Firstly, let me admit to being a child. I've only been involved with gaming since 2002, and the tales of past ages of glory are just that to me - tales. (Not that they're not glorious. The thought of having what today would be the combined attendance of every con in the country playing one slot is one I'd love to see happen again!) To me, the last few years have not been the doom laden era of discontent that seems to be being portrayed here.
I agree that the RPG co-ordinators need to be tougher on enforcing deadlines and quality control. It's unfair on the GMs to ask them to run a scenario without at least a basic introduction to it. I did once write a game where I specifically requested to be given 10 minutes with the GMs to explain the scenario and what I wanted them to do, and I think that surprised people, but it's something I'd like to see more of in future. While I genuinely think a skilled GM can improvise on a last-minute scenario, the best GM ever will be hard-pressed to do any thing better than OK or "pretty good." However, I've never been a purist about the system, and I know some people would actively make trouble for an unprepared GM, even a talented one. In addition, since not all GMs are of equal calibre, some will just fail completely. What I don't think is a viable proposition is abandoning the multiple tables system. If nothing else, the demand for RPGs and LARPs seems to be on the increase in the last two or three years: nothing on the scale some people were talking about earlier, but noticeable. At several cons, the demand for spots at RPG tables has exceeded supply, which has strained the system. At several cons, getting a full compliment of writers even for 6 slots (6-18 games) has been tough, with several tables of each game running. With each game only running once, you'd need many more writers. While the possibility exists to ask each writer to write more than one game, that puts heavier pressure on people and can affect quality. By the way, I would say relatively few of the current crop of con directors are on this list, but I'll point those I know about in the direction of this conversation. I can't seem to quite put the right words on what I think of this. Basically, I think there is a need for much improvement, but not necessarily a need for whole scale change and/or the abandonment of the current system. OisÃn
