Falling out of love with your game

[Barastrondo]

I never feel the need to change editions or games just because I'll get to use new rules or new eye candy. If I have a good understanding of the rules and I am able to use them to roleplay my character, then I have no problems. I think people focus way to much on the rules and way to little on their characters in-game lives. But I understand not everyone approaches the game the way I do, so I am not saying that as a bad thing. But I do wonder if people would stay interested in a game more if they focused more on roleplaying out their characters life (beyond just simply leveling & gaining new powers).

I don't think that's an entirely fair assumption. Ever known someone who has a strong feel for a character's personality, then is disappointed to discover that the thing the character would be most likely to do in a particular situation is discouraged by the rule system? I have. And sometimes extended play within a system makes these situations pile up. Gradually the clashes between the character's life and the system's rule foibles pile up until the player no longer likes what how the system represents the character. The system knocks the player out of immersion (a common criticism of many powers in 4e).

Now, yes, obviously you can avoid some of this by designing characters that are meant to fit into the system's foibles in the first place. But it takes a little extra focus on the rules to make that work, and willingness to compromise the image in your head with what will work within the ruleset.

In order to hit the sweet spot you describe, I think you have to have a certain predisposition for the style of play a given game provides. Without that predisposition, willingness to lose yourself in your character can contribute to dissatisfaction with a game system as easily as it can lead to satisfaction. It just depends on what you're trying to do.

 

[ggroy]

Burnout.

Nightmarish bookkeeping.

Complexity proliferation.

Personal changes in taste.

 

[Oryan77]

Ever known someone who has a strong feel for a character's personality, then is disappointed to discover that the thing the character would be most likely to do in a particular situation is discouraged by the rule system?

Honestly, no...I haven't. I'm not even sure how that's possible. I wouldn't mind hearing an explanation if you would like to give an example. I definitely know I am a more easy going player (I can't say the same as DM) than the majority of players I have had to DM. So I simply adjust to the campaign setting. But rules have never kept me from doing what I expected my PC to be able to do in that world.

Are you talking about a class concept that isn't available in a game but is available in another game? Like maybe the "good assassin" or the "evil Paladin" type of thing? I've always thought those situations would be left up to the DM to make available if a player requested. As long as I've played D&D, I've never been in a situation where I couldn't let a player do something. It is always a situation where I won't let them do it if I didn't want it in the game. Everything seems possible to me in any game as long as we are talking about the roleplaying/fluff aspect. I'm not sure how the rules could hold me back unless I'm going against the DMs setting

 

[FireLance]

The thing that is most likely to make me hate game X is:

Vocal supporters of game X who tell me that I am somehow inferior for preferring game Y.

 

[malkav666]

I am not certain how or why people fall out of love with games. I imagine its a lot of things. Our group initially tried 4e over 3.x because of the "grass is always greener" cliche that we fell for rather hard. It was new, different, streamlined, that meant it had to be better right?

A years long playtest drove our group to the conclusion that it was not better, just different. Sometimes just the opposite of what the OP posted happens. Sometimes when you play a new game, you realize that you were not really unhappy with the game you left it for.

In our case we went back to 3.x and eventually integrated Pathfinder into that experience. Oddly enough 4e is still played sometimes, but no longer as an RPG. We have a DM who loves boardgames and converted his Heroquest scenarios and some of his Descent scenarios to use 4e rules with some pregens and streamlined character leveling options. It has been great for our group as a board game experience for days when we are missing a player. Our group is actually really looking forward to the Castle Ravenloft boardgame coming out next year as it will likely be another 4e-ish Board game we can play on off days.

But for our group, the games we have been playing for years are all still loved. Sometimes you have to put them down for a little while and let the need build back up. Hell we still play 1e and 2 stuff every so often. When we finish the Age of Worms Campaign we are in right now, one of my players is going to run the Darksun Boxes for us from start to finish (those ones with the cool flip books) using their original ruleset.

love,

malkav

 

[Dragonblade]

I think I have been getting closer to figuring out what bugs me about 3E/PF/4E.

When I sit down to run or play a game, I want to play, not spend time looking up or verifying rules in the books all the time.

So the less I have to pick up books during "play time" the more I like the game.

So I definitely prefer systems where I am capable of memorizing enough of the rules that I hardly ever have to pick up a book to verify anything. I could do that with 3E with just the core 3, but no one wanted to use just the core 3.

In 4E they simply have too many "core" rule books that I can memorize. So I was looking things up in the books a lot, just like I did in 3E with all the splat books.

When I first started DMing 4e, I sort of felt the same way. I was constantly trying to read up on all the new powers and then I had an epiphany. In 4e, the DM only needs to know the core rules of the game and how to read a monster stat block. Thats it!

I don't need to know much about my players characters or their powers because it doesn't matter. In 3e, a DM had to know every feat, every spell and so on. Because building monsters required that knowledge and monster stat blocks annoyingly referred to everything in terms of spells. You also had constant concerns about balance, and whether a challenge would be too hard or too easy for the party to handle based on their PCs.

I have found none of that matters in 4e. Heck, I don't need to know anything about my player's characters in terms of mechanics! NOTHING! I just tell them to make everything per the Character Builder and I don't even glance at their sheets. That's a far cry from my 3e DM days when I would audit those characters more closely than the IRS checking a billionaire's tax return.

In 4e, all I want to know as DM is their race, class (and role), and their name and backstory. I don't even worry about magic items. I just say you find an item of X level. They can pick whatever. That's a testament to WotC's superbly balanced game design.

In fact, I enjoy it when they surprise me in combat with some nasty power combo. I have never had any balance issues, or problems challenging the party. My DM stress level is zero and my prep time is almost nil.

At the game table, while running 4e, I have never needed to look up any power or item in any book even though I allow all WotC material in my game. The only book ever cracked at the table by either me or my players has been the PHB to check on a rule. And even that is so rare, that its not uncommon to go entire sessions with no books open at all. Everything a player needs is on their character sheet and the game rules are so smooth and intuitive that look ups are rarely needed.

 

[Cadfan]

Things that can change:

1. Your preferences may change. You might like horror stories, and then over time cease liking them so much, and therefore rate a game designed to tell horror stories lower than before.

2. Your beliefs about the degree to which a game actually matches your preferences may change. For example, you might expect that a game is great for horror stories, and then with experience trying to use it to do horror stories, conclude that it is not.

3. A game might perfectly satisfy your preferences, and that experience might cause you to realize that your preferences weren't very wise. For example, I loved the 3e idea of monsters and characters generated with the same procedural rules, permitting me to combine, mix, and match monster and pc information with a procedural system. Now, having experienced a herculean effort towards creating a game based on that idea, I'm not so convinced that the idea had as much merit as I thought.

4. The addition of supplements or rules additions, probably added to satisfy one or more people at the table, may make the game less fun for you. For example, it is common to find people on ENWorld who (claim that they) are literally incapable of having fun gaming or DMing if you are playing a character they do not like. Personally, I'm not sure about the legitimacy of this attitude, it seems like a strange merger of Coasian philosophy and the proverbial Utility Monster, but they do exist.

5. The degree to which the game represents an unsolved puzzle may change as you solve it. For example, you may begin playing a game fascinated by the many options available to you, and determined to figure out how to create a great, I dunno, pyromancer. Once you've figured this out, that particular thrill is gone.

6. Your experience and proficiency with a game may cause to look different to you over time. For example, I first played a superhero RPG recently that offered hundreds of special powers. But now that I've played it a bit I know that some of those powers are lousy, inferior compared to other powers, or even flat out counterproductive. I can try to ignore this knowledge, but to a certain extent it means that the game that used to have hundreds of powers now has dozens.

7. A new game may come along that does what the old game does, but better. This may cause you to alter your opinions about what the older game does or does not do well.

There are probably more.

 

[Vegepygmy]

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

The only reason I don't still want to play games that I once loved (and only 1e and DragonQuest come to mind) is that there are similar games I love even more (3.5). Most games that I don't want to play again are games I never cared much for in the first place. There are also a few games I once loved, and haven't played in many years, but would happily do so again (Champions and Call of Cthulhu both come to mind).

 

[ggroy]

Personally, I'm not sure about the legitimacy of this attitude, it seems like a strange merger of Coasian philosophy and the proverbial Utility Monster, but they do exist.

What do you mean by "Coasian philosophy"?

Are you referring to the work of Nobel Laureate economist Ronald Coase?

 

[Henry]

A few months ago, I looked at a statement I had made in 2005 on these very forums that said, "Unless WotC does something amazingly better, I doubt I'd switch." Yet, here I am, playing 4E and 3E, and deciding I'll probably rarely or never run a 3E game again.

Huh... What happened?

What happened was that, prior to 2005, we rarely, if ever, played the game above 10th level. Right in 2005, we started playing 10th level and up campaigns... a LOT. And I began to see some chinks in the armor of 3E that I couldn't reconcile well. Even today, below 10th level, with minor exceptions, 3E plays just fine (both 3E AND 3.5). But I play 4E too, because it seems to play well at all levels for me, and it hasn't broken on me yet.

My statement in 2005, I hate to say, was WRONG. It happens. :shrug: