Changing Games? What would you do?

[Anavel Gato]

I want to get my group playing some d20 modern, and/or Star Wars or Cthulhu. My players are very staunch D&D players, what should I do? Do I just spring it on them or let them know, "next time we will be doing something different." what do you all think?
what would you do?

 

[KnowTheToe]

Break them in slowly. Start with running the alternate game once a month as a "break" and then feel out the group on when they might want to play the secondary game more often. Otherwise you risk losing some players.

 

[hafrogman]

"Accidentaly" bring the wrong set of books to your game, then say "whoops", and hope they don't mind.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

OK, this is a tricky one. I don't have a formal list of gaming axioms, but if I did two of them would be:

* This is a group activity, it is not any one person's game

* The players are always less invested in the game than the DM


Sadly, your position is such that the two axioms are in conflict. This is almost like one of Asimov's robot stories where the robot is in conflict with the 2nd and 3rd law of robotics so it wanders off and makes milkshakes all day long or something like that.

Basically, what I'm saying is that you might be fighting an uphill battle on this one and you may have more fun if you just ask the players if anyone else wants to DM. However, let's try to be more optimistic.

Do not play Call of Cuthullu. You can work Cuthullu into your fantasy game if you like, but playing a game where everyone is going to die or go insane is not a fun transition to the world of modern era roleplay.

Star Wars could be very cool IF the players are into Star Wars. Be careful though! If you have a Star Wars nut in your group he'll flip out if you so much as change the color of Darth Maul's lightsaber from red to beige. If the players are interested, let them pick the era they want to play in (pre-Empire, Galactic Cvil War, or post-Empire). Don't use the movie heros in your game. This is supposed to be about the PCs not that Skywalker kid.

d20 Modern this is free. The SRD is free. This is the big selling point. Free. Emphasize that. No books to buy. Free. I'm running an off-and-on Urban Arcana game and the players seem to like it. It has less of a "feel" than the other two settings though. It also is very deadly. People used to high fantasy may not like that.

Above all: Prepare, prepare, prepare. You want the players to like the game and it really is an effort on their part because if they agree, they're accomidating you. That's nice of them. So prepare your games and plan out your encounters.

Hope this helps.

 

[d3]

You might want to try something like this if you have d20 Modern and Urban Arcana.

Have your PCs battle some evil wizard guy. As they are battling the wizard have him use magic to zap them to the d20 Modern era (some sort of gate or whatever). Then tell them that the transfer has altered them somehow, and give them some d20 Modern characters as close as possible to their PCs. There quest would be to return home through another gate. This would allow them to experiment while retaining some ties to their characters.

Alternatively you could say that the spell actually just transferred their consciousness between their own bodies in their time between those of some d20 modern era NPCs in the Urban Arcana time. Then their goal would be to find some way to reverse this situation. The advantage here it that you could build d20 Mod pregens without regard to the PCs previous abilities. But they would still be playing "themselves" so to speak.

Anyway, good luck in broadening your player's horizons.

 

[apocalypstick]

ask them nicely three separate times on three separate days, and if they still aren't interested, try and track down another group in your area that is.

oh, and working the Cthulhu Mythos into a D&D game is heresy. I cringe at the thought of a statted Nyarlathotep.

 

[Anavel Gato]

You all have given me great advice. I think I'll pose the question to them, and then use d3's idea about "zapping" them to the Urban arcana setting.

thanks.