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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 2496310" data-attributes="member: 2">Has the RPGA failed? Well, it ultimately failed me - but that's because I turn out to be in a minority. I joined back in 1989, and have run or played in over 300 modules. RPGA games were the best DM teaching opportunity imaginable  - I'd play with amazing judges, and I'd watch them and yoink the DMing tricks I liked the most. I'd play with bad judges, and learn what not to do. Then I'd run games, and the feedback forms people filled out told me exactly what to do and what not to do in the future. If I have any skill as a DM, it is because of RPGA judging.  Heck, I won "best RPGA judge" at GenCon for 2 or 3 years straight, and this is why.In addition, back then the only type of games were modules with pre-generated characters (and pre-generated personalities.) Stepping into a completely foreign PC personality taught me to be a good roleplayer, and I've made great friends with some astonishingly good roleplayers as a result. I have dozens of friends who I wouldn't have if not for the RPGA, people who I love dearly. They liked the same sort of games I did, and we tended to draw together over the years.Then Living Games started to erode the "classic" pre-gen games. Most people wanted to create their own replayable PC, so fewer players played pre-gen games. That meant that fewer of the good authors wrote them any more, which meant that the games you could play weren't very good. The RPGA completely alienated me when they even removed the character interactions from "classic" characters, giving me no reason whatsoever to play in their tournaments.This was compounded when they removed the post-game judge rating because it was "too much paperwork." With no source of feedback on how I did GMing, I no longer even had a reason to DM Living Games instead of doing something else. At the time it struck me that they were shooting themselves in the foot, and I still feel this way.Nowadays I don't participate in RPGA games unless specifically asked by a friend to judge, and I really miss the days when the RPGA was giving me exactly what I wanted.  I just don't have much interest in the Living games and the culture that has built up around them, and current RPGA leadership isn't giving me much hope that things are going to improve for the type of game I prefer.It's worth noting that for some gamers, the RPGA is a fantastic resource. I'm just no longer one of them, and I'm at a loss as to what to do about that.</blockquote>

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