Dropping D&D for awhile...what should I do?

[Gundark]

I have been playing D&D for some time now and I am finding our sessions to be getting bland (I'm the DM). It's just that I feel I am scraping the bottom of the barrel idea wise. I know that there is a lot out there, I'm having the feeling that we are doing the same thing over and over again, just that it's packaged differently (instead of an evil wizard it's an evil dragon). Now I know as the DM I can change this and do new and different things. Basically I'm wondering if my campaign has "jumped the shark". We had a big split in our gaming group that resulted in lot of hard feelings (this was out of game stuff between two of the players and everybody took sides). The campaign just hasn't been the same since. Now when we started I claimed that I wanted to go all the way to 20th level (we're at 11th now) but I think I need a break from D&D. I have written an email and told our group that I would like to take a break and play a new game, (spycraft was going to be the next game we played) so we'll see what they say (I told them that I wasn't abandoning our game and that we would come back to it). I'm not sour on roleplaying, just D&D and I think a change of games may be what my creativity ordered (just thinking about switching games has got my creatvie juices going again), until I feel the urge to go back to our current campaign.

So any advice? Similair stories? Lets hear it.

 

[Desdichado]

Go for it. We rotate around a fairly eclectic set of campaign settings, so none of them get tired very easily. Nothing breaks of the D&D blahs like a few sessions of Call of Cthulhu.

 

[Shallown]

We often take breaks to play some board games and such just to break the game up a little. We did rotate campaigns but when the rotated campaigns either failed or were abondoned I decided to run my campaign exclusively and just take game breaks when I felt the group needed it Or I did. Right now we have done 5-6 sessions of more or less pure roleplaying and I know the game needs a change but the next session should be hackin and killing so hopefully that will change gears enough to get us up to speed. If not I'll call a board game night pull out starfarer's of Caatan or settlers, maybe Risk 2112. Or something and play that just to break things up.

Later

 

[diaglo]

play real D&D. teach them what they have been missing.

Original D&D (1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are just poor imitations of the real thing.

 

[Henry]

Very few gaming groups and DM's have the intestinal fortitude to play the same game, week after week. Human beings thrive on changing things up. Just like you wouldn't eat the same meal every day, you don't have to play the same game every day.

My suggestions?

1) Get another DM to switch with. If you have a second DM in the group, this is easy, or perhaps there is a player who has suggested recently that he or she wanted to give it a try. Sometimes, just playing instead of DM'ing is a good change of pace. And it NEVER hurts to have two Dm's in a group.

2) If that's not feasible, find a different game - even look into board games or non d20 fare. Play your regular D&D game once a month, and the other weeks try another game system - try a game system you've always wanted to, or several of them!

Our group plays D&D, with spurts of Star Wars, Cthulhu, and other systems (Mutants and Masterminds, etc.)

 

[MerakSpielman]

Every now and then my old group would declare a "boardgame night." One of the most memorable nights was when we played SolarQuest. Breaking the routine freshens things up a bit.

I've always thought it would be fun to do the following game: Split your players into 2 groups. One group gets command of a tribe of monstrous humanoids and a pre-generated map of a cave complex that is their lair. They also get a certain amount of gold to spend on defenses, friendly monsters, and traps, and perhaps a few class levels to spend as they wish. The other group creates a party of appropriate level PCs. The monster players' goal is to design - using all the tricks they can think of, dirty or no - an impregnable fortress. The PC-groups' goal is to design an invincible group that can conquer anything. They both have full reign to be as munchkin as they want.

Then you sit back and referee as the PCs invade the monsters.

 

[Melkor]

Merak,

That actually sounds like a fun idea that I might have to try out.

 

[Welverin]

Try Exalted. Download the Quickstart from the downloads page, along with Tomb of Five Corners,* which is a free adventure and introductory rules. These two should give you an idea of what the game is like.

There are charm cards for the Solars and Dragon-Blooded, but I don't have a link at the moment.

*or pick up a print version at your FLGS

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Try Exalted. Download the Quickstart from the downloads page, along with Tomb of Five Corners,* which is a free adventure and introductory rules. These two should give you an idea of what the game is like.

There are charm cards for the Solars and Dragon-Blooded, but I don't have a link at the moment.

*or pick up a print version at your FLGS

I highly recommend Exalted. It is a complete blast to play, relatively simple to learn and your characters can just do some cool shizzle.

If you hate anime, though, you will almost certainly hate Exalted. It has a very anime/wuxia feel to it.

I also suggest Earthdawn (2nd edition). Also an extremely fun, if somewhat complex, game.

 

[Welverin]

If you hate anime, though, you will almost certainly hate Exalted. It has a very anime/wuxia feel to it.

I'm no anime fan and I love Exalted. The anime feel has more to do with the visual style and how the combat is geared, but all of that's easy enough to ignore if you choose.

In fact here are some comments by GCG on the matter.