Falling out of love with your game

[Bullgrit]

You pick up a game and play it a couple times. You love it. You end up playing it for years, loving it the whole while.

But then one day, on a message board, you comment, "I never want to play that game again."

What happened?

Now, although this question came to me while reading many posts on this message board about various D&D editions, I wonder if we can have this discussion without actually mentioning a specific D&D edition.

I'm not asking why you hate X edition, I'm asking what causes, in general, a love for a game to change to a hate for a game? I mean, it's not like a human relationship -- the game can't do something bad.

The game doesn't change. That is, if you like edition X of the game, and edition Y or Z comes out, you still actually have edition X on your book shelf.

Even if you like edition Y or Z, why would you start hating edition X after loving it for so long? I can understand saying "I love Y better than X," but I've seen people here state they've turned to actually hating X. This, I don't understand.

Bullgrit

 

[delericho]

What happened?

Fatigue? Boredom? Over-exposure?

But also...

I mean, it's not like a human relationship -- the game can't do something bad.

The game doesn't change.

Actually, yes it can. With the constant supplement treadmill, RPGs in particular are rarely static things. They change and evolve over time. And while it's true that you never have tp stay current, many people feel a pressure to do so - whether imposed by self, by their group, or by the magic of marketing.

Having long since come to the conclusion that many RPGs run best in a Core-Rules-Only mode, and the majority work best with at most a small set of carefully-selected supplements, I don't find it terribly surprising that people become fatigued with "Edition X with all the trimmings".

(Certainly, I have some personal experience of this. My last-ever 2nd Edition campaign was run in a Core-Rules-Only mode, where I hadn't run it in a form that was anywhere near that for years. It was astonishing the difference this made - freed from the accumulated years of baggage, the game ran much faster and more smoothly than I had remembered.)

 

[Engilbrand]

Assume for a moment that I love the burgers that McDonald's makes, and they are the only burgers that I have ever eaten. When I then go into a good restaurant and get an awesome burger, I finally understand what I have been missing and what I now expect from a burger. If I go back to the burger I once loved, it will mean nothing to me, so I stop eating McDonald's.
There are different editions of D&D. I've played some of them in some ways, and there are others I have never played. I use to like the McDonald's edition of the game. Then I had a supreme burger and decided to never eat McDonald's again. I was shown the things that I use to love were nothing compared to the possibilities.
I'm a fan of the old Farscape TV show. I watched an episode the other day where one of the characters looks at her old commander and says something like, "You took everything that was important from me. Over the last few months, though, I have learned that what I had was meaningless."
I now refuse to play any other edition of D&D than the one I love. Maybe I'll find a better burger in the future, though.

 

[Treebore]

Delericho largely covers it for me as well. I would just like to add an example. I did not quit running 2E because I quit loving it. I also did not allow the "optional" material, and I ran 2E for over 11 years.

I switched to 3E because my players demanded it. Then they demanded all the "options" too. Then as the game level progressed those options weighed down the game. Then each time I ran a game into high levels the weight got heavier and heavier, in part because even more "options" had become available and players wanted them.

So eventually the work of prepping for the game killed my love for that edition.

Now to be clear, I do not "hate" 3E, that is a label too easily thrown around. I will never run the game again, or Pathfinder either, simply because I have other games I would much rather play because I have much more fun running them.

Like I have pointed out before, if people were accurate about labeling me as a "hater" I wouldn't have bought practically every WOTC and third party book put out for 3E, let alone still own them and reference them for games I do run.

I simply prefer other games to 3E D&D, and 4E. No hate is involved. Simple preference, only. For some reason some people seem to think that is hate. Thankfully it is not.

 

[DMfromdimensionX]

For me its usually boredom that makes me fall out of love with a game. I try it, like it because its new and then one day, its not new anymore. The things that sucked but i glossed over to focus on the good "new" stuff start to show themselves more and more because the new stuff isnt new anymore and it doesnt make up for the crappy bits like it used to. One day it hits a saturation point and i need to find a new.... new.

 

[jdrakeh]

I'm not asking why you hate X edition, I'm asking what causes, in general, a love for a game to change to a hate for a game? I mean, it's not like a human relationship -- the game can't do something bad.

The game doesn't change. That is, if you like edition X of the game, and edition Y or Z comes out, you still actually have edition X on your book shelf.

Except that, when it's still in production, a game can change. Look at the myriad of changes that D&D 3.5 underwent later in its life — frex, how standard stat blocks and encounters were presented in adventure modules. Or, on a different front, take the ever growing glut of 3PP material that was available for the game. That also changed how the game was played. Those were both fairly significant factors that led to my own "falling out of love" with D&D 3.5 (and, while I'm thinking about it, I know that the 3.5 revision soured a lot of people on 3.0).

 

[keterys]

In a lot of cases, you might also like a game for just a certain set of levels. For example, 3-6 might be great, 7-10 okay, 11-14 eh..., 15+ horrible. Or the reverse.

Going to a completely different game for a second, I found Earthdawn great for 2nd through 4th Circle, and near unplayable at 13th Circle, and in a rapid spiral of stupid at 8th Circle.

Some of the best games I've ever had were in GURPs, but I never actually liked the system all that much, just the group and the RP we were doing in those two games. At the time, I didn't realize that I wasn't enjoying the system though - the games were way fun, so it must be something right. Then I figured out I didn't like the character creation, or the dice mechanic, or the combat scaling, or the lethality. But I loved those first two bigs gurps campaigns. Just less so the ones after

And maybe I was also a bit dazzled by the 'New and Shiny' at the time. Dunno.

And that's just one possible vector, there are lots more.

 

[Bullgrit]

Look at the myriad of changes that D&D 3.5 underwent later in its life

Oddly, my D&D3.5 PHB hasn't changed a bit since I bought it in 2003. Same with my AD&D1 PHB, and my Basic D&D book.

Bullgrit

 

[jdrakeh]

Oddly, my D&D3.5 PHB hasn't changed a bit since I bought it in 2003.

Don't be pedantic. The PHB isn't the game. The example that I listed of stat block presentation changing in official support products clearly changed the game. Likewise, so did rules introduced by 3PP publishers (or even in later official support products). These things didn't re-write your PHB, naturally, but they changed how the rules therein apply to the products in question, in the context of the larger game. If you meant "Why don't you like X book anymore?" that's what you should have asked. D&D, as a game, is and always has been more than the sum of the rules in one book (actually, the same is true of pretty much any RPG whose product line consists of more than one book).

 

[Bullgrit]

Don't be pedantic. The PHB isn't the game.

Maybe this is why I'm not understanding. Because to me, the core rules of any game, is the game. Supplemental material can change how one plays the game (if you let it or want it to), but the game is the core rules.

I have Talisman, and I like it. I also have 3 or 4 of the add on sets. I feel some of the extra sets hurt the feel/play of the game. But I don't start disliking Talisman because of the additional sets.

It's like saying you no longer like your local game store because the mall it's in has been remodeled and the stores around it have changed.

Bullgrit