Cue around 6 weeks later and repeated emails that brought no response and I was starting to wonder what the farg was going on. Really, it wasn't the intro packet that worried me as much as the fact that I had signed up to run KB events at 3 conventions and they had agreed to provide prize support. I had no clue why my emails weren't being responded to and I started wondering if they were being dumped into a spam folder or something else was just wrong. The first convention passed with zilch support and it turns out the people running the convention couldn't get in touch with their playroom rep either. They had been running KB national tournaments for at least a year, and had qualifying events 3 times a year with the big finals to take place in the summer. I joined the staff mostly to watch over that event and run some other games that I knew and ended up having it canceled because they couldn't make contact with the company. What was supposed to be a 2 or 3 round qualifying tournament with maybe 5 events turned into a single demo. Again I wrote to playroom asking for someone to please contact me so we could resolve the issue and hopefully get the game added back to the nationals schedule and heard nothing but crickets.
By this time I had more or less given up on things. Ubercon was coming up and I had multiple KB events to run there with no prize support in hand. On the last day of the con as I was leaving there was an oversized envelope in the mail and in it was a packet of promo cards and the welcome packet I had been waiting for all this time. I was able to finally pass out something to the people who played the two games on the last day though I still have no clue why no one has actually responded to my emails. I got what I needed in the end but still have no clue why there was such a delay nor had any answers to other questions I mailed about.
When I relate this story to friends, they always express bafflement that I haven't just quit running demos. The problem is I really like the company, the games, and the staff when I catch up with them at conventions. I just have no clue why I cannot get in touch with anyone when I have questions or need someone to respond. Pretty quickly, repeated emails just becomes badgering and it's not as if I'm trying to be difficult. Worse, I spoke with some people I had previously run demos for and who I had told that playroom would happily send them demo cards if they emailed and requested them. This is what I had been told by staff and what people who had attempted this in the past had related. These individuals received zilch response just like I had to inquiries and I'm at a loss of sorts about what to tell them.
I'm supposed to run games for the company at socal and I really hope that I can find some time to touch base with them and work this thing out.