Rules, rules everywhere, and not a chance to think.

[samldanach]

I had an interesting experience a couple of weeks ago, in which I participated in a FantasyCraft one-shot at a local mini-con. It was a lot of fun, and I want to keep an eye out for similar events coming in the future

Comments

[plum_pixie_girl]

I haven't played RPG's in a while, but I certainly sympathize with your mid-life gaming crisis!. James and I hit that some years ago. after many years of playing a somewhat modified (with even more rules and details) AD&D campaign. Honestly, it just became stale- Too much time spent doing necessary business, not enough time playing, in an already time consuming hobby. We had completely quit playing- for admittedly a number of reasons, including time constaints as the DM lived in a different town, and was somewhat punitive because we had jobs and couldn't always be there. Anyway- a couple years later we started playing again- and only quit because some of our little group members moved. What made this new adventure fun was the simpler setup,which relaxed the atmospere, which allowed for more real role playing, with that personality creating the character as much as the dice roles. And the three guys with the most role playing experience took turns DM ing. Weird, I know- but it worked. The created a world in agreement, with much of it

[samldanach]

I've heard of those types of rotating GM games before. I tend to view them the same way I view polyamory. Beautiful in concept, tricky in execution, requiring a huge amount of maturity to pull off, and quite likely to end in drama-tastic tears. It just seems to require a lot of trust, and a lot of people worthy of that trust, to work.

I'm really glad for you that yours worked.

I've also always been curious to take part in one of those campaigns that start with a big, blank sheet of paper. I think I'm just too much of a world-builder and author at heart to do that. I can't see a blank space without immediately wanting to fill it in. I'd be afraid that I'd take over the spotlight, just narrating all of the stuff beyond the borders.

[peonwithattitud]

I don't know that it's a mid-game crisis. It may be just what your in the mood for at different times. Sometimes you just want a good bar brawl, but other times you want a verry structered fencing match. This weekend you may want to just pull a Gama character out of a hat and just have a carefree good time. Next weekend you may want to play the Craft character you've been refining for the last month in a very structered setting. Both would be fun, but in different ways. With a little work I bet you could even come up with a way to easily convert one to the other as your mood warents.

"Realism" is something that can vary from one world to the next, but the boundries should be set from the begining. Is it going to be a world like the Matrix or a John Wayne movie? Both have guns and fighting. Both have a Realism, but those realities have different laws governing them. While droping John into the Matrix might be good for a few laughs, an extended stay would be painfull to everyone.

I hope I didn't go off on a tottal tangent from your

[samldanach]

Certainly not a total tangent.

Discussing the difference between "realistic" and "genre appropriate" is a whole post to itself. Especially as I'm not entirely sure which I meant in my post. :)

It certainly may just be a mood thing. I know that a big part of it was coming off of several extremely simple characters in other systems, then creating the FC character under a time pressure. It just stirred up a lot of thoughts on the relative merits and where my head is right now.