I remember when...
For prior parts of the game, when we didn't have drop box and indeed well before KBN/CI, players would get all their printing on the day and not get stuff in advance.
This usually meant that people turned up early to read things, soak up the importance of the words and then go in to game with it all fresh in their mind.
They were rather different days for the game, and part of me sort of misses that aspect. But nowadays CI isn't seen as any ones "Must Attend" system, its simply that little social game of vampire and if other things come up the other things take precedence.
Not IRL things but just other games.
There's a general lack of urgency in CI and i will in part take blame for that myself because i am the Ref of the game and it would be wrong of me to not do so.
However.
The saga has been running for 25 years (very nearly) and there are few games that can boast that level of achievement.
Indeed even other vampire games can't really boast that.
The game started when i was 16. Sat on a friends floor or where i was living. Sometimes round a table. Sometimes in a pub. Once in a playing ground opposite from where i lived at the time. The game progressed on to rooms booked in pubs.
But now we use caves and university rooms.
And that makes me proud.
CI is a second job for me, and sarah, an unpaid one at that. We get no perks or payment from it, often we're personally out of pocket but it's the choice i made when the game carried on running.
Its been through thick and it's been through thin. We've had clashes with all the "big" systems, but when i look at it the big systems are just ones where people camp out. They cost so much more so i guess people feel they Have to go to them and they Have to take priority.
Want to know a secret, thats fine.
Really it is, but i'd at least like a little respect for the work we do.
Saying "great game, thanks" is all well and good but they're just words.
You keep coming back over and over and thats cool, but when did you really add anything to the game?
Not just new players, but when did you go out of your way to say "the Refs have done this thing, i'm gonna add to it and do some amazing plot" because it doesnt happen often enough and the game will stagnate unless something happens.
We do our part every month. Month in, month out, even when we really cant we still do.
Some of you've seen me when i was ill, but i still run the game. Some of you have seen me and sarah really stressed or over worked but we still delivered. And even when i have my son i always do my best to deliver for the game, only once or twice in the last year can i say it wasnt enough and thats only because i just run out of time.
I'm tired of CI being the "after thought" game. Folks do everyone a favour and step up to the plate.
