Games you need to go outside your normal group to play

MNblockhead

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I know some groups are more flexible than others, but in my experience a group gravitates around a small constellation of games and genres. The players in my group are a mix. I'll occasionally run a one shot for a change of pace. I have one player that has no interest in playing Sci Fi games and will skip those, but the other players are generally up for trying something new. But there are some games that they I don't feel that most if any of my players would either (1) have no interest in or (2) not bring the right energy to. For these, I generally join as a player at a Con or online. Two examples that come to mind are:

1. Alice is Missing
2. Dialect

Both require an amount of earnestness and emotional investment that many people are not looking for when getting together to game. Alice is Missing, even when played in person, is played completely by text message and in complete silence. Alice is Missing is not particularly replayable and I'm glad to have played it with an excellent GM and players who bought into the premise. One player who couldn't keep silent or was overly jokey and flippant would totally take everyone out of the game. Dialect, I suppose, could be played humorously but it can be a moving experience when played with sincerity. It also involves constructing and evolving new vocabulary as the core mechanic, which might be too abstract and introspective for many people.

What games have you found that you have to go outside of your normal group to play? Alternatively, if you group is the type that is up to play anything, do you find it difficult for your group to stick to one campaign and game system for a long campaign? One reason I like my group is that we have played through multi‑year campaigns.
 

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Call of Cthulhu - my wife won't play anything scary, so my first game was at the local FLGS (first time playing it in 30 years, after having it on my shelf for 15 - whoo!).

Wrath and Glory - my regular group likes to inject comedy too much to take the game seriously.

Star Trek Adventures - nobody wanted to play, so I started a solo game, using Captain's Log.
 

Call of Cthulhu - my wife won't play anything scary, so my first game was at the local FLGS (first time playing it in 30 years, after having it on my shelf for 15 - whoo!).

Wrath and Glory - my regular group likes to inject comedy too much to take the game seriously.

Star Trek Adventures - nobody wanted to play, so I started a solo game, using Captain's Log.

Call of Cthulhu is a game I like to play as a one‑shot or mini campaign. I think the setting works best that way. I don't think it would work as well for me for a long campaign. I'd be interested in hearing from those for whom it is their main game system how common it is for a CoC campaign to last a year or longer, assuming at least 8 hours a month.

Yeah, it being sci fi aside, I'm not sure Wrath and Glory would be a good long‑term campaign system and setting for my group. Warhammer Fantasy is more our style. Yes, it is grim dark and has strong element of political intrigue and sometimes Cthuluesque levels of horror, but it is also interwoven with jokes, puns, and thinly discussed IRL cultural references, many wonderfully dated for this child of the '80s.
 

I haven't been able to run these as they require players who are read-into the lore: anything 40k, L5R.

I also have not been able to run Paranoia because I've never had the right group. There's always been a couple who just wouldn't fit.
 

Call of Cthulhu is a game I like to play as a one‑shot or mini campaign. I think the setting works best that way. I don't think it would work as well for me for a long campaign. I'd be interested in hearing from those for whom it is their main game system how common it is for a CoC campaign to last a year or longer, assuming at least 8 hours a month.
I use a dash of CoC in nearly every non-fantasy campaign I run. It serves best, IMO, as a seasoning or a side, not a main dish.
 

My wife refuses to try my current choices of systems: T2K, Tales from the Loop, Fallout, Alien...
She'll play Dune, Star Wars, and several others. I finally decided to not accomodate her desires when I had buy in from the rest.
 

PF1. I just wrapped up War for the Crown which was on my bucket list so I might be wrapped up with PF1 too. I love it but it’s a lot for most people even with a lot of my favorite house rules.
 


I have like... 3 different rpg groups because each has their preferences that have been strongly stated before.

My long-time friend group hates anything non-sim or non-combat oriented. So I can't run anything like PbtA or Blades in the Dark or Daggerheart because all that is cringe for them and if it's not about combat effectiveness why are we even bother playing it? 'Feelings?? yuck, why would we address that at all??' For them it's all Pathfinder 2e or Gurps, etc. They're fun dudes but they're mostly all Gen X or older millennials who struggle to consider the entire other side of rpgs which deals with story-making outside of combat. I mostly play with these guys and have given up trying to push them to look at other types of rpgs.

I have another group, also long time friends, who are great and are open with trying everything, but I've been gaming with them so long I kind of know exactly what reactions they'll have to everything I GM for them... and, if I'm honest with myself, a lot of the reason I role-play is for emergent play and the twists and turns that the players bring to our collective story. I want to be surprised as a GM and this group, while I love them, doesn't do that for me anymore.

My third group, which I've recently assembled from gamers a generation younger than me (they're all under 30), is 'new' and their preconceptions about rpgs is very different from mine, is refreshing to play with and is willing to try new stuff, and they're a lot of fun in play, having been raised on the 'actorly' approach to rpgs via online actual plays and various indie-rpgs in the past decade. I have to say, I'm looking forward to bringing Daggerheart to the table with them... they're just unfettered by a lot of rpg biases and it's kind of great.
 


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