When you give up on RPGs because you hate the system.

[Odysseus]

Run a game. I hav found that there are folks out there of all stripes and sometime you need to be the change you want to find them. Or run and they will come. It might not be immediately and you might have a few false starts, but patience and persistence is the way.

Got to agree with that. Stick with it. Find a game online until you find something local.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Rifts is still in print, and still releasing new supplements. Moreover, it is still in its first edition, so every supplement is still current and valid!

Well...technically, perhaps, but many of the core books for RIFTS and other Palladium games have been revised, so proceed with caution.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Did you offer to provide pre-made characters? I sometimes find that helps when it comes to introduce players to alternative systems, especially given what you told me of HERO's complex character-creation.

They rejected it out of hand while I was in the planning stages. To clarify a bit more, some of the guys in the group are virtually D&D only gamers. When we briefly played a RIFTS campaign and even more briefly tried Mutants & Masterminds, most of those guys sat out.

I figured a campaign based in something we all enjoyed would get past system preference barriers, and Fantasy HERO gave me the best toolbox for modeling the spells and things like mana from various sources (and different colors) and critters like Slivers.

But I was wrong. Nobody expressed interest after I announced the system. Those who thought I was kluging a M:tG campaign together in 3.5Ed actually withdrew their approval.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One more thing. Step out of your group to run that game. Go to a local con or store or post online that you'd like to run a game at the local library. Basically spread out of your local group into the community of gamers. And run games. I count myself lucky in that I love to run games. In fact I'd rather. But even just running a few, especially in a public venue for other folks, especially at local conventions can do wonders at expanding the group of good players and DM's in your circles.

But don't get frustrated or give up to early or easily. A friend of mine ran a particular style of game, that, frankly I didn't appreciate, and it took him a long time to find folks that did, but find them he did.

In my particular case, I’m in kind of a game shop wasteland. The nearest one to me is in another city, the next closest, another county. Besides, at my age, I’m kinda over GMing for strangers.

 

[Sunseeker]

There are too many systems out there for me to have wanted to quit completely.

Though I have quit certain systems for a while. I've found it's good to diversify. I get my RPG fill through TTRPGs, video games and creative writing. I also enjoy other things on the side. It's easy to get burned out when you're doing one thing all the time.

 

[aramis erak]

While I agree that most times, players will play what a GM wants to run, that isn’t always the case. I was designing a M:tG fantasy campaign in HERO, and announced this to my buddies. They liked the first part of the idea, but no-one wanted to try HERO.

I've found that a lot of players won't play anything but their favorite system (singular). Probably about 1 in 3.
Most of the rest tend to be resistant to playing anything new.

There are literally thousands of games ... but due to the known system bias, most get far fewer players than they deserve.

I've pitched a few games where my available player set said "hell, no"...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I got spoiled by 4 years in Austin. The game group I was in down there (hosted by Alan Hench) at one point decided to institute a system whereby everyone was responsible for running at least one campaign, and each session, everyone prepped for 2 games- the scheduled one and the designated backup. Just in case.

I went from playing D&D, Traveller, and Champions (HERO), to trying out 50 or more different games. By the time I left Austin, I owned over 100 different RPG systems.

 

[darjr]

Go to free rpg day. I've attended since the first or second one, haven't missed yet. Tons of folks show up and there are a plethora of games, plus most places seem to be welcoming to running other games.

 

[GMMichael]

When I play I find my characters are ineffectual because I did not take the correct combination of abilities.

Then stop making succeed/fail rolls. Those are boring anyway. Do things that your GM can't brush off with "you miss," like "I break the wall of the fountain (to flood the battle area)," "I start herding sheep onto the road into the path of the oncoming army," or "I installed a leather strap on the back of our 'tank,' because I'm going to use him as my shield."

It is a shame, I like a tone of the people that play, but the system is so overly complex that I have decided to quit gaming again. Anyone ever feel like this?

Every time I try to look around, and the DM tells me to roll for it.

Spend a little time on Roll20. Start a Meetup based on a simpler game. Or watch Game of Thrones until you build your tolerance back.

 

[prosfilaes]

There are literally thousands of games ... but due to the known system bias, most get far fewer players than they deserve.

I'd say most have far more players than they deserve. Each new system has a cost, an amount of work involved in learning, and in easily 90% of the cases, you could find a better system. I can learn some idiosyncratic system for a new game, but usually I'd get into playing and have less rule-lookup stalls if we just used GURPS or Hero or Fate. And while there's a lot of cute little indie games where the system is easy, really important and matches the world, there's a lot of thick chunky systems where I pick up the book and fall asleep through stuff that wouldn't need to have been said if it were using GURPS. Admittedly, licensing GURPS may be more work than it's worth, but that doesn't make learning a new set of rules on how to jump for every game world more functional for me.