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Message: <blockquote data-quote="exile" data-source="post: 1868784" data-attributes="member: 20068">Towards the end of this past summer, the group that I game with started to falter a bit; our numbers were down. One thing that led to a re-invigoration for us was changing up the DM seat. We had a variety of ongoing campaigns (D&D3.5E, L5R, M&M, SW, and some that I haven't even played with this particular group), but they were all really run by the same guy (who happens to be one of the best GMs I have played with. Still, we were losing players and interest, so I volunteered to run a game. Actually, I had volunteered to run it before things started to wane, which was great, because I had time to put my hype machine in place. I started sending out tantalizing little e-mails pertaining to campaign setting, theme, house rules, character background, etc. I made everyone feel that they had a stake in designing the game they wanted to play (even though I pretty much knew I was going to run the game that I wanted to play; in all fairness they did contribute a good bit to the finished product). This pre-game preparation went on for several months via e-mail, game sessions, and a website <a href="http://www.ghoulgamers.com" target="_blank">www.ghoulgamers.com</a> (kind of a local enworld). I proceded to run the game at a furious pace for the four sessions that I had agreed to run, and they loved it.Anyway, I'm rambling. The salient points. Change things up. New game. New DM. Make the hype machine work for you. Live up to the hype machine. Run for a short period (and leave them wanting more). Work with the players to create character backgrouds prior to the start of game play (and tie their backgrounds to one another, the campaign plot, and at least one subplot). Give the player's some say in campaign design (we had a lively debate regarding Forgotten Realms vs Eberron vs home brew- in the end we decided on FR, but not the Realms as you know them...I basically took the setting, turned down the high-magicness of it all, injected it with some Lovecraftian horror and pulp action...pulp is so in these days).I'm rambling again. The salient points have even grown long and non-salient. Good luck in shocking your game back to life.Chad</blockquote>

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