Hello all!

This is a very exciting time for me. This is my first ever article in the Herald, and while I've written in countless magazines, this is definitely a high point for me. To me, the Herald represents everything good about gaming and gamers. It is our chance to support our players in a direct way-not to make money as the fan clubs are certainly huge money losers-but to keep the pistons of our community well oiled. Writing in a spot that was once reserved for the likes of Dave Seay, Ryan Dancey and John Zinser places me with some fairly intimidating company, and I hope I do the space proud.

1999 has been a time of great change in Rokugan. With all the changes of 1999, the thing that I am most happy about is actually a mistake. We tried to run a Kotei Emperor tournament in Atlanta, and for reasons that were clearly our fault it bombed.

That is not the part I'm proud of What I am proud of is that the L5R team here acted quickly, at the players' will, and scheduled an additional tournament for that region. But the story doesn't end there. Again, we made a mistake and the second Kotei tournament was scheduled for the same day as a Gift of the Emperor event! But one more time, the team acted quickly and got the date moved to please the players.

Would I have preferred to have the whole thing go off better? Of course. But FRPG is new to the large company way of doing things and these slip-ups are bound to happen. What makes me happy is that what hasn't changed is our focus on supporting our customers, while at the same time, we've been able to leverage what is good about a large company into added value for the players.

One thing that is clear to me is that L5R is YOUR game. This is not my game, or FRPG/WotCs game, we are merely custodians of your will. It is the single thing that separates L5R from every other game, and every other entertainment media that I can think of. The story is in your hands, but that is not all. L5R players have unprecedented contact with the decision makers of their product. I get hundreds of e-mails a week, not including the hundreds that get generated by the list serve. This feedback is a star-map that guides me, and is your way to exert control over your game. Because L5R is a business, not all decisions are decided by votes or tournaments or player feedback - but a huge number are.

I hope that I do my predecessors and the consumers proud in my post as the star-map reader for L5R. It is the greatest job on earth and the folks who make the stars shine are all that keeps me on the true path.

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com