wingsandsword
Legend
Today I GM'ed for the first time in 6 years, and it was apparently enough of a success that this one-shot is turning into a campaign. This is a very big deal for me as a gamer, and to a lesser extent a boon for my marriage.
First, a bit of history to provide context.
d6 Star Wars was the first game I ever played or GM'ed, way back in fall of '97. I gamed pretty regularly (SW, D&D, D20 Modern & WoD mostly) until mid '05 when combinations of petty drama with people meant it was a lot harder to put together a gaming group. My gaming became increasingly uncommon and generally unsatisfying under inept GM's. Not horribly long after this point I met the woman I would later marry. She didn't like RPG's. She had prior experience with them, and it wasn't good. Her ex husband was a D&D geek, big rules-lawyering D&D 3.5 fan who essentially sacrificed his marriage for gaming by ignoring her to game with his friends on the few nights when their work schedules would otherwise let them see each other. Her attempts to participate were thwarted by trying to wade into an epic-level D&D 3.5 game with a gaming group that was strict on rules and very powergame and she had never gamed before and isn't too good with math.
So, when she met me, she wasn't exactly in a rush to game, and my love of gaming has always been an issue for us. She reluctantly came along with me to the fantasy larps I play in, and had an at least okay (but not stellar) time at them, and she's an enthusiastic Magic player, but tabletop just was too much for her. I largely sacrificed actually gaming to make her happy, satisfying myself with the very occasional one-shot with friends and reading gaming message boards and gaming books.
Two weeks ago, at one of these gaming group meetings, a couple of members said they were kind of interested in playing Star Wars when I mentioned it in passing. We decided I would run a one-shot SW-RPG game at the next meeting. I spent spare time over the last two weeks brushing up on my d6 Star Wars, doing some d20/d6 conversions, and writing up a big bank of pre-generated characters. I decided to go with d6 over any of the d20 versions because it was more "rules light" and far quicker and easier to teach than any d20 version. I decided I would go with the Dawn of Defiance campaign path, in the pipe-dream that I would one day get to run it all.
So, seeing a couple of people trying it out (which was most of the attendance on this very rainy day), my wife reluctantly decided to play in the one shot. So, with three players I ran the first half of The Traitor's Gambit (up to the first meeting with Bail Organa). They had fun fighting stormtroopers to help a rebel agent escape, negotiating with a protocol droid turned crimelord, and sneaking past some Imperial guards to get an important cargo off a space station. When it was getting late and it was time for everyone to go, people started to talk about wanting to make it a recurring get-together for this game. My three players (my RPG-disliking wife included) were wanting a campaign and talking about who they could invite in to get a couple more PC's.
I couldn't be happier. My wife said it wasn't a new favorite activity, but it was a lot better than the tedious boredom and heavy number crunching she associated with RPGs (her biggest issue being she doesn't like sci-fi/space opera and is more for urban fantasy or traditional fantasy), and the other players seemed pretty happy and enjoying themselves too.
So, it looks like I have a campaign I'm running now, and my gaming looks like it's a lot less of an issue at this household.
First, a bit of history to provide context.
d6 Star Wars was the first game I ever played or GM'ed, way back in fall of '97. I gamed pretty regularly (SW, D&D, D20 Modern & WoD mostly) until mid '05 when combinations of petty drama with people meant it was a lot harder to put together a gaming group. My gaming became increasingly uncommon and generally unsatisfying under inept GM's. Not horribly long after this point I met the woman I would later marry. She didn't like RPG's. She had prior experience with them, and it wasn't good. Her ex husband was a D&D geek, big rules-lawyering D&D 3.5 fan who essentially sacrificed his marriage for gaming by ignoring her to game with his friends on the few nights when their work schedules would otherwise let them see each other. Her attempts to participate were thwarted by trying to wade into an epic-level D&D 3.5 game with a gaming group that was strict on rules and very powergame and she had never gamed before and isn't too good with math.
So, when she met me, she wasn't exactly in a rush to game, and my love of gaming has always been an issue for us. She reluctantly came along with me to the fantasy larps I play in, and had an at least okay (but not stellar) time at them, and she's an enthusiastic Magic player, but tabletop just was too much for her. I largely sacrificed actually gaming to make her happy, satisfying myself with the very occasional one-shot with friends and reading gaming message boards and gaming books.
Two weeks ago, at one of these gaming group meetings, a couple of members said they were kind of interested in playing Star Wars when I mentioned it in passing. We decided I would run a one-shot SW-RPG game at the next meeting. I spent spare time over the last two weeks brushing up on my d6 Star Wars, doing some d20/d6 conversions, and writing up a big bank of pre-generated characters. I decided to go with d6 over any of the d20 versions because it was more "rules light" and far quicker and easier to teach than any d20 version. I decided I would go with the Dawn of Defiance campaign path, in the pipe-dream that I would one day get to run it all.
So, seeing a couple of people trying it out (which was most of the attendance on this very rainy day), my wife reluctantly decided to play in the one shot. So, with three players I ran the first half of The Traitor's Gambit (up to the first meeting with Bail Organa). They had fun fighting stormtroopers to help a rebel agent escape, negotiating with a protocol droid turned crimelord, and sneaking past some Imperial guards to get an important cargo off a space station. When it was getting late and it was time for everyone to go, people started to talk about wanting to make it a recurring get-together for this game. My three players (my RPG-disliking wife included) were wanting a campaign and talking about who they could invite in to get a couple more PC's.
I couldn't be happier. My wife said it wasn't a new favorite activity, but it was a lot better than the tedious boredom and heavy number crunching she associated with RPGs (her biggest issue being she doesn't like sci-fi/space opera and is more for urban fantasy or traditional fantasy), and the other players seemed pretty happy and enjoying themselves too.
So, it looks like I have a campaign I'm running now, and my gaming looks like it's a lot less of an issue at this household.
