Phenomenon 2001 - The Crew

<accent style="grumpy old guy">O' course, thars a lot o' folks dun helped out with this here convention. These things don't run theyselves, y'know! Darn kids, come here with thair dice and straw hats, I died in 15 world wars...</accent>

Ahem. Well. Yes. Anyhoo - here's some of the people who have helped make Phenomenon 2001 the wondrous and awe-inspiring reality that it is.

Karl

Karl has been involved with Phenomenon since the concept was first floated late in 1993. By then he had been playing roleplaying games for ten years and attending roleplaying conventions for seven years. He was first involved in writing a convention game for CANCON 1990, although he's always worked with others when writing games. He's written over twenty sessions of games for many different systems and even some systemless but the most common system he's written for is Dungeons & Dragons.

Liz

Liz was first introduced to roleplaying in 1980 by a friend at university who thought she might be interested and has never looked back. She attended her first con in 1982 [Arcanacon] then pulled out of the con scene until she moved down to Canberra in 1986. She attended her second con in 1987 [Cancon] as a result of an emergency phone call from a friend who had more players than he could cope with for a session. She arrived at the con and 15 minutes later was GMing a module she had never seen before.

From then on she has filled many an emergency GM spot as well as occassionally being booked before hand and actually having time to read the module. She has GMed for a range of designers and systems, from Worms Footprint through to Greg Rickards Ravens Nest. She has also written and run many games of her own in all sorts of different genres; cathartic, horror, boys' own, multiform, systemless, Cthulu, Falkenstein, freeforms.

She was involved in organising CanCon and is currently helping out with Pheno, is a member of the RPGA club Naughty Weasals, running a couple of games on the internet and is occasionally still designing the odd module or freeform.

Tracey

OK, OK, Tracey's arm has finally been twisted into writing up one of these things. (She is very shy you know). Tracey wanted to play roleplaying games the first time she saw D&D in primary school but the boys wouldn't let her. By high school she was dating just to play, but that didn't work out to well either. She finally gave up and pretended that roleplaying didn't matter to her. In 1992 Tracey moved to Canberra and suddenly a whole world opened up to her in the form of Rolemaster. She was hooked.

1993 saw her go to her first con, Cancon, which she hated because everyone she knew ignored her, (they happened to be running games and were far too busy to pay her any attention). Still she persisted and was winning trophies in the 1994 convention circuit. In 1996 there was a game at Cancon without a GM and since Tracey had played it she offered to GM it. (Her first GMing experience ever). 1997 saw the first of Tracey's convention modules "I thought I saw a pussy cat?" commonly now known as the mouse game, and despite a few hickups with sceduling was a great success. 1998 Saw the advent of Radcon which was a present from her husband to celebrate her quarter centry but Tracey organised everything for the convention and it ran itself. Since then she has been helping out with Phenomenon.

These days Tracey has cut back on the number of games she plays (or GM's) a week to three. (A sign of old age). She is an active member of the RPGA, the Naughty Weesels roleplaying club, and is often seen at Canberra Games days playing in the living Greyhawk modules. Tracey plans to stay involved with Phenomenon for many years to come and continue the reputation Phenomenon has for being the best roleplaying con in Canberra!

Helen Brinsmead

I first started playing D&D in about 1980, improvised acting and roleplaying happened later after moving to Canberra in 1990. My involvement in Pheno started when my partner suggested an old school friend could be a special guest, and friends were on the committee. I joined the committee through being the ALRPA rep - I played the same character for over four years, along with two others, in that campaign. Organising a con is easier than keeping up with a very very long term character-driven (mostly/somewhat) campaign. Now I am the ANURPS rep on the committee - also assisting with organising the monthly Canberra Games Days. Organising a con is still easier

Madi

Who can unravel the mystery that is Madi? Who can fathom the depths of a mind so vast that its outer reaches are accessable only by faster than light travel or five minutes on Mr Illicit's Rollercoaster of Happiness? Who can explain why such an almighty being would consent to dabble in web design for the World's Greatest Roleplaying Convention (patent pending)? Could it be the 20 years of gaming? Could it be the long slippery road towards convention attendance and other forms of depravity that started at Necronomicon '92? Oh, you can talk about the manic gaming binges, the interstate trips, the games written for Saga, Necronomicon, Phenomenon, Sydcon, Arcanacon. You can talk about the massive quantities of trophies won, the Tryptychs and Short Sharp Shocks penned. You can talk about Vurt, Unwritten Rules, the moderately infamous Will @#%! GMs for Trophies. Go on, I dare you! But in the end you'll come to the same stunning conclusion as scientists and philosophers have reached since the dawn of time - that Madi is in fact none other than the living embodiment of Burt Newton's left cerebral cortex. Bow down before me and shudder.

For enquiries, details, or general advice on contacting ancient civilisations, contact Karl: phenomenon@dingoblue.net.au or call 02 6286 5599 between 6 and 10pm. To report problems with this site or to bury your young inside the chest cavities of living humans contact Madi: madi@vurt.net