Swords & Wizardry Light - Forum

Monday, April 17, 2017

General Guidelines for The Tavern Community & What to Expect from Yours Truly



As I'm getting inquiries of one sort or another multiple times a day via multiple email addresses and social media platforms, I thought I'd throw out some general guidelines and suggestions on what to ask, how to ask it and expectations you may have of me. In no particular order:

1 - Kickstarter - Please, do give me links and pitches to your RPG Kickstarter, especially if it is "Old School Gaming" in nature. I do tend to have a fondness for these. I may OR may not highlight it with a post. In the end, that is up to me. I make no guarantees and you shouldn't expect one.

1a - Kickstarter - I do not have an issue looking at pre-release Kickstarter pages if you are looking for feedback. I'll try to get to it in a timely fashion, but again, no guarantees.

2 - GoFundMe - as a general rule, you MAY get one post about your fundraiser. Do not ask for more than one. If you run serial GoFundMe's or the like, do not ask me to highlight any past the first. You MAY link them in the 2,000 Coppers community at G+ or the Tenkar's Tavern Facebook community yourself, but The Tavern is not the place for serial shakedowns of the OSR Community.

3 - Reviews - if my virtual review slush pile were physical, it would probably be two feet high. I literally make NO guarantees as to if and when a review will get posted at The Tavern. If someone wants to be a reviewer at The Tavern, let me know. Its an unpaid job and the articles will be using The Tavern's affiliate links, so really, you need to be a glutton for punishment if you want the job ;)

4 - Guest posters - I love them. I embrace them. I don't get many. Topics have to be "non-political" in nature and avoid attacking others. If you have a pitch, send it to me BEFORE sending me your article.

5 - Advice - I get direct inquiries asking for advice more times than you might expect. I am happy to give such, but remember, I am not an expert on ANYTHING. I have built my "Bully Pulpit" and it is nice, but my opinions and advice are not the be all and end all.

6 - "Investigative Reporting" - Note that I put that in quotation marks. There are certain topics / events / personalities / etc that strike me in a certain way and I find myself relying upon my experience gained in the last 12 years "on the job" supervising detectives and investigations. Can't always help myself - hobby and career do intersect at times, Now, just because you have found a topic / event / personality / etc something you might want to get the "investigative touch" does not mean I have any interest in it. By all means, send me your tips, but I investigate what I decide to investigate. As a general rule, I avoid politics and social justice - I'm not blowing you off when I don't follow up, I just don't have a desire to look into such.

7 - OSR Edition Wars - while I obviously have my system of choice, I embrace the whole of the OSR. Evangelize the systems you love but don't demonize the systems you don't. Unless its Pathfinder or 4e ;)

8 - Communications - as Dyson has told me repeatedly, I have too many email addresses. Well, add in G+, Hangouts, Slack, Facebook and Facebook Messenger and you have doubled the manners in which to contact me. If you don't get a response within 24 hours you may want to try a second method of communication. FB Messenger is infamous for not notifying my of initial requests to communicate.

9 - Comments - Just to note, I don't delete the comments of those that disagree with me, argue with me or even, God forbid, call me names. Hell, I hardly moderate the comments to posts at all, with the exception of deleting spammers. If you think I deleted or removed your comment without cause, reach out to me. There's about a 99% chance that you got mistakenly caught by Blogger's Spambot. If that's the case, I'll fix it. If I DID moderate your comment, I'll explain why.



The Tavern's Community is literally the reason I do what I do. Without each and every one of you, The Tavern would not be the success that it is. I post every day. In general, I post two or more times a day. It is time consuming but well worth it.

Thanks again to all of you!





4 comments:

  1. I just want to thank you for managing the Tavern and, most of all, to manage it as you do.
    It is such a great place - and well, maybe you do what you do because of the Tavern Community, but you do it darn well!

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  2. As for #5 - you may be an expert in NYC Police procedure. If I'm ever arrested in NYC can I drop your name?

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  3. only an asshole puts down other games.

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