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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RyanD" data-source="post: 1105533" data-attributes="member: 3312">I think those are legitimate issues, but there's certainly nothing "secret" about the details.  Let me respond point by point.Living City is a commercial venture.  We licensed it from Wizards of the Coast because we think we can make a profit running it.  Over the past two years that has proved to be pretty challenging - challenging but not impossible.To play in a Living City event, you have to be a Living City member (unless you're playing a 1st level PC, in which case you can play without a membership).  Living City members pay $1 per scenario to play in the campaign.In addition, we charge a one time $5 set up fee that we use to offset the cost of sending you a nice membership card, setting you up in the database, and various other admnistrivia.You may opt to buy a membership that has 3 months, or 12 months of unlimited play, so that you don't have to worry about being billed for the $1/scenario fee.  About half of the active players initially chose to register using one of those options.  3 months of play costs $10, and 12 months of play costs $30.Living City memberships are valid for both the High Level and the low level Ruins of Ravens Bluff scenarios.A Living City scenario usually runs about 4 hours in length.  (The high level scenarios play a lot longer, often 12 or 14 hours).  When you consider the cost ($1) vs. the entertainment provided, I think the fees are extremely reasonable.We have yet to turn a profit on Living City, that's true.  However, I don't think that the root cause is our efforts to make the campaign fun to play and interesting to new players.We're really struggling against the success of Living Greyhawk, which is now nearly 10 times bigger in terms of active players than Living City was at the height of its popularity.  Living Greyhawk has attracted a huge number of scenario writers, Judges, and folks interested in helping run the campaign - and a lot of those people used to be active in Living City.That said, we still have more than 2,000 active Living City participants, and I believe that we are currently growing on the strength of the new directions we're moving the campaign.The High Level Scenarios we're publishing have little to do with Ruins of Ravens Bluff.  The High Level scenarios are aimed at highly experienced players with high level characters.Ruins of Ravens Bluff is designed as a convention-focused, low level campaign that will appeal to people just starting out in the RPGA or who want to be in on the beginning of a new Living campaign.The smallest possible event that can host Ruins of Ravens Bluff consists of 15 people.  Those 12 people play 3 tables each (3 players and 1 Judge) of 3 scenarios, plus one extra table (usually the Judges playing and one of the players Judging).  That's a full day of gaming, starting at about 9am and finishing around midnight.Living City does have a comprehensive rulings & clarifications document.  Currently, its 15 pages long.Let me put that in perspective.In the High Level campagin, you can use the core books, the FRCS, Magic of Faerun, Races of Faerun, Sword & Fist, Defenders of the Faith, Tome & Blood, Song & Silence and Masters of the Wild.Much of that content was not designed to work together, and relies on a DM's discretion to handle various kinds of situations.  A Living Campaign, like Ravens Bluff, doesn't have that luxury - we have to have a consistent set of rulings & clarifications that all players share.Most of the document is "Clarifications".  That means, two or more sources in the rules we use are either in conflict, or a source has incomplete instructions on how to adjudicate its use.Some portions of the document are "Rulings".  Most of the "Rulings" we have issued are restrictions - meaning that they remove various parts of the published material from use.Interestingly our Rulings & Clarifications document will be getting a lot smaller, because a lot of the issues the document covers have been addressed by 3.5.None of our Rulings & Clarifications are designed to fix problems with the scenarios.  We feel the scenarios are as well designed as most of the content on the market, and better than a lot of the stuff you can buy in your local retail store.  Especially after they've been played by the highly critical RPGA player community, and we've had a chance to incorporate their feedback.Thanks for giving me a chance to explain how the Living City components interact.  If anyone wants more information, the official Living City site is <a href="http://www.livingcity.organizedplay.com" target="_blank">www.livingcity.organizedplay.com</a>.Ryan</blockquote>

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