AADA News

David N. Searle

As the new head of the AADA, I have a few items to announce. So please bear with me.

First, lets talk about the World Championships. This year there were many complaints on how the championships were handled. Most of these were understandable and justified.

One of the problems was the scheduling of the At-large qualifier. Many people felt that holding the qualifier on Friday afternoon prevented the people who work from attending. Next year we will hold a four-round, five-event tournament. The At-large qualifier will consist of two events; one Thursday afternoon, and one Friday evening - as late as possible. Competitors in the first event that do not advance will be allowed to compete again in the second event. This is to keep record keeping simple, and is an added bonus to those that spend all four days at the convention. Round two will be held Saturday morning. Round three will be Saturday afternoon, and round four will be held early Sunday morning. Further details will be in the AADA Newsletter.

Another problem was with the rules being used. Many people felt the rules were too new. Well, nothing can be done about that now, but we will be using the Compendium rules in next year's tournament. All errata and optional rules that will be in effect will be printed in the next issue of ADQ. No rules published after ADQ 7/4 will be used in the next championships. This should give everyone plenty of time to familiarize themselves with the rules.

Illegal designs. Only one of these got through (to my knowledge). To prevent this from happening at all, two changes will be made. First - all designs must be turned in to our booth the day before they are to be used. Now, the more intelligent duelists are all saying "How are we going to turn in Thursday's designs on Wednesday?" Easy. All of the vehicles in the At-large qualifier will be one of two stock designs. You will be free to pick which of the two you want to use, but you can make no modifications to it. These designs, as well as what arena it will be held in will be published next issue.

Now, for some ideas and new competitions. The winner of this year's World Racing Championships at Gencon will receive a bye to round three of next years Dueling Championships.

Speaking of Gencon, here is an idea for everyone to chew on. The people at Gencon would be very happy if we moved the Dueling Championships to their convention. This would put the Racing Championships at Origins. Any comments on this?

Now for the fun stuff. The next two awards were cryptically mentioned by Stephen Beeman before he left, and I like the ideas enough to try and revive them.

Winningest Duelist

This award will go to the duelist with the most tournament victory points. Whenever you compete in a Car Wars tournament sponsored by Steve Jackson Games and take one of the top three places, let me know! Points will be awarded in the following manner; first - 5 points, second - 3 points, and third - 2 points. All you have to do is send me a copy of the certificate along with the name of the convention and event number for confirmation. The duelist with the most points at the end of the year (Origins '90) will win an as-yet-undisclosed prize from Steve Jackson Games.

Winningest Club

This title will be awarded to the club that has the most points from club to club competition. The rules for this are simple. Each club may only compete for club points once per month. For example: If the NOMADS duel the RCADA in September, neither of these clubs would be eligible for club points again until October, no matter who won. Send in the signatures of all the club members that competed, along with the name of the club they belong to to get your points. The club that wins will get 3 points, the losing club gets 1 point.

The newsletter I have been referring to is a (well, now it is) bi-monthly report on the AADA to all the official AADA clubs. It is mostly geared for clubs and tournament duelists. It will also include statistics for the on-going competitions as well as any playtest material I can scrape up. There are a limited number of extras printed up - if you do not belong to a club and would like a copy send us a legal sized SASE and if extras are available we will send you one.

By the way, we call ahead now when we send out playtest material, so if your club wants to be eligible for playtesting of upcoming Car Wars products, mail us your president's phone number so we can reach you quickly. Label the envelope: Attention Playtest Coordinator, and it will get to the right person.

- David N. Searle