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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8801977" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 123: September 1996part 5/5The Raven's Bluff Trumpeter: Enemies both within & without continue to take their toll. The lord mayor continues to be missing, but there are reports of a conman pretending to be him turning up, requisitioning stuff "for the good of the city" and then vanishing again. Can they find and prosecute him? Meanwhile, the deputy mayor is accused of treason & kidnapping, collaborating with the enemies outside the city to undermine the war effort. They suspect he was mind-controlled, so they don't execute him, but that still earns him an indefinite stay in maximum security hellhole Illwater unless some kind adventurers can definitively prove his non-culpability. That leaves the Lord Chancellor in charge, and the chain of command looking increasingly decimated. Even what replacements they are appointing are having struggles. Since they're in the middle of a war, the church of Tempus expected the new chief prelate would be one of theirs. But no, it was a Lathanderite instead, as the other faiths would rather see the war over than grind on indefinitely for the glory of Tempus. What's the worst they could do in response? Go on strike? Would that be a good or bad thing overall? A reminder that every god trying to promote their portfolio leads to some pretty conflicting agendas amongst their mortal followers, even if they do still work together on the ecumenical council for faith as a whole. It all adds up to paint a picture of a city that's really struggling to stay functional. Since they're also struggling in real life at the moment, I guess that's art reflecting life. They're probably starting to wish they were living in slightly less interesting times.Notes From HQ: The editorial is a whole lot of business-speak about plans for expansion. Identify the four core tenets of what the RPGA should do, and the five activity centres they should be doing them in, then figure out how to maximise our engagement across the intersection of all these fields. We have solid penetration into the convention centre, but still ought to be doing a lot more in retail stores, libraries and schools if roleplaying is ever to reach the same kind of cultural ubiquity as playing sports. Schools seem a particularly tricky one, because although roleplaying has proven educational benefits, plus if you catch 'em young they're more likely to be gamers for life, you can't just walk in as a complete stranger and start offering to run D&D for the kids without looking like a bunch of creepy nonces. (hey kid, : opens trenchcoat: wanna buy some … dice?) If they're to do anything like that, it needs to be carefully done by locals on a community by community basis. This all feels like the kind of thing that should be presented with a bunch of powerpoint slides, which it probably was, since it was originally another speech at this year's Gen Con. As with the introductory issue, it shows them trying to be more serious and professional about how they run the RPGA, with long-term plans, quite possibly with charts & graphs. But it's all too late, as we know in hindsight. When the TSR money runs out, everyone feels the pinch, even the most independent of departments. If the system around you falls apart, it doesn't matter how much harder you work, things are still going to suck unless the structural problems are fixed.An issue in which a lot of the problems with the RPGA are on full display, while other aren't quite so obvious, but are bubbling under the surface and will become moreso in hindsight. Years of slow accretion are catching up with them, and they'd need to fix some things even if TSR as a whole wasn't struggling. Let's see what tricks they try to hold back the tide next time around.</blockquote>

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