Who are the players behind this site?
The guild is run entirely by volunteers: a moderator, an organiser, an editor and a referee, with a founder who still lays out the first table of the evening.
How did the guild come to Tuckey Street?
OCE Guild began when its founder, Leanne Edwards, set up a folding table in a borrowed hall and asked six acquaintances whether they would like to attempt a long story together. They did, and the story lasted nine months. By the end of it the hall had been outgrown, and a search for something with a roof, a kettle and a sympathetic landlord led to the room on Tuckey Street. The first evening there drew nine people and two umbrellas, the second umbrella having been left behind by someone who has never been identified.
The room has changed very little since we took it. There is a tall front window, a long wall that has become a map of every campaign played here, and a corner shelf that has grown into the game library. The floor is old timber and creaks in a pattern that I can now identify with my eyes shut. Tuckey Street, for its part, has adopted us with a courtesy that I do not take for granted. Visitors often remark upon the quiet, which I attribute to the thick walls and to a long-standing understanding that the loudest voice at any table should belong to the game master.
The name of the city is generally said to come from the Noongar word mandjar, meaning a meeting place, and I find that a convenient coincidence for a guild whose first rule concerns tables. The estuary was a gathering place for a very long time before any of us began to play games beside it, and I try to remember as much when the room grows noisy.
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The people who run the evenings are volunteers, and none of them is paid. I moderate the chat and meet newcomers at the door. Craig Armstrong organises the evenings and keeps the timetable, Cameron Saunders edits the guides published on this site, and Donna Fraser referees the season play. Leanne still lays out the first table of the evening, as she has done from the beginning. She also keeps the key, which in practice makes her the most powerful person in the guild.
Each is described below in a few lines. I would add only that the guild is neither a business nor a school, although it contains something of both. It is a group of adults who have discovered that stories and strategies improve when they are shared, and who take pleasure in passing that discovery on. That, I think, is the whole of our philosophy, and it fits comfortably on a single page.
Who looks after the evenings?
Graham Lloyd
Moderator
I joined in the guild's second season, after a friend persuaded me to attend a single evening, and I have rarely missed one since. I moderate the chat server, meet newcomers at the door and settle the occasional disagreement about a rule. My own preference is for slow, careful strategy games with large maps, and for a pot of tea that I try, with varying success, to keep hot. On Tuesday evenings I keep the door, and nobody has yet passed me without being offered a biscuit.
Craig Armstrong
Event organiser
Craig works fortnight-on, week-off rosters, which has made him exceptionally good at planning around absence. He builds the evening timetable, assigns the tables and keeps a list of which campaigns need another player. He favours cooperative role-playing campaigns with a mystery at their centre, and he is known for ending every session on a question. His timetable is pinned beside the kettle and amended in pencil, because he has learned never to trust ink.
Cameron Saunders
Guides editor
Cameron edits the guides published on this site and writes most of the workshop notes for new game masters. He arrived as a newcomer with a long list of questions and a talent for organising the answers. He prefers historical strategy games, keeps his notes in a green notebook and will gladly explain any rule twice. Each guide is tested on a volunteer who has never played, and is not published until that volunteer can follow it.
What does the house look like?
