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I visited a friend in another city recently and he bemoaned that he couldn't get anyone to play anything other than Dungeons & Dragons with him. When he suggested they play something other than D&D, the common response was "What, like Pathfinder?"

This hasn't been my gaming experience. Most everyone I've ever played with have been game for anything. Pretty sure if I said to my gaming group: "Today, we're playing potato chips trying to escape the chip bag before being eaten. I've made up a crunchy system for us to use", they'd say "Okay!"

But, this is not the first time I've heard from someone else they can't get players to broaden system perspective.

What are your experiences?

//Panjumanju

We've played several different systems, but rarely genres other than some of the more common fantasy sub genres.  For us, it's mainly that everyone in the room is interested in other things, but our particular fantasy likes are the only ones we all have in common.  We'd rather play something we all enjoy, rather than cycle through things that only most of us enjoy.  Admittedly, it also helps that none of us are particularly bored by our common interests, either.

We rotate games (and GMs) every couple months or so. Our selection of games and styles varies wildly, from railroads to sandboxes from fantasy to sci-fi from adventure parties to intraparty drama, old school and new school.

We have the Gamer ADD; someone gets all het up on a new system or someone isn't liking where the current game is going; and we end up abandoning it. Our campaigns, generally, run for roughly 3-8 months.

I'm in the grey area between "My gaming group really only plays one game, but it's not D&D" and "We change systems every few months".

I play in two gaming groups. One of them, really only plays one game [Call of Cthulhu], and that's by design. I started the group for that purpose, and I recruited players that explicitly wanted to play CoC. I've run a few variants of CoC for them (Delta Green, Cthulhu by Gaslight), but that's about it.

In the second group, I'm a player, and we have played more of a variety of Rpgs. Mostly Gurps, but some Mutant Chronicles 3e, Alternity, etc. But campaigns typically run at least a year, so we're not switching systems that frequently.

I'm not much of a D&D fan. I don't enjoy playing it anymore - regardless of edition, retroclone, whatever. It just doesn't hold any appeal for me, and when I (rarely) want to run/play a fantasy rpg, I can think of plenty of other options.

Unless I'm running the game it's D&D 90% of the time which would make you assume it's their favourite except they keep trying to get me to run games :confused:

I've been in 'Gamer ADD' groups and didn't enjoy it... playing a variety of games is fun, but not constant upheavals chasing the new hotness.
It's hard to escape D&D and its ilk around here, which is part of why playing online has been a godsend. Not that I hate D&D anything close to what I used to... but it's nice to have options/variety.

My group will play other things, but if anything my players are stuck on Savage Worlds. We just finished a D&D 5e game and have three SW games going now, so we won't be doing anything else for the foreseeable future. I have a bunch of games I'd like to play/run one day, though. By the time I finish up East Texas University, the list is going to be pretty long. Midnight, Stars Without Number, Warhammer Fantasy, Adventures in Middle-earth, Dresden Files Accelerated...

We started out playing AD&D and then transitioned into Rifts in the mid 90's and in the late 90's we transitioned to Palladium Fantasy + Rifts and in 2004 we started up with GURPS and would transition between GURPS and Palladium but in the early 2010's we moved to being mostly a GURPS group and in the last year we've started to move back towards Palladium. With Dungeon Fantasy we are jumping back into GURPS.

I'm perfectly happy running either system. When we play new games it tends to be at conventions or one-shots when we don't have a full group but still want to game. We will run DF RPG for a nice campaign but then I want to get back to being just a Palladium group after next year's open house.

Hmm, poll is missing an option...

These days I form play groups around the game I'm playing. While I currently only have one face-to-face game slot, I do run a variety of play by post games. Each PbP game has a different group of players, though there are several players who play in multiple groups.

Frank

No option for "many games that aren't D&D"?

Quote from: Dumarest;984213No option for "many ganes that aren't D&D"?

Man, there's only one Ganes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganes_(band)). Humorously, this would be the kind of site where I might expect to meet a person who listens to Ladin-language folk music. :p

Oh, right, and--

Currently have one 5e D&D group, and one group doing a home-brew post-apoc system. That group has previously done Paranoia, Hero System, d20 hodge-podge, and a few more in the past decade.

Quote from: Dumarest;984213No option for "many ganes that aren't D&D"?

There's no implication in the last few options that D&D is involved in the selection, you could pick one of those.

If I could change the options for the poll now, I would have added "We generally play one system and it's not D&D".

//Panjumanju

I can't vote, because it assumes only one group. I have different groups (with some player overlap) for different games.  I mostly play various sorts of D&D, but I have a White Star game going too now. I guess White Star is D&D-based so you could say I only play D&D?
Looking at groups, I have one tabletop for 4e D&D, one tabletop & one online for 5e D&D, playing in one or two online 1e AD&D/OSRIC games, and the White Star game. One or two players from the 4e game are in the the 5e tabletop game, and similar overlap with online games.

On broadening system - if I were able & willing to run something other than D&D I reckon I could get players for it.

I tend to want to mix things up every 15-20 sessions (based on looking at my rpggeek stats). I'll switch us to a different campaign (either a new one or back to one we've previously played) to keep me from getting burned out.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;984223Man, there's only one on Ganes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganes_(band)). Humorously, this would be the kind of site where I might expect to meet a person who listens to Ladin-language folk music. :p

Got me. :D

I answered "My gaming group really only plays one game, but it's not D&D." However, that is true only because of the infrequency with which my friend Simon runs his AD&D1 game. If he ran it more often, I would have answered "Dungeons & Dragons is part of a healthy variety of games we play." I don't know about the "healthy" part.

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https://sites.google.com/site/grreference/

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/218159/Glory-Road-Roleplay-Core-Rules

Quote from: S'mon;984239I can't vote, because it assumes only one group. I have different groups (with some player overlap) for different games.

That's why I set it so you could give more than one answer.
Come on, S'mon, vote.

//Panjumanju

With all my groups, we change systems with campaigns, meaning once every couple of years, not in months. That said D&D pretty much isn't part of the menu, because my core players aren't fans of it, and would much rather play Exalted 1st Edition, with the rolling of loads of dices and instakills.

So, what do I vote?

Quote from: Panjumanju;984285That's why I set it so you could give more than one answer.
Come on, S'mon, vote.

//Panjumanju

OK... I voted We really only play D&D. Exceptions are difficult to make for my D&D groups, and My gaming group really only plays one game, but it's not D&D for my White Star group.

We rotate games.

Currently a friend is running Castle Amber (original) but modified it for D&D 5e.

I run 2 Mutants and Masterminds 3e, one is a no-magic street level-ish campaign, the other is an all teen Emerald City game (using the GR Earth-Prime setting.)

And other friend is running a Marvel FASERIP game entirely in the old, cancelled MMO City of Heroes setting.

We also did a Star Trek game which is on hiatus.

Lejendary Adventure for the most part, with occasional, mostly D&D departures. Sometimes other RPGs, but most of them just don't end up meshing for a diverse group. 60/30/10 for LA/DnD/Other is about right.

There are too many good games out there to limit our options.

I grow restless and switch frequently. Could be Flashing Blades for a while, then Traveller '77, then The Fantasy Trip, then Space: 1889, then Heroes of Olympus, then Bushido, the James  Bond 007, then DC Heroes...!

Pretty much anything but D&D. Nothing against it, though;  I just have no interest in it and don't care for the rules much.

Quote from: AsenRG;984300So, what do I vote?

Just say every couple of weeks...but you're on a longer rotation. The spirit is the same.

I was really just interested in the responces, especially given the recent GenCon schedule, which seems to be more than 50% D&D and its variants, and painfully little else.

//Panjumanju

Quote from: Dumarest;984213No option for "many games that aren't D&D"?

Quote from: ffilz;984208Hmm, poll is missing an option...

More than one I'd say.

Quote from: Panjumanju;984231There's no implication in the last few options that D&D is involved in the selection, you could pick one of those.

Those don't really apply either.

We haven't played D&D in this century. (I don't think Star Wars D20 counts as D&D, does it?) We do play multiple systems. But we don't change systems very frequently. Our campaigns will run for a year or three and then we switch to another setting and a different system. In this century we've alternated between Star Wars D6, Call of Cthulhu, and Honor+Intrigue. Lately I've been tempted to start up a new fantasy campaign maybe using Runequest, Stormbringer, or BRP for the system.

Oh and we tend not to end campaigns. Some of the Call of Cthulhu characters are part of a group of investigators we started back in the 1980s. We've put them down and picked them back up 3 or 4 times now.

We tend to bounce between D&D (5e) and Savage Worlds, but my players are open to new experiences and have always left it ultimately up to me.

We play a new game every few years, generally whatever I want to run. Occasionally we'll play a short campaign with another player as GM.

Didn't vote, as there are no remotely accurate options.

Edit: actually, I ended up selecting D&D amongst other games as, although I doubt I'll be running any D&D any time soon, 1E, 3E and 4E are amongst the games I've run in the past 15-odd years.

In the past year I've run Call of Cthulhu, Werewolf: The Apocalypse (though without werewolves), Changeling: The Dreaming, Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom (no, really), and I'm planning/writing at least three other games. I've played in a game of Mage: The Ascension, Dark Ages Vampire, and three different pick-up Pathfinder games. One of our players was threatening to run a pick-up game of D&D 5th Edition for us, but we were lucky enough to dodge that bullet. :)  

My group likes to try new things, and they've figured out that if the GM is enthusiastic about a game he wants to run, it's usually worth taking a chance on it.

I'm excited to see there's so much diversity in games being played.
I wonder if this poll would garner similar results on the big purple.

//Panjumanju

To quote my wife "we don't really care about the system, as long as it doesn't get in the way of role-playing".

We play my homebrew system that we've been playing/testing for year or so. We started years ago with DwD Studios Barebones Fantasy and we play tested FrontierSpace for DwD Studios. And they love rolling up characters for Classic Traveller. Nothing against other systems, but our homebrew handles the genres (fantasy and sci-fi/steampunk) fine, and was written explicitly to support the type of game they like, so we just use it.

Quote from: Panjumanju;984549I'm excited to see there's so much diversity in games being played.
I wonder if this poll would garner similar results on the big purple.

//Panjumanju

I think posters here tend to actually play games more than the average poster on TBP. A lot of posters there are into theorycrafting more than actually rolling dice.

Quote from: Panjumanju;984549I'm excited to see there's so much diversity in games being played.
I wonder if this poll would garner similar results on the big purple.

//Panjumanju

FATE  can do that.

Lately, we have been playing everything using Mongoose's Traveller, but it is not a conscious choice kind a thing. It just happened...

I play in two FTF groups, one very long running and one about six weeks old. The long running group plays 4 games each session of 12 weeks. Members put up game options and players vote for which one they want to play in. The next session has a game of The Sprawl a 5e game a modified version of Mutant Chronicles and a Mythras/D100 fantasy game. Current session has a Fate Dresden Files game, a Dungeon Crawl Classics game, a Cortex sci fi game and a Fate Fantasy game. So there is s decent amount of gaming variety going on. A spread of players across all ages with the majority in their 30's and 40's

The second group is just getting it's feet wet. I ran the first part of two Headed Serpent for Pulp cthulhu and played a game of Russ Morrissey's N.E.W sci fi game. Other games include a Fate one shot, Psi-run and a couple of 5e games. The plan  is to offer new games as people finish a game so there will be a constantly rotating set of games (although I can see 5e predominating). This group skews younger as it's located in a university town.

I play all kinds of stuff.

I run two games a week. I'm a player in zero. I really don't want to do much besides fill in the Greyhawk map.

The person running this website is a racist who publicly advocates genocidal practices.

I am deleting my content.

I recommend you do the same.

Quote from: Dumarest;984566FATE  can do that.

It is hilarious how often FATE is recommended on TBP but I'd say this forum's FATE is Gurps. Almost any proposed setting gets a 'use Gurps.'

Our group will basically play anything once. The long term games always seem to return to D&D, Traveller and World of Darkness of different stripes though.

Quote from: Voros;987855It is hilarious how often FATE is recommended on TBP but I'd say this forum's FATE is Gurps. Almost any proposed setting gets a 'use Gurps.'

GURPS can do FATE.

Quote from: Dumarest;987968GURPS can do FATE.

You win. :D

I'm part of 2 groups (with a lot of player overlap).  

One group meets monthly and we're in the middle of a years long Anima: Beyond Fantasy game and a shorter, maybe 12 sessions, D&D5E game.  Before that was a years long Pathfinder campaign and a shorter Riddle of Steel and a short Yggdrasil game.  After the D&D5E game we're going to give Iron Kingdoms a chance.

The other group meets weekly and we go for about 4-6 months before switching or starting up a 2nd game.  Currently we're playing a Mythic Pathfinder game.  Before that was The Strange which replaced a Shadows of Esteren one and before that was Conspiracy X.  We're currently looking at a few different games to be next including: The Sprawl, Godbound, Fantasy Flight Star Wars or Mutant Year Zero.

So, while not strictly a D&D group, D&D/Pathfinder, or I guess more likely fantasy games, seem to pop up every few rotations.

Quote from: Bren;987972You win. :D

Does somebody owe me a beer now, and can I substitute red wine instead?

Quote from: Dumarest;988020Does somebody owe me a beer now, and can I substitute red wine instead?

Beer? wine? Wild Turkey tastes better, works faster and you wake up in the same jail.

Quote from: Dumarest;988020Does somebody owe me a beer now, and can I substitute red wine instead?

GURPS can substitute a wine for beer.

Well if a game we wanna play has its own system and it's well suited to the setting and works well enough we'll just run the system. Like the FFG system in the wh40k RPG games they did. The system worked, was fairly easy and fit the setting g so we learned and used it.

Quote from: Voros;988128GURPS can substitute a wine for beer.

It could, but it would feel awkward.

Quote from: Voros;988128GURPS can substitute a wine for beer.

Yes, it can, if you use Low-Tech;).

I picked "change every few months," which is the closest to what we end up with. We have a couple GMs, so we tend to just kind of switch off. I usually run 1e AD&D or original D&D, with an occasional BRP game thrown into the mix. The other main GM has usually runs Warhammer Fantasy (2e) or Labyrinth Lord with the Advanced companion or Call of Cthulhu. He ran another Games Workshop RPG, too. Dark Heresy, I believe.

I haven't had a regular group for a long time, mostly just pick up games at Cons.

When I did have a regular group most were really good at trying new things, there were a few D&D die hards (ok, really just one who would wheedle and whine about why the game du jour sucked. The others D&D was just their default all things being equal, but they were cool with other games).

We typically changed games every 4-6 months, with a few in regular rotation but only getting together weekly / bi-weekly. At the peak when we were gaming a couple times a week, game of the week or month was definitely a thing.

While OSR is usually my default umbrella-system, because I'm typically running 3 or 4 games at a time, there's usually at least one system being run that isn't OSR.  Right now there's Aces & Eights, for example. And before that Traveller.

Quote from: RPGPundit;989165While OSR is usually my default umbrella-system, because I'm typically running 3 or 4 games at a time, there's usually at least one system being run that isn't OSR.  Right now there's Aces & Eights, for example. And before that Traveller.

Did you back the 2nd Edition of Aces & Eights?

Quote from: Ulairi;989217Did you back the 2nd Edition of Aces & Eights?

Nope. I'm using the original edition.