I am heavily involved with a very specific role-playing game. There is a “living” version of it. “Living” means that there are scenarios published that you can download and run a table of players through. So, you could have tens of thousands of players all playing the same scenario across the world. The results are reported, and sometimes that determines the direction of the overall campaign. It’s pretty cool in its mechanics, and is definitely a more social and solid way of playing a role-playing game, rather than meeting with the same group of people, in your basement, every weekend for 27 years. (No offense to anyone who meets with the same group of people in their basement for 27 years.)
This living campaign has a network of regional administrators across the globe who help promote, organize, and educate players and gaming sessions on a local basis. I spear-headed a lot of the local gaming for this living campaign, so I was deemed to be one of these administrators a couple years back.
And so things went swimmingly for a couple years, just humming along. We expanded to more gaming stores, and new players were joining all the time. What really brings a tear to my eye is that I use a messageboard to help organize all these games across all of these gaming stores. Gamers, who tend to be an introverted and awkward folk, would typically find a place to game, and would never deviate from that location, because it was safe. But, because this messageboard that I run advertises games at several different gaming stores, I have heard inspiring stories of gamers traveling between stores just to play a specific scenario that they really wanted to play, and meeting a making friends with new gamers who they never would have met otherwise.
So, I hold this administrative position in the city that I live in. And, there is another person like me in the next city over, not too far away. And then other administrators in all of the other cities in the state. And, then there is one administrator that oversees the whole state. We’ll call him Jason.
One of the local players - Brad, we’ll call him - sends me a message not too long ago, pointing out that I am the only administrator in this city, but that all the other cities have multiple administrators running the living campaign. I look, and by golly, he’s right. While I wasn’t looking, the number of administrators for the state has doubled. I’m in a major city in my state, but my city is the only city in the state that only has one administrator, and that’s me.
Brad goes on to say, effectively, “By the way. In case you needed another administrator, I would like to apply for the position. Here are my qualifications…”
Brad: Nice guy. Late 20s to early 30s. Veteran. College-educated. Looking for his first “real” job. Newer to the game, but takes the game seriously, but not too seriously.
Now, there isn’t even a position open for another administrator in my city, and I don’t have the authority to create one, so I take the pertinent information from Brad’s message and forward it to Jason, pleading the case for another administrator in my city, and by the way, I happen to even have a candidate for you. His name is Brad.
Jason, who administrates the whole state, but from a city far away from me - I’ve never met him - replies back with apologies about having never come to my area. He feels he’s been neglecting me and my area.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I respond. No need to apologize. We’d love to have you some time. We’re doing just fine. Now, how about Brad and the non-existent administrative position for my city?
“I’ll contact him. I’ll let you know.”
Not even 12 hours later, I get another message from a different gamer in my area. We’ll call him Drew.
Drew: Late 20s to early 30s. Been doing this game since he was a teenager. He helps coordinate the games at one of the stores in my area. He talks a bit too much.
Drew goes on about how he found out that Brad is applying to be the newest administrator for my city, and how displeased he is to hear this. He gives me a list of recent infractions Brad did. None of them rose to any sort of seriousness - except if they became repeat offenses.
I took this list of offenses and anonymously forwarded them to Brad. I told Brad that I promoted him to Jason, but what did he have to say about this anonymous feedback that I received about him?
Brad replied back and thanked me for putting his name forward like that. He also said that those infractions were isolated instances, and certainly not trends. He seemed a bit offended.
Only a couple days later, another local city, not too far away, gets another administrator. I know this only because this new administrator, Steve, contacts me directly to introduce himself. Being a nice guy, I make an announcement on our messageboard, introducing him to the local gaming community.
Knowing that this announcement would raise questions about my own city, I ended the announcement with a simple sentence. “Yes, I’m the only administrator for my city, but I mentioned this to Jason, who is looking into it.”
One hour later, I get a message from Drew. He starts the message with copying and pasting this last sentence of mine at the beginning of his message. He says, “Yeah, this has been a topic of conversation in my area. Me and this other guy don’t want the position, but I told you about all the bad stuff about Brad. We’re going to try and get a second person to apply for the position.”
I responded back with recapping the situation thus far, and then going on to emphasize to Drew that there isn’t even an open position at this point in time. I then told Drew that I took his feedback into consideration, and that I anonymously forwarded it to Brad, and told Brad that occurrences like that could not be routine. I’m giving Brad the benefit of the doubt.
Because Drew was getting on my nerves about this, I ended my reply message with a somewhat biting comment:
“Brad has enough enthusiasm to fill the role, if Jason finds him worthy enough. We certainly don’t want to fill the role with someone who doesn’t want it.”
Drew responds back almost immediately that, “I want to give you a heads up that I will be contacting Jason directly.”
Sigh
I figure, I have done everything that I should have done, properly, especially since we are talking about a volunteer position for a game. Someone who took the initiative to point out something lopsided with our gaming community, and who volunteered to help fix it, explained to me why he would be the right person to do so. I contacted the main guy in charge and pleaded the case. The detractor I somewhat neutralized with sterile and non-committal comments, but I justified him by making sure his voice was at least heard - and am leaving the judgment up for the person who actually has the power to make the decision.
What do you think?
