Hussar
Legend
/edit - sorry @Umbran, didn't see your Mod text until after I posted this.
@Raunalyn, I am sorry you feel that I was slagging off the other players. I didn't mean to. I have no hard feelings for them and no particular need to air dirty laundry in public. I was using the situation as I understood it as an example for the discussion. You apparently remember things differently than I do, which is fair enough. It typically happens that people remember things differently.
In any case, I think I made my point about the game. Funnily enough, the first campaign you stopped playing in was about 50% urban. They spent a lot of time in cities. But, again, it became an exercise in frustration. Here I had a PC (not @Raunalyn's) with a pirate background. By 4th level, the group had a ship and a crew. The pirate PC player spent exactly zero time with the ship, made zero reference to it, and basically ignored its existence. Zero input.
I realize now that a lot of players are heavily reactive rather than pro-active. They want the DM to provide the adventures that they will go on but don't want to provide any real input about those adventures. Which, if you run a lot of fairly linear games or Adventure Paths, is fantastic. They are very enthusiastic when given clear directions and will jump right on. OTOH, I am not very good with that kind of player. I need more pro-active players who will tell me what they want to do and will make an effort towards achieving those goals in game.
For example, in my current group, I am reviving the old 4e series of adventures from the Chaos Scar, a remake of the old Keep on the Borderlands. Surprisingly, on a side note, 4e modules work fairly well in 5e. But, the players have gone all in on making their own plots. One play is worshipping the Chaos Ox, a god of his own devising, and has bought an inn in the Keep to use as a temple/bar. ((It makes more sense that what I'm writing here
)) One character is a kobold exiled from her tribe searching for a dragon egg to bring back to her tribe. One character, out of the blue, asked if he could start harvesting monster bits for sale, using a nifty little set of rules found on Reddit. One character is a small god searching for who defiled her shrine.
IOW, I have really clear goals from the players to work with in addition to having my own campaign on the go. And I find that I actually am enjoying running a game again. The upshot of all this being, as I said before, know thy players and also know yourself. I tried to make the games work for the other group and I honestly failed. The games were not enjoyable, for me or the players particularly, and were largely train wrecks as far as I'm concerned. And it was all down to mismatched expectations.
@Raunalyn, I am sorry you feel that I was slagging off the other players. I didn't mean to. I have no hard feelings for them and no particular need to air dirty laundry in public. I was using the situation as I understood it as an example for the discussion. You apparently remember things differently than I do, which is fair enough. It typically happens that people remember things differently.
In any case, I think I made my point about the game. Funnily enough, the first campaign you stopped playing in was about 50% urban. They spent a lot of time in cities. But, again, it became an exercise in frustration. Here I had a PC (not @Raunalyn's) with a pirate background. By 4th level, the group had a ship and a crew. The pirate PC player spent exactly zero time with the ship, made zero reference to it, and basically ignored its existence. Zero input.
I realize now that a lot of players are heavily reactive rather than pro-active. They want the DM to provide the adventures that they will go on but don't want to provide any real input about those adventures. Which, if you run a lot of fairly linear games or Adventure Paths, is fantastic. They are very enthusiastic when given clear directions and will jump right on. OTOH, I am not very good with that kind of player. I need more pro-active players who will tell me what they want to do and will make an effort towards achieving those goals in game.
For example, in my current group, I am reviving the old 4e series of adventures from the Chaos Scar, a remake of the old Keep on the Borderlands. Surprisingly, on a side note, 4e modules work fairly well in 5e. But, the players have gone all in on making their own plots. One play is worshipping the Chaos Ox, a god of his own devising, and has bought an inn in the Keep to use as a temple/bar. ((It makes more sense that what I'm writing here
)) One character is a kobold exiled from her tribe searching for a dragon egg to bring back to her tribe. One character, out of the blue, asked if he could start harvesting monster bits for sale, using a nifty little set of rules found on Reddit. One character is a small god searching for who defiled her shrine. IOW, I have really clear goals from the players to work with in addition to having my own campaign on the go. And I find that I actually am enjoying running a game again. The upshot of all this being, as I said before, know thy players and also know yourself. I tried to make the games work for the other group and I honestly failed. The games were not enjoyable, for me or the players particularly, and were largely train wrecks as far as I'm concerned. And it was all down to mismatched expectations.
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