Re: Re-Introduction

#1 · March 9, 2015, 9:34 pm

Quote from Forum Archives on March 9, 2015, 9:34 pm
Posted by: dragonraid <dragonraid@...>

    Thanks, Rich, for the re-introduction. I didn't know your story, or all the history of your (and Joe's) involvement. Praise God for your family's health!

    In all this talk of rules modification, I am going to sound like a broken record and repeat what I said last year: I think the rules are fine, but it's the writing needs improvement. I say this not to cut anyone down who worked hard at the writing, but, hopefully, as an encouragement for improvement. Just as the "monsters from space" angle really didn't fit with the history of Dark Creatures, I think there are some elements of the over-all story, and individual stories, that don't fit well, or have gaps. I don't mind the rules as they are, for the most part. I've played more complicated RPGs, and simpler ones, too.

    Not that I have any leg to stand on in recommending these story improvements. I confess that I have been lazy. You see, years ago, when I ran a DR group (before it fizzled out due to lack of support from my church), I re-wrote portions of the LightRaider test so that it made better sense as a story. I could have put my money where my mouth is and helped the DR effort by producing these notes. But I originally hand-wrote my re-writes. And I've been just too lazy to transcribe it onto a Word doc.
    However, this back-and-forth had inspired me to get out of my chair and write up my notes. I don't know if they will be any good; no one had ever read them before except when I used them with a bunch of 12-year-olds. I just want to contribute to the DR community. If I can keep up the steam, maybe I can post them soon!
    Joe, I want to add to Rich's comments: Thank you for all your hard work. I can guess that it seems like it is a unappreciated job. Well, I tip my hat to you.

From: Rich Sezov <sezovr@gmail.com>
To: dragonraid@welovegod.org
Sent: Monday, March 9, 2015 5:00 PM
Subject: [DragonRaid] Re-Introduction

Hi everyone,

I realized I just jumped into the discussions without re-introducing myself to the list. Let me remedy that for all the newer people here. 🙂

I'm Rich Sezov, Assistant Director of Adventures for Christ. In my daily life, I'm the Director of Knowledge Management for Liferay, a software company that makes an open source software product that runs people's websites. What this means is that I am in charge of the group that writes the documentation and training materials for the software.

I received my first copy of DragonRaid in about 1991 or so, when I was getting my B.A. in English. I first played it with a group of friends at my apartment at the University. I remember sending a few letters back and forth (yes, snail mail!) with Dick Wulf.

In the mid-90s, when I first got on the Internet (I was now married and had my first job after school), I decided to do a search for DragonRaid on the then state-of-the-art search engine: Yahoo. I found a web page that was put up by Steve Carrington in Alaska. It mentioned this list, which I subscribed to immediately, and thus began some great fellowship and my first Internet-only friendships. I created a DragonRaid web page, outlined a new adventure (which could possibly be run from the outline), wrote a DragonRaid short story that I had intended to serialize, and participated quite a lot on the mailing list.

At some point, we began talking about doing a Second Edition of DragonRaid on this list, and some of us approached Dick Wulf and the Lamb's Bride Project for permission to work on this. My friend Dave Staley (who I think is still here, maybe) mentioned that a friend of his, Joe Revesz, would be a great addition to this effort, and he joined on as well, as the Rules Director.

To make a long story short, we got approval from Dick, we were all elected to our positions on the AFC, I put up the official web page for DragonRaid, and work began. At some point, however, things started to derail.

First, our Director at the time began to have issues with his eyesight, and could no longer be involved in the way he'd wanted to. Others began to have other issues which prevented them from being as involved as they would like. The Marketing Director resigned, was replaced, and then that person resigned and was replaced. In my case, shortly after my wife and I had our first child in 2005, she re-injured an old high school wrist injury and developed CRPS. Additionally, our daughter was diagnosed failure to thrive and narrowly missed getting on a feeding tube. At that point, I dropped off this list, as I had no time to do anything about DragonRaid. The way things worked out, most of the AFC sort of left poor Joe to run things by himself. Eventually, our Director resigned due to his inability to see well enough to be involved the way he would have liked to, and because Joe was pretty much doing everything at that point, we elected him Director of Adventures for Christ. Joe should really get all the kudos and honor and thanks for keeping this thing alive, largely by himself.

I really mean this. Who went and rescued the copies of DragonRaid from the barn in Colorado? Joe. Who proposes new rules? Joe. Who handles the orders? Joe. Who takes DragonRaid to various conventions? Joe. Who vets incoming material and requests from people who want to help? Joe. It's been the Joe show for years now, and we should all express to him our deepest, heartfelt thanks for driving DragonRaid forward and providing leadership when no one else was willing or able to do so. The DragonRaid effort would have gone completely under without him; I know this in my heart.

As for me, thank the Lord: my daughter recovered, and now my wife is doing very well also. God has used this experience of suffering for my sanctification, to teach me not to take things for granted and to be a better husband and father. We had another child last year (a boy) and, God willing, it looks like things for us are back on the upswing. I am cautiously hoping to be more involved now with DragonRaid.

Well, that's me in a small nutshell. I'm glad to be back, and am looking forward to re-establishing and forming new relationships with all of you.

--

Rich Sezov
Blog: http://www.liferay.com/web/richard.sezov/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sez11a

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Posted by: dragonraid <dragonraid@...>

Thanks, Rich, for the re-introduction. I didn't know your story, or all the history of your (and Joe's) involvement. Praise God for your family's health!

In all this talk of rules modification, I am going to sound like a broken record and repeat what I said last year: I think the rules are fine, but it's the writing needs improvement. I say this not to cut anyone down who worked hard at the writing, but, hopefully, as an encouragement for improvement. Just as the "monsters from space" angle really didn't fit with the history of Dark Creatures, I think there are some elements of the over-all story, and individual stories, that don't fit well, or have gaps. I don't mind the rules as they are, for the most part. I've played more complicated RPGs, and simpler ones, too.

    Not that I have any leg to stand on in recommending these story improvements. I confess that I have been lazy. You see, years ago, when I ran a DR group (before it fizzled out due to lack of support from my church), I re-wrote portions of the LightRaider test so that it made better sense as a story. I could have put my money where my mouth is and helped the DR effort by producing these notes. But I originally hand-wrote my re-writes. And I've been just too lazy to transcribe it onto a Word doc.
    However, this back-and-forth had inspired me to get out of my chair and write up my notes. I don't know if they will be any good; no one had ever read them before except when I used them with a bunch of 12-year-olds. I just want to contribute to the DR community. If I can keep up the steam, maybe I can post them soon!
    Joe, I want to add to Rich's comments: Thank you for all your hard work. I can guess that it seems like it is a unappreciated job. Well, I tip my hat to you.

From: Rich Sezov <sezovr@gmail.com>
To: dragonraid@welovegod.org
Sent: Monday, March 9, 2015 5:00 PM
Subject: [DragonRaid] Re-Introduction

Hi everyone,

I realized I just jumped into the discussions without re-introducing myself to the list. Let me remedy that for all the newer people here. 🙂

I'm Rich Sezov, Assistant Director of Adventures for Christ. In my daily life, I'm the Director of Knowledge Management for Liferay, a software company that makes an open source software product that runs people's websites. What this means is that I am in charge of the group that writes the documentation and training materials for the software.

I received my first copy of DragonRaid in about 1991 or so, when I was getting my B.A. in English. I first played it with a group of friends at my apartment at the University. I remember sending a few letters back and forth (yes, snail mail!) with Dick Wulf.

In the mid-90s, when I first got on the Internet (I was now married and had my first job after school), I decided to do a search for DragonRaid on the then state-of-the-art search engine: Yahoo. I found a web page that was put up by Steve Carrington in Alaska. It mentioned this list, which I subscribed to immediately, and thus began some great fellowship and my first Internet-only friendships. I created a DragonRaid web page, outlined a new adventure (which could possibly be run from the outline), wrote a DragonRaid short story that I had intended to serialize, and participated quite a lot on the mailing list.

At some point, we began talking about doing a Second Edition of DragonRaid on this list, and some of us approached Dick Wulf and the Lamb's Bride Project for permission to work on this. My friend Dave Staley (who I think is still here, maybe) mentioned that a friend of his, Joe Revesz, would be a great addition to this effort, and he joined on as well, as the Rules Director.

To make a long story short, we got approval from Dick, we were all elected to our positions on the AFC, I put up the official web page for DragonRaid, and work began. At some point, however, things started to derail.

First, our Director at the time began to have issues with his eyesight, and could no longer be involved in the way he'd wanted to. Others began to have other issues which prevented them from being as involved as they would like. The Marketing Director resigned, was replaced, and then that person resigned and was replaced. In my case, shortly after my wife and I had our first child in 2005, she re-injured an old high school wrist injury and developed CRPS. Additionally, our daughter was diagnosed failure to thrive and narrowly missed getting on a feeding tube. At that point, I dropped off this list, as I had no time to do anything about DragonRaid. The way things worked out, most of the AFC sort of left poor Joe to run things by himself. Eventually, our Director resigned due to his inability to see well enough to be involved the way he would have liked to, and because Joe was pretty much doing everything at that point, we elected him Director of Adventures for Christ. Joe should really get all the kudos and honor and thanks for keeping this thing alive, largely by himself.

I really mean this. Who went and rescued the copies of DragonRaid from the barn in Colorado? Joe. Who proposes new rules? Joe. Who handles the orders? Joe. Who takes DragonRaid to various conventions? Joe. Who vets incoming material and requests from people who want to help? Joe. It's been the Joe show for years now, and we should all express to him our deepest, heartfelt thanks for driving DragonRaid forward and providing leadership when no one else was willing or able to do so. The DragonRaid effort would have gone completely under without him; I know this in my heart.

As for me, thank the Lord: my daughter recovered, and now my wife is doing very well also. God has used this experience of suffering for my sanctification, to teach me not to take things for granted and to be a better husband and father. We had another child last year (a boy) and, God willing, it looks like things for us are back on the upswing. I am cautiously hoping to be more involved now with DragonRaid.

Well, that's me in a small nutshell. I'm glad to be back, and am looking forward to re-establishing and forming new relationships with all of you.

--

Rich Sezov
Blog: http://www.liferay.com/web/richard.sezov/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sez11a

--
To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: dragonraid-unsubscribe@welovegod.org">dragonraid-unsubscribe@welovegod.org

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To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: dragonraid-unsubscribe@welovegod.org