Leadership 2

The tournament went off better than I could have hoped for this year.  I was really biting my nails in the week(s) leading up to the event simply because this random team idea was so completely untested that I had visions of the entire thing melting down into a mass of confusion and discontent.  But in all of my doomsday prophecy I failed to account for the generous disposition of the people playing.  With 26 friends in one room it would be hard to keep even a church sermon from being turned into a rip-roaring good time, and that's exactly what happened.

The Pro's:

• Atmosphere: we did a superb job preserving the spirit of the tournament.  It is the heart and soul of this entire event and should take precedence every year.
• Cooperation: even in the face of very confusing team rules everyone worked out the grey areas between their teammates and their opponents, which just goes to show that all it takes is a consensus at the table to resolve most rules disputes.  It was very satisfying to see this happen as its one of the things I would like to see at larger tournaments.
• Prize support: the prize pool once again turned out to be absurdly large this year w/o anyone ever obsessing over the issue.  This is solely due to the generosity of Endgame and the Ld2 guys who brought in extra swag.  Donovan purchased a huge amount of prize support but he took home about half it in prizes :).  I think in the future we don't need to concentrate on prize support.  Even the support from Endgame would have been sufficient to send home the winners with some token.
• Secret Santa: the pro's for the Secret Santa are that it added some flavor to the tourney and it wasn't a complete disaster or a distraction during the tournament. In the future I might be inclined to hold the gift swap as a separate event done after the awards ceremony at PCB.
• Colonel.  He made some really awesome prize mugs with BftCH frosted onto the side as well as the prize name.  As trophies they really tied the awards ceremony together and I think commanded more adoration than the prize support.  Thanks to Colonel for taking the time.
• Betty Hengl.  She made an immense amount of food for the guys which, in addition to being hella scrumptious, also allowed everyone to stay sober long enough to not bring Endgame down around our ears.  In the future I need to give something back to the people who do such awesome stuff for the tourney. 

The Con's:

• I forgot to bring The Ham and had to make an hour and 45 minute detour back to SF to get it.
• Running team events means getting players in multiples of 4, which is REALLY hard.
• The team rules, while not introducing any flagrant gaps into the game mechanic, are really detailed and hard to pick up on the fly.  Additionally, no one backstabbed all day long, which is disappointing.  In the future I think it would be best to do away with general objectives and stick to scenario specific objectives which should differ depending on the nature of the alliance.  I should also do away with the idea of concealing objectives from teammates/opponents.  
• I did not foresee the shear amount of alcohol that would be brought as Secret Santa gifts, and I don't think anyone could foresee that we would make a point of opening it all up and consuming it before the end of the day. W/o the added influx of hard liquor I think everyone would have been twice as sober at the end of the tournament.  It was very visibly/audibly turning into a shit show at the end of game 3 and even though I liked the atmosphere I think Endgame is the wrong setting.  In the future hard liquor should be spurned as a Secret Santa Gift, though the malt liquor is still game.
• Paint scoring is always a point of contention for me.  I think it's a vital part of a tourney and I stand by my assessment with regard to the winners.  Where it always bugs me is when I go back and look at the guys in the top 25% and see how my 1-2 pt. difference in paint scores screwed them out of top10 finishes or even prizes.  

Allright that's it, these ideas have been documented for posterity.