2014 - Changing Breeds - Justin Quigley
Introduction and Background:
My name is Justin Quigley, and I'm currently holding the office of Changing Breeds Coordinator. After serving as an Assistant CBC to Jason Cook, I accepted his suggestion to run last year and was gratefully elected! Over the course of the last year, I've done a great deal of work to try and restore some of the goodwill that used to exist between the CB Chronicles of OWbN. I'd like to think that I was slightly successful. I ran the Garou event at Midwinter this past year and am given to understand that people enjoyed themselves, much to my delight. With the above in mind, please find enclosed my application for Changing Breeds Coordinator and thank you in advance for reading it through. It's the goal of everyone who writes these applications to put their best feet forward and I'm hopeful that I can do the same. To those who may run alongside me, best of luck.
I've been gaming since grade school, starting with that old D&D boxed set that came with mud dice and the adventure about the Orb of Dragonkind. In high school, a friend introduced me to Vampire MET and I was LARPing ever since. In 2001, I joined OWbN in the local Vampire game and played there for a while. A Garou game cropped up, and that's where I've lived ever since (minus a short hiatus). I was an ST in a local Troupe Vampire game for a number of years, and then started up a Garou game in the Cleveland area in 2011. I remain its HST. I was an ACBC to Jason Cook in 2012 and was elected as CBC in 2013. It's been a great time and I'm ready to keep it rolling.
Thank you for taking the time to read my application. If there are any questions at all that I can answer or concerns that I can shed a little light on, please contact me. Blow me up. All hours of the night. gporhp@gmail.com
Introduction and Background (Portuguese):
Administrative Experience:
In real life, I'm a database administrator for a shipping company. We ship some odd things. I have to juggle a fairly significant number of processes here at work, including stepping in when someone else starts to get overloaded with their own tasks. It's all about effective time management and of knowing when you've got too much on your plate. In a previous position at a music institute, I had to not only handle a situation like the above but also herd college students like cats into doing their jobs as well. I learned how to sort out the workers from the slackers and had very little issue with demanding a "shape-up or ship-out". If I don't do my job, people don't get paid, and that's very reminiscent of an Org position. Except for payment, people don't have fun. And when the players don't have fun? None of the administration has fun.
In the gaming hobby, I've been GMing games ever since I started getting into the scene. People that play in my games tend to have some scant bit of fun now and again, so I must be doing something right. I've been the database ST for a number of games, including the game that I serve as HST. I know how to keep lists of folks straight, to balance out a scene and how to make sure that changes in the player base don't entirely wash out the rest of the IC structure. As a Coordinator, I've learned that there are some expectations to be balanced among the various Chronicles and that the effort that proved rewarding when handled respectfully.
Administrative Experience (Portuguese):
Personal Statement:
In the past year as CBC, I've learned a number of very valuable lessons. Some of those lessons have been newly acquired and others have been reinforcements of what I've already known. Glad as I am to break those out for you in this section, let me begin by saying that it's always my intention to see people have a good time in their gaming. There are always stories to tell and they range between longstanding epics and brutally-short war-shorn lives. The World of Darkness is made of these ends of the spectrum and it's always my pleasure to see them coexist.
The lessons I learned that were new? People are always looking to learn something new about the setting. In the past year, Storytellers haven't been shy about reaching out to me to ask me for advice or guidance on what they wanted to do with their stories. Mostly Vampire chronicles, which made me rather happy. It's one World of Darkness, after all. Also, it became clear to me early-on that there's a history of overusing NPCs or presenting an ironclad approach to their genres when PCs should have the power to push into new territory. That was something rather thrilling to see in practice, and I hope it continues.
The ones I already knew are simpler: Good compromises leave people unhappy, at times. Not angry or betrayed, but having less than they expected. I knew that the Changing Breeds coordination would involve some people having their expectations adjusted, but I'm glad to say that nearly everyone I interacted with was able to come away with some piece of what they wanted. Games are beginning to coordinate again and the genre is starting to become cohesive again, just from that single tenet of work. I mean to continue that for as long as I'm CBC, and hope that the sentiment lingers in the office.
Personal Statement (Portuguese):
Goals:
1) Last year, I said I wanted packets and many of them are nearing completion. My staff and I decided to opt in the direction of content and quality rather than swift production. There's a lot of material out there that OWbN has created just by being in play, and we want to give that the attention it deserves. So, that's something certainly on the plate for this year.
2) Working through the details WW20 have been a delight and I'm hoping to see much of it come into use/play this year under my guidance. Fracking. That section gave me a chill, for real.
3) The plots that I intend to propose this year won't be earth-shaking. They'll be genre-shaping, and I have more than a few ideas in that regard. The setting will not sit quietly, especially with new generations of Garou coming up from the new games. I mean to give them the stage of history and to see what they'll do with it. We started with that at Midwinter and it's not over yet.
4) PC positions - I mentioned this in my AMA and I'll say it here: There are PC-level positions on the National stage that, at the moment, mean next to nothing. I intend to work up Binding Agreements to give those positions a little more authority and a little more oversight, such that PCs can start to have a hand in shaping how things will proceed. Dangerous, but I'm not scared.
Goals (Portuguese):