CAR-PGa NEWSLETTER, Vol. 33, No. 2, February 2024

An international network of researchers into all aspects of role-playing games

David Millians, Editor

Paideia School, 1509 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia 30307 USA

millians.david@paideiaschool.org

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Welcome to 2024! We’re back at it. After a disappointing performance last year, I’m pleased to report that we have guests booked out until June (we normally take off for July/August)!

Our guest this month was Eloy Lasanta. Eloy Lasanta is a narrative designer, game writer/producer, game mechanics developer, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, and public speaker, who has won awards in RPGs and has made a name for himself by hosting multiple YouTube channels. His passion for game design is evident in his company, Third Eye Games and his class on game design at Central Michigan University. You can watch our video discussion here. Our guest in February is Brandon O’Brien of Neon Robin Bard Games, a performance poet, speculative fiction writer, teaching artist, critic and TTRPG designer from Trinidad and Tobago.

It’s also time to vote for the board. David will have more details [below], but in short, your vote is crucial. If you do nothing else as part of your CAR-PGA membership, I sincerely hope you take a minute to vote. Board membership is an important part of how we operate, and the Committee Chair role is determined by the Board. The good news is that we’ve finally grown large enough that there are more eligible members running for a board seat: we have five board seats and six potential candidates. This is a great problem to have, as it’s always healthy to have some turnover on any organization’s board – and this includes changing out the Committee Chair (my current role) too!

I hope we have a strong pool of votes and look forward to welcoming the new board. Good luck to all of our potential candidates!

Sincerely,

Mike Tresca

(Current) Committee Chair

BOARD OF DIRECTORS VOTING 2024

Here’s our link for board voting: https://car-pga.org/board-voting. It’s relatively straightforward. Voting members just enter their name and email and then check as many members as they want to vote for and click submit.

There are six candidates standing for election to fill up to five slots on the board. All but Mr; Hartless serve on the current board.

Dave Hartless: Dave was the original engineer for D&D Beyond and most recently the engineering leader for D&D Beyond as part of Wizards of the Coast.
David Millians: David teaches fifth and sixth graders and has explored applications of games in educational settings for many years. He is the current editor of this newsletter.
Hawke Robinson: Hawke leads the RPG Research Center in Spokane, Washington, where he and his colleagues conduct research and game outreach across the USA and the world.
Ted Skirvin: Ted has been an active member of CAR-PGa for many years and is a game community organizer in the greater Atlanta, Georgia, area.
Michael Tresca: Mike Tresca has been Committee Chair for five years and is the host of the CAR-PGA’s YouTube channel, where he conducts monthly interviews with RPG luminaries from all walks of life.
Allen White: Allen uses RPGs in engineering education and is a board member of the Reacting Consortium, a group of college educators that create and publish RPGs for university education. He is also a board member of the Reacting Game Development Conference.

Please vote!

HELP SAVE THE RPG COMMUNITY CENTER AND MUSEUM TODAY

ELSE IT ALL ENDS THIS MONTH!

By Hawke Robinson

Dear RPG Research Supporters,

Unfortunately, due to insufficient regular donations, we had to temporarily close the RPG Community Center January 2024.

HURRY AND DONATE BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!

https://rpgresearch.com/donate for one-time or recurring donations through PayPal or Benevity.

Or join our monthly Patreon here: https://patreon.com/rpgresearch

You can help us re-open it to the public. We only need to raise $48k to catch up on our back rent and bills, re-open the center, and remain open for a full year! You, the community, can make this happen today!

As of January 30th, 2024, thanks to you, the community, we have raised $10k so far, just enough to cover the back rent, taxes, and utilities but not enough to re-open yet. The place is “saved” to the end of February 2024 now but still in Jeopardy, if we don’t raise more ASAP.

Rent as of March 2024 is $2,500/month, plus insurance is $1,000/month, plus utilities are around $1,000/month, for a total of $4,500/month we need to re-open our doors to the public.

If we can raise another $10k before March 1st, we will be able to re-open our doors for 2 months. If we raise $40k, we’ll be able to open our doors for the rest of 2024!

Donate today, every bit helps!

DONATE TODAY!

We only need less than $50k USD per year for our programs to impact many thousands of lives directly (and millions more indirectly) with our 100% volunteer-run organization. We’re using role-playing games to improve functioning and quality of life for all ages and abilities. We are incredibly efficient with every dollar, and we have an amazing impact https://rpgresearch.com/impact

The dream will die this February 1, 2024, if we can’t hurry and raise the back rent of the past 2 months and the upcoming rent and due property taxes.

We need $5k USD before March 2024 or the RPG Community Center and RPG Museum will be lost!

We only need $40k to be able to re-open our doors for the rest of 2024!

Just $50k will save the community center to be able to be open for the community for a whole year!

DONATE TODAY!

We are extremely lean and efficient, 100% volunteer run, less than $50k/year covers our full year of operations and providing our community programs to thousands of people throughout the greater Spokane region and online across 6 continents, from ages 2 through senior adults and everyone in between, including those with accessibility and special needs, so that everyone benefits from our cooperative social programs.

Please donate anything you can today and help spread the word as fast as possible!

Just one $50k benefactor per year can cover our entire year’s worth of costs to exist and deliver our programs!

DONATE TODAY!

Impact Statement

Thanks to the amazing people at our 100% volunteer-run organization, our programs have been able to directly improve the bio-psycho-social functioning and quality of life for diverse populations all ages around the world for more than 100,000 people since 2017!

Our programs are supported by over 45 years of research and evidence-in-practice our running open community programs since 1977.

For every dollar you donate, our programs directly improve the quality of life of 3+ people. This means that for donations of just $100 you help us directly improve the lives of 300+ people, and thousands of others indirectly. For every $1,000+ donation, you help improve the lives of more than 3,000 people!

We are a 501(c)3 non-profit charity, so your donations may very well be tax deductible.

DONATE TODAY!

Our impact on hundreds of thousands of lives directly, and millions more indirectly, has been with just an average donation budget well below $50k/year. Historically, before getting the property, between only $10,000 to $20,000 year.

Since getting the RPG Community Center and RPG Museum property, we need around $48k/year for the rent and utilities, but that goes directly to supporting our delivery of our programs to the local and global communities we serve. We have directly helped more than 100,000 people through our programs since 2017, and millions more through our training, free online knowledgebase research archives, interviews, panels, software development open-source projects, accessibility advocacy programs, online community programs, in-person community programs, accessible mobile facilities programs, online videos, and much more.

We are a 100% unpaid volunteer-run 501(c)3 non-profit research and human services charitable organization serving diverse populations of all ages from 2 years old through senior adults, and everyone in between. We are one of the most lean and efficient non-profits out there, offering the most bang for the buck. We run on 100% open-source software; we contribute development commitments to existing opensource projects as well as produce our own opensource programs to the communities. This means your dollars go directly to serving the communities we serve.

For every $10 donated, you enable our programs to help more than 30 people!

Just imagine how many more people we could help with more funding.

DONATE TODAY!

THANK YOU LIST TO OUR 2024 SUPPORTERS AND BENEFACTORS AS OF JANUARY 30TH, 2024.

2024 Donors (Member/Donor Level 1)

The following are listed as “2024 Supporters” because they have donated (either all at once, or cumulatively throughout the year) between $5 to $99:

David M.
Leonard B.
Russ L.
Lee M.
Ramon G.
KN G.
J.D.
Kersten K.
H.T.
T.H.
Alan T.
Drew B.
S P-B.
Tim L.
Hunter R.
Autumn A.
Matt W.
Corv L.
Kayl H.
David G.
Jess D.
Ashton R.
Jeremy E.
Wagner L.S.
Alexander J.
Matthew W.
Kevin L.
Erney E.
Joe K.
Martin I.
Josh B-C.
P. N.
Michael F.
Allen W.
Katy K.
M Schmidt
Cari-Lyn Welker
Thomas M.
Michael M.
Kyle M.
Carly K.
Amanda N.
David M.
Rob M.

2024 Blue Ribbon Supporters (Member/Donor Level 2)

The following are listed as “2024 Blue Ribbon Supporters” because they have donated (either all at once, or cumulatively throughout the year) between $100 to $499 in 2024:

Wheelhouse Workshop (Now
Wheelhouse Workshop (Now Game To Grow)
Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE)
Inclusive Gaming Network
Brooke L.
Anthony C.
R. J. L.
Khanada T.
Valerie K.
Shane D.
John W.
Caleb G.
MS P.