I address you today, as your President, to present a list of sweeping changes being made to the way the society operates. Following a great deal of communication between the exec, we have come to the conclusion that whilst we cannot please everyone, these changes should improve the society as a collective whole - please bear this in mind as you read through the rest of this post. Without further ado then, let's begin:
WARGAMES
After careful consideration, we have decided that the next year will be home to a big push towards the Star Trek: Attack Wing Miniatures game. After the dwindling success and popularity of Star Wars: X-Wing, despite 2 entirely new factions coming out recently, we figured it might be time to jump ship and give the Star Trek alternative a shot. Look forward to seeing that around from next term onwards.
Additionally, we will be making the switch to a fully metric-based system for all games as soon as possible - if it's good enough for America, it's good enough for Warwick Tabletop. Stay tuned for more details.
MAGIC DRAFT
As anyone who attended already very well knows, our Chaos Draft was very popular this year. As a result, we've decided to not only repeat the event in the coming months and years, but to introduce a surely even better format. Introducing the Chaos-er Draft, where players draft packs of Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon cards, playing games of all three in a massive tournament structure. Whether you're used to only one of these games, or a master of all three, this promises to be a riotous time regardless.
BOARDGAMES
So, the big event - most of you probably come to boardgames fairly regularly, the rest of you have at least heard of it. We've repeatedly run into problems with it being on a Wednesday afternoon this year - rooms are hard to book, people often have other commitments with other societies and by the 10pm finishing time people are often starting to get tired, playing worse than they should be.
The big decision was made, therefore, to move boardgames. The new weekly slot for boardgames is now FRIDAY (9am-5pm)!!!
Whilst a few people might have the odd clash in this timeslot, by and large it should avoid most of the problems mentioned above, without clashing with any of our own events on other days of the week. Hopefully all of you regulars will still be able to make this new slot.
CCGs
With the popularity of the digital version of Magic the Gathering, MTG Arena, gaining popularity by the day, with both new and old fans alike joining the action, we figured we had to integrate this into the society in some way. Going forward, the society will now primarily run CCGs events through MTG Arena. This should save Magic players from having to carry large, heavy boxes full of cardboard onto campus with them to play the game - all they'll need instead is a laptop.
Additionally, after observing the way in which our members play and listening to their feedback about how our events are run, we've decided to change the way we handle proxies. Our events will now be run using proxies only - giving everyone a completely level playing field, regardless of how much money they have spent. This should be a very good thing for the health of CCGs long-term, especially when it comes to drawing new players in during Welcome Week 2019. See the picture at the bottom of this newsletter for a rendition of what's to come.
RPGs
RPGs is an area I have some experience in, to say the least, and one thing I noticed over my time as RPG Rep was a sense of confusion from new members joining after the intros at the start of term. They simply couldn't grasp the idea that different games have entirely different rulesets - often resulting in them dropping the hobby and abandoning the society. The search for the ultimate system has been on ever since, but has finally been concluded. We will now be heavily encouraging all DMs to run their games in GURPS - a fantastic universal system for all settings, quick and straightforward to learn for even the newest of players. This should hopefully allow for increased retention rates following the huge influx of people expected at Welcome Week 2019.
LARP
Last, but in no way least, we come to LARP. Player immersion has always been top of the list for us when managing LARP sessions - but we never quite felt satisfied with the way that player deaths are handled. That was, until now. Starting from next term, to better immerse the players in our adventures, if your character is killed during play you will be summarily executed at the end of the session. Starting from Term 3, the society shall also be seeking to replace all of our LARP weapons with real swords. This can only be a good thing for player immersion, right?
That's all folks, here's to a wonderful Term 3 for all of us here at Warwick Tabletop. Who knows what next year will bring?
