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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Galloglaich" data-source="post: 4650962" data-attributes="member: 77019">This sounds like a great campaign. This is similar to the way I try to run my campaigns, though I probably don't do it as well. I use the familiarity (at least on an intuitive level) of a rich historical background as a dangerous and nuanced world which is interesting in it's own right, and introduce the magical and horror elements hopefully in surprising moments that heighten drama.  I find that because of the expectations of experienced gamers, I learned that when I'm starting a new campaign I will have more fun when I start with at least half my players being non-gamers, to enable the paradigm shift to the kind of immersive game I like. Experienced gamers especially DnD players, come in thinking much more in terms of rules mechanics and numbers, with so many expectations of a 'hack/slash/take' type of play much in the manner that Wulf Rathbane described in his post above, and many demands of how they want the world to work (encounter levels / CR etc.) it can be problematic to get them in the groove. We try to play pretty loose with a lot of humor, adult themes etc. while retaining a high degree of immersion, what I'm aiming for is a little like one of those realistic grown up soap operas such as Deadwood or Rome from HBO. What I end up with is maybe one notch down in terms of coherence but still engaging and fun, maybe on the order of Lost or Battlestar Galactica. If I had more time for preparation I think I really could run games on a higher lvel, but prep time is scant and even game days are sporadic, (once a month to six weeks or so) so I always have to wing it to some extent, we still do have a lot of fun. When dealing with violent encounters, I tell my players to just think of what they would do if they were a character in a horror movie (and then we try to let the rules model their actions, hopefully in a realistic manner). Once they have an idea of what to expect, it works quite well, though it's a lot of work to set it all up so you have a sufficiently setting rich environment.  I think Call of Cthulhu is a good model for this kind of game because of the heavy emphasis on the setting compared to the rules. Of course  G.</blockquote>

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