Actually, honestly played? Well, almost nothing. This is something I would really like to change.
I had a campaign going of Monte Cook’s Numenera for a couple of months in 2015, but this game fell apart in the usual ways. Players stopped committing to showing up. Schedules got the in way. Lives were re-prioritized. I was really disappointed, but there was no use in trying to keep it going. I let it die off, and I’ve been unable to organize a game since, despite trying a number of times. I’ve had people tentatively commit, and then back out. Perhaps I’m not a very good game master, or I’m a difficult person to play with. Or perhaps it’s just the way people schedule their times these days.
P.S.: I really enjoyed Numenera quite a bit, and I hope I get to play it again some day.
As I push 40, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to find people with similar interests who want to commit the kind of regular time it takes to developing a good campaign. I find playing any less than twice a month results in a disjointed experience. The ideal time frame is once a week, but even I find that difficult, and that’s with a relatively flexible schedule. I rarely try to schedule anything consistently anymore due to people’s lives being what they are.
For years now, I’ve found it far easier to get together temporary and ephemeral groups of people together to play board games; I can’t be the only one having this trouble, either. When I was younger, board games were a much smaller hobby, but these days, they are probably the fastest growing section of tabletop gaming (citation needed). I own dozens of board games that have seen consistent play, and probably nearly as many RPG books that are in mint condition because they’ve only been paged through once or twice.
If there’s one thing I really want to change in 2018, it’s that I want to develop a group of people who are as passionate about playing role-playing games as I am. I want to find a regular group willing to set aside a chunk of their lives to experience a good, exciting story with a few other people who are equally committed. If I’m being honest, it feels about as likely to happen as discovering a unicorn grazing in my back yard, but I’m not going to let that deter me.
The other way this is changing is that I’m starting a new company on the side of my usual business involved in developing really elaborate, tabletop D&D experiences. Basically, an organization aimed at running professional games, with top-tier tools and resources, and dedicated to providing support materials so others can do the same. If that goes well, i’ll be getting my fill of regular D&D games in the latter part of 2017 and into 2018 and beyond. I don’t want to talk about that idea too much yet, but you can be sure you’ll read more about it here as our plans develop.
For the month of August, I will be participating in #RPGaDay. I haven’t posted much on this blog about my love for role-playing games, and for a while, I wasn’t really acknowledging that love myself. But RPGs were my entry point in the the geek lifestyle, and they are very important to me. I’ll be exploring my relationship with RPGs all month with these posts.
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