Editing RPGA (section)

==Why It Sucked (and still does)==
Elitism run berserk. Even by the standards of /tg/. 

One of the most infamous examples of the RPGA's idiocy was its entrance exam. This was an annoying, incredibly wonky test filled with a bunch of obscure, bullshit information that even the most neckbeardy of [[Neckbeard]]s would be hard-pressed to know back in 3.0/3.5 without consulting a pile and a half of books. The quiz itself was online, and you had to score 100% in order to pass it. There was a second, similar exam, for "Senior GMs" who wished to run things at RPGA events. Humorously, the exam itself was, for the most part, unnecessary - any moron wandering up and attending the event could join the RPGA, no questions asked, just by paying the admission fee and getting a card, making this little entrance gap somewhat pointless. No real explanation for this was ever really given; the most common believed reasoning for the quiz was that at the time, lots of people were joining and never actually becoming involved in the RPGA, and - this is the funny part - apparently having all of those inactive members doing things like be on a player list and able to participate in the RPGA community if they so chose was dipping into resources and budgets, so they had to put a stop to it. 

[[Games Workshop|Unless they paid]].

''Fuck''. The Quiz wasn't retired until [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition]], too.

...And the rules. Sweet [[Slaanesh|sexy hermaphroditic Jesus]], the RULES. Some highlights:

* [[Alignment|No Evil Characters]]. At all. Ever. Not only could you not be an evil alignment -  you could not worship an evil deity, even if its worshippers ''included neutrals'' (such as [[Vecna]], [[Wee Jas]], or [[Nerull]]). If a character committed an evil act, such as attacking another player character, the DM was required by the RPGA to [[Snowflame|report]] it directly to an RPGA bigshot, called a ''Triad''. If the Triad decided this act indicated a change of character alignment to evil, then the character ''would be permanently removed from the campaign'' with no ability whatsoever for appeals. Many of the RPGA's brain-genius operators exploited this, using Charm spells/helms of opposite alignment/lycanthropes vs. low-level characters to fuck over players they didn't like, or to defend players they did. See [[Examples of Play]]. Later on, you weren't allowed to run Chaotic Neutral, either, since a time-honored practice of /tg/ veterans was to run [[Deadpool|CN mercs]] and rogues who were only in it for the cash, working out interesting situations and webs of intrigue as the campaigns progressed (often winding up with players backstabbing one another). RPGA DMs did not approve of this. Or attempts to go off the rails in a boxed-set adventure. This rule is in force to this day - WOTC, much as [[TSR]] did under [[Lorraine Williams]], just don't like evil.

* Although D&D 3.0/3.5 was designed for characters up to 20th level and even beyond, characters automatically [[Rocks fall, everyone dies|retire]] at 16th level (originally it was 18th). Conveniently, this prevents any spellcaster from getting the usual arsenal of ''make the world blow up'' spells that causes spellcasters in 3.x to be D&D's easymode, while at the same time ensuring that unless they salvage lots of good magical gear, warrior-types will be useless in contrast by virtue of never having sufficient money to upgrade (offset by the fact that they'll at least be able to find decent gear). Mind, characters in RPGA events are ''persistent'', provided you keep them in the same universe (so Greyhawk characters could be used in other Greyhawk settings, but not FR), meaning that it was possible for a character to get stronger along a career, but you'd still be auto-old-folks-home'd the second you reached 16th level.

* All new characters must start at 1st level. Always. No matter what. Originally only races and character classes found in the Players Handbook were allowed - no prestige classes, no splatbooks or expansion books. This only ended much later, about the advent of 3.5, wherein the ''Complete'' series books were considered to allow players to play non-Prestige Classes included in those books, like the Hexblade and Warlock. Unless the module specifically called for it, non-standard races were never allowed, unless a player got some kind of special benefit to do so, such as an infamous /tg/ player who in Forgotten Realms got a card to create Kobold character and then proceeded to run [[Pun-Pun]], getting himself banned from the event.

* To try and maintain "some balance between the characters and adventure encounters, and also some fairness in the powers and abilities of the characters", some character classes, all of the prestige classes, numerous magic items, many weapons, and several spells were banned from play. Additionally only new items, spells and powers found in books published by Wizards of the Coast were allowed in the campaign, and only if the campaign specifically called for it.

* To prevent characters from going through enough adventures and the like to actually get decent prizes out of WOTC, the RPGA featured a time unit system (each Adventure costing 1-3 time units, and sometimes more), and each character could only participate in 52 time units of events per year.

* If a character died and the player was unable to resurrect them during or following the adventure for any reason (expense+teammates raiding your body, your corpse being destroyed, etc), then that character was removed from the campaign. A dead character could not be resurrected or otherwise brought back to the campaign at a later date. Abused ruthlessly by dick RPGA GMs. You have ''no idea''.

* No mature setting stuff, homebrew, or third-party books produced under license. Before or after the 3.5 jump.

These are just a few of the big rules, but there's a shitload more.

It's worth noting, now that we've mentioned Ravenloft, that you understand one little facet of it. The company that secured the rights to Ravenloft was sued by WOTC, who claimed that it had put out Ravenloft material first. Ignoring, for a moment, that this company had several Ravenloft books out and that WOTC never had ''any'', Wizards of the Coast did, indeed, eventually release Ravenloft stuff - ''but only for the RPGA''. 

And it was for ''fucking [[Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition]]''. Raptor Jesus wept.

As bad as the RPGA was during 3.X era with this (and it was ''awful''), and as bad as they were with banning people, the RPGA was still ten shitloads worse during the days of 2nd Edition. But that is a horror for another time. 

Suffice to say, they, like the faggots that ban 99% of the shit in a game of ''Super Smash Brothers'' and claim that it's a superior fighting game now that they've rendered maybe 4% of the cast viable (when the real reason is that they lack the testicular fortitude to play something [[Fist of the North Star|more]] [[Touhou|manly]]), are not playing the same D&D as the rest of us, and they deserve to be ruthlessly mocked and trolled for much the same reasons.