Sorry for the lack of posts. School year is winding to a close and so there's lots of things to do: grades, comments, awards, alumni, etc....
But right now I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out what it is that would make me want to DM for a long time without campaign boredom setting in. It would be nice to know what it is that pulls my attention away and installs a strong sense of ennui. Maybe it's the rules or maybe it's my lack of confidence in myself or maybe I really do just suck as a DM. I would like to think the last one is not true because a lot of folks want to play in my games. But that could also be because I'm an easy DM and the puzzles or challenges are easy. See, confidence....
What if I get bored with the rules? Or, what is it about the rules at 6th, 7th or 8th level that turns me off so? Honestly, I don't know. Maybe it's because I never have a storyline; the players make the story go. Or maybe it's because I have never learned how to make groups of monsters work together and make sense working together. I don't know. All I do know is that time is running out for me to make a decision and start a real campaign. So, here's the options I'm thinking about.
1) Swords & Wizardry 3rd printing as base rules. Add in a few extras like the Background table from the Dungeon Crawl Classics game and a few other character races like gnomes and mess with the magic rules a little. Set it in Blackmoor.
2) 1e house rules AD&D. My first love. Add in the 2e thief as a replacement option for the 1e thief. Dump half-elf and half-orc as races. Allow only the Big 4 classes. Still use the DCC background table. Disallow Chaotic Neutral and all Evil alignments for PCs. Set it in the City State of the Invincible Overlord.
And a new one cropped up the other day, Searchers of the Unknown. I stumbled on it in a reference on Jeff Rient's gameblog. It makes the PCs use the same stat blocks the monsters have in Basic D&D or in Swords & Wizardry. Nice little mechanic for saves and combat too. I'm going to give it a shot on Friday with a group and see how it plays out. It certainly has possibilities.
Okay, gotta go tutor a kid for an AP Physics test. More later.....if I can find the time.
10 comments:
Here are a couple of off-the-wall ideas which (theoretically) might extend interest in your campaign. Tie your system choice to stuff going on externally. To wit:
1) Commemorative editions of 1st edition D&D are going to be released this summer. If you choose 1st Ed. the choice of that system may spark player interest given I predict a multi-month surge of 1e games and blog posts once these books hit. Might be fun to be playing it when the buzz starts (especially as a newer player who might not have ever played 1e). If you’re ever going to do 1e again, this year is the time.
2) If you choose Swords and Wizardry you have the option of doing a custom campaign setting or custom rules system. Both S&W and Black Marsh (the Black Moor retroclone at http://www.rpgnow.com/product/89944/Blackmarsh) are OGL. With a bit of work you could publish a house ruled campaign either as a custom campaign setting or as a standalone ruleset. This is similar to what I did with Lost Empires (see http://roguecomet.com/downloads/). (BTW I put my investment in Lost Empires on hold both because my wife started graduate school -- but if you have interest in self-publishing I could assist -- I did everything in free OpenOffice tools BTW). But there are cool possibilities with Swords & Wizardry -- you could add Savage World style hindrances and other house rules and commerically publish your own setting or system.
But back to your main topic -- I’m not in your D&D group, but my vote would be for S&W. :-)
‘Searchers of the Unknown’ has promise -- reminds me of Microlight (http://www.retroroleplaying.com/content/microlite74). I like the 100 XP per HD rule -- I’ve used that before.
I think you misunderstand, Stan. I tend to lose interest around the time the players are about 7th level. In fact, it's become a bit of a joke in the other group. I always attributed it to the difficulty of putting together good encounters with the 3.x rules. Plus, I don't do story games. I set out hooks and let the players pick where to go.
Thanks for the input, though. I'm leaning toward S&W because I like the flexibility.
Steve,
Some of it may be the dynamic of that group. But I'll point out that your "other group" doesn't seem to play the same thing for more than a few sessions.
If you're going to push D&D/S&W past about 7th level or so you need to move to the end game: strongholds, territory, etc.
I don't know most of your other players but I've met very few folks, outside of the Alehouse, who actually have any interest in that since it makes D&D an elaborate backstory to a miniatures wargame.
It may be temperament, rather than game system, that militates against any fruitful play beyond that level.
Suggestions for solutions...
1) Consider starting everyone off around 7th level; maybe it's the grind of getting to 7th that leaves you bored and the players worn out.
2) Consider a setting that has a natural end game: graduating from a course of study, power politics in ancient Rome, Charlemagne's court, or Byzantium.
3) Consider something even more "free-form" than S&W; although I don't know what that would look like. :(
Sorry that's all my fever-addled brain can manage at the moment.
Chris! Get off the computer! You're sick and you'll give it a virus!
You may be right, Chris, but 3.x doesn't have the end game that D&D/AD&D did. Hmmmm....maybe I'll give that a try....
>>I tend to lose interest around the time the players are about 7th level.<<
I know you're not looking at 3.x, but maybe the concepts of E6 might be worth considering. E6 has the idea that levels 1-6 are "Gritty fantasy" and you basically slow or stop your characters leveling after this. You could apply E6 concepts to S&W I suppose.
Maybe you could flat out set expectations that characters retire at Level 7, and/or plan an end game to retire characters at that point (as opposed to just letting interest peter out). I know one group who actually planned an elaborate self-sacrificing end to their characters at the end of the campaign -- the characters died as legends, and they rolled up new characters. :-)
E6 links:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?352719-necro-goodness-E6-The-Game-Inside-D-amp-D
http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/E6_(3.5e_Sourcebook)
What is it about play at levels >=7 that your players want?
What about those levels, purely in the abstract, do you feel unable to deliver?
If it's not the "grind" of getting there that wears you out, is it something about player expectations at that "level" that inclines you to avoid running those kinds of games?
Hmmm....interesting questions, Chris. It may be that the group hasn't given me much in the way of feedback in terms of which direction they want to go next. I list the hooks that have been presented as well as other options due to their actions, and generally get no real response.
I'm pretty sure it's not the grind that brings me down. Generally I'm barely paying attention to their XP totals.
I really think it's the difficulty of having to prepare so much for such games in those rulesets. It's easier if there's just less crap to deal with.
So really, it's play at levels >=7 in 3.x/Pathfinder that is the issue because of the ever-increasing prep complexity, but maybe play in 0e/1e/S&W at levels >=7 might not be an issue?
On a side note, I don't remember what sort of XP rules we had in my group in the 80's by my most memorable character ran for 4 years. We played probably 10-12 hours a week for those 4 years and we only got to level 7! I think we did mostly roleplaying and only got XP for killing monsters I suppose.
Yeah, I preferred the old method of XP awards: gold and monsters. Under 3.5, your group gets something like 100 xp for an orc defeated. It's only 5 to 7 xp in OD&D.
What was the old OD&D XP award for Gold? I believe I've seen 1 gp = 1 XP used more recently, but I don't recall what (if any) XP we got for gold back in the day (assuming the official rules even spelled that out).
Post a Comment