Who Decides What You Play?

[Velderan]

So there's a couple scenarios my group uses. For system, that's the GMs call. Since that's usually me, I've told them if anyone else feels like running something I have no interest in running, I will happily be a player in whatever anyone else wants to run.

For campaigns, it's usually been the GM saying "I want to run this, here's the gist of it" and so far that's been fine. I picked our current PF2 AP (Abomination Vaults) largely because a couple people in the group had expressed interest in a dungeon crawl like Dungeon of the Mad Mage so AV seemed like a good way to switch systems and give them the campaign concept they want. Since the AP runs to 11 and they wanted to play to 20, I offered the 2 existing APs that go from 11-20 and they picked Stolen Fate so that's next. Whenever it is we're done with that, I'll offer up a few different APs I'd enjoy running and let them pick whatever they like. If for whatever reason they don't like any of the options, I'll probably ask what they'd want me to run.

For our Call of Cthulhu one shot games, I pick a scenario and send out a text to our group saying "I want to run a CoC game on this date, who's in?" and go from there. I don't give them any hints on what it is or what it's about, they trust I know their tastes and I picked it because I thought they'd enjoy it. If it sucks, we're out a few hours of time. No big deal.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Someone in my group, typically me, pitches several games along with a campaign idea for each system. I typically give them anywhere between 3-5 campaign ideas and they decide which one to play. On one occasion, I asked them to give tme their choices in order of preference and assigned points to their choices. i.e. Their first pick was worth 4 points, their second 3, and so on and so forth. I don't remember which campaign we ended up playing, but it wasn't anyone's first pick.

I did that in the past, but I came to the conclusion it ended up producing campaigns that no player really wanted, and that seemed counterproductive even if it killed off all the games people really actively didn't want.

 

[payn]

I did that in the past, but I came to the conclusion it ended up producing campaigns that no player really wanted, and that seemed counterproductive even if it killed off all the games people really actively didn't want.

One thing I really like about online play is being able to put out specific advertisements. Typically, you get folks interested in what you are selling and not compromising out the gate amongst a group of disparate tates.

 

[MGibster]

I did that in the past, but I came to the conclusion it ended up producing campaigns that no player really wanted, and that seemed counterproductive even if it killed off all the games people really actively didn't want.

I hadn't quite thought of that but I can certainly see how that could be an outcome. I don't remember how exactly the numbers were distributed, I can't even remember what campaign was selected, but I remember nobody's first pick was selected and the game we played was at least one person's last pick. When you're dealing with multiple participants, I feel there's always a chance whichever game/campaign is being run that someone won't be the least bit interested in it.

 

[payn]

I hadn't quite thought of that but I can certainly see how that could be an outcome. I don't remember how exactly the numbers were distributed, I can't even remember what campaign was selected, but I remember nobody's first pick was selected and the game we played was at least one person's last pick. When you're dealing with multiple participants, I feel there's always a chance whichever game/campaign is being run that someone won't be the least bit interested in it.

Assuming my last choice was something I really didn't want to play, id likely bow out of the game. Though, thats easy for me to say now that online gaming has greatly expanded my options.

 

[aramis erak]

When it is time to start a new campaign, how do you and your group decide what to play? I have included as many poll options as I can think of, but I am sure I missed some, so feel free to explain in the thread.

Note that I tried to separate it into existing groups and new (or new-ish) groups. The difference I am getting at is between the same 6 people playing together for years or decades, versus a group formed specifically for a game.

Also note that I limited it to one answer, so choose the option that is most common for you.

For my part, I usually decide I want to run something and then wrangle players. The difficulty of doing so is usually proportional to how close to 5E D&D I am proposing to run.

Thanks.

Other:
I propose 2-3 campaigns, specifying the system, let the players pick which of the offerings we go with.

 

[thullgrim]

Since I’m the only GM in the group sometimes I just declare this is what I’m running next. I have to really excited about it though to just declare by fiat.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Usually I drive everything as GM, but not only do I only start pushing for us to try something only once I see that it has something for everyone in the group, I tend to get some of them excited for the idea before I actually propose playing it.

This actually came up kind of recently when one of the players started pushing to try Cyberpunk RED, but everyone else was kind of meh on it, I ended up getting them all excited for Chronicles of Darkness instead and the original player was pretty happy since it contained major elements of what appealed to them about Cyberpunk-- it was just a better fit for everyone else too. So now they've got their katana wielding, submachine gun toting vamp riding around on a crotch rocket, and the seedy setting elements and protagonists they'd expect from Cyberpunk.

As a boundary though, I do come down heavily on the side of "I like playing with you, so I hope you'll join me for this new campaign I'm planning to do" as opposed to it being a full on group decision -- too many bad experiences with people trying to rationalize themselves a veto power out of the idea that we're a consistent group that can only do things everyone agrees to, or trying to maximize the time we spend playing the game we normally play by taking for granted I'll be willing to run Pathfinder that night if not everyone is on board with the other game.

Instead each game is a different group, which might or might not be the same people, depending on who wants to be a part of it-- usually it ends up being the same core of regulars once it's clear that they can't actually make me run something different that night (which itself, obviously depends on me having enough players to go forward with the other thing.)

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

As the DM/GM, I generally say "I would like to run this next. Is this something you're interested in." I generally get "we'll play anything you'll run" which, while a nice vote of confidence, doesn't always help me gauge interest. But there is one guy that is hesitant to play anything other than 5e, though he took a chance on DCC RPG and grew to enjoy it.

At this point, I don't let other people run games with my groups. I've known too many people that have let campaigns whither and die because it was more work than they expected, and it's taken a long time and a lot of effort for the groups I run for to gel and solidify, with good people, good chemistry, and commitment.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In my online game on Monday with my longstanding play group, there are multiple folks who can GM. So we rotate that based on who has a game in mind and seems excited for it, and how much people want to play. During our previous 5e game, one of the players said he was thinking of running Delta Green and wanted to know if we were interested. Everyone said yes, so when the 5e game wrapped up, we moved on to Delta Green.

In my online Tuesday game with folks I met through EN World, we have a single GM, and he proposes a few options and gets our feedback on what we'd like to play next. We're currently playing The Between. That looks like we'll have a few more sessions of play, but probably not a whole lot, so last week we discussed what we might like to play next. We're considering Band of Blades, Court of Blades, or Dungeon World with Dark Sun as the setting. I'd be happy with any of those, so it'll depend on what the rest of the group thinks.

Finally, for my biweekly Friday in person game, I'm the GM, but we rotate games. We're currently playing Stonetop. I expect that to go for a while more. I've just started to consider what might be next. I typically propose a few options to the players and let them pick. We go with whatever game seems to have the most enthusiasm from the group. It's a bit early, but I think I'm leaning toward Band of Blades (especially if my Tuesday group opts for something else), The Dracula Dossier run with Against the Dark Conspiracy, or Heart.

So in each case, it's largely the group that decides, but usually from a short list suggested by the GM.