I'm a newbie to this list. I was informed by Andrew Joelson that the answers to many of my questions were present within the digest and decided that I needed to be able to see it since the information was not being provided to convention goers anywhere else. I have not had the opportunity to see #61-66 so forgive me if some of my comments are made moot by things in those issues.
First a very brief introduction. I was first introduced to Runequest and Glorantha in ca.1980 in a too-large gaming group which included digest-member John Medway. In 1982 I started running a small game which lasted about 3 years. I ran a second campaign starting in 1987 which also ran about 3 years. Since then my gaming group has been scattered throughout the nation and I have had very little chance to play but have kept up with the publications of Chaosium and Avalon Hill and was able to attend the first RQCon in Maryland. Shannon and Eric (and maybe others) know me from the ArsMagica list which I was a member of for some time.
Now that that is out of the way, let me say that I've been quite surprised by the 'reasons' that have been given on here for cancelling the premier event (and the THIRD LARP) of this convention. I was stunned by the success of the Home of the Bold in Maryland and will join Michael Schwartz in saying that Broken Council was the primary reason for myself and three of my old gaming group for attending. Of course there are other aspects that I look forward to, but nowhere near as much as BC!
I am most surprised by Stephen Martin's comments: "we had to make a decision of whether to finish working on the game or not." Call me old fashioned, but I thought you had made that decision when you told Andrew (or whomever) that you would run it. When you say you will run something then you run it. You can call that notion simplistic, but I prefer simple.
I do not join Mr.Schwartz's seeming absolution of the Convention organizers, however. Just as it is the duty of the people who say they will run an event to have it ready in time, it is the duty of the convention organizer to make sure the premier even happens. If this means staying on the event judges' butts then you do it, if it means drumming up support for the event by an advertising campaign, rescheduling of conflicting events or pressing people into service (including yourself) then you do it.
I do not wish to speak for others but I believe that I echo Michael Schwartz and Neil Robinson's groups by saying that the worst thing about all of this is the apparent lack of desire to make this work. I am most confused by Mr.Martin's comment that a decision was made that to attempt to recruit players for the event would be damaging to the convention. How could trying to make the biggest event a success be perceived as damaging?
I do not believe that the people involved understand how damaging this decision has been to the convention and Runequest renaissance (as I believe Mr.Schwartz pointed out). On top of the failures of the "Argrath unites the Tribes of Prax" and the "Pendragon" LARPs to deliver as initially promised, more and more it appears that this convention is being written off in favor of the British Columbia con. I can't help but feel that if there was only one con this year and everyone put the full force of their efforts behind it instead of splitting between two then perhaps we would have had our first successful con East of the california line in three years.
Also don't forget that the world of RQ stretches beyond this digest. There will be people that show up in Chicago who have no way of knowing that this event has been cancelled. Just because many of you have already played this event (which I can't help but think contributed to the blase attitudes toward its cancellation), don't think that it isn't being looked at with as much anticipation that we all had when we first played HotB.
My last negative (well, let's say critical) comment is that I believe that it is naive to think that you won't get 16 walk-up registrants for an event of this magnitude (you remember, the one on all the literature for the convention). ESPECIALLY if some of the conficting LARPs were rescheduled to make room. But even without that there are always walk-ups who didn't register for whatever reason! And recognize that 16 is a rather small number. Heck the appeal on this digest got 10, for God's sakes. And then as a seeming final insult we are told that we have the option of letting them keep the money sent and they will give us the same bloody book that we would have gotten if we had been able to play in their game!
I want to end this with something positive. I'd like to join the others who have thanked Nick Brooke for his offer to not only cancel his event (which I'm sure he has worked very hard to have completed as promised) but to play (especially in view of his review of BC at the Oakland Con) if necessary. I am sure that if the effort had been made these types of offers by those who understand the damage which the cancellation of a headline event can do would have flowed freely. Heck I bet Stafford would play if asked and then you could advertise that fact and bring more people in...
My apologies for the length of this rant, Medway, Shannon and Eric can vouch for the fact that I am nothing if not long-winded. My apologies if my comments have unduly offended anyone but it has been my experience that sometimes such things cannot be avoided. Now that I am a member of this list hopefully I can contribute in a less-critical way in the future. I'll replace my usual baseball quotes in my sig with quotes from the Archives of my second campaign, hope you find them enjoyable.
"I'm Yelmalio, I'm running." -Farzote, Initiate of Yelmalio
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