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Message: <blockquote data-quote="amysrevenge" data-source="post: 4715820" data-attributes="member: 61298">I think a big part of it is the "racial memory" of competitive play from the 1980s that Gary loved so much.  You say RPGA to anyone who has either been around the block for a while or read a few old Dragon mags, but hasn't actually been involved with the RPGA for at least a decade, and all they hear is "teams of players competing with each other to see who can defeat the dungeon in the finest fashion".Frankly, I'd hate that style of play as much as any of them.The term "tournament" has no place in the RPGA of the 21st century*.  Nobody wins anything, there aren't prizes (other than standard convention swag where applicable), and nobody is in competition.  It's just an organized way to play D&D without needing a Dungeon Master to slave over a hot Monster Manual for hours, and to be able to play with more than just your favourite 6 buddies in someone's basement.  It's like exclusively playing published adventures, only they are all free (without having to pirate them).Sure, you have douchebags aplenty at the public events.  I think that many of the biggest jerks in the gaming community can be kind of forced into these types of games when nobody will let them into their homes anymore.  However, in my fairly vast organized play experience, the awesome friends outnumber the clueless jerks so enormously that it's not even a factor.*Apparently there is still a thing called the D&D Open at GenCon, with prizes and winners and such.  I've never had anything to do with it, and I don't know if the RPGA runs it or not.  If it does, it is such a tiny, miniscule fraction of what the RPGA does that it isn't even worth mentioning.</blockquote>

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