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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9221200" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002part 7/12News From the Top: Gen Con already has smaller versions of itself in other countries. A logical thing to do if they want to grow the RPGA would be to do the same for Winter Fantasy, so they can have mini-summits for individual countries and give people who can’t afford to fly all the way to the USA a bit more control over policy. Now all they need is enthusiastic volunteers around the world who could make it happen. Since I can’t find any evidence of this actually happening by googling, I’m guessing this is one ambition that probably fell foul of their resources pinch at the time. They are moving ahead with their attempts to train more GM’s though, with a detailed set of ranks and the benefits they offer, but the details of this are also still subject to change based on feedback and resource limitations. So this is pretty underwhelming. There’ll be no more big expansions in the near future, no new Living campaigns unless they’re entirely volunteer run. Not what you want to hear if you’re one of the many enthusiastic new signups that joined just last year. Robert Remembers: They’ve had quite a bit of turnover in the last year. Now they lose Robert Wiese, the guy who kept things going when TSR collapsed and it was just him and a bunch of volunteers, communicating over the fledgling internet, trying to keep organised play going and the Trumpeter coming out so it wasn’t just complete radio silence. Without that, they would have lost even more subscribers and the RPGA might not have survived. Then he had the unenviable job of building things back up again through the WotC years, once again figuring out how to get people enthused and stretch their limited budget as far as possible. Unsurprisingly, the lessons he’s learned about humanity in his time here are fairly cynical. Taking a job like this may seem to give you power, but the responsibilities far outweigh the rights if you’re doing it right, as you’re essentially a public servant facilitating other people’s fun. You’ll mainly hear about the things that are going wrong, because people are a lot quieter when things go right, particularly if they go smoothly for any length of time and they start taking you for granted. If you must complain, one of the best things you can do is suggest a solution at the same time. (although that runs the “risk” of being volunteered to be the one to implement it. ) You can definitely see why someone would get fed up on that after a while. This is why I’d much rather do projects that have a defined finish. (even if that finish may take years to reach) The kind of job where success simply means having to do it again until you fail or choose to quit gradually turns into sysyphean torment no matter how much it might have been your dream job beforehand. So I can definitely see why he’s leaving and wish him well in whatever comes next, (if google is correct, teaching biochemistry) but I also have to hope that he doesn’t turn out to be a loadbearing admin that the place will fall apart without. Given that RPGA content is being cut way down, will I even get a chance to know his successor before Dungeon goes solo again?</blockquote>

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