Bribes

We've never really been on the up and up. From the begining, we've embraced the NASCRAG tradition of offering bribes to our judges. In 1993, for Nexus I, we offerred a woman as our bribe. When we got 4th place, we foolishly decided to see what we could do on our own merits. Well, OK, we did use giant cookies and big bags of fat-dripping burgers, but that really didn't get us far. In addition to several years we won't speak about, we bagged a lot of second places. We were starting to think we should call ourselves "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride."

So, after Northern (L)Attitudes, where we got another frustrating second place (we have big egos...), we decided to up the ante. So, for Catgut Willy and the Whirling Vortex of Doom, we we came with our own collectible card game, called NASCRAG: The Wool Gathering. This time we lost to the first place team by a full 10 points. Another 2nd place: Ugh! Obviously, NASCRAG judges were trying to tell us something. If some is good, more is better.

For Conspiracy 101, we brought T-shirts and our own filked album. At the awards ceremony, we performed live for the party. We finally won that year . In a satisfying footnote to the whole affair, the NASCRAG website posted movies of our performance and noted that this was proof that bribes really didn't matter to how well you did in NASCRAG events. After all, they let the Filking Wieners win in spite of their bribe!

You'd think that after we went over to the Dark Side™ we would have abandoned all that bribery stuff. But, no! After just two years of judging, we decided to bribe Carol and Len! Thus was born the Seconds series, which ran for 3 years. We worked pretty hard on player bribes during that time, too, including the Costumes, the Tobies, and the Props.

We know that others seek to follow in our footsteps on the road to greater glory by bribery and corruption. We have a few ideas for you as well as some more examples from other teams in prior years.