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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Death_Jester" data-source="post: 1366073" data-attributes="member: 2156">Greetings caudorIt is not just you buddy I have had several encounters with the RPGA and none of them have left a very favorable impression.  Like you I have been playing since the early 80’s.  In the Mid 80’s I went to my first con and during that con I had the good fortune to play in a RPGA sanctioned event.  At the end of the con I get a prize from them, a years subscription to the RPGA and a module.  Well I waited and the membership to the club never arrived.  The year afterward the con had a second even also sanctioned by a different section on the RPGA.  They had no idea about the previous years group and no record of me having won the membership.  That was cool I wasn’t too concerned about it.  I played in that year’s event and won another years membership.  Just like the previous years membership it never arrived.  When I tried to get in touch with someone no one at the con could give me any information about them.  So we fast-forward a few years and I’m going to a RPGA sponsored con in the area.  I have this falling out with an RPGA “master” and from that point on I seem to have problems advancing in the games.  Not a problem for me as I get to hang out and talk with people that didn’t advance as well.  They introduce me to mystery Science Theater 3000 so they weren’t all bad.  While playing my buddy got to see the play list for the people that did advance.  This is a guy that I would have trusted might I add.  Not the kind of kid that would make stuff up just to start stuff or given to flights of fancy.  He saw my name on the list and the person that they did call as being an alternate on the list.  What makes this more damning is that the GM was this very same “master” RPGAer that I have had problems in the past.  Now I can understand if the guy has problems with me but that just seems petty really.  I mean a judge in a competition should be above all that in order to do the job fairly.  I never went back to that con and it fell apart a few years later as TSR took the majority of the talent in that club as employees.   I never found out if the “master” got taken on as an employee and I don’t really want to know.  I hope he and his Hawaiian shirt are happy wherever he ended up. All I can say is that in my area the RPGA has become so calcified and insolated it seems to have forgotten that new people can join.  It has really hurt the club and the image of the RPGA more then anything else.  It is a shame that something with such a wondering premise has, at least in my case, become so very sad.  The elite have taken over and if you aren’t in the clique you don’t have a place at that table.The worst part is that these people don’t really know the gaming community vilifies them in general because of the very insulation that keeps them separate.  Sort of a catch 22 now to break them out of the cycle that will lead to the demise of the group but it does keep them occupied. This has only been my experiences and my views of things so your mileage may very of course.  I’m sure there are several people here that can recite positive experience to equal my negative ones but you asked for my experiences and that is what I have given.</blockquote>

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