your evolution as a gamer

[Keeper of Secrets]

Grim Tales would be a great campaign to run. I would love to play it more than I would run it, though.

 

[Veritas]

You sound like you've had the same kind of gaming background as I have, GlassJaw, except that most of my play was with 1st edition.

I find that although 3.Xe is a good system, it lacks heart... Basic D&D and 1st edition had a flavour... a soul to them... 2nd edition seemed to drain some of that soul away and it seems like 3.Xe is like the Lich of gaming... very efficient and detailed in its plans and execution, but lacking a soul. heh. It's probably just nostalgia talking though. 3.Xe isn't evil and it's still a good system, it just doesn't feel the same as the older editions.

I've offset the feeling by playing in other systems and by reviving a Basic D&D game recently. Nostalgia can be a powerful force... for good or for evil has yet to be determined.

 

[Ourph]

I don't 3e causes burnout at all. Burnout is generally caused by stress and/or repetition. Anyone can get burned out on any game if they play it long enough. Switching out to another game will fire up the creative juices. If you choose to go back, you'll bring things you learned from the other game with you.

I've played Basic D&D, Star Frontiers and Call of Cthulhu for almost 25 years. I've played Warhammer FRPG for almost 20. Repetition never caused me to burn out. OTOH, I think you hit the nail on the head with stress. D&D 3e caused me a lot of stress to run (not so much to play) and I burnt out on it pretty quickly.

Preferences are a continuum, not an absolute. I would say everyone is right that taking a break might fix the problem. Some people can play D&D 3e non-stop for the rest of their gaming careers, others will need a break, some (like me) will try it for a while, have some fun, but eventually leave it for greener pastures. I quit and came back several times before eventually deciding that it wasn't a system I was comfortable with.

 

[Old One]

Yep...

Great comments all around. I think I kind of knew the answer to this but I just needed to hear it from someone else.

I've been reading the Grim Tales book and that's given me a lot of new ideas so I'm hoping my group will want to give a low-magic campaign a try. Another guy has been reading the Midnight book so that would be fun to try too.



Nope, we play 3.5 all the way. I guess I throw around "3ed" as a generic descriptor.

GJ -

I am getting ready to run a GT Demo at the MD-VA-DC Game Day tomorrow...

The only think I don't like about GT is that it wasn't out 3 years ago ! Very flexible, very heroic, truly enables you to build custom PCs. I had a blast building the 6 Level 7 Pre-Gens...so-o-o-o-o many choices.

It could quite possibly become the mainstay for my future games.

~ Old One

 

[Umbran]

I've played Basic D&D, Star Frontiers and Call of Cthulhu for almost 25 years. I've played Warhammer FRPG for almost 20. Repetition never caused me to burn out.

Hm. Perhaps I should have put it slightly differently. You weren't repeating one thing over and over. You had a mix of four very different games, so your gaming diet had a goodly amount of variety. It looks like Glassjaw hasn't had much variety in his diet.

 

[Ourph]

Hm. Perhaps I should have put it slightly differently. You weren't repeating one thing over and over. You had a mix of four very different games, so your gaming diet had a goodly amount of variety. It looks like Glassjaw hasn't had much variety in his diet.

True. However, Glassjaw has spent, at most, ~4.5 years playing 3e. I played a weekly B/X game for nearly 11 years without feeling any burnout (with only rare occasions of the others thrown in). I guess what I'm saying is that everybody has their own particular tastes. For each individual there are games that don't work, games that work for occasional fun (Alternity is this way for me, I can play a short campaign, but get bored with it after 8-10 sessions) and games that you never get tired of.

As everyone has pointed out, taking a break to play something else and then trying game X again later is a good way to figure out where game X falls in this continuum for you.

 

[eris404]

This isn't to imply anything about your group, but it might be the playing styles of the players and/or DM, too. What one group or person would find engrossing and fun would bore the others to tears. Switching systems, campaigns or whatever might find a better fit for the whole group. We have one DM in our group, for example, who likes horror and is running a "vile" D&D game currently. But, I think his style really works best with CoC and I know he would be much happier running a CoC game. So, in a few weeks he will stop the D&D game and run a CoC game with the Chaosium rules. CoC isn't my favorite game, but his enthusiasm for the material and knowledge of the system makes it much better playing experience.

I'm a hardcore d20 fan, and although I think there is nothing about the system that inherently causes burnout, I do think the sheer volume of material out there is overwhelming. So sometimes I go on a fast and stop buying/reading new material (including visiting web sites and reading posts messageboards) for a little while. I'm choosier now about what I buy and it makes me look forward more to the books I do plan on buying.

And hey, no one game system is ever going to please everyone, no matter what the gamer designers would like. Maybe you have outgrown D&D/d20. It isn't for everyone and you should play what you interests you.

 

[RFisher]

Stage 1: Wow! This is fun!

Stage 2: Want low abstraction, details, simulation, versimilitude, more rules. Want to simulate the worlds of myths/legends/literature.

Stage 3: Hmm. High abstraction has a lot of benefits.

Stage 4: Desert. No group. Much sadness.

Stage 5: Gaming again! Regression to somewhere between stages 2 & 3.

Stage 6: Hmm. High abstraction has a lot of benefits, remember? Less time to devote to gaming than in the past. Want to simplify. Increase gamist focus; decrease simulationist. Less desire to be faithful to myths/legends/literature. Hey, those games I started with were actually pretty good.

 

[diaglo]

Stage 1: Wow! This is fun! 3-4hr/session; 5 sessions/week; 50 weeks/year; for 10+ years

Stage 2: life interrupts. No group. Much joy with life. Reading/Buying the game still.

Stage 3: Gaming again! but only on the computer.

Stage 4: Gaming again face to face. but no one wants to play my edition.

Stage 5: Gaming again. patience is a virtue. playing the game in stage 1.

 

[AIM-54]

A lot of it, I think, depends on both personal preferences and the particular desires of any given group. I started with 2E, but quickly also got into Call of Cthulhu, Battletech/Mechwarrior, as well as Shadowrun. My group in HS floated between all of those games without ever really committing to any longterm. We were learning what we liked and what games gave us that. By the time college rolled around, I'd moved away and didn't really play except when I was at home and the group mostly settled on SR. It took time, but I discovered that that was my favorite system. But by the end of college, I'd gotten together with some college friends to give 3E a try and really enjoyed that as well. I also introduced them to SR, which we've had a lot of fun with. Actually last weekend I was up visiting and ran an adventure for them using characters that many of them hadn't touched in almost 18 months, plus some new ones and it was one of the most successful games, of any type, I've ever run and certainly the most fun gaming I've had in quite awhile.

My group here is mostly hardcore d20 devotees. This is fine, but I find I burn out on it rather quickly, but not so much because of the system, but because of their particular style of play. They enjoy a different style of game than I do. I enjoy playing with them for the most part, but I find I'm happier when it's relatively less frequent. And someday they will relent and I will play SR with them!!! Really!