Why Have You Left A Game or Campaign?

[Lanefan]

Coming out of the world-depth-vs.-player-retention thread, a poll:

As a player, what has caused you to leave an ongoing campaign? It's multiple-choice, to account for more than one reason, or for leaving more than one campaign in your career.

Option 11 refers to role-playing yourself out of the game for in-character reasons (I have done this on more than one occasion).

Option 12 refers to the party kicking your character out or killing it off (but the players still willing to accept you as a player).

Please do NOT include in your answer:
- campaigns you sat in on as a visitor or guest-pilot
- campaigns that ended of their own accord (that you'd have stayed in if they continued)
- campaigns where you were usually the DM

If you come up with a reason I missed, please post it.

Lanefan

 

[CanadienneBacon]

I have never left a tabletop game, but that is probably more likely the result of me switching from playing to DMing within a year of getting involved with D&D.

I have, however, left an ongoing PbP game. At the time I left, I was also DMing other PbPs (hopefully this will not invalidate my response!). I quit because I wanted time to do other things. It's been a few months since I quit and I still do not regret my decision to leave. I've spent my time doing extra (beyond what I was already doing in the course of my normal day) of the following: baking, doing crafts with my children, reading fiction, and gardening. In addition to those activites, I also learned how to program in C++, and I taught myself how to sew on a sewing machine.

All told, it was a good trade. I sometimes miss PbP but not enough to give up the activities I've picked up since.

 

[jdrakeh]

I have, though usually because of real-life reasons totally unrelated to gameplay (e.g., job schedule change, etc). I can only think of two games that I left other reasons, one of which I left because the other players were all power fantasy asshats who seemed to think the point of roleplaying games was to 'win' by exerting total control over other PCs and one of which I left because the GM was a sadist in the literal sense.

[Edit: I voted Lack of Time: work-related, Incompatibility with DM, Incompatibility with other player(s), and Transportation issues. And, as stated above, the second and third issues only came up twice that I can recall.]

 

[CanadienneBacon]

[...snip...]one of which I left because the GM was a sadist in the literal sense.

Goodness.

 

[S'mon]

Not counting PBEMs, I've only dropped out of 1 campaign, it was during PC generation and was primarily due to incompatibility with the GM, though I wasn't a huge fan of the Heroquest rules either. After some snarky comments from the GM I got up and left.

 

[Lanefan]

While coming up with the poll answers and then voting, I was saddened to see how many of those I've done (or had done to me)...almost half the list! I didn't know I'd been in that many campaigns, never mind left them...though in truth there was one campaign I left (voluntarily or otherwise) several different times over a 10-year span.

Lanefan

 

[CanadienneBacon]

I sense that PbP may be to me what your 10-year campaign was to you, Lanefan.

 

[Pinotage]

Only due to lack of time for various reasons. This is for PbP games only. However, sometimes you just lose your motivation entirely, and that, couple with lack of time, is what really limits my gaming time. When I'm motivated for gaming, even a lack of time won't stop me trying to post.

Pinotage

 

[Rechan]

In all honesty I, the DM, have cancelled more games than I have left as a player. Which usually is because of either bad/unreliable/uninterested players or scheduling issues. I've had one or two campaigns just cancelled on me.

As a player, the games I left:

1) I was disgusted with the game itself; the DM, the way it catered to his friends style over mine.

2) I was burnt out on gaming. I just needed a break.

I will be leaving one soon, because:

3) General incompatibility with the playstyle (The people are nice, but it's light on the story, heavy on the rules and dungeoncrawly; they're running a combat heavy AP, too). That, and I want to start my own game. The only reason I go, in all honesty, is the need for face to face socialization.

 

[Minicol]

I have left campaign because of play style, especially when it involves no world / character development, and far too much combat.

of course, when that happened, the players and DMs had their share of resonsibility : after all they enjoyed wasting their time over this.