Paradigm Concepts

[PCISean]

Greetings...

By now some of you will have seen the announcement on the RPGA website about the staff of the upcoming Living Forgotten Realms campaign. I am listed in that announcement as one of the "global admins" for the new campaign (which launches at Gen Con Indy 2008).

Obviously by my taking a staff position with an RPGA campaign, there will need to be some changes in the organization of the Living Arcanis campaign staff. I have a lot of things to say on this subject, but unfortunately I am sitting in an airport about to get on a plane, which means I don't have time to type all those things right this second. I will, however, have a detailed announcement to make later tonight after my flight lands.

I wanted to say a couple of things right up front. First and foremost, I want everyone to understand that the RPGA announcement does not portend any immediate or dramatic changes in the way Living Arcanis operates. There will be changes, but they will not be happening right this second. As my responsibilities on the new campaign start to ramp up, I will ramp down my corresponding responsibilities on Living Arcanis, so that there is a smooth transition and so that nothing gets lost in the shuffle. We still have a ton of great things planned in the short and long term and I am very confident in the LA campaign staff -- starting with James Zwiers and including all of our Invisible Kings and Invisible Queens. Now that the RPGA staff selection process is over, we will also be opening the IK program up for new applications. We have been intending to do this for a while but we did not want to get into a situation where people might apply for both the IK program and the new RPGA campaign and then be in limbo waiting for multiple decisions to be made.

Second, I want to be absolutely clear that my going to work on the new RPGA campaign is not a reflection on Arcanis or Paradigm Concepts in any way, shape, form, or fashion. Henry Lopez is a dear friend of mine and I have tremendous respect for all of the staff at PCI with whom it has been my privilege to work over the last 4+ years. Fortunately, I will be able to continue working with PCI on both their d20 and non-d20 products in the future. As far as Living Arcanis, working on LA has been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding experiences of my life. I love the setting, I love the story, and most of all I love the community. None of that is going to go away. The campaign has been growing over the last year and I do not think that it will slow down -- in fact, I expect it to accelerate in 2008, leading up to the triumphant finale of the current story arc at ArcanisCon 2009 and then the launch of the next incarnation of Living Arcanis. I hope to be a part of all that as a writer and in whatever other capacity I am able. (In particular, I would hate to give up doing the narration at the BIs!)

I'll have more to say about this later, but I just wanted to be clear that my decision to accept a staff position on the new RPGA campaign doesn't mean that I think Living Arcanis or PCI are in decline in any way. It was an incredibly tough decision that had far more to do with my personal goals as a participant in the hobby of roleplaying games and far less to do with anything good or bad about Arcanis itself. I'm very excited about the new opportunity, although I wish that 4th Edition and the Living Forgotten Realms campaign were launching in 2009 instead of 2008, but they aren't, and so I had to make a decision. It was an extremely difficult decision but I am certain that the combination of lead time that we have for the transition (because the new campaign doesn't launch right away) and the very high quality of the existing campaign staff means that Living Arcanis will continue to grow and continue to be better than ever. The IK program in particular has succeeded far beyond our wildest hopes and expectations. Arcanis always has been and always will be far more than the contributions of a single person. It is the sum of all the contributions of all the players, volunteers, authors, and staff members.

I'd like to thank everybody who has been so supportive of the campaign and of me personally over the years and assure you that I would not be making this change if I thought it would harm Living Arcanis or PCI in a significant way. In particular I would like to thank Henry Lopez who is a better friend and a better person than anyone could ever hope to know, and James Zwiers, who does a phenomenal amount of work and without whom I would have gone completely insane on more than one occasion in the last few years.

They are boarding my flight, so I need to wrap this up. I will talk more about the transition in the very near future, and I am certain that Henry and James will have their own comments to make, but again, I just wanted to say that there is no cause for alarm and that nothing will fall off the schedule or be scaled back. The campaign is very strong in terms of play numbers, adventures, conventions, volunteers, and staff. PCI has a full schedule of Arcanis goodness planned for 2008 and beyond. In other words, it's full steam ahead.

Talk to you later --

Sean
----
M. Sean Molley | sean [at] basementsoftware [dot] com

[PCIHenry]

Hello everyone,

Like many of you, I will miss having my good friend Sean at the helm of Living Arcanis. Throughout the past few years his extraordinary professionalism, fairness and meticulous attention to detail has propelled LA’s reputation for producing outstanding adventures and far above the usual fare of the other campaigns. Luckily, though he won’t be heading the campaign any longer, Sean’s presence will continue to be felt through his writing of adventures and source material.

Yet with all that Sean has done for us, he did not work in a vacuum. The LA staff has always been and will continue to be an integral and crucial part of the campaign. I cannot say enough about James Zwiers dedication and commitment to the campaign. Not only is he a prolific writer, James’ fairness and readiness to listen to all sides of any situation has made him a person who can be relied upon to carry LA forward.

Along with James, we have the very creative minds and hearts of the Invisible Kings. They have all been working diligently to provide you with some of the best adventures out there as well as expand and develop their corner of Onara and share those wondrous vistas with you. We (as in the entire Arcanis community) are very lucky to have such a dedicated and creative group give their time and effort to make LA the best gaming experience possible.

As we go into this transition period, I hope that you will lend your support to James and the rest of the LA staff as we go into the last two years of the current story-arc and on into LA II.

Best,
_________________
Henry Lopez
President
Paradigm Concepts, Inc.

[PCIJames]

Greetings,

It is that time. I would like to thank Sean Molley for his support and effort in this campaign, and at the same time, I would like to welcome Andrew Garbade and Chris Sanders onboard.

Andrew has graciously accepted the post of Assistant Director. This means, amongst other things, that Andrew will be helping me deal with the general campaign administration, as well as vetting and approving adventures (and other documents, such as the Domain Description Documents the IKs produce).

Chris has taken the heavy burden or coordinating the Edit Team. This is a monumental, and generally unforgiving task. Thus far, having been on the job for a little over a month, Chris has done a phenomal job (to which I owe some of my continued sanity).

We are moving forward on getting everything in shape for the summer. You can look forward to a new (and final) revision to the LARC, a new CCG, and new adventures over the next month.

Finally, I am hoping to be able to announce our Origins and Gencon Indy line-ups over the next week or two, barring any other wierd set-backs.

Cheers,

James Zwiers
_________________
James Zwiers
Paradigm Concepts, Inc.

[Wrathan]

Thank you for your hard work Sean, and congrats to Chris and Andrew!