I said, “we’re gonna play a DCC funnel today, here’s a pile of character sheets, grab six.” I sai d, “we’re playing Goblin Quest today” etc. Same way I’m gonna do it next time, “we’re gonna play Vasen today.” Nobody else wants to run the game, so they play the game I run. My interest in other games is mostly to inform the D&D game, try out other rules and style that could be imported to the D&D, so I haven’t Shanghied anyone into a months long adventure they don’t want. Group also plays a wide assortment of board games together. We like to play together and no one is super attached to HOW THINGS HAVE TO BE. I dunno, it’s alway weird to me to hear of people unable to do anything but D&D. In the realm of TTRPGs, it‘s all D&D with different rules and settings…meaning build an imaginative adventure together.
How did you convince your group to try something different?
Thomas Shey
Legend
Note that as you reference yourself, you can do this because you have an effective monopoly.
aramis erak
Legend
I'll note that I've got two new players for my in-store game - N & K. They showed up expecting D&D, but when told, "I'm running Savage Worlds... got your Polyhedrals?"
They both sat down and we took a break to get them through Character Gen. (no complaints from the others!)
They both sat down and we took a break to get them through Character Gen. (no complaints from the others!)
hawkeyefan
Legend
So my long time face to face group was kind of this way. We've played different games over the years, but primarily it was D&D. And anything that was not D&D tended to be short lived, and still generally very traditional in approach (Call of Cthulhu, Mutants & Masterminds, Star Wars, etc.). It got to the point where D&D was assumed to be the game of choice because everyone could agree on it, and everyone was familiar with it.
I was the primary GM for my group, and I was getting tired of running D&D. I was also learning about a bunch of newer games that I'd missed when they had come out, so I was eager to give some of them a try. So I approached my group and said I was going to run something else. If they wanted to play D&D, then one of them would have to step up and GM.
So we started a campaign of Blades in the Dark. It went so well, that they're now happy to try other games. Also, when the pandemic hit and we switched to remote play, we wound up keeping our remote gaming night once a week, and a face to face game every two weeks. So now the weekly remote game is D&D run by one of the others, and the bi-weekly face to face game is something else run by me. So I get to play some D&D, which as the forever GM is a nice change of pace, and I get to run other games. We've played Blades in the Dark, Mothership, Galaxies in Peril, Alien, Spire, 13th Fleet, and Stonetop. All of them have been fun and have gone well.
So I think the best thing to do is to let people know what you want to do and why. Let someone else step up. Learning a new game doesn't need to be very hard. Not all games have as steep a learning curve as D&D. Plus, learning a game can be very engaging. Giving people the option to step up and GM is also a good idea.... it lets people see what it takes from the other side of the screen. I think that helps the overall status of the group... the more folks who GM, the better everyone's understanding of what it takes to run a game. And though it's not universal, GMs tend to make strong players.
If your group is made up of actual long time friends, and they don't want to try anything new, and don't want to take a turn as GM, then I'd suggest trying to find an online group to scratch that itch. And let them know that. There's no reason anyone involved in a group activity should do so only out of a sense of obligation. You should enjoy the time spent as much as anyone else.
I was the primary GM for my group, and I was getting tired of running D&D. I was also learning about a bunch of newer games that I'd missed when they had come out, so I was eager to give some of them a try. So I approached my group and said I was going to run something else. If they wanted to play D&D, then one of them would have to step up and GM.
So we started a campaign of Blades in the Dark. It went so well, that they're now happy to try other games. Also, when the pandemic hit and we switched to remote play, we wound up keeping our remote gaming night once a week, and a face to face game every two weeks. So now the weekly remote game is D&D run by one of the others, and the bi-weekly face to face game is something else run by me. So I get to play some D&D, which as the forever GM is a nice change of pace, and I get to run other games. We've played Blades in the Dark, Mothership, Galaxies in Peril, Alien, Spire, 13th Fleet, and Stonetop. All of them have been fun and have gone well.
So I think the best thing to do is to let people know what you want to do and why. Let someone else step up. Learning a new game doesn't need to be very hard. Not all games have as steep a learning curve as D&D. Plus, learning a game can be very engaging. Giving people the option to step up and GM is also a good idea.... it lets people see what it takes from the other side of the screen. I think that helps the overall status of the group... the more folks who GM, the better everyone's understanding of what it takes to run a game. And though it's not universal, GMs tend to make strong players.
If your group is made up of actual long time friends, and they don't want to try anything new, and don't want to take a turn as GM, then I'd suggest trying to find an online group to scratch that itch. And let them know that. There's no reason anyone involved in a group activity should do so only out of a sense of obligation. You should enjoy the time spent as much as anyone else.
