn't offer it last time I went. Kind of sucks since that really encouraged role playing the character instead of bringing your min-maxed Fighter named Genericus Maximus. Not that some people don't roleplay thier Living game character mind you. A huge advantage was that the adventure was usually molded around the characters instead of being a more generic setup to handle anything the players may bring to the table.

I just found it more fun and horizon broadening myself. YMMV.

 

[kenobi65]

I talked to SRM at GenCon and he mentioned they're looking at using d20 Future for the basis of a game. But nothing would be certain until Winter Fantasy.

Interesting; I hadn't heard that bit of news.

Then again, RPGA's got a d20 Modern campaign (Bronze Head), for which all of 3 adventures have been released over the course of this year. So, there may be a distinction between having a campaign, and supporting it well.

 

[Seule]

I have never seen an RPGA-organized event that would actually introduce new, young players to D&D. Prove me wrong -- please!

I run a biweekly Living Greyhawk game with my wife, in Guelph, Ontario. We have people turn up who haven't played since AD&D 1st edition, or that have never played D&D at all. We regularly teach people how to do skill checks and suchlike, as well as how to fill out the paperwork of a Living Greyhawk game (it can seem intimidating the first time, but after that it's pretty easy). We specifically look to support people who wouldn't get to play RPGs otherwise, and to encourage people who are good roleplayers to keep coming back.
We've been doing this for over a year and a half.
Due in part to this initiative, when a Triad position (regional volunteer admin) came open early this year, I applied and got it. I've been working to make the campaign newbie friendly, at least in my region (Ket), and to make sure people have fun. There was for quite some time a perception that the powergaming was spiralling out of control, and that it was necessary to survive the modules, I'm trying to combat that, at least locally.
We regularly get 15-20+ players showing up to play a game, many of whom drive a fair distance, and many of whom don't play any other D&D games. That's what the RPGA is to me: enabling play that wouldn't otherwise happen. The fact that I can take the 12th level character I've been playing with various people for 5 years anywhere in the world (like Britain last year) is just a bonus.

--Seule