Groan.  So, I've been trying to get my group to wind down the current D&D 4e campaign and move to something different.

My personal preference was to run a Traveller 40K type game to mix things up a bit.

So, I decided to do a survey to everyone just to see what kinds of things they like.  After spending 3 weeks hassling them about it (lord knows getting feedback of any kind is like pulling teeth), I get back the results.  And now I'm depressed...

Apparently, the only two prevailing opinions are "I'm fine with whatever" and "I only like high fantasy, or maybe a sci-fi fantasy with lots of magic".  Which pretty much limits me to:
A) Continuing the current high fantasy campaign on to paragon level adventures
B) Creating a new high fantasy campaign
C) Maybe running Rifts again

I'm leaning towards A, despite my dislike of high-level campaigns.

Am I the only one that ever gets sick to death of playing nothing but high fantasy games filled with elves and wizards???

I vote D) Tell them you will stop running high fantasy in favour of starting next week. They can play in that, or you can relinquish the DM position if one of them is willing to step up and run high fantasy. Or they can find another DM elsewhere.


I expect no one will offer to run games, and most if not all of them will be willing to play a different sort of campaign. The few that might not are not worth keeping, anyway.

Quote from: jgants;462654Am I the only one that ever gets sick to death of playing nothing but high fantasy games filled with elves and wizards???

I feel for you. My whole gaming group, like myself, entered the hobby in the 1990s, in the heyday of AD&D 2e and Dragonlance, and it shows. When they run a game, there's this strong high fantasy Larry Elmore set-piece feel.

However, from the general feel of your post, I'm not sure they are as categorical in their genre loyalty as you seem to believe. "I'm fine with whatever" seems to be a prevalent response.

I suggest you take your Traveller 40K game, plan a short adventure (maybe 3-4 sessions) as a "break" from your ongoing D&D 4e game, and see how things go from there. 40K is a fairly over-the-top fantastic setting and should appeal to the fantasy lovers (as long as they're fine with it being Übergrimdark). If they like it, suggest a long-term campaign. If they don't, keep on running 4e (as long as you are having fun) and in due time suggest another "break".

Failing that, go with Rifts. Rifts is never the wrong answer to "what should we play?" (if you can get past chargen)

Oh, edit:

Quote from: Premier;462658I vote D) Tell them you will stop running high fantasy in favour of starting next week. They can play in that, or you can relinquish the DM position if one of them is willing to step up and run high fantasy. Or they can find another DM elsewhere.

This is just as good.

Quote from: jgants;462654Am I the only one that ever gets sick to death of playing nothing but high fantasy games filled with elves and wizards???

No.  It no more boring than the fact that the planet earth only filled with a single sentient species known as humans.

The trick is to figure out what cultures and sub cultures exist within your setting. That the stereotypes are just a baseline and that true situation is one of incredible diversity.

One way I generate diversity is think of the implications of the supernatural aspect of the game rules and do a what if.  Extrapolating the possible effects on the different races and picking the ones that are the most gamable, instresting, fun, and fit with what I want out of my campaign.

If you have trouble doing this then have your players help by running a campaign to flesh out one or more aspect of the setting. Have everybody be a member of the thieves guild, a beggar, everybody from the same neighborhood in City-State, a city guard, etc, etc.  The results are surprising and often useful as background for the next campaign.

Quote from: jgants;462654Am I the only one that ever gets sick to death of playing nothing but high fantasy games filled with elves and wizards???

I feel your pain. My group never gets tired of fantasy. They will humor me and play something else every now and then, but their hearts aren't in it. On the rare occassion someone else runs something, it's D&D. I can't even read fantasy anymore, I'm just that burned out on it.

Mind you, I like my gaming group, I just wish they had broader tastes.

Quote from: Premier;462658I vote D) Tell them you will stop running high fantasy in favour of starting next week. They can play in that, or you can relinquish the DM position if one of them is willing to step up and run high fantasy. Or they can find another DM elsewhere.


I expect no one will offer to run games, and most if not all of them will be willing to play a different sort of campaign. The few that might not are not worth keeping, anyway.

Actually, the problem here is that there is another player who wants to run a game.  The problem there is that he runs a rather boring game.

Quote from: The Butcher;462659I suggest you take your Traveller 40K game, plan a short adventure (maybe 3-4 sessions) as a "break" from your ongoing D&D 4e game, and see how things go from there. 40K is a fairly over-the-top fantastic setting and should appeal to the fantasy lovers (as long as they're fine with it being Übergrimdark). If they like it, suggest a long-term campaign. If they don't, keep on running 4e (as long as you are having fun) and in due time suggest another "break".

This is more or less what I have planned.  We're coming up on a big climax point.  Once we hit that, I can switch us over to take a break for a little bit to my Traveller 40K idea.

Give 'em fantasy Warhammer style; that'll learn 'em.

I get sick of high fantasy at times.

I was in a group years ago that was all D&D all of the time.

I like D&D just fine. But I need more variety or I will get bored.

I pretty much stopped going after a couple of years just because I was tired of it.

Quote from: jgants;462654Am I the only one that ever gets sick to death of playing nothing but high fantasy games filled with elves and wizards???

I did that for 20 years and completely burned out on fantasy. now it doesn't make any sense to me. i can't deal with it at all.

-clash

If you mean the settings for high fantasy, then yeah, I get pretty sick of those. I'm no historian by any means, but being force-fed the same Eurocentric stuff in my gaming for a decade and a half has taken its toll, and I lament the fact that I cannot get my players to test the more exotic waters of the Oriental, or Araby, or something off-the-wall like Dark Sun. Or even a superhero campaign, or Werewolf the Apocalypse.

However, if you mean the style of high fantasy, then my answer is actually the opposite...I'm starved for it, because my players keep asking for political-backstabbery-with-deep-meaningful plots. I want to play/run bloodthirsty dungeon-crawls, I want to play/run an ass-kicking barbarian hero ala Conan the Barbarian. Our games grind to a halt so often because everyone is so infatuated with their fetish-like desire for their one-character-concept-they'd-been-playing-for-8-years now. I miss high-powered gaming. I may have to start turning to video games soon to feed that urge.

My players don't ever take any risks, they're 'builders', and I'm bored to tears by building. I'm an explorer/axe fiend crossbreed. Which makes me a decent GM if you're into that kind of thing, but I think I'm shitty player for these groups.

I got totally, totally fed up with fantasy. It was never my favorite genre, but playing in seemingly endless succession D&D and assorted fantasy games finally killed whatever interest there was left.

So a couple of year back I declared a unilateral embargo on fantasy in my regular gaming group. The price of this embargo is that I have to occasionally run a fantasy game for them instead. I suppose that might seem counter-intuitive, but it works in that they get to scratch that fantasy itch and if I am GMing at least I am still getting something out of the game.

So last year I ran a epic viking themed basic D&D mini-campaign for them. For this year I am gearing up to run a Barbarians of Lemuria campaign, which, having run it a couple of times now, is actually a really color and colourful game and much more to my liking.

All in all it's a small price to pay to get off the hook.

I was getting kinda bored of playing fantasy rpgs in recent years.

These days I'll occasionally read fantasy novels.  (I didn't read much fantasy when I was younger).

Recently I've been reading the equivalent of "junk food" fantasy literature, such as the D&D Abyssal Plague novels.

I've never been a huge fan of High Fantasy... or at least not what passes for mainstream fantasy these days (same thing?).

I still love fairly tales... and dark fantasy/horror... and Warhammer style grit... but the epic soap opera stuff doesn't interest me... in books, movies or games.

It doesn't boggle me that other people love it though... it's wish fulfillment... it's generally less challenging, it's about emotions and self-actualization and being HEROES... whether you deserve to be or not.
The same factors that keep High Fantasy on top of the popularity pile drive the trend toward games where there are no real consequences for the PCs... no character death... you get to have your way because the rules say so. Plot immunity for the stars of the show.

Quote from: Simlasa;462743It doesn't boggle me that other people love it though... it's wish fulfillment... it's generally less challenging, it's about emotions and self-actualization and being HEROES... whether you deserve to be or not.

This isn't a recent thing.

"The Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, seems to have been written in this style a century ago (in 1911).

Quote from: Simlasa;462743The same factors that keep High Fantasy on top of the popularity pile drive the trend toward games where there are no real consequences for the PCs... no character death... you get to have your way because the rules say so. Plot immunity for the stars of the show.

This sounds like a thinly disguise criticism of 4E D&D.  

Tweak their nose with Spelljammer. Or if you want to be particularly nasty, have a wizard BBEG time travel them into Shadowrun.

I have a question. Do you get sick of the Setting, the Themes, the Mood, or the System? High fantasy Europe gets nauseating if you keep running the same theme (save the world again from the big bad evil guy!) with the same mood (fawning fanfare over the glorious heroes who come to save the day!).

But if you mix up the comprising elements you can get something interesting. (I'd recommend a new batch of characters however. Advanced character power issues make new ideas too much of a cakewalk.)
i.e.
Setting: High Fantasy Europe traveling into unknown wastes
Theme: Cartographers of the new frontier
Mood: Foreboding mystery
Plot: Survive & bring back good intel

oh, and my favorite part, don't give Experience. Make all rewards in-game rewards, gear, or after much campaigning - maybe a skill buff or two. When grinding out their character is no longer the point of the game, often players find more interesting things to do than trying to heroically save the day by their lonesome again. They often get involved in village politics and kingdom building instead!