Author: Mike "Talien" Tresca (---.105.163)
Date: 02-14-2002 10:13
This sounds suspiciously like what happened to my group. It's an interesting phenomenon that I haven't seen touched on 'til now. I call it, "My campaign is older than your game system"
My campaign is now 12 years old. People have role-played in it on and off for over a decade. For some, it was a year-long run. For others, it was almost 10 consecutive years. Good times, bad times, the campaign's been around forever.
One day, we wanted to introduce a new gamer to how we role-played. So instead of actually adventuring, we role-played this scenario:
"You're all at a table. You don't have much else to do but have a drink with your friends. So your characters sit down, just like you're sitting down now, and start chatting. GO."
For several hours, I was unnecessary as a Dungeon Master. It was amazing.
At that point, the group suddenly realized we were beyond rules. The characters were so well-defined that D&D, nor any RPG system, could truly define their traits as accurately as the player's perceptions of those characters. In fact, we regularly rewrote characters to make them fit with the latest system -- we had wild mages before there were such things, gladiators before Dark Sun made them stars, gray necromancers who fit Defilers perfectly, etc. But the rules always came later, we just took what fit.
When I got the gaming group back together, D&D seemed to drag the whole system down. So this time, we used White Wolf's system instead.
They hated it. They especially hated White Wolf's combat system -- for them, a vague system was good. "Let me roll the dice, and I'll explain what happens!" they cried.
As the usual strain of travel, work, and family began to take their toll on the group, it became more and more difficult to get everyone together. So we've now pinned our hopes on Neverwinter Nights. It will at least solve the time/travel issue -- our original gaming group is scattered throughout the US, from Hawaii to California to New York. It'd be great to get everyone back together again.
But I digress. After a role-playing group reaches a certain plateau in the same campaign, I believe the campaign takes on a life of its own. Game systems become irrelevant, often cumbersome. Prepackaged game worlds seem like trite, useless fluff that just spikes the price of the product. After awhile, if it can't fit into YOUR world, it just isn't worth purchasing.
For awhile, I thought our group was unique. But I'm beginning to suspect the "Grognard Group" is a historical measure that will increase as the gaming populace ages.
Mike "Talien" Tresca
http://www.retromud.org/talien
|
|
