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lokilokust
Seeker
USA
61 Posts |
 Posted - 22 Feb 2007 : 22:58:46
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(first of, please forgive me if this is the wrong forum for this... i'm still a bit new here.)
i joined the rpga last year and have done a whopping nothing wiht my membership as of yet.
just curious- is anyone else here a member?
and if so, how has membership been for you?
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yrs. in exile,
-s.j. bagley |
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George Krashos
Master of Realmslore
Australia
6692 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2007 : 04:13:04
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I was a member for several years in the 1990s. I confess this was only the case because of Polyhedron magazine and the fact that Ed had a realmslore column in it. Other than that, I didn't get much out of it - but it should be noted that I live in Australia.
-- George Krashos
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"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
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Dargoth
Great Reader
Australia
4607 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2007 : 04:25:49
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Joined in 2003 and have so far used it once (I played the first 3 modules of Legacy of the Green regent)
Hey George/Sage do you know when and where the Spring Revel Down Unders conventions going to be run this year?
Its normally run late September/Early october but its moved around the various eastern state capital |
“I am the King of Rome, and above grammar”
Emperor Sigismund
"Its good to be the King!"
Mel Brooks |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2007 : 04:48:59
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I passed the old 3.0 Herald Level GM test, and have done absolutely nothing with it since then. I was interested in the Green Regent campaign, but none of the local conventions ran with it, and they don't even do especially well with the Living Greyhawk campaign around here.
In fact, I'm not thrilled that there appears to be little interest in a "living" anything to do with Forgotten Realms, and as George pointed out, there isn't a newsletter with really cool exclusive information anymore, so I'm not particularly thrilled with the organization. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31799 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2007 : 04:55:10
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quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
I was a member for several years in the 1990s. I confess this was only the case because of Polyhedron magazine and the fact that Ed had a realmslore column in it. Other than that, I didn't get much out of it - but it should be noted that I live in Australia.
-- George Krashos
That's pretty much the same for me as well.
Though, several months of poor shipping at the time resulted in the fact that I missed a number of important issues of Polyhedron -- most with heavy Ed-related content. That was something that George helped my to remedy, however. 
Other than the magazine, and the fact that I could *say* I was a member of the RPGA, I really didn't get much else out of it.
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Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium -- Volume IX now available (Oct 2007)
"So Saith Ed" -- the collected Candlekeep replies of Ed Greenwood
Zhoth'ilam Folio -- The Electronic Misadventures of a Rambling Sage |
Edited by - The Sage on 23 Feb 2007 04:56:28 |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31799 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2007 : 04:58:59
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quote:
Originally posted by Dargoth
Hey George/Sage do you know when and where the Spring Revel Down Unders conventions going to be run this year?
Its normally run late September/Early october but its moved around the various eastern state capital
I'm actually waiting to hear back from a few sources on this.
Since I'll be visiting a few capitals later in the year -- for work related reasons -- I was hoping to schedule my trip at about the same time one of the state capital's plays host to the convention. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium -- Volume IX now available (Oct 2007)
"So Saith Ed" -- the collected Candlekeep replies of Ed Greenwood
Zhoth'ilam Folio -- The Electronic Misadventures of a Rambling Sage |
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lokilokust
Seeker
USA
61 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2007 : 13:32:29
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so am i correct in assuming that i missed the glorious golden age of it?
(from what i've seen on the rpga boards, and talked with folks about offline... it doesn' treally seem to offer much at this point.) |
yrs. in exile,
-s.j. bagley |
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Purple Dragon Knight
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1796 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2007 : 14:29:53
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I joined the RPGA in early 2000 when 3.0 came out, and I was a 'very hardcore' gamer for the three years that followed, focusing mostly on the Living City (FR - Raven's Bluff) campaign at first. Then the RPGA (if you can believe that!) LICENSED the campaign to a 3rd-party company ran by none other than Ryan Dancey (he had a big part in the design of the 3rd edition I hear). This fellow decided that "destroying Raven's Bluff" and renaming the campaign to "The Ruins of Raven's Bluff" would be a good idea, but most players within the campaign had been playing for YEARS, and had high-level characters that ranked high in the city's guilds, army, watch, etc. Many characters also owned lands within Raven's Bluff (each owner was registered in the campaign's "land registry", so it 'WAS' pretty cool to be able to say that your character owned that mansion or that tavern, and know that this was essentially FR canon! bragging rights and all!) Of course, after such a sudden shift in the campaign, the characters lost station, holdings, even gold... so the campaign essentially died with hundreds of hardcore FR fans very disgruntled by the whole affair. There was a weak attempt to salvage it all by introducing a "low-level" and "high-level" campaign path, but the damage was done, and most people had moved on to more stable campaigns such as "Living Greyhawk" and "Living Arcanis". Including me.
The following years I completely focused on my Living Greyhawk character, "Norkin Thunderaxe," the fighter/cleric of Moradin, if that jogs anyone's memory here!  The adventures were well written, the campaign rules document was excessive in complexity, but it DID achieve a careful control of each character's power balance with a rigorous treasure and magical items logsheets. Each adventure rewarded each player with an "Adventure Record" (AR). If say, you played a particular adventure with character A, you couldn't play it with character B. A very good system, but one that ended up loading everyone with a big binder full of ARs...
As of now, since late 2003, I have been essentially uninvolved with the RPGA. I, too, dislike the organization at this point, and what is being done with the Living Campaigns. I, also, abhor the fact that the Realms are completely disregarded. Green Regent was a joke: after 2-4 games, I gave up, as I felt the game was a complete waste of time, with each character having no influence whatsoever on the campaign plot... they even gave up recording people's XPs, and had every character level at the same time after a number of months... (sigh)
So since 2003, I've been happily focusing on home campaigns. Very rewarding, but I rarely get to be the player... |
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Bakra
Senior Scribe
628 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2007 : 15:14:19
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I am a RPGA member; so far I play Home campaigns and get free goodies from them. e.g. a fireball template, cards, and a mage miniature.
I was a member during the ‘golden age’ and it wasn’t exactly fun. I had trouble finding other RPGA players (it was the early years of the internet) and when I went to conventions to play an official Ravens Bluff game, 80% of the time I was turned away because my characters starting level was 1st The other 20% time I died hahaha when traveling with people 6 levels higher than me. The conventions held in the DFW area never had a RPGA event for characters 1-3 when I went to them. And I went to a lot of gaming conventions when I owned my first car. Eventually I did find a group that played on a regular bases towards the end of Ravens Bluff but they were not local (One hour trip one way) and I followed their rules for gaining a seat at the tables but no matter what I did I always got bumped from the table (You are first level??) After the fourth attempt to game with them I gave up on the RPGA. This lasted until the new revamped RPGA started (free membership! Score!), then I joined, got my herald ‘license’, and proceed to run Bandit Kingdom games for a bit. But in the beginning of Living Greyhawk the Bandit Kingdoms website wasn’t exactly organized and I had a horrible time to make things work. So I stopped running LG games and went straight to Homebrew games.
Today I am just now getting back into the LG campaign, passed my Master Level test, and plan on running a lot of 1st level adventures…a lot of them.
Things you can do with your membership:
Organize/participate in a homebrew rpga event, get points, and spread the word to wotc on what type game you are running. You: “Why yes, there are eight of us playing in the Forgotten Realms right now.”
WOTC: “Hmm, maybe we should produce more things for FR”
Go to conventions and play in their rpga events.
Organize/participate an online rpga game.
Go to your local friendly public place and run your own rpga game.
Of course you can do all the above without joining the rpga.
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I hope Candlekeep continues to be the friendly forum of fellow Realms-lovers that it has always been, as we all go through this together. If you don’t want to move to the “new” Realms, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with either you or the “old” Realms. Goodness knows Candlekeep, and the hearts of its scribes, are both big enough to accommodate both. If we want them to be.
(Strikes dramatic pose, raises sword to gleam in the sunset, and hopes breeches won’t fall down.)
Enough for now. The Realms lives! I have spoken! Ale and light wines half price, served by a smiling Storm Silverhand fetchingly clad in thigh-high boots and naught else! Ahem . .
So saith Ed. <snip>
love to all,
THO
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Faraer
Great Reader
3308 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2007 : 23:09:34
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I was a member for several years in the 1990s. I confess this was only the case because of Polyhedron magazine and the fact that Ed had a realmslore column in it. Other than that, I didn't get much out of it - but it should be noted that I live in England.
I wish Fluffy was part of the official Realms. :( |
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Alaundo
Head Moderator
United Kingdom
5701 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2007 : 10:14:17
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Well met
Aye, i'm with Faraer, George and the Sage on this too Elminster's Everwinking Eye (later known as The Everwinking Eye) was certainly the best reason to be a member, IMO. I was in the RPGA for a while back in the days of TSR. There were also discounts to members for products at GENCON, which was a bonus.
I recently rejoined about a couple of years back through the WotC site but haven't done anything with it. |
Alaundo
Candlekeep Forums Head Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
An Introduction to Candlekeep - by Ed Greenwood
The Candlekeep Compendium - Tomes of Realmslore penned by Scribes of Candlekeep
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Kuje
Great Reader
USA
7915 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2007 : 16:40:36
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I echo the others, it was for the FR material. :)
How sad are we? hahaha. |
For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet and excite you... Books are full of the things that you don't get in real life - wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium |
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Alaundo
Head Moderator
United Kingdom
5701 Posts |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2007 : 20:20:17
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| I still fondly remember reading the articles in Polyhedron about the other Moonsea cities like Thentia and Melvaunt . . . |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2007 : 21:31:40
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Ed was and is a charter lifetime member, and promises to continue the Border Kingdoms stuff as soon as he can. Faraer, Ed fondly remembers a dynamite Glathricon session of "Bond, Fluffy Bond" in which (gasp!) he actually got the girl.
He had to enjoy her with a wet and amorous Fluffy sharing the circular bed with them, but will never forget the GM doing the "wet, snuffly nose in various crotches" roleplaying. Ahem.
love,
THO |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31799 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2007 : 23:52:01
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quote:
Originally posted by Alaundo
quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
I echo the others, it was for the FR material. :)
How sad are we? hahaha.
Well met
Oh not at all, my dear Kuje. 'tis all for the love of Realmslore 
No. Sad is waiting anxiously by the mailbox for the latest issue of POLYHEDRON to arrive!
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Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium -- Volume IX now available (Oct 2007)
"So Saith Ed" -- the collected Candlekeep replies of Ed Greenwood
Zhoth'ilam Folio -- The Electronic Misadventures of a Rambling Sage |
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Faraer
Great Reader
3308 Posts |
Posted - 25 Feb 2007 : 00:08:18
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It is now.
I knew there was something zoophile about that dog. |
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scererar
Master of Realmslore
USA
1618 Posts |
Posted - 25 Feb 2007 : 06:25:31
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| once upon a time I was a member, but I never got into it much |
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Mazrim_Taim
Learned Scribe
341 Posts |
Posted - 25 Feb 2007 : 18:03:25
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I wasn't a member, but my old Dungeon Master was. He was the one who got me into Forgotten Realms initially, and was probably in the RPGA for the snippets of Realmslore, like you all.  |
And if the PCs DO win their ways through all the liches to Larloch, “he” will almost certainly be just another lich (loaded with explosive spells) set up as a decoy, with dozens of hidden liches waiting to pounce on any surviving PCs who ‘celebrate’ after they take Larloch down. As the REAL Larloch watches (magical scrying) from afar. Myself, as DM, I’d be wondering: “Such a glorious game, so many opportunities laid out before your PCs to devote your time to, and THIS fixation is the best you can come up with? Are you SURE you’re adventurers?” -Ed Greenwood
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Edited by - Mazrim_Taim on 25 Feb 2007 18:04:12 |
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Anyone here in the RPGA?
