Nickolaidas
Explorer
*sigh*
Okay, here's the thing. It's a long story, but if you're not bored, give it a read.
I played D&D revised 1st edition (the Rules Cyclopedia one) for a few years as a player controlling a six-member party, with my older (by two years) brother playing the DM. In our late teens, we had university and school responsibilities and my brother grew out of it, while I wanted to play like crazy. But alas, I live in Greece, where D&D is all but unheard of, and I had to settle with the occasional D&D video game.
After a few years, I grew out of D&D, while my brother wanted to play like crazy. Role reversal. We didn't play again. Years passed. 3rd edition came. We both wanted to try it out. And this time, I would be the DM. We bought the core books, I tried to learn the rules, but I got ... so lost. Attacks of opportunity. A badly-written (imo) Greyhawk campaign setting. My complete and total lack of experience as a DM. I botched it, and we played only half an adventure.
More years passed. I bought the 4th edition core rule books, started a campaign (with the players being my brother and his wife), my laptop broke down and I lost 50 pages of self-written material on info, NPCs, city building, etc. I gave up (again).
Years passed. I bought the Pathfinder books, and decided to give it a go (me the DM, my brother the player, his wife grew out of it). Both having a crave to play. We played three adventures I wrote. But ... my brother's tastes changed, somewhat.
Over the years, my borther became a rabid fan of strategy / conquest video games such as Rome Total War and Crusader Kings. His ideal version of a (video) game is a medieval vanilla fantasy setting with a human-only party invading other countries, conquering them and eventually taking over the entire world - with a lawful good alignment to boot.
We had a few discussions to see how that would work with Pathfinder, amongst other issues (for example, I advised him that with a goal like that, he was better off to play a lawful-evil party). I didn't buy any Pathfinder Campaign Setting books so I began making my own world. It ended up too large, I made a bit smaller. But as I worked on it, I realized that what I really loved is dungeon crawling, while my brother considers the notion a bit childish and is more interested to play a militaristic, conquest-y campaign. Which, I think, demands a lot of time, research and effort on my part. Not to mention a hell of preparation and lore-making. Another problem is that I'm not well-versed in conquest medieval campaign, while he is a master at it, having played all those games in the PC. Therefore, my inadequacies are immediately obvious to him, and we spend more time (and sessions) with him educating me about how kingdoms work and whatnot, and hardly play.
Add to the fact that 3.75 D&D (Pathfinder) is needlessly complicated and badly written (anyone who read Ultimate Campaign will probably know what I mean), and I offered moving on to 5th edition.
So, we're now in a spot where I have 5th edition rules for god-knows-when-we'll-need dungeon crawling, City Building rules from Pathfinder Ultimate Campaign, and Mass Combat rules from 1st edition. A few hours ago I had a talk with my brother about the horrible writing of Ultimate Campaign, and how the freakin book doesn't give you rules on how to deal with an enemy claimed hex. So now we're discussing about me adopting Birthright rules for conquest, 1st Edition for Mass Combat, Pathfinder for City Building, and 5th for the dungeon crawling.
And I'm not sure if I want to do all that. I think that what I like to do is Dungeon Crawling. What D&D (imo) was made for. My brother finds it boring, but he (says he) doesn't have a problem playing a 'kiddie' campaign in order to kill time. My problem is that I don't want to run a campaign he finds boring, and I don't have the time (and the mood) to make a campaign composed of 5 different games in order to give him what he wants (which won't satisfy him anyway since the conquest games he plays have set the bar way too high).
Is he a bad player for wanting all this stuff because he's spoiled by the video games? Am I a bad DM for not giving my player what my player wants, simply because I find it tedious and a bit of a drag? Are we both bad for trying to enforce our wants and needs and should probably go our separate gaming ways?
Thoughts?
Okay, here's the thing. It's a long story, but if you're not bored, give it a read.
I played D&D revised 1st edition (the Rules Cyclopedia one) for a few years as a player controlling a six-member party, with my older (by two years) brother playing the DM. In our late teens, we had university and school responsibilities and my brother grew out of it, while I wanted to play like crazy. But alas, I live in Greece, where D&D is all but unheard of, and I had to settle with the occasional D&D video game.
After a few years, I grew out of D&D, while my brother wanted to play like crazy. Role reversal. We didn't play again. Years passed. 3rd edition came. We both wanted to try it out. And this time, I would be the DM. We bought the core books, I tried to learn the rules, but I got ... so lost. Attacks of opportunity. A badly-written (imo) Greyhawk campaign setting. My complete and total lack of experience as a DM. I botched it, and we played only half an adventure.
More years passed. I bought the 4th edition core rule books, started a campaign (with the players being my brother and his wife), my laptop broke down and I lost 50 pages of self-written material on info, NPCs, city building, etc. I gave up (again).
Years passed. I bought the Pathfinder books, and decided to give it a go (me the DM, my brother the player, his wife grew out of it). Both having a crave to play. We played three adventures I wrote. But ... my brother's tastes changed, somewhat.
Over the years, my borther became a rabid fan of strategy / conquest video games such as Rome Total War and Crusader Kings. His ideal version of a (video) game is a medieval vanilla fantasy setting with a human-only party invading other countries, conquering them and eventually taking over the entire world - with a lawful good alignment to boot.
We had a few discussions to see how that would work with Pathfinder, amongst other issues (for example, I advised him that with a goal like that, he was better off to play a lawful-evil party). I didn't buy any Pathfinder Campaign Setting books so I began making my own world. It ended up too large, I made a bit smaller. But as I worked on it, I realized that what I really loved is dungeon crawling, while my brother considers the notion a bit childish and is more interested to play a militaristic, conquest-y campaign. Which, I think, demands a lot of time, research and effort on my part. Not to mention a hell of preparation and lore-making. Another problem is that I'm not well-versed in conquest medieval campaign, while he is a master at it, having played all those games in the PC. Therefore, my inadequacies are immediately obvious to him, and we spend more time (and sessions) with him educating me about how kingdoms work and whatnot, and hardly play.
Add to the fact that 3.75 D&D (Pathfinder) is needlessly complicated and badly written (anyone who read Ultimate Campaign will probably know what I mean), and I offered moving on to 5th edition.
So, we're now in a spot where I have 5th edition rules for god-knows-when-we'll-need dungeon crawling, City Building rules from Pathfinder Ultimate Campaign, and Mass Combat rules from 1st edition. A few hours ago I had a talk with my brother about the horrible writing of Ultimate Campaign, and how the freakin book doesn't give you rules on how to deal with an enemy claimed hex. So now we're discussing about me adopting Birthright rules for conquest, 1st Edition for Mass Combat, Pathfinder for City Building, and 5th for the dungeon crawling.
And I'm not sure if I want to do all that. I think that what I like to do is Dungeon Crawling. What D&D (imo) was made for. My brother finds it boring, but he (says he) doesn't have a problem playing a 'kiddie' campaign in order to kill time. My problem is that I don't want to run a campaign he finds boring, and I don't have the time (and the mood) to make a campaign composed of 5 different games in order to give him what he wants (which won't satisfy him anyway since the conquest games he plays have set the bar way too high).
Is he a bad player for wanting all this stuff because he's spoiled by the video games? Am I a bad DM for not giving my player what my player wants, simply because I find it tedious and a bit of a drag? Are we both bad for trying to enforce our wants and needs and should probably go our separate gaming ways?
Thoughts?
