ATTENTION EVERYONE!: Big Changes Coming to WoDD in 2015

[errin]

Hey folks!

As mentioned in the Don’t Freak Out thread, starting January 1st I’m going to roll out a change to the Admin positions on WoDD and that change is this:

Starting January 1st, Admin positions will be removed and I’ll be creating a new Storyteller role. With this change comes the new implementation of one year term limits.

The difference between an Admin and a Storyteller is that Admins had complete creative and administrative control over their systems indefinitely. Storytellers, on the other hand, will still make creative and administrative decisions for their systems, however there will be a few restrictions on top of the term limit. Since the remaining Admins have both been in charge of their systems for over a year, 12/31/2014 marks the official end of Samael and Kai’s first “term” running their respective systems.

I’m going to list a few stipulations that will hopefully make this change as smooth and painless as possible, but first, I want to go over some of the reasons for this change.

I hope that you all know by now that the decisions I make for the site overall are made for the good of the most people; this decision is the same. Let’s face it, as much as we’d like to try to make it so, online roleplaying isn’t like tabletop gaming. There is no clear end to a campaign, and if there’s no end that means we’re expecting our system runners to figuratively run a never ending marathon until life gets in the way or they drop, burned out and exhausted. That’s not how it should be. I care about all of you, and the last thing I want is for anyone to feel burdened by or even begin to loathe doing something that’s supposed to be fun, or frustrated because they can’t progress because someone else started something they haven’t been able to finish.

With that in mind, here are a few things I’m hoping will happen with term limits and Storyteller rotations:

1. A definite end point will give STs the incentive (and strength) to finish system-wide storylines, and then
   
2. Take a friggin’ break. Cycle back into a system and just be a player for a while or go take care of important life things without having to worry about journals and XP and submissions and all the other stuff that come with running a system.
   
3. Then let someone else take the wheel for a while. Players who might not have had a chance to try their hand at online storytelling unless/until the previous person stepped down will get their opportunity.
   
4. This will keep the bigger systems fresh and active, and it’ll give players a greater hand in shaping and driving overall system stories, but most importantly it’ll hopefully reduce if not completely eliminate burnout.

Before I get much further, first I have to warn you that things are about to get weird. You know it, and I know it. So far as I know, no one’s tried this before and like all trailblazing ideas, some wrong turns might be made. WoDD has always been an experiment in roleplaying, but my main goals remain the same: An emphasis on creativity and the most fun for the most people all across the board. If we work together on this, if you all trust me and we all trust each other, then I truly believe we’ll have some amazing adventures here.

[errin]

STORYTELLERS

Who Can Be a Storyteller
Anyone except for a previous Storyteller can be in charge of a system. This includes different systems, meaning the Vampire ST can’t cycle out of Vampire to ST for Mage. I’m not going to impose limits to how many times someone can be a Storyteller, so say Player B starts running a system 1/1/15 and relinquishes it to Player C 1/1/16. Player B can volunteer again for the 2017 term. Other than that, whether you have prior experience running a system or not, if you want to give it a try let me know.

How Storytellers Will Be Picked
Running systems on WoDD has always been a volunteer gig, and it’ll continue to be so. Starting one month before the end of the previous Storyteller’s term I’ll put out the call for volunteers. To volunteer, just drop me a note in the Director’s mailbox.

What If More Than One Person Volunteers
If more than one person volunteers to be a Storyteller then I will hold a vote. I’ll post the names of the prospective Storytellers in the forums and then players can email me with their votes. After a period of one week, I’ll post the results and we’ll have our new Storyteller.

What If No One Volunteers
If no one volunteers to run a system, then that system will go into hibernation until someone does volunteer. If someone volunteers after a system has gone into hibernation, then that person will start their term on the first of the following month (eg. A player sends me a request to run a hibernating system in July, their term will start August 1st and end July 31st of the following year).


And now things get a little complicated.

[errin]

RULES

One of my other goals with this site also remains the same: Create as few rules as possible. I am going to do my very best to keep sitewide rulings to a minimum for all of our sakes.

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Rule #1: NO RAZING OF SYSTEMS OR THEIR NPCS
If you’re taking over an established system (which as of 12/12/2014 is all of them), you must be willing to work with what’s already been established. So no burning down of established chantries and no killing off of system NPCs.

Whether or not you can play someone else’s NPCs will be up to the person who created them. For example, Sam’s already told me it’d be too weird if someone else played Ellsworth, Luke, or Trent in the Mage system. It’ll be up to him if they fade into the background of the Denver game, to be used in any storylines he chooses to run or act as advisors, or if they’ll disappear out of the Mage game altogether.

But, Errin, I really want to run…
If you have a really strong idea for a system overhaul and the previous setting hasn’t gone into hibernation, then let me set you up with a Pocket Game to get things started. WoDD is a non-crossover site, and I have no problem having multiples of the same system going, so long as everyone understands that they can’t play one character in all of them. That’s right, I’m lifting the current 2-Game limit in place for PGs.

But, Errin, I really don’t want…
If you really can’t imagine letting someone else take over the setting you created and there are still players interested in doing things in it, I will move the current setting into a Pocket Game until it can come to a conclusion. This is where we’re going to have to be flexible and trust each other.

Don’t go crazy with rules/judgment changes
I’m sure there are rulings and judgments that’ve been made in all of the systems that not everyone agrees with, but please don’t come in and rip down a majority of previously established rulings straight out of the gate. Try to limit what you’re changing to what affects what you or your system’s players are actually working on at that time. This is another place where we’ll have to be flexible and trust each other, but consider your players.

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Rule #2: END OF YEAR CULLS
For the majority of the year, individual Storytellers will determine for themselves if they’ll allow things like continuity journals or not. The only exception to this will be the start of someone else’s term, which will always be the first day that journals are due for the previous month regardless of system.

On the first month of a Storyteller’s term, any character that hasn’t submitted a journal claiming credit for three months (including the month of the current journal cycle) will be put in Retired status.

This is so that new Storytellers will have an idea of their actual playerbase and character demographics.

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This is it for rules for now. This list may be added to or have things removed from it, or rules might be altered. Any time this happens I’ll make an announcement in the Don’t Freak Out thread.

(After a period of about a month this post will be moved into the Sitewide Rulings thread)

[errin]

And now, a huge huge HUGE THANK YOU to our Admins of the last almost two years. I know it’s not sufficient, but seriously, thank you so much Kai, Sam, Joey, and Howl. You put a lot of time and effort and thought into these systems, and we had some really great times together in your care. Hopefully we will again! (Because remember, there’s no limit to how often someone can be an ST of a system!)

[errin]

And now finally! I need some volunteers to be STs!

I’m actually going to take first watch over the Mage system, which will probably be the only time in history that I do this. I have some ideas for things, but most importantly I think it’s really imperative that I get my hands dirty in these changes. It’s one thing to say, “Yeah! Change everything!” and then sit back eating brownies or something while everyone else does the heavy lifting. But I think if I get into it at least this first time around, I’ll get a better feel for what does and doesn’t work.

So, if you’re interested in being ST for Werewolf or Vampire (or if you’d like to open up a Pocket Game), drop me a line in the Director’s box [director(at)woddenver(dot)com].

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And now, I'll open up this thread for questions if you have 'em. Or you can drop me an email and I'll get back to you soon.

[Damon]

So -- I gotta say, I'm not in favor of these big changes. And I know negative feedback can be hard to hear, especially when you've obviously been working hard on these ideas. That said, I know you care deeply about this site and want to see it do well, Errin, and so do I. I'd just argue for a very different approach, which I'll get into toward the end of this megapost.

First, here's why I disagree with your suggested changes, broken into two broad categories. I don't mean these as personal criticisms in ANY way. I've just seen plenty of sites rise and fall, and there are certain things that work -- and certain things that blow up spectacularly (oftentimes after appearing to work initially).

I. Characters, not storylines.
I can only assume that you're making changes because you feel that the site is stagnating somewhat. To some degree, maybe that's true. There aren't a lot of open scenes going on, and when there are it's usually just people meet-and-greeting and/or friends being chummy. And -- yeah. That can get boring fast.

But the solution, imho, is NOT to completely shake up the system(s), kick the old admins out, and install new ones in hopes of getting a bunch of fancy new SLs going. Here's why.

A site does well when there's a lot of activity. Activity is generated when people are invested in the game. People get invested in the game when there are opportunities for interesting (read: conflict-y) character-character interaction. Storylines are pretty much optional, and only help if they stimulate interesting interaction.

In other words, the activity and the interest has to come from the players; it can't be forced by changes in administration, or by the administration itself. Storylines don't drive a system -- characters do. When storytellers try to drag a system into gear, the results are rarely good. The best example is late Charleston by Night, where the site owners attempted to rejuvenate with a massive storyline where ... I think the Caern disappeared into the ether? Long story short: the system was "revived" for about 2 weeks; then players felt cattle-chuted, got fed up, and deserted en masse. Whole site went kaput.

Think back to your favorite scenes. I'm willing to bet a majority of them were scenes that were personally significant to your char. Even when the scene was a storyline, I'm willing to bet that storyline was awesome because it enacted some major change in your character. But those changes can't really be predicted or targeted or manufactured. STs through the years have really tried to force those cool character-building moments via SLs, and the truth is most of the time what that means is people are briefly excited -- and then they get bogged down in a huge storyline that tries too hard to change their chars (usually by torturing them), get annoyed, and stop playing.

If you think the site is stagnating, please don't try to fix it by shaking up the administration. Don't try to fix it by pushing fancy new storylines. That's a temporary solution at best, and usually ends with the system in worse shape -- burnt out players, disgruntled admins, personally affronted STs. I think what DOES work is to shift things around to encourage, facilitate and provoke character interactions. Once you have people interacting meaningfully, things tend to get interesting all by themselves.

More on that later. But first:

II. Continuity/cohesion, not upheaval/fragmentation.
Honestly, I think the idea of forcing a change in staff every 12 months is awful. Sorry to be blunt. There's a longstanding notion that new blood = better gaming. If you look at the history of gaming sites, that's just not true. Changing up the leadership usually results in untenable storylines (see above) and instability. There's something to be said for preventing burnout, and you never want to ride an admin into the ground. But let your admins be the ones to decide when they're burnt out. I think we're mature enough and non-megalomaniacal enough on this site not to cling to a thankless job after we've worn out on it.

The only time you should kick an admin out is if they're blatantly abusing their position. From what I've seen, none of our admins have done that. In all other cases, systems generally do better when things are stable at the top and the admin is a background presence. Now, I realize you're trying to maintain some stability by forbidding "razing" of systems and rules, but -- first, that's really subjective. Second, that'll either cripple an incoming admin against making any changes and/or result in upheaval every 12 months.

In a similar vein, I think the idea of pocket games is decent on paper, terrible in practice. People don't need more options and more fragmentation. They need fewer options and more interaction. Part of the reason the site is quiet is because everyone's off doing their own thing. If you allow people to play even more characters, in actual separate realities, that only propagates the problem. Pretty soon you're going to have 20 mini-games and absolutely no interaction.

And as previously mentioned: we're here for PC-PC interaction, preferably with tension and conflict. We're not here for flashy storylines (I'd just play a PC or PS4 RPG if I wanted that), and for the most part -- particularly on this site of RP veterans -- we're not here to try out awesome new powers/systems/char types. We've been there, done that, and we just want to play with each other. I'd argue that INTERACTION is the #1 draw of text-based RP, and the one thing that online RP does better than all the other entertainment options we've got.

III. So how do we actually get things going again?
I promised earlier I'd address this. Here are my thoughts:

1) Consolidate
- Fewer systems, first of all. I know some people love changeling and vampire, but let's face it: those systems are dead. Shut them down. Pile people into what's actually alive.

- Fewer rooms. There are 18 rooms on site. 18. How many do we actually play in regularly? I'm willing to bet your average player plays in maybe 2-3 with any regularity. I say we cut down to 6 rooms. 1 chantry room, 1 sept room (and yeah, I know there are two IC septs -- but at least for the meantime, let's just recede one of them into the background), 4 general rooms that cover your staples of swanky downtown, slummy downtown, wilderness, and... I dunno, maybe a bar or something. They're always popular.

- Temporarily disable private rooms. Yeah, I know this is extreme. Hell, I use private rooms as much as anyone. But there's no easier way to kill a system than to sequester everyone into unenterable, unreachable private spaces. So let's get rid of them for a while and make everyone accessible. Open scenes, folks!

2) New characters
- Not saying we should just get rid of all old chars. I think people would be pissed as hell if they never got to hold on to old chars and see them develop, grow, and yes -- gain might and rank. But I think we should all make a concerted effort to make new characters simultaneously, right now. I actually have a new char that I haven't played in public yet, which is my bad. But I'd love to, and I'd love to play him with other new characters I don't know much about. Part of the fun of a "new" site, and what I suspect you're trying to chase, Errin, is the excitement of playing with characters you DON'T know. It's the mystery. It's the wide-open opportunities and possibilities.

- While we're making new characters, here's another thought: let's make NOT them all happy, friendly, kind, fair, and just. I think when we made this site, we were all riding high on a tide of brotherly/sisterly love, and we just all wanted to get along. Which is great. But that definitely fed into all of us making cool, easygoing, non-inflammatory characters. The downside is: then we just end up in a lot of cool, easygoing, non-inflammatory scenes. And then boredom. And then stagnation.

So I'd suggest that we not only make new chars, but make chars that aren't 100% likable. Maybe not outright villains, but give them some unpleasant streaks. Start some fights and rivalries. Get some conflict-y interactions going. Shake things up a little -- not from the top down, but from the ground up.

In a nutshell: if you're looking to revive the site, I think the way to do it isn't to redo all the systems and storylines and admins, but to modulate the site to encourage players to interact more and generate their own conflicts, evolutions, and stories.

That's my spiel for now. But -- yeah. I'd ask you to keep the admins in place (unless of course they actually want to step down), consolidate the rooms, don't open any new pocket games, close changeling and vampire, and let players make a bunch of new chars and interact over the holidays to see what cooks up first.

[mnemosyne]

First, I like playing on the site and enjoy the systems I play in. Yes, the site is small and my new schedule in my new job means I can't be up late, but I've been glad lately to see some old friends coming back to online text-based RP. It's fun. Activity waxes and wanes. We're all adults and I appreciate that, but also that there has been some consistently in RP and setting. I don't play many characters because it takes me a long, long time to work my way into a character. They have to percolate. Anyway, so! It has been lovely to have a RP 'home' lately where there are new folks and old with whom I can RP and I really appreciate that you and the admins you have chosen along the way have provided that for me.

With that said, I really don't like the idea.

The current admins have put a good deal of work into the settings and the site, and it would be a real shame to lose what we have now in terms of the active games of Mage and Werewolf. Adminning is hard work, and usually thankless, as Sam and kai can likely attest, and with the system you have proposed, we could lose a venue in which we enjoy playing and would face that propsect absolutely every year.

I don't see how anybody wins under those circumstances, certainly not this rather small group of RPers who have still managed to carve out some time to enjoy each other's company on occasion.

I also think that it is a very bad idea to impose a term limit three weeks before it expires. To be very blunt, as far as I can tell, you are basically firing folks and informing them of a term-limit three weeks before it is applied. That's just not reasonable to me as a player. It wouldn't be reasonable to me as an admin and honestly, if you do that to me when I had been volunteering my time week after week, I would be dismayed and upset. I don't necessarily agree with the term limits, for a variety of reasons, but even if you wanted to impose them, I would recommend:If you really want to work within the strictures of a term limit, I recommend:

1) That Sam and Kai be given the option of staying on for the first year-term. (You said that they've both already served more than a year: and they have. They also did not know that they were subject to a term limit.)

2) If the time is up and no one steps up but the old admin is still interested and willing to continue, then the old admin stays on for another year.

I don't see how anybody wins under those circumstances, certainly not this rather small group of RPers who have still managed to carve out some time to enjoy each other's company on occasion.

That said, Damon's right. RP is driven by player activity and player investment in storylines. If you want to see activity on the site, you have to reach out and make it happen.

[UKrose]

I've not been on the site long enough really to be able to comment on the workings of the machine inside our happy little place. But I have been an online gamer for over a decade. Before that I did my STing on table top and rolled dice much like the rest of you probably did. I have no real opinion on the new ideas, I would however propose a wait and see period to see just how well things go. Then if need be perhaps review it in 3 months? It's just an idea.

I know that everyone gets bored when there are so many shiny happy people that don't do conflict, conflict can be healthy to a degree, but I have also had a bad experience in the past on another WOD site that I'm not going to name here, the back biting and sniping rapidly went from IC to OOC, and at that point I think things kind of snowballed into a really bad experience where no one trusted the STs to be fully impartial.

On the whole, I am very very happy with the site, I like the camaraderie and openly pleasant demeanor of all the members. And I also agree with Damon and Mnemosyne with their view on the RP. All sites thrive on the active investments of RP from people and player input.

[Samael]

Hey all. I wanted to take a moment and give my own thoughts on this new change. I feel it’s important to let you guys know where I’m coming from as one of the Admins who, obviously, is being affected by this change. I just wanted to be clear here starting off and say that I’m coming strictly from my own personal standpoint as a player and an admin and am not trying to speak for anyone else.

Part of that perspective is that I have had a little more time than most of you to digest the news. It wasn’t a lot more time; Errin emailed me on Monday night to give me the heads up on the changes. When I read the email, my initial reaction was basically "Oh, okay, so this decision has been made." It was frustrated at first because I felt like, similar to how Damon and Liz has said, there wasn’t a lot of notice given to me and I thus wouldn’t have a lot of time to wrap everything up. That reaction only lasted for a couple of seconds though, before I realized that the changes she was making made a lot of sense. I’ll explain what I mean by that by going into a little bit of detail as to where I’ve been coming from as an Admin lately.

To be honest, I have felt a little burned out for a while. And by a little, I mean a lot. Because I have had a lot going on in terms of my personal and work life (it’s a long story and doesn’t need relating here), I haven’t had the time I’ve wanted to devote to running Mage. I have suspected this has been at least moderately known on-site. Taking longer to get monthly XP done, the neglect shown to the ST rotation, my lesser involvement in scenes and such has made it clear I’m not the active person I used to be. This has led to some frustration with myself over the direction of my characters, who I didn’t feel I could fairly play a lot if I wasn’t at least running some stuff as an ST, and I think it may even have contributed to some tensions with certain people which I apologize for. Honestly I have wondered if this was just me or if it was going on with other Admins, because the games have been less active (and I may be wrong about that; this was just my wonderings). I feel like Mage has stayed a fairly active game not because of me, but in spite of me and because of the efforts of the players to keep their characters doing things with each other. That’s a testament to the players and I am inordinately proud of the player base for keeping it going and being patient with me about the storylines I currently have running.

That being said, I was personally having trouble letting go. It had nothing to do with immaturity or ego (at least, I don’t think so). It had to do with responsibility. Part of it was that I wasn’t sure if anyone would take up the system and as burnout begins, it has a tendency to push you into a defeatist attitude. It’s not that I didn’t think people were capable; we have some amazing players and I already know from experience that many of them are fantastic STs but I didn’t know if anyone wanted to make that move from player to admin or have the time to do so. In addition, there’s a sense of being afraid that you’re letting people down when you’re considering giving it up. It’s not a “But I want the power!” situation but rather the idea that others are depending on you to keep the ship steering straight, and it’s very easy to go into a mindset of “As long as I do enough ST scenes to give people a little storyline and do all the admin stuff, that’s adequate.” You guys deserve more than adequate for your STs. You deserve an ST who is engaged, and I am of the firm belief that term lengths will make that easier.

So when I saw the email from Errin and took a few minutes to digest it, I felt that the changes made a lot of sense. That being said, I did have a couple of concerns that I expressed to her in my reply. They were as follows:

1. I was concerned about her statement of "No razing of systems or their NPCs. Like any other transition, someone new will need to work WITH what's been previously established." I feel like the setting that Howl established and that I built on is very sustainable and can transfer to another ST without difficulty, so that wasn’t so much a concern. The NPCs was more of a concern of mine. I have three major NPCs in the system: Trent, Luke and Ellsworth. Luke I didn’t consider too possessive of, as Errin was the person who had interacted with him most closely and I didn’t feel as particular about him. Trent and Ellsworth were created and implemented as characters that I would be using in their respective storylines, then keeping in the setting as characters for PCs to interact with, get advice from and such. I half-jokingly refer to them as "PC-NPCs" and it would be weird for me to see anyone else play them.

2. The relatively short timeframe of notice meant that I have two storylines I need to wrap up; Alicia’s search for her father and Kalen & Grace’s investigation into the vampire club from a one-shot a while back. I didn’t realistically see a way I could resolve them by the end of the year and that short timeframe had me concerned.

In both of these situations when I presented the concerns to Errin, she was very reasonable in working with me and set my anxieties at ease. As it stands Trent, Luke and Ellsworth are likely to stick around as background-ish NPCs in the same capacity under my control (assuming they are still functional when my SLs are wrapped) and I have the time I need to wrap up the SLs so that the transition can be smooth. I have absolutely no doubt right now that the Mage switch will be pretty seamless for the PCs.

I think it’s good that we’re talking about this because I think there are probably a lot of questions that people have but haven’t necessarily expressed. This is a big change and it stands to reason that some of us would be concerned about what they mean. I agree that player activity and investment drive the games, which is how Mage has been going so strong even when I have been waylaid a bit at times and starting to burn out. But player activity is a constant than will go on whether STs rotate at the end of the year or not, and investment is built off of that activity. I think that if people have questions they should absolutely ask them and they can be answered; if anyone has any concerns about how Mage will transition I have been talking with Errin about that (and will continue to do so). It should be as seamless as it was when I took over for Howl, including the transfer of background storyline information so Errin can move ahead with what I had laid out or tweak as best fits her vision for the game. I am fully willing and happy to answer any of those questions to the best of my ability whether in the forums, in AIM or in email. I’m going to make a thread in the Mage OOC Forum to field questions about this transition. The importance here is to keep dialogue open and if we have questions, we should ask them. I have every faith that we’ll get answers that will ease our concerns.

That’s what I wanted to say about the big news itself. I have some thoughts about Damon’s suggestions as well that I wanted to express:

Fewer systems: If we get people volunteering to take up Vampire, I am honestly quite opposed to the idea of shutting it down. To put it frankly, shutting down Vampire and Changeling will not make activity in Mage and Werewolf pick up. It just won’t. I know that for my part, I get a very different kind of RP out of Vampire than I do out of Mage and Werewolf. I know that a lot of people who play Vampire feel the same. And there are some oWoD players out there who are interested in one system but not another; for example, if Wrath was played on this site and was one of the more popular games, I still wouldn’t play if it was one of the fewer options. We’re all experienced players and we know what we enjoy playing. Fewer options simply presents less RP.

Fewer rooms: Again, this one is purely personal perspective but I worry about an idea like this. As many who have played with me know, unless it’s a storyline-focused scene with clear goals and such I have a very difficult time handling scenes with more than four or five players. Even with the eighteen rooms we have, I have had several times where a scene has suddenly become very crowded and I have had to leave the scene. This problem would only get more stringent with less rooms as we end up combined into a consolidated number of scenes at a time.

New characters: For my part, I know that I like the characters that I have. I don’t look to make new characters necessarily; I get inspired by ideas for a character and then I make them if I have room to do so. If I were to suddenly drop Keisha, Javed, Alexis, Lena, Alyssa, Laurel, Kali and Summer (or frankly, any of them) and create a whole new batch just to have new characters, the new characters would feel forced and awkward to me. I don’t know that creating newer characters for the sake of new types is needed; we’re all mature and experienced roleplayers and we know how character creation works best for us.

(Note: this doesn't mean I won't drop a character or two and make new ones; I have been considering such in WtA and VtM for a little while. We'll see if it happens!)

More unpleasant, conflict-driven characters: I think we have a very good mix of nice and nasty currently. Vampire is a wide swath of character types, many of which are nefarious. Mage has some characters who are good, but I wouldn’t call “nice” or “conflict-avoiding.” By this I mean people like Adam, Alicia, Alyssa, Grace and Kalen. They all have friendships and can be perfectly pleasant from time to time but they also can be standoffish, distant, cold, argumentative and even have some feuds between them. I’m not saying they’re bad or mean necessarily, but they certainly can be and unpleasantness has hung in the air over more than one Mage scene because of player dynamics. Werewolf, I can say that there has been at times a fair amount of people who aren’t exactly “nice” so to speak, although that’s down a bit I think. Off the top of my head from my own perspective Charlotte and Javed don’t often see eye to eye or get along, several people have been dismissive of Keisha for the very good reason that she’s a pacifist, Ruby was by no means a ball of rainbows (I mean that in the most complimentary way Noel!), Hector and Javed used to get into it a lot and even Avery and Javed have had their share of conflict of sorts. So I agree that we shouldn’t have just nice PCs, but I don’t think that’s a huge issue at current.

That’s sort of how I feel on things. Mage is going to be in fine hands and I’m definitely going to make sure that you guys have no problems moving from myself to Errin, much as (I hope!) you didn’t moving from Howl to me. I’m actually looking forward to being able to get back to just being a player, and I may well jump on a system when it next becomes available. Or running a short-term pocket game, perhaps, but more likely the former. Anyway, there you have it.

[UKrose]

Samael, I know the burn and it's a painful thing to work through. I am pretty sure you'll enjoy things again when you have had a breather. But seriously, I just wanted to say thank you to you for your work.