Genres/Settings I enjoy watching but not playing in. You?

[Doc_Klueless]

What I found after playing an excellent game of FFG Star Wars with Jacob Lewis is that I really, really like Star Wars... to watch. I thought the FFG system was brilliant, but I find that I don't particularly enjoy playing Star Wars. I love... eh-hem... LOVE watching things Star Wars, reading things Star Wars, but... sigh. (to include things like Star Wars Legions). I remember when I used to, back in WEG 1e, but something has changed for me.

I also enjoy comic books and superhero movies and TV shows. But when I sit down at the table to play it, I vapor-lock and completely lose interest. Often looking for a way out of the game on the flimsiest of pretenses.

Which settings/genres do you experience that with and why?

 

[Nagol]

Humour (Toon, Paranoia, Teenagers from Outer Space). I find the attempt to maintain the tone and pace tedious.

Games where the PC is on a slope of decline (Call of Cthulhu). If I build a character I really like, I'm inclined to retire immediately.

 

[Umbran]

Hard science fiction. Not that I don't like it. I love it, both as a fiction genre and for play...

But in order to run it, you need to know a lot of science. To play it, you usually also need to be a highly science-literate person. And getting a whole table of that together is really difficult.

 

[JeffB]

Sci Fi- I love Star Wars, but "hard" Sci Fi- Traveller, Alternity, Star Trek..it's always short lived.

Supers- I COULD get into , but most people are so much more into the newer genre and versed in comics and lore from more modern ages. I stopped reading them circa 1984 or so. I'm into Golden and Silver Age. I have the original Spider Man Cartoon series from 1969 on DVD. That's my kinda Supers (with less plot holes) I gave up on Marvel movies after seeing the second Thor and Avengers movie. Totally not into the graphic novel era, dark/street level supers, etc. Don't like the Batman/Dark Knight movies, modern Superman, or Spiderman and ultimately Everyone I ever tried to play a supers game with was like playing with the characters from BBT. Arguing all the time about who could and couldn't do what. jeebus.

Modern- These days, there is so much technology it's a immersion ruin for me. Back when I played James Bond 007, Top Secret, MSPE, and Espionage- no cell phones, no internet, etc. Made games much more fun when characters had to be resourceful. As 50-ish year old adult, I see and experience enough of the real world on a minute by minute basis, RPGs are a way to get away from that.

Any kind of Robot tech or Cyber Punk stuff- No interest there in the slightest (I DID like playing MechWarrior back in the early 90s on my PC). I DO love RIFTS however because it's done so well and integrates this kind of tech into a game with other elements I love.

Dark/Monster/WoD- I don't like these dark games. I'm old fashioned to the core. I'm into heroics, and I don't need/want the gory details of death, drugs, abuse, horrific events, etc. I've seen enough in real life-no thanks.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Oh, and The Expanse. I thought while watching it: This would make an excellent RPG. When the kickstarter came around, I jumped right on it. I really like playing the AGE system. I think it does what it aims for brilliantly.

But...

I just couldn't run it. I found that, while I had ideas and they were engaging, that I would rather have read them (the books are FANTASTIC if you haven't read them.) or watched it (just binge watched the latest season, missing sleep for work, and don't even remotely regret it).

 

[dragoner]

I vapor-lock

You are a carburetor?

Personally I feel the same about a lot, Star Wars? Cool, but it's not a game I want to play, D&D's setting I also don't find particularly attractive. I like my sci-fi grittier (though I appreciate the dirty and care worn aesthetic of Star Wars) and my last fantasy game was semi-historical with adventurers going from Constantinople to the Lost City of Cyrene, using Mythras and the Caverns of Thracia. Generally I like near future sci-fi, or modern.

 

[Umbran]

Sci Fi- I love Star Wars, but "hard" Sci Fi- Traveller, Alternity, Star Trek..it's always short lived.

Trek is not "hard" SF, by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[dragoner]

I see a lot of people do Hard SF wrong, I mean if one is an astronaut having resovled orbital mechanics equations a thousand times, it would bear no relation to a player puzzling out ovm calcs at the game table. Better to represent it as a roll under edu or something and move on.

 

[MNblockhead]

Super hero TTRPGs. Didn't like them in the 80s, don't like them now.

I can sympathize with Morrus about Hard Science. I backed the Expanse and love the books, show, and game mechanics, but I enjoy it most when it is more about detective work and role playing. Like dragoner says, for most tables, it is best to abstract the science. But that can remove the flavor of a hard-science setting. It can be tough to strike a balance.

Related to hard-science games are survival-simulation games. First, they tend to get bogged down in minutia of gather materials to make stuff. Second, they invite arguments between players and DMs over whether something is possible.

 

[JeffB]

Trek is not "hard" SF, by any stretch of the imagination.

Are you one of those people I tried to play Supers with?