-	-	Mentzer's Reply	-	-
A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity	A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade	-	A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords	A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords
Dragon	-	-	-	Dragon 49

As Dave Cook suggested in Survival
Tips for the Slave Pits, DRAGON #43, the
AD&D™ Open Tournament at the GENCON® XIII convention was indeed a test
of [endurance] for judges and players
alike. This I can verify from personal experience. The question is whether it
should have been such an ordeal. As
conventions and role-playing tournaments grow in popularity across the
country, it becomes necessary to determine what makes a good tournament.
Judges must ponder this question when
[designing their tournaments] and the scenarios to be used therein; players must
consider it in deciding whether enrolling
in a test of endurance is worthwhile.

I do not wish here to criticize the Slave
Pits scenarios <A1, A2, A3, A4> that were used in the
tournament. On the whole I felt the 2
scenarios I played in were well designed
and represented a vast improvement over
the previous year’s efforts. They were
well balanced between combat and problem-solving, and it was possible to finish
them if one’s team played optimally well.
The adventure was not of such a high
level that most entrants had problems
managing numerous spells and magic
items, a dire problem in the previous year’s tournament. Let’s face it, your average AD&D Open entrant does not have
the ability to play an 11th-level character
well.

The problem with the AD&D Open lies
not in its scenarios but in its structure.
On the most general level, this problem
can be thought of as an imbalance between 3 goals that the tournament
strives to attain. 1st, it seems clear that
one goal of a tournament like the AD&D
Open is to let in ail those who wish to
play and not have to turn anyone away.
To achieve this goal, the sponsors of the
AD&D Open have expanded the tournament to accommodate over 800 players, and even so the rising popularity of
the event forced them to turn away latecomers. A 2nd goal is to ensure
that all persons who are in the tournament have a good time even if they don’t
win. A 3rd goal is that the best players
in the tournament be in fact the ones
who advance to the semi-finals and finals. The problem with the AD&D Open
is, in essence, that overemphasis on the
1st goal has led to a failure to achieve
the 2nd and 3rd goals.

In [designing a tournament] for over 800
participants, the sponsors of the tournament required entrants to band together in teams of nine players each.
Dave Cook noted in his article that successful teams typically had a strong,
decisive caller whom the others generally obeyed. That this is true I have no
doubt; recall the old saying about a
group with too many chiefs and not
enough Indians.

The problems with such an arrangement are several. If the strong, decisive
caller is to be effective, his |or| her teammates must refrain from participating to
a large extent. But if each player contributes freely, the result is that several
persons are talking at once most of the
Time, no one person takes control, and
almost everything the party does must
be decided by “putting it to a vote” or
some rough equivalent thereof. This state
of affairs can be painful in the extreme:
bickering over trivial matters becomes
the standard way of proceeding.

This “chaotic” sort of situation typically results when a team is made up of
persons who are strangers to each other,
or where 1/2 the team knows each other
and the rest are strangers. It takes only
one strong-willed, stupid stranger to ruin
a team’s chances of success, even when
a bloc of 3 or 4 friends opposes that person. Given a team size of nine, my experience has been that one or two players
on a team of strangers will be the sort
who ruin their team’s chances to advance and spoil the fun as well by stubbornly proposing courses of action that
the majority rightly refuses to follow.
The answer to this problem is to enter
the tournament with eight trusted friends.

However, though a team of 9 friends
might do well, some members of that
team who would like to have more voice
in the team’s affairs are necessarily denied the chance to speak as often as they
would like to. This arises from the sheer
dynamics of a 9-person team; to win,
a team must be efficient, and it is impossible to be efficient when everyone on a
large team speaks up whenever they
want to. The AD&D Open would be a lot
more FUN if team size were reduced.

Several beneficial effects would flow
from this. 1st, there would be less need
for a dictatorial caller on a small team.
The caller’s teammates could participate
more without destroying the team’s efficiency. 2nd, there would be fewer
chaotic teams made up of 50% or more
strangers, since it is easier to get a group
of 5 friends together than it is a group of
9. This in turn would reduce the number
of teams eliminated under unpleasant
CIRCUMSTANCES due to the misbehavior of
one or two miscreants. Reducing team
size would also serve the 3rd goal mentioned above, that of allowing the best
players to rise to the top. Under the present system, a group of 3 or 4 friends who
are excellent players have little chance
of beating a group of 9 friends that
contains but 1 excellent player. Individually, all the members of the smaller
group might be better players than anyone on the larger team, but they nonetheless lose. Thus, it does not follow that
the people who make it to the finals of
the AD&D Open are necessarily the best
players in the tournament. Success in a
role-playing tournament where the teams
are large depends more on group dynamics than it does on the merits of a
team’s members.

No one has conducted a statistical
study to determine the optimum team
size for role-playing tournaments. To my
mind, 2 is clearly too few, and 9 is clearly
too many. it may be that teams of 4, 5 or 6
players are equally optimal, at least under
non-tournament circumstances. For now,
let us choose 5 as our best guess — we
know at least that 5 is better than 9 for the
purposes discussed above. Reducing
team size to 5 in the context of the AD&D
Open without increasing the number of
judges and rooms available would, however, cut the number of people who get
to play in the tournament by nearly half.
This seems too drastic a reduction in
light of the increasing popularity of this
event.
 

One could argue that it is better for all
400 people in a tournament to have a
good time than it is for 700 out of 800
people to have a bad time. If we nonetheless decide that maximum participation
is the most important aspect of an open
tournament, not to mention the effect of
decreased participation on convention
revenues, we must seek a compromise
that will not reduce the basic number of
participants.

The following is one such compromise. Let us assume that we wish to
stage a tournament for 800 players, and
that a maximum of 40 judges and 30
rooms for play are available over a 4-day
period. This approximates the situation
of the last AD&D Open Tournament. The
opening round of our hypothetical tournament is to be played over a two-day
period by teams of five, 400 persons to
play each day. Each team plays through
a mini-scenario one hour in length, most
likely a short sequence of rooms of
difficulty.

Start-up time is to be handled specially. One hundred participants and twenty
judges meet together in a large room.
Teams of five are formed and each is
assigned a judge. Then a single judge
acts as lecturer and explains the scenario to all 100 players at once. The individual judges then hand out character
sheets, and the teams have 15 minutes to
assign roles and plan their strategy. At
the end of this time the teams are taken
to separate rooms and the action begins.
The process is repeated 4 times during
the day, such that each of the 20 judges
handles 4 groups. If 30 judges are available for the first day it would be desirable
to cover 600 entrants on the first day,
leaving only 200 to be handled in this
manner on the second day.

If this can be done, the second day
begins with 20 judges handling the remaining 200 entrants. By noon of that
day, the first round is then over. The
teams are then divided by score into
three groups. The top 20 teams are allowed to proceed directly to the semifinals, skipping the second round. The
next 80 teams in rank of score move on to
the second round, to be described below. The bottom 60 teams are eliminated
from the tournament. In effect, this means
that 500 of the 800 entrants get to advance; a team can be worse than average
and still advance. Only the dregs are
eliminated after only one hour of play.

The second round resembles the state
of affairs in the Slave Pits tournament.
The teams of 5 are consolidated or reformed into teams of 10 (hardly worse
than 9), and each team plays in a 4-hour
scenario. Half of the teams play on the
afternoon of the second day, 20 judges
handling 20 teams. The remainder play
on the morning of the third day; again
only 20 judges are required. After the
second round, the 40 individual best
players are selected from the 40 teams
that participated, not necessarily one
player from each team. These individuals are then allowed to form themselves
into “wild card” teams of five players
each for the next round. None of the
second-round teams can advance as a
group.

In an alternative method, the top four
teams from the second round could advance to the semi-finals, there to divide
into 8 teams of five, as explained below.
This might solve the possible problem of
lack of motivation to cooperate as a team
that might otherwise be present. Individual winners would then become alternates to the semi-finals.
 

In the semi-finals, which commence
on the afternoon of the third day, the
remaining 140 participants are divided
into 28 teams of five each, including the
20 top teams from the first round, and
eight “wild card” teams from the second
round. Alternates are chosen from a pool
of 40 individual runners-up from the second round. The 28 teams play a 4-hour
scenario, from which 8 teams emerge as
finalists. The finals are then conducted
as a four-hour scenario on the fourth
day.

This system, though more complex
than the present one, requires not many
more judges or total hours of playing
time than the present one. It allows most
participants to play in at least 2 rounds,
at least 5 hours of playing time. With the
exception of 8 judges on the third day, it
does not require any of the 40 judges to
spend more than 4 hours per day conducting the adventures. Individual merit
is more highly rewarded under this system; a good player who comes alone to
the convention will, teamed with 4 strangers, have a fair chance of being able to
advance to the second round. From there
the plucky adventurer advances to the
semi-finals as an individual winner or an
alternate. The individual player of merit
has at least a decent chance to advance
under this system. Under the present
system, such a player, or small group of
players, will more than likely be saddled
with an idiotic teammate or two and thus
be doomed to defeat. Above all, everyone who plays gets at least one chance
to enjoy the calm, happy atmosphere of
the 5-person team.

This compromise system serves the
goals of tournament planning better than
the structure of the present AD&D Open.
indeed, the very word “tournament” is
something of a sham when applied to the
AD&D Open, since in a tournament the
winners are (all) supposed to be the best,
the cream of the role-playing crop. I do
not wish to insult the persons who won
the tournament; no doubt their skill at
the game is great. They can think of
themselves as the best “team” in the
tournament, but with teams of nine that
is not saying a great deal.

Some alterations need to be made in
the AD&D Open to minimize the role of
group dynamics and luck and maximize
the role of individual skill and enjoyment, within the physical limitations present. Only then will the AD&D Open truly
be a tournament. The basic principles
discussed here extend to events at other
conventions as well. If you go to a convention to play in such an event, be wary
of events where the teams are large unless you have enough friends to fill the
spaces. You want to play on a team of
adventurers, not a Senate subcommittee.

It remains to be seen what the effect of
the new TSR™ Role Playing Game Association™ Membership will be on this situation. Among its other functions and
services, an RPGA™ membership entitles the holder to play in the RPGA
AD&D Tournament, open to members
only, that will allow members to compete
for points in an international rating system. This is very impressive sounding
indeed. Since this tournament will presumably be held at the GenCon®convention, one wonders whether or not it
will entirely displace the AD&D Open or
merely supplement it. If the latter were
the case, the RPGA tournament might
provide an easy solution to the problems
discussed earlier. It could go into the
business of providing the small-team
tournament, while the AD&D Open could
continue in its present form, providing
questionable opportunities for masses
of players who are not serious about the
game.

There is reason to hope that RPGA
tournaments will be better than tournaments like the AD&D Open. The present
international rating system, which has
appeared in DRAGON magazine from
time to time, is on an invitational basis.
This allows tournament sponsors to keep
the teams down to 3 members each, and
even keep individual records of each
player’s actions so that individual rankings could be generated at the end. It
would seem to follow that RPGA tournaments will have to be run like this, or
else it will be difficult or impossible for
them to generate a meaningful ranking
system. Of course, they may mean to
generate a meaningless ranking system
much like the one used in the AD&D Open; the winners on the teams of nine
would all receive a certain number of
ranking points. This would be a rank system indeed, suffering from all the defects
discussed previously.

However, since the RPGA is the brainchild of TSR, and since several TSR employees have played in the Invitational
Masters Tournaments, it is to be hoped
that these persons will remember the
pleasant experiences they had in those
tournaments and wish to pass such a
boon on to others. If however, the RPGA
tournaments are to but newly labeled
AD&D Opens, I would recommend
against participating unless you can tolerate the present system.

Mentzer’s reply: It isn’t that easy

Dear Mr. Meyers:

You are quite right. The problems invoked with teams of 9 players are indeed
numerous and contrary to cooperation
and good AD&D™ games. And you have
nicely summarized the three main goals
of any good tournament. However, there
are a few problems with your proposed
system.

As a Dungeon Master myself, I feel
that a mere hour is shy of the time
needed to properly evaluate 5 or 6 players. Why lapse back into 10 players for
the 3rd round? And why give each player
only a 28½% chance of making it to the
final from the 3rd round (selecting 8
teams out of 28)? How do we keep the
700 players who go “second” (after sending out the first 100 players) from illegally gaining information on the scenario
used? Where do we find the dozens of
top-quality scenarios for tournament
use? And above all, how do we find,
evaluate, and instruct the Dungeon Masters needed in the quantity — and quality! — so vital to the whole operation? DM
evaluations must be a part of the first few
tournaments; the team slighted because
of a misinterpretation of a minor rule
should not be wrongly dropped from the
competition.

Dungeon Masters, scenarios, and organization are the critical aspects of the
large AD&D Tournaments. Each aspect
is equally important; a well-written scenario, in which all the vagaries are explained and a minimum of “judgment
calls” are necessary, can make or break
an otherwise well run, well planned tournament.

Any system used must depend on the
Dungeon Master and a scoring system to
select the best players from any given
group. The only effective rating system
from a single DM, considering the wide
differences in styles, temperament, and
knowledge of rules (which directly affects speed of play), is one in which the
DM compares the players he or she actually observed. Therefore, the DMs
should select the best players in their
own groups, without using a broad point
scale to pick the “best players” (often
not) in a huge mass.

If each DM picks the best half, regardless of teams, the best players usually
progress to following rounds. Thus, 800
players in the first round would drop to
400, 200, and 100 in successive rounds,
with the best players (not the best teams)
shining through. The last round of 100
players, divided into teams of 5 or 6 each,
would all be in the final. In Official
RPGA™ tournaments, prizes would be
awarded to the top 20%, or four teams of
5 players in this example. Of course, the
top team will receive better prizes. The
top player might be a member of the
winning team, but each DM in the final
round would select and justify the
choice of best player in the group, using
a points-plus-comments format.

One system under consideration involves a new scenario called BATTLE
ROYAL. In it, two teams of up to 8 players each compete against each other, in
one large room, working towards a common goal. This system, using AD&D
rules entirely, is a detailed “blow-up” of a
single encounter in an adventure.
Through this format, players individually
plot their actions and reactions to the
changing situation, and display their
own ideas, initiative, and knowledge of
the AD&D system. BATTLE ROYAL is
very economical in terms of space and
time, as one DM runs a game for up to 16
players in one room. This aspect is rapidly becoming a vital
concern of the organizers of tournaments and conventions,
due to the ever-increasing popularity of
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® games.

The RPGA tournaments will strive to
provide the best and fairest scenarios
and scoring systems for large numbers
of participants. Compromises will have
to be made; although it would be nice to
keep playing “normal” AD&D games in
tournaments, this is rapidly approaching
impossibility on the scale expected. Rest
assured that final rounds, however, will
always be “normal” AD&D adventures.
But bear with us; we’ve sincerely got the
interests of the gamers at heart, and
hope to achieve these difficult goals,
given time.

A final word: If YOU (yes, you out there
reading this!) are interested in being a
Dungeon Master at GEN CON ® East
AD&D™ tournament (July 23-26 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey) or at the GEN CON®
convention itself (August 13-16 at UWParkside, Wisconsin), please write
to us! We’ll send you a questionnaire to
fill out (sort of a take-home AD&D test)
that you’re on your honor to complete
without help (though you may use the
books). We’ll select many new Official
Dungeon Masters this year, and if you
perform well, we’ll show our appreciation with valuable gifts and recognition.
Please write to: RPGA™ Gamemasters,
P.O. Box 509, Lake Geneva WI 53147.

Frank Mentzer
RPGA Coordinator

-
 

THE ROUND TABLE

POINT: Impressions of an RPGA Tournament

by Philip Meyers

The opinions presented at the ROUND
TABLE are those of the individual
contributors, and do not necessarily reflect
the view of the RPGA HQ or TRS Hobbies, Inc.
 

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-

This article is the sequel to "The Slave
Pits Revisted" (which appeared in
DRAGON magazine #49), and to some
extent is a response to Frank Mentzer's
reply in the same issue. The RPGA
AD&D Tournament of the GEN CON
XIV game convention must be considered
a great advance in the state of the role
playing tournament design art, and the
credit goes to Frank.

The first virtue of the RPGA tournament
was its small size. Teams of six
players participated, allowing each session
to be something more than a shouting
match. (The AD&D Open tournament
employed teams of ten.) During the
mass meeting before the second round
of the RPGA event, the mood of the
membership was very positive, indicating
that the winners at least were enjoying
the tournament.

The second factor in the success of
the RPGA tournament was the excellence
of the scenarios employed. Both the first
and second round scenarios were highly
imaginative, and were oriented towards
problem solving, as opposed to hack-and-slash.
Most interesting of all, however,
was the system used to select the
winners of the tournament. Generally
the players on each team elected from
amongst themselves the members to advance
to the next round. This system by
definition eliminated team dissatisfaction
with their judge's evaluation of
their performance, a problem that has
plagued the AD&D Open tournament.

It was not, however, without certain
disadvantages. One aspect of the system
was that teams were formed at random,
so that each team in each round consisted
of strangers to each other. This eliminated
one problem, that a team of friends could
excel by allowing one or two party
members to dictate to the rest of the party.
The other system allowed a team of
friends to be more efficicient than a team
of strangers, since a team of
strangers tends to make decisions more
in the manner of a committee, with each
member contributing. The price of
eliminating this problem was the complete
elimination of advancement by team,
however.

At the end of the first round, the players
on each randomly selected team
were just beginning to become a team,
as opposed to a group of strangers.
These new friendships were, however,
nipped in the bud by the scrambling process
in the second round. Of course, the
process could also have worked the other
way, allowing a player to get out of a
team he or she didn't get along with or
didn't particularly like.

Odds are that a highly successful team
in an event of this kind worked well together.
The players on such a team are
likely to want ot get to know each other
better, and keep the team intact for the
next round. It would seem sensible to let
such a group advance as a team. The
problem of the Open would not arise,
because of randomly formed teams from
the first round would be the type of team
advancing, and hopefully team size would
remain at six, helping to avoid the problem
of a passive majority following a dominant
leader.

Another problem with the RPGA Network
system of player election is that is
suffers in rounds after the first. A second
round team tends to be fairly concentrated
in dominant players, used to leading
the group and having their way. The
ancient prolbem of too many chiefs and
not enough Indians thus arises. At the
end of the first round, it is usually fairly
clear which players should advance, becuase
there is a fairly wide range of ability
on the typical random team. The range
of ability in the second round is, however,
a great deal narrower. All of the
second round players wil know fairly
well what they're doing, and having advanced
once will be infused with a keen
desire ot advance again. This leads to a
situation wherein dominant personalities
on a team clash for contorl; the victor
may be the one with the loudest voice,
not the best player, or even the best
leader. The motivation to cooperate as a
team and the motivation to dominate as
an individual work at cross purposes in a
second round team, possibly leading to
an undercurrent of bad feelings among
the players.

One solution to this problem might be
to reinstate advancement by team on the
second and subsequent rounds, leaving
the selectoin of alternates to the present
player election system. It is known, however,
that advancement by team has its
share of problems as a system for role
playing tournament advancement. The
most obvious problem is that it places a
premium on the skill of hte DMs running
the various sessions. Variations in rule
interpretations among the DMs may make
the difference between victory and defeat
among teams. This problem is most
severe in an opening round whre a
large number of DMs, some whose qualifications
are somewhat questionable,
must be employed.

In the second and subsequent rounds,
the severity of the problem diminishes
because the tournament head can put
his best persons in as DMs. The severity
of the problem also varies with the nature
of the scenario. The more hack-and-slash
a scenario is, the more likely it is
that a difference in rule interpretations
will make a difference in team advancement,
such as when one DM lets a party
get away with throwing a fireball in a
confined space and another doesn't. On
the other hand, a problem solving scenario
is less subject to such abuses, because
rule interpretations are less critical
to the party's success. Of course,
some element of combat must remain in
a problem solving scenario, but the
chances of that element making a difference
in team performance are relatively low.

A second round team, particularly one
that excels over other second round
teams, is likely to develoop a considerable
amount of comradeship during the adventure
if the players are not forced into
trying to upstage one another to gain
individual glory. So long as team sizes
remain small, there is much ot be said for
a hybrid sort of advancement system,
where the first round winners are selected
by player election and second and
subsequent round winners are selected
by team advancement.

It should be remembered that the RPGA
network is not, by nature, an organization
of cut-throat competitors out to
prove themselves the best. this author
did not become an RPGA member to
prove himself the world's greatest gamer
(which he isn't), but rather to get to know
other people with a strong interest in an
unusual hobby that requires a great deal
of intellectual ability to participate in. to
some extent it seems a shame that the
only context in which RPGA members
meet each other is a competitive one. If a
second round team advancement system
were being used, then at least 50% of
the members in the tournament would
get a chance ot play together in a purely
cooperative atmosphere. If the BATTLE
ROYAL system mentioned by Frank in
TD-49 comes into use, it might be possible
to maintain a fairly small, intimate
second round even when the first round
is very large.

The whole subject of role playing
tournaments brings up a fundamental

question: Why do we have them at all?
Unlike chess or football, role playing
games are basically cooperative, not
competitive. The players in a normal
AD&D campaign are not playing against
each other, no against their DM. It
would seem that role playing tournaments
are popular mainly because there
seems to be no other way for a large
number of people to play together. For
the gaming public at large there appears
to be no alternative to role playing tournaments.
The RPGA network, however, is
in a better position than the public at
large, because the level of ability and
dedication of its members are high in
comparison to the gaming public. Why
could there not be then a "MegaCampaign"
similar to a normal campaign but
on a larger scale? The following is a conception
of how such a campaign would
work.

The MegaCampaign, or RPGA campaign,
would most likely be held twice a
year, at the GEN CON and GEN CON
EAST game conventions, where RPGA
tournaments are now being offered. The
membership would divide ito teams as
in a tournament, but the teams would not
compete against each other. Each team
would instead play a different scenario
in pursuit of a common goal. For instance,
ten parties of adventurers are
sent to explore the ten entrances to the
mountain fortress of a powerful evil wizard,
with the condition that if seven
teams make it through to the heart of the
mountain the overall mission is considered
a sucess, the evil wizard having
fled or been destroyed by the combined
efforts of several groups of adventurers.

The obvious problem with such a system
would be coming up with a different
scenario for each team. The RPGA Staff
cannot possibly do this by themselves;
they will need creative help form the
membership. For a MegaCamapaign to
succeed, a certain small number of RPGA
members would have to become official
dungeon masters in the full sense, not
only running the scenario but writing it
as well. The RPGA staff would have to
select the official DMs from amongst
sample mini-modules received from
members interested in running the MegaCampaign.
It does not take long to write
up a short scenario sufficient to keep a
party busy for hours; it is hoped that
enough members would be willing ot do
this so that the MegaCampaign could be
a success.

In any event, the size of the MegaCampaign
would be variable, as large or
as small as the number of available DMs
and scenarios. The RPGA Staff would be
responsible for coordinating the efforst
of the various designers. For instance, in
the evil wizard's fortress example above,
each potential DM should be given
guidelines as to size, location, and how
difficult mini-modules are to design. They
would also be responsible for coming up
with an overall storyline. Official RPGA
characters could be begun and actually
advance from year to year, say at a pace
of one level per sucessful mission.

The MegaCampaign could never be an
open campaign in the snse that everyone
could participate, unless, of course,
the number of official DMs grew large
enough to make this possible. It would
not replace the RPGA tournament, but
merely provide an alternative to it, allowing
members to meet one another in a
less competitive situation. With just ten
members willing and able to become official
DMs, a MegaCampaign of 60 players
could come into existence. Are there
nine of you out there willing to wield
your typewriters for a worthy cause?
Remember that the RPGA network is
what its members make out of it!

COUNTERPOINT: As Fast As We Can...
by Frank Mentzer

Thank you, Phil, for the praise. In
creating the RPGA system for role playing
tournaments, I tried to provide a method
in which the best players -- not the
best teams -- make it into the finals, and
the best players of all reap the hgihest
rewards.

Before you criticize either tournament
system, stop and think: how would YOU
handle 1000 AD&D tournament players?

We're still fiddling with our system,
and may try a hybrid with team play later
on. But you seem to place a premium on
leadership, and that is not a major consideratoin;
quality of role playing,
knowledge of rules, and cooperation are
the prime criteria. Better players do tend
to be dominant, but the best of them
know when not to be dominant, for the sake
of the mission. The voting reflects the
honest appraisals of the players, and is
controlled by awarding more votes to
DMs who have proved the quality of their
opinions; they're not swayed by dominance.

The RPGA system complements the
AD&D Open's system of team play. We
are not competitors; the RPGA Network,
as a private club, can offer smaller games
with a different approach, because we
have less players. The Open MUST use
team scoring and advancement; there's
no other way to handle the incredible
numbers of players characteristic of
such events. The popularity of the D&D and
AD&D games will draw thousands of
players to the conventions, and an official
Open tournament is the way in
which they can all compete. When I ran
the Open at the 1982 GEN CON South
convention, I ran it as a team event; but I
ran the RPGA tournament at the same
con in our usual manner. Together, the
two tournaments serve the needs of all
the AD&D players.

In scenario creation, I focus on entertainment,
trying to keep a luck a small a
part as possible. Making or failing a saving
throw should not decide the fate of
the player; RPGA scenarios have low
mortality rates. ANY system of team advancement
compares the teams against
each other, the scoring therefore dependent
on the DMs, the style, speed,
and quality of whom varies widely. This
is as unequal as death by saving throw!
Sorry, we MUST have fairness.

The BATTLE ROYAL system is an interesting
game, designed by Bob Blake
and myself for possible tournament use.
It pits two identical teams against each
otehr in a confined melee, and those with
the best knowledge of the AD&D system
AND combat tactics do well in it. But it is
sadly lacking in a vital aspect: role playing.
Thus, it will remain a nice game -- it
uses a minimum of space, one DM for 14
players, and easy scoring -- but will not
forseeably become a standard scenario
for role playing tournaments.

Your MegaCampaign idea is nice, but
you overestimate the capability of our
staff at this point. The creation of more
new modules, when we aer hard pressed
to come up with those for the regular
tournaments, is still a dream for the future.
Even the coordination of outside
creation would require more attention
and rewriting than we can spare, as we
insist on a high standard of quality, one
difficult to match by amateur designers.
No offense meant, but that's the way it is.

I suggest that the new friendships we
allegedly nip could be extended by simply
exchanging addresses. Unscheduled
games are a common feature of conventions;
why not get together to play
some more after the official tournament
session? And the tournament is NOT the
only time members get together; my
perennial AD&D Q&A sessions are well
attended, and the RPGA Members Meetings
feature friendly conversations admist
all the participants.

I'm currently working on a few things
similar to the intent of your MegaCampaign
idea: a "standard RPGA character"
system and other things to unify
widespread players. But these will take
TIME, which we're short on here at HQ.
Remember that tournaments are attended
by 10% or less of hte membership; we
must concentrate on those features  of
the organization which will serve the interests
of the most members.

Thanks again for your comments and
ideas. Anyone else have some more on
this subject?

<C6 image>