Do Your Tastes Change?

Verdande · Sep 7, 2010

My tastes certainly change. When I was a little younger, I was more than happy "building" characters with multiple classes and powers and stuff, and attempting to gain total systems mastery. It used to be interesting to me to do those sorts of things, and I don't know that a simpler game would have kept my attention.

Now, though? I don't even like games where that can happen. I've always been a "seat of the pants" style DM, and now I'm finding games where that's actually encouraged. It's kind of neat, really.

As a side note, now I really prefer my games to be short. After producing my own little miniature projects, it's astounding how much you can fit in a few short pages when you don't over-explain every minute detail with irrelevant cruft that gets ignored as soon as it hits my table. As a good example, I wrote the Aremorican Addendum, a book that essentially replaces every class and magic system in B/X or BECMI D&D, and it took less than thirty pages, including an introduction and a good dozen charts. If you can't express a full game to me in less than fifty pages, you're wasting your time. This doesn't count advice, of course, since the more written there, the better.

The big revelation for me was when I realized that the entirety of the rules for my favored version of D&D, if you don't count the enormous appendices that are the spell listings, monster catalogues, and magic item lists, was no more than maybe twenty pages that covers character creation, how to do things, random stocking of dungeons, everything. What happened to valuing that economy of words?

Smoss · Sep 7, 2010

Definitely. I started with AD&D 2e as a freshman in college. It was not long before I was house ruling and modifying trying to reach a certain different feel.

Then 3e came out. It had a lot of what I was looking for and I had a lot of fun with it.

Then I wanted something different and began new house rules to reach towards it (Which was version 1.0 of my RPG system).

SW Saga came out and I loved the direction they took - It made me excited for what they might do with 4e. So I used SW Saga to completely revamp my house rules - Tying them to Saga vs 3.5e (version 2.0)

Then 4e came out and I did not like what they had done. I took a couple ideas and boosted my RPG system to version 2.5 - Taking it from a wrapper to a full (If still vastly derivative) system.

Then came my 3.0 and 4.0 major revisions to my system. So now I have a game that moves fast in combat while also feeling gritty and realistic. Fitting my current tastes to a tee.

Looking back at the old systems, they were fun at the time and I enjoyed them, but I could never go back to them now. They would feel too clunky. And feel too much like superhero fantasy to me. So yeah, my tastes have gone in the direction of "Faster gameplay with less damn bookeeping" and "gritty and realistic". Not things people normally expect to show up combined into one system (Which is why I made it myself).
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Smoss
Doulairen

Psion · Sep 7, 2010

I go in cycles. Some things I'll play for a few months, only to get tired of it, but come back to it next year.

The Shaman · Sep 8, 2010

I've changed systems through the years, and in most cases changed back to something I played early on, but the genres of games I enjoy, and the experiences that I think are unique to roleplaying games, are the same now as they were thirty years ago.

Kzach · Sep 8, 2010

Yeup, definitely.

If you'd asked me eleven years ago what I wanted out of an RPG system, I would've answered pretty closely to what 3e delivered. Even after I was soured on it, if you'd asked me what I wanted out of a system, I never would've even thought of 4e. Yet, here I am, and it's my favourite edition of the lot.

Having said that, I'm not really open to new systems. I'm not really a "Jack of all Trades" type. I'm more of a specialist. I like to know everything I can about the one thing and do the best I can and get the most I can out of that one thing. So for me, 4e makes me happy and I'm not really looking for anything else. The errata and other mechanics changes are more than enough to keep up with as it is, let alone trying to master and keep up to date with other systems.

faith1806 · Sep 8, 2010

of course, mine change, and i think most people's do. and our tastes will be changing all the time

faith1806 · Sep 8, 2010

of course, mine change, and i think most people's do. and our tastes will be changing all the time

alms66 · Sep 8, 2010

I have to agree with that, I'd think everyone's tastes would change, even if only a little bit over time.

Me personally, I've always leaned towards the more gritty, dark and realistic fantasy - not that I don't play other varieties of fantasy, I just play that variety most often. I guess that's why, more often than not, GURPS has been my go-to game system as it lends itself to that style better than any other system I've played thus far and my own homebrew as my setting. After years of playing GURPS though, it's gone stale for me, so now I'm really in limbo in terms of system and have been picking up lots of new stuff lately. Prophecy RPG, Shard RPG, Rolemaster, Hero System - just all kinds of stuff...

However, I just got the new Fantasy Hero in today and I'm about halfway through reading the thing, and I'm feeling like I could really get into Hero System now. I love the flexibility, the whole "create exactly what you want with no compromises" ability that the game system offers, it truly is a thing of beauty. It's the only system on the market like that, as far as I know. I mean sure, I could rip out the magic system from GURPS and just write my own, but then I'd have to playtest it for a while and balance, playtest, rebalance, etc.

I know I'm sounding a bit like a Hero System fan-boy now, I'm really not as I love playing a variety of systems, always have, always will. But, do yourself a favor and check out Hero System 6E if you're looking for something new. It's a little heavy on the math, but for that amount of flexibility, I think it's a small price to pay. Especially since I've never once seen a magic system that works the way I think magic should work in an RPG, and Hero gives me the pre-balanced and playtested rules to let me build it exactly how I want it.

:giddy:

Aeolius · Sep 8, 2010

Of course tastes change.

In 1995, my preferences were 1e, pre-Wars Greyhawk, flumphs, demons, and night hags.

Now my preferences run towards 3e, post-Wars Greyhawk, undersea adventures, flumphs, outsiders, and hags in general.

See? Loads of change.

MutieMoe · Sep 8, 2010

Yes, quite often, not in darling of the week sense but according to some people I know in almost random fashion. It would drive me nuts to stick just one game and one interprentation of genre and it's conventions it presents. Most games I'm willing to try if I grog them.

For example just few days ago I thought retroclone without a monsters list is seriously gimped (Just because of principle, monster list was just something I expected to see.) but after giving a thought to design principle behind it I was soon doing my own monster list.

Sometimes I don't get the game and it leads to hilarious trainwrecks like my "Surf Nazis Must Die - Shadowrun sessions of infamy" and sometimes I just don't get the whole idea game like happened with Nobilis that I really didn't even manage to pull together a working game session. (luckily the copy found new home).