Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8873270" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 129: April 1998part 1/553 pages. Still keeping some of the high-tech elements from last issue, but they're being put to more visceral use fighting a giant gorilla. Shadowrun is still pretty popular around here, so let's see what new material they have to offer for Virtual Seattle players and the rest of their members as well. Notes From HQ: They may have gone back to bimonthly, but they've also significantly increased the average page count, so are you really getting that much less content, particularly when you also count the Trumpeters online? Well, since they've also decided to start putting adverts in, I'm going to go with prooooobably. Another way WotC is squeezing them to try and make them more profitable after years of being mostly left alone as a private club. If you want to scale up the amount of content you need to volunteer and get more involved in general. Connected with this, they reprint the list of co-ordinators from recent issues of the Trumpeter. If you think there's something important that needs doing and isn't feel free to apply and join their numbers. They're also doing a big in-person summit in october to discuss the state of the RPGA and Living settings. If you really want to influence their direction in the next few years, you should be there. So it's not all good news, but at least they recognise that the way to grow the RPGA is to solicit lots of feedback and give people the feeling that their desires matter & they can make a difference if they get involved. Hopefully more engaged members are also more likely to proselytise to non-members and get their interest as well. your 1nitiative: First letter praises their recent upgrades in presentation. Both the newszine and the website are really doing their best to be useful and look good while doing it. Second wonders if they're going to put together a living Vampire: the Masquerade setting. They're certainly going to try, as they'd be fools to ignore the second most popular RPG in the world. Keep an eye on this space! Third is more praise of their new visual style and programs. They stayed static for such a long time as technology improved around them and it's good to see them actually making steps forwards. It's not all positive though. Fourth one is very annoyed about how few winners there were for the Chaos Marks contest. They gave 4 categories, each with three subcategories, yet only had 2 winners! What gives? Those were just examples, not binding divisions. You really expect chaos to be that regimented? More fool you. Fifth, a gibberish email from the monkey god. Tripitaka doesn't understand the internet, so who's going to stop him from getting up to whatever mischief he feels like?Table Talk: Despite all the strong attempts at figuring out how to improve the place in the editorial, the recruitment drive doesn't seem to be going anywhere, as they're still stuck just below 7,000 members. Once again goes to show, increasing current customer satisfaction and reaching out to new ones are two largely separate skillsets. They sure are offering a lot of exclusive events though, between the ones to earn points on the decathlon, the summer revel and their continuing attempts to make Dragonlance 5th age catch on. Please attend them! It's moments like this that remind us how small they actually are and how much work it is keeping the RPGA going. Take away a few of their most dedicated writers and the whole thing would fall apart.Drive Me Crazy: Following directly on from the anaemic results of the recruitment drive so far, they step up the rewards available for you if you bring lots of people in. Free modules or back issues, T-shirts, club memberships, a special RPGA briefcase to hold all your gaming material in at conventions and if you manage to recruit 100 people, a free trip to Gen Con! Who wouldn't want all that? You've got until the end of august to rack up those numbers so no time to waste! Will this get the results they want, or just make them look increasingly desperate? I suspect many of those modules & back issues are things from the warehouses that WotC are trying to clear out, so giving them away is no great cost to them anyway.</blockquote>

Verification