I get into so much trouble when I start thinking about my next game.
Like…right now we’re running Scum and Villainy. It’s fun! No complaints. I’m at a place where I need to start digging more into actual prep between sessions, and we’re going to have a 3 week break between sessions which usually kills a game for me. But I’m doing my level best to keep my eyes on the prize.
But then my brain’s like…hey, isn’t Legacy 2nd Edition gonna be cool when we start it?
This is deeply unfair to my players. I know it is! But they’re endlessly forgiving of my flighty interests, my shifting passions. It’s probably unhealthy, even codependent, but they’ll forgive nearly anything. To their credit, they know that I run my best game when I’m most enthusiastic. And I’m most enthusiastic when the bloom has not yet come off the rose.
I regret a few games having come to a premature end because something new and shiny came along: King Arthur Pendragon’s The Great Pendragon Campaign was going great through the Uther Era, but the last year of that pissed me off so I started looking for reasons to quit. I could have absolutely, totally found a way to fix the year where everyone’s scripted to die (spoilers, y’all, everyone dies at the end of Uther). I think Mutant: Genlab Alpha or something was the next thing. It wasn’t nearly as good.
I brought our Darkening of Mirkwood campaign to a premature end for similar reasons! Had at least a dozen sessions in, which is a lot for me, and I just got…itchy. I get the 12 Session Itch, which is my gaming version of the Seven Year Itch I guess.
So I’m looking at Scum and Villainy with every honorable intention. But my heart belongs to the next pretty girl who walks by, whose name is Legacy.
kudos for not using the obv pic!
Also, same. Now that I’ve decided to wrap our current campaign in my wed. game my brain decided that I’ve already wrapped it and refuses to engage with it anymore. Blargh.
I think a lot of GMs are like that. I know I am. Half the fun of running a game is trying a new system for me.
Paul, you have been diagnosed with GADD – Game Attention Deficit Disorder. I on the other hand have OGD Obsessive Game Disorder. Welcome to the spectrum.
At the end of the Uther Period, I just said to my players, “Hey, everybody, the end of this session, everyone in the castle gets poisoned,” then played to see what would happen. Every character but one managed to be dead from heroic violence or conveniently absent by session’s end.
One of my PCs who had been romancing a Saxon princess said to me “Does the book say who did the poisoning?” and I said no. He said, “I think it was me.”
So, that was cool. And then the game fell apart before we could start Anarchy. Sadness.
Anarchy looks pretty cool, too. Wanted to see how that grid worked.
Brand Robins : Look! NEXT GAME! SHINY!
Mo Jave :NOOOOOO STAY HERE WITH ME FOREVER!
I’m running Mouseguard starting this weekend and already planning Torchbearer…
We have probably one last drama packed session left of the Masks game I’m running, and I want to chew my arm off to escape. Supervillains fall, everybody dies.
Hah! I’m running Legacy:Life Among the Ruins as well as Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea & I spend most of my planning/daydreaming about my future B/X game and the next FitD game I’ll run (maybe Scum and Villainy, maybe Band of Blades). The grass is always greener…
This is always a problem with me but it’s particularly aggravated by summer scheduling. We don’t play often so there’s no momentum to either game. I feel bad about it but my hearts not fully in either game. The Legacy case is esp. difficult because I don’t actually have my books yet and because there’s a learning curve. Each player has four (!) two-sided reference sheets in addition to their character sheet, their Family sheet and one or more NPCs they play. It’s a lot. It really is a great game though.
In fact, some of my distraction is actually the next Legacy campaign I’ll run. The one where I really have the procedures down and we’re able to play more regularly.
(sigh)
Matthew Gagan oh yeah: I’m already planning our first Legacy game to be training for the next Legacy game, because those alternate settings look gonzo.
I think the trick is two games a week!
I’m looking forward to your Legacy write-ups Paul Beakley
For being a PA game based on Apocalypse World it has significant differences beyond the Family & Legacy elements. The lack of an in-the-moment “read a sitch” or “discern realities” move threw us for a loop at first but I ultimately decided it was cool tech. Lots of other smaller things.
I, too, anxiously await Legacy. But that won’t see play for awhile. I’ll probably have to ease my group into Apocalypse World 2e first. I’m hoping that will get them interested in non-D&D games; that or Fiasco.
But I’d honestly kill for anything other than D&D. Well, just about anything. Careful what you wish for, etc..
There are many worse games than D&D.
I have very subtly canned my Masks game, not because I don’t like it, but because my KS game stack has reached guilt-inducing heights. So, it’s Tianxia and City of Mist over here for a while. Then maybe Headspace and Legacy, eventually.
I think this post is the start of a very important conversation. This gives me ways to grapple with neophilia.
I am trying to wrap my head around the Champions Now playtest draft, with zero previous experience of Champions. It is very hard to get a firm grip on the procedures it is almost a stream of conscious commentary on the original 3rd ed Champions books. Tough. I hope Ron gets a good editor for the actual game. The Sorcerer reboot was frustrating from this point of view too (but we had a fun time and it was great to read, just not to tell us how to play).
Two sessions into Zweihander and I’m already working out how I’ll fix Dungeon World.
Doesn’t help that the Zweihander rules seem hopelessly (and pointlessly) complex, at least for half the players.