The RPGA was originally setup by TSR to bring the focus from D&D in general, to AD&D in particular. Not all of us were down with that move, and just pretty  much ignored TSR by running our homebrew games the way we liked, and running BD&D or 0D&D convention games under the table, until they became fashionable once again (2003 or so, by my reckoning).

The Original RPGA was setup with various domains, or kingdoms within the World of Greyhawk, representing writer groups from different Geographical regions around the world who created adventures for players in their "region" or "duchy" or "barony". etc. et. al. It featured some rather innovative group-to-group story resolution mechanics, which was tempered by probably one of the worst adventure/scenario design systems I have ever seen. During this time nepotism, favoritism, and peer pressure were all used to the detriment of the RPGA organized play design system as a whole.

Right up until 3e was released working for the RPGA was stressful, and in almost every instance, the folks actually doing the adventure/scenario design work were vetted by a byzantine editorial and review system that meant that RPGA Judges at conventions or tournaments often didn't get an opportunity to playtest, balance, or review actual adventures and storylines until they were actually released at the game show. This had a rather predictable response from players,and ran until the beginning of the d20 era, when organized play was, ..well, reorganized.

~GameDaddy
Founding member of the RPGA 1979. Resigned 1980-81 after finding out RPGA fully supported TSR in it's bid to bury 0D&D and make AD&D the "one ring".
3e RPGA GM 1999-2001
Organized Play GM 2003-2006

Quote from: The Traveller;710300Very interesting thread, I've often wondered about the RPGA and this has been informative.

Stepping back a bit though, as more and more of this hobby-driftwood washes up, one must bury one's face in one's hands and ask,

what the actual fuck is wrong with these people.

In RPGA and DP9's case it seems to be the point system that was the culprit. Getting the points became more important at some point.

Here is Rogue Cthulhu's take on their own problems with RPGA.

http://roguecthulhu.mrxdesigns.com/index.php/rogue-manifesto

I have been a RPGA member for 30 years with on & off involvement throughout the eras. I miss the tourney days. They rocked hard and were incredibly fun way to play D&D. But as always, much of the fun depended on your DM and your fellow players.

The current era Living Campaigns are good for people who want to play a character from 1st to 30th without worrying if the GM creating the campaign might just give up or if the group might break up. Instead, the campaign marches on and you get to play at home, at stores or at conventions with a wide variety of GMs and players.

Does this have ups and downs? Hell yes. But what mode of play doesn't?

The current campaign is Living Forgotten Realms and its hit and miss for me. I do really love the power given to LFR DMs now that didn't exist in the Living City or Living Greyhawk days.

As for RPGA players, it all depends. I know some really wonderful roleplayers who are devoted LFR players who would be awesome at any RPG session, but in general, the average LFR player is somebody who is looking for a RPG experience akin to playing Baldur's Gate. For them, its about D&D as a Disneyland ride where they level up consistently and watch their builds unfold with very little challenge. Of course, there are a variety of challenge levels available in LFR so if you want to play more hardcore, you certainly can.

Quote from: Omega;710166So Pathfinder has its own RPGA-esque thing too now?

For years now.

Any smart company should host a Living Campaign. It encourages Actual Play with actual players who buy actual books with actual money.

Living Campaigns are boons for game stores, conventions and publishers because these are actual involved gamers who leave their house to interact socially and spend dollars on their hobby.

There are no dollars (or future) in the guys who stay home and jibba jabba about how they never need to buy a RPG ever again because the AD&D set their mom bought for their 10th birthday still works fine.

Public play draws in fresh blood. I see far more women and teens at RPGA events than any other RPG game at a con.

Quote from: TristramEvans;710183What are the benefits of playing in this manner? Is it like a "Living Greyhawk" thing where the official setting is altered based on the actions of individual groups?

For me, the best part of RPGA is the battle interactive.

Here's the concept - imagine 10-15 tables of 5-6 players all involved in the same giant mission, but each table is taking a certain part of the vast battle, but what happens at one table can affect play at another. There is a GM for each table plus roving GMs who help coordinate the big picture of the mission.

Also, different tables can be wildly different levels. While the low level PCs engage the mooks and minions, the mid level guys make strategic strikes against major henchmen or take on the dangerous missions while the high level PCs take the battle directly to the Big Bad Guy...and sometimes, must hold the fort so all the lower level guys can flee to safety if the battle goes poorly.

Without RPGA, a battle interactive would be nigh-impossible to set up. We are often talking 60 players and 15 GMs. To make such events happen, you need external organizing.
 

Quote from: Omega;710264Did not know of the first era as being the tournament modules.

That's where S1 Tomb of Horrors, S2 White Plume Mountain, A1 Slave Lords, etc all got their start. GenCon used to have official tourney modules that were sold post-con. Operation Ogre by Judges Guild was an early one.

Quote from: Spinachcat;710441Without RPGA, a battle interactive would be nigh-impossible to set up. We are often talking 60 players and 15 GMs. To make such events happen, you need external organizing.

This is really where a simple application on tablets would shine, no need for roving GMs then. I haven't heard much good about the RPGA but this is interesting.

Quote from: GameDaddy;710333The RPGA was originally setup by TSR to bring the focus from D&D in general, to AD&D in particular. Not all of us were down with that move, and just pretty  much ignored TSR by running our homebrew games the way we liked, and running BD&D or 0D&D convention games under the table, until they became fashionable once again (2003 or so, by my reckoning).

This, right here.  

Quote from: The Traveller;710538This is really where a simple application on tablets would shine, no need for roving GMs then. I haven't heard much good about the RPGA but this is interesting.

Battle Interactives and MYRE events are two RPGA events that I still attend with any regularity. MYRE is "My Realms" adventures where the GM writes his own adventure in Forgotten Realms with loose parameters and I've found GMs who have done really cool stuff within the framework.

Also, Battle Interactives tend to be harder, more brutal and more likely to end up with PC death or some permanent injury or effect on them. Thus the RPGA players who are overly protective of their characters often don't play them. For example, the BI from last fall involved an assault in the Shadow realm and healing potions found were liquid shadow...which were awesomely powerful, but left your PC "touched by shadow" which was essentially a permanent curse that had repercussions in future adventures.

I never thought the RPGA was right to begin with.

Quote from: RPGPundit;711165I never thought the RPGA was right to begin with.

There was a point in time where it was a great way to network with other Players of different systems and it was not surprising to find articles for non-TSR games or Basic D&D in Polyhedron magazine. Some of my favorite articles for Classic Traveller and d6 Star Wars come from there.

Quote from: RPGPundit;711165I never thought the RPGA was right to begin with.

I think it was a good idea. It gives a sense of participation in something larger.

And Polyhedron had some interesting articles.

It was the point system that doomed it the minute those points became more important to a DM than running the session. And we see this from one RPGA-like to the next that has a points incentive system that grants some sort of big perk or merchandise. Or some sort of game world influence.

I'm still annoyed they threw most of the old adventures away.. makes em hard to get coppies of;)

Brette:)

Quote from: Omega;711195It was the point system that doomed it the minute those points became more important to a DM than running the session.

And by "doomed", you mean "successful". That's why Paizo is emulating it to some extent. Pathfinder's swag goodies have helped them grow a very strong local GMing crew.

If you don't reward volunteers, you don't have volunteers for very long. If you want to grow an organization, you either pay people a salary as employees to do a job, or you reward your volunteers for their time and effort with perks and swag.

As for how some DMs viewed the rewards as equal or more important than running good games, that's an issue of volunteer management which is extremely hard when you are trying to have volunteers manage volunteers. There were certainly crap ass DMs who only showed up to rack up swag points and who couldn't care less about running good games. That was a big issue that was never addressed properly by WotC.  

Now that LFR is run by the volunteers, there isn't cool swag anymore for RPGA DMs and not surprisingly, they have been losing DMs significantly.

It's one thing to run games for your friends, but entirely another to expect volunteers to organize, demo, run and evangelize events at cons and stores.

Quote from: Spinachcat;711858It's one thing to run games for your friends, but entirely another to expect volunteers to organize, demo, run and evangelize events at cons and stores.

It is. The hobby got its start though with the former. RPGs games caught on almost entirely via word of mouth from GMs running games for their friends, and even more importantly, when they couldn't run games for their friends, running games for acquaintances, and with almost no traditional advertising budget (including a budget to recruit shills) to speak of.

To be honest, being in Jr. High School, I didn't have much in common with the college guys that invited us over to play rpg and wargames. They invited us, because they knew we played wargames and rpgs often, Their regular circle of friends were not around. They had easy access to liquor, women, and cars, and early on, we did not.

We were around and available, to compete in playing wargames, and to playtest various rpg scenarios.  

That kickstarted a new Industry in the face of sometimes hostile competition from traditional game and toy companies, as well as criticism, censure, and disapproval from media outlets like newspaper, radio, and television that were predisposed to favor older traditional businesses.

The model of recruiting an army of volunteers only works these days (just like it always has) if the volunteers are not mercenaries (and actually prefer running and playing the game), instead of being motivated solely by swag, or via direct compensation.

Quote from: Spinachcat;711858If you don't reward volunteers, you don't have volunteers for very long.

That word does not mean what you think it means.

Quote from: Spinachcat;711858And by "doomed", you mean "successful". That's why Paizo is emulating it to some extent. Pathfinder's swag goodies have helped them grow a very strong local GMing crew.

Pazio is emulating the RPGA because everyone else that has tried has apparently emulated the RPGA.

In the short term it works. But over an extended period it seems to fail. And fail repeatedly. How long did RPGA last after the point system was introduced? SRG lasted maybee 5 years, DP9 lasted a year maybee. If Pazio's RPGA-like hasn't seen trouble yet then they either have a tighter watch on events, or the rewards are not such that engender points collection over actually running sessions.

Back in the eighties when I was a dumb, spazzy thirteen-year-old with more enthusiasm than smarts I sent off some allowance money and joined the RPGA. I lived in a very rural area in the middle of nowhere, I was never going to be able to make it to GenCon or any other con that had RPGA events, I was never going to be anywhere where I could actually participate in any RPGA events... I guess I just joined it as sort of a "D&D Fan Club".

Anyway, digging through junk a few years ago during a move I discovered that I still had the plastic membership card and the cheesy "Member in Good Standing" certificate. I framed it and hung it on the wall of my game room.