RPGA

The RPGA (previously called the Role Playing Game Association and the RPGA Network), is part of the organized play arm of Wizards of the Coast that organizes and sanctions role-playing games worldwide, principally under the d20 system.

The RPGA (Role Playing Game Association) was founded in November 1980 by TSR, Inc., the original publishers of the Dungeons and Dragons game, primarily intended to run tournaments at gaming conventions.Frank Mentzer, one of the first full-time employees of TSR, formed the RPGA to promote quality roleplaying and to allow fans of roleplaying games to meet and play games with each other. In early years the RPGA supported TSR's top sellers: AD&D, Gamma World and Top Secret, and would later extend beyond tournaments to run living campaigns where thousands of people worldwide could be involved in the same massive campaign world. The RPGA was also the publisher of Polyhedron from 1981 until publication was taken over by Paizo Publishing in 2002.

Wizards of the Coast acquired the RPGA when they purchased TSR in 1997.

The RPGA was originally formed to provide tournaments to conventions that would be both fun to play and fair to the players in the event. Each player was given a pre-generated character with a background, equipment, and some limited information about the other characters at the table, and a great deal of effort was spent trying to create balanced events. A game master and four to eight players would play a 4-hour adventure supplied by the RPGA. At the end of the adventure, the "winner" of the event was decided (on the basis of rules knowledge and role-playing ability) by tallying votes from the game master and the players (the game master's vote counted double and was used to break any ties). These events are now referred to as "Classic" events. Players were awarded experience points based on how well they did in competitive events, and over time they could advance to higher levels. The players also rated the game master, and the game masters similarly gained experience points and could achieve levels as judges.

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