Friday, August 30, 2013

Sapsorrow

Previously I said I felt lucky that when a really good idea hits me (or at least an idea that I think is good), it sort of POPS! into my mind complete and fully formed. After that it's all about cleaning off the direct and shining up the details.

Well, this one keeps coming. It hasn't stopped yet. I keep getting new ideas for it and ways to improve it and unfortunately, with the holiday weekend coming up, there is no way I am going to finish this project this month.

I am as sad a sap as Sapsorrow.


 
Now THAT is a sad sight if ever I saw one.


Even as I was getting ready to detail how Legend and Lore work, I began thinking how to refine the ideas for them, as well as considering adding a subsystem called Peril. I am on a roll. And yet...

The more I work on this the more I realize this is exactly the kind of game I would love and my players would not really get into. It's perfect for RECESS and would do very well with my old New Jersey group. For my current New York crowd...no so much.

I will continue to work on this and should have a finished game very soon. I will definitely be running it at the next RECESS Game Day, mark my words!

In regards to a new Fantasy game for my present group of players, I'm sort of back where I started. I say sort of because I have a bit more insight now as to what I want that will also work for them. If D&D is on the Red end of the spectrum and StoryTeller on the Violet End (although really its not. Its more Blue/Indigo), I need to find a way to locate or make a game that's...Green.


Green? Did I say Green?



It seems I walked right into my own metaphor. I knew there was a reason I liked that color.

AD
Barking Alien







3 comments:

  1. This is really the crux for many GM: play what you really want to run or what your players would receive better. I'm finally running a game of Dark Heresy (ported to Savage Worlds) that has been my obsession for several years. I can say that, while some players are enjoying it a lot, for some others the setting is just too grim and weird. And that shows in the quality of the gaming. Most certainly it will end after the initial run of 20 sessions or so.

    So I understand you have an important choice ahead, if you want the game to last. If you like Tolkien, you may try The One Ring: it is less about killing orcs and more about travellig through dark forests; more tale and less epic (genre-speaking); more The Hobbit than The Lord of the Rings. But you have elves, dwarves and everything else people is used to see in D&D.

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  2. There was a time when I need not concern myself with the dynamic of 'What I Want To Run' versus 'What I Think They'll Like'.

    I would say, "Hey gang, could we try this?", my group would say, "Sure, why not?" and it would either never get played again (rarely) or by the end of the session everyone there would ask, "So when can we make this our new campaign?".

    It happened like that several several times. Star Wars D6, Galaxy Quest, Ghostbusters - just to name a few.

    With my new group, there are a number of oddly particular players (with oddly particular particulars) that limit what new game concepts I can suggest. It bums me out sometimes (a lot) but I am adamant that the game I run be something we all have a vested interest in. Otherwise, someone is going to get bored or put off and that holds back my chances of introducing an unusual game idea even more. Each successful campaign brings my current group one step closer to giving me carte blanche like my old group did. ;)

    On the subject of Tolkien...I have a strange relationship with Tolkien's work. I love the Hobbit. Love it. I also love Farmer Giles of Ham. I like his other stuff including The Lord of The Rings but I have little interest in playing in that world. It is too defined, too 'closed' for me. It's also, as a result of being the thing all later Fantasy was inspired by, too typical. Lord of the Rings is the poster child for what I am trying to avoid in some ways.

    On the other hand, I have heard good things about the One Ring RPG.

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