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) :D
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. :D
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! :D
Quote from: ggroy;462747"The Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, seems to have been written in this style a century ago (in 1911).
Hmmm... I'd have to think about that... been a long time since I read that.
QuoteThis sounds like a thinly disguise criticism of 4E D&D. ;)
I Didn't have 4E in mind specifically... I mostly stay out of that fight.
Quote from: Opaopajr;462781I have a question. Do you get sick of the Setting, the Themes, the Mood, or the System?
All of the above, really.
The setting is the big one. I don't get it. I don't see what's so cool or special about kings and princesses, knights in armour, elves, trolls and goblins, swords with names and evil wizards. Maybe for some people it's satisfies some sort yearning for a mythical, idyllic past and simpler times, I don't know, but I just don't get it.
On top of the that I tend to have issues with typical fantasy themes and systems. It doesn't have to, but fantasy seems to be big on exploration. Whether it's the great outdoors or the dungeon, there is a whole lot of moving to the next location and triggering whatever is there. That's never been fun for me. Zero to hero, also prevalent in fantasy, doesn't work for me either. I generally prefer to start with a competent character and pretty much stay roughly at that level.
And though there are a lot of systems that can do fantasy for our group it's mostly been D&D. The game has got it's virtues, but all in all I'm not a fan of the D&D model, with the levels, attritional combat and the focus on the acquisition of ever better equipment.
At the end of the day you can tweak system and themes but if the basics of the setting don't appeal, it's a bit of a lost battle. We could (and have) play a city based Warhammer FRP game with a Cthulhu like plot and that would be a step in the right direction. But I still fail to see how setting this game in a faux Renaissance Europe helps anything.
Quote from: Soylent Green;462804All of the above, really.
I hear you. Not much to be done about that. I love it, btw.
Quote from: Soylent Green;462804The setting is the big one. I don't get it. I don't see what's so cool or special about kings and princesses, knights in armour, elves, trolls and goblins, swords with names and evil wizards. Maybe for some people it's satisfies some sort yearning for a mythical, idyllic past and simpler times, I don't know, but I just don't get it.
Yeah, the tropes are one of those things that's rather on/off. At best you could put it in some tribal commune on the savannah with panther people and evil witch doctors. When I think high fantasy setting I'm open to more cultural tropes than the standard fare. But that's definitely not the norm; pseudo-Europe definitely has popular cache. It's one of the reasons I loved M:tG Mirage block...
Quote from: Soylent Green;462804On top of the that I tend to have issues with typical fantasy themes and systems. It doesn't have to, but fantasy seems to be big on exploration. Whether it's the great outdoors or the dungeon, there is a whole lot of moving to the next location and triggering whatever is there. That's never been fun for me. Zero to hero, also prevalent in fantasy, doesn't work for me either. I generally prefer to start with a competent character and pretty much stay roughly at that level.
And though there are a lot of systems that can do fantasy for our group it's mostly been D&D. The game has got it's virtues, but all in all I'm not a fan of the D&D model, with the levels, attritional combat and the focus on the acquisition of ever better equipment.
I love exploration! However, what you're talking about reminds me of plot investigation and pixel bitching while someone changed the drapes. I myself rarely get a good exploration game in high fantasy because I end up with the same thing you dislike. I like sandboxes. Too often people run exploration as window dressing, not letting the player explore the inner elements as well, such as ecology, politics, economy, social, etc. I feel your pain, but from a different direction.
And zero to hero, let's go save the world!, has always been a pet peeve of mine. A tiresome trope and wholly overused in video games. The scope is too big; takes a large world and reduces it to a lynchpin of a single party's story. Irritating.
And yes, I too have my issues with AD&D. Hate levels, hate classes, hate chargen min/max minigame, hate drowning in tables and modifiers... but still I play. Sometimes I can swing people to my home brews, sometimes even to different systems. But I'll do a give and take with the table.
Quote from: Soylent Green;462804At the end of the day you can tweak system and themes but if the basics of the setting don't appeal, it's a bit of a lost battle. We could (and have) play a city based Warhammer FRP game with a Cthulhu like plot and that would be a step in the right direction. But I still fail to see how setting this game in a faux Renaissance Europe helps anything.
I see, it sounds like it's mainly pseudo-Europe location and all the entrapping tropes that are nauseating you. You wanna go on vacation, but someone's happy where they are. Sort of an impasse, no?
At best, what do you want to play? What intrinsic difference is your greatest priority? Is it time/tech period, cultural location, or game system? I'm hearing themes and mood aren't enough. So the next question is: what would be enough? :D
I tend to vacillate from the low-fantasy to high-fantasy spectrum, from one campaign to another.
RPGPundit
I would love to do some low fantasy. Unfortunately, everyone loves having access to powerful magic.
Have you thought about Birthright's setting conceit that the vast majority of magic is mainly Illusionist & Divination schools with access to all 1st & 2nd lvl school spells? Mages of other schools exist, but it's in the realm of 200-400 people for an entire continent (the size of the island of UK, but never you mind). And wizards who can cast realm magic are half that number.
In this way legerdemain and seers are common, but true magic (and its equipment) are pretty rare. Or even better, just cap off all spells to 1st & 2nd lvl, dump classes, make people choose professions and skills and run from there!
Can you sell your crew on Runequest? Never played it, but it's on my list of games to look at. It seems to receive kudos here. That, low magic, and maybe a setting change away from Europe might just be what the doctor ordered. (I vote Australian outback. Then you can have a bard with a didgeridoo.)
Quote from: jgants;463019I would love to do some low fantasy. Unfortunately, everyone loves having access to powerful magic.
They might surprise you. My series of Tiwesdaeg campaigns were quite popular, and were low magic. The only ever PC wizard was in the first one, and she chose blood rune magic - magic powered by shedding blood and writing runes with it. Everyone was disgusted by her.
The magic was magical, and the monsters were monstrous.
Magic was a source of wonder, it could not be explained and was viewed with awe and fear. A villain wizard used blood magic to deceive and rape, and was loathed by all. One of his many illegitimate sons was an alchemist hunchback, and every player remembers him stripping naked, smearing himself with a foul-smelling unguent, and flying away with a baby.
Over the several campaigns, the monsters met were a dragon in one campaign, a giant, dwarves in their mountain, an ice giant, and a dog-headed man. The players were, I think, the most afraid of the dog-headed man, living in the ruins of an ancient villa, being fed by superstitious locals.
Quote from: Opaopajr;463174Can you sell your crew on Runequest? Never played it, but it's on my list of games to look at. It seems to receive kudos here. That, low magic, and maybe a setting change away from Europe might just be what the doctor ordered. (I vote Australian outback. Then you can have a bard with a didgeridoo.)
I actually do have some thoughts around using Runequest.
One idea I had is a fantasy setting based on Pre-Incan Peru.
The other was a more mythical Greece theme, inspired by the computer game Titan Quest.