Exactly What We Have Come To Expect From The D&D Community

Total number of persons wanting to play in a proposed online campaign: 37
Actual number of emails or comments expressing an actual desire to play: 6

I contemplated on how best to handle this as things emerged over the weekend.  To save face, I could say nothing.  I could pretend more people applied than actually did.  I could acknowledge those who did answer with gratitude, give them a place in my world and simply cover up the details.  No one would know.  My detractors would be left wondering if my popularity was greater than they wished for and those who responded might think they were chosen from a wide range of applicants.  I could even lie and say they were.

But I am not interested in my public relations, nor am I much moved by the applications I did receive.  Two seemed completely out to lunch, and four managed to repeat to me more or less the same principles I had expounded, with some small additions.  No one, I'm afraid to say, particularly blew my socks off ... which is what I wanted, of course.  It is what the gentle reader wants every time they open a new blog.  I see no reason why I shouldn't hope for the same.

I am guessing from some comments that were made that I intimidated the majority of people.  I gather that they felt I would be inflexible - despite my statements to the contrary - or that I would expect far more than they were able, or perhaps willing, to deliver.  This is all well and good.  My feeling is that if no prospective player can develop the wherewithal to produce an appeal that encourages me to run the game, then I should not feel obliged to be encouraged.  I'm obviously NOT asking for anyone to beg me.  Those who feel I am are infantile morons who have clearly not read anything I've bothered to write on the subject.

I am asking for inspiration.  My only gain in playing the game online, as opposed to playing the game offline as I do, is to play with people who are gifted and amazing in their play.  I expressed a desire to hear people say so.  I did not hear this.  I did hear from people who had no experience whatsoever.  I was thus very, very disappointed.

My detractors will rush to talk about what a swelled head I have and how I am so very full of myself in regards to my importance in the community.  They won't give credit for my honesty, nor my directness, nor the effort I made to have the so-called community stand up and meet me eye-to-eye.  To the six people who responded, congratulations.  To the two people who wrote to express precisely why they couldn't play, you have my congratulations also.  In my opinion you are unusual among your peers in that you eight people have spines.  I deeply respect that.

And I should make an exception to James C. and Chgowiz, who were given reason to believe they were shoe-ins.

As to the other 27 people who "want" to play, but really don't want to?  Who could have saved me a lot of time and energy by answering "no" from the beginning and thus clarifying that there was no real desire out there for my online world?  Fuck you.  Fuck you very much.