Noticing a couple threadlocks at the BI forum today got me wondering about their policy regarding looking for games and players on the boards- which is, by the way, "you can't". It seems like a silly rule. The nearest I've seen to an official explanation for this policy is Dave Allen's response in this thread.
Bad publicity? Really? That's the concern? That's the reason why the BI forums aren't a central hub for finding online and offline WFRP games? That seems a little bit strange.... The odds against a serious incident occuring seem to be very high- and the odds that it would be somehow 'blamed' on BI are even higher. Lots of companies provide this sort of service to support their game- for instance, take a look at the extensive efforts that Wizards goes to to make sure that people can find a D&D game: RPG Gamer Classifieds. A whole forum and multiple subforums, just for the purpose of advertising what is already one of the most popular and widely played RPGs in the world. WFRP is much less well known, and has a much more scattered player base. I've often wished that there were some way to find WFRP games- particularly play by post games- that was easier than just running out to every single gaming website on the net and searching for games individually at PlayByWeb, ENWorld, and a dozen others. Here's hoping that BI eventually sees the light on this one- or that an acceptable unofficial alternative comes along.