We all have those games that we have always wanted to run, but they either psyche us out or our gaming groups do not want to play them. They sit on our shelves taunting us between each campaign. We make pacts with ourselves to one day run those games, to live the dream. When that day comes, will the game live up to your dreams? Well I have been to the edge and back, and for me, the answer was yes.
Dream Games
Every GM has a few games that they have always wanted to run and never have. You can’t force people to play it, and yet you can’t get past not running the game. I have a small stack of these games, games that I think would be interesting to run, but that my players have lacked interest in playing. There are some common reasons why a group cannot rally behind a game:
- One Person’s Passion – the game may be very interesting to a small number within the group, but others do not like that genre, setting, etc.
- Mechanical Differences – the game may be either too crunchy or not crunchy enough, depending on your groups preferences for rules.
- Aged/Dated – the game may have elements in either the setting or mechanics that make the game feel dated.
- Not the right group dynamic – some games require certain group mechanics (i.e. command structure) that may not work in the dynamics of your group.
My short list of games like this included: Legend of the Five Rings, Burning Wheel, Gangbusters, Star Frontiers, and Underground. The first two I have never run, and honestly something about Burning Wheel psyches me out. The next two were games I ran in my youth and would love to try again. Underground was…well, we’ll get to that in few paragraphs.
For my group the reasons we did not play any of these games varied. For L5R it was that I am the only one in my group who is a fan of Samurai settings. For Burning Wheel, it was the mechanics of the game. Gangbusters and Star Frontiers were not popular because some thought the games were old and feared that the mechanics would feel dated compared to more modern games. Underground was interesting to me and another player, but not to the general group.
Tips for Playing Your Dream Game
So how do you get your group to let you live out your dream? Here are some suggestions:
- Play a One-Shot – start small. Don’t try to sell a full campaign, rather play a one-shot. Most players will agree to a single session of a game. If the session goes well your chances of pitching a campaign later will increase.
- Play/Run it at a Convention – if you cannot get your group interested, try the game out at a convention. Sign up for a session and play the game to scratch that itch. If you are comfortable enough with the game, offer to run it at a convention.
- Find another group – easier said than done, depending on the gaming scene in your area, but you might find other players with a similar interest at the FLGS, Meetup groups, or college gaming clubs.
Once you find a way to get to run your dream game, here are a few tips for how to run the game:
- Don’t Geek-Out – in the excitement to run this game, you may start to overdo it in terms of the story, how you are going to run the game, etc. Be cool. Being too intense is a surefire way to turn people off (Remember those Titanic people back in the 90’s? It took years before I would watch that movie).
- Accentuate the game – Make sure that what you do run puts the game in the best light and shows off its best features. Running L5R but downplaying the role of honor is selling the game short. Don’t compromise the core features of the game in the hope of making it more likable. In the end if you do sell it that way, you will be disappointed with the results.
- Lower your expectations – sounds pessimistic, but if you have put this game on a pedestal for a long time, the actual running of the game may never be able to live up to your expectations. Worse, the game may actually be dated or it may not fit to your current gaming style. Be grounded so that you are not crushed.
Experiences from The Underground
I bought Underground in 1993, in Crazy Egor’s Discount Gaming Warehouse in Rochester, NY. For months I had been seeing the ads in Dragon for it, and was losing my mind. I bought the game, read it and fell in love with it. I was the only one of my group who did. There were a few failed attempts to run it over the years, but for 20 years that game sat on my shelf. In the meantime I bought every supplement in both paper and digital copies. One day…one day…
Then that day came. With one member of my current group and a friend who I met through the college group for which I am the adviser, we set up a campaign and started to play. Overall the experience has been great. The rules held their age much better than I had expected. The setting, which was interesting when it came out, seems even more relevant now. Though I attribute that not so much as a gradual slide into dystopia (though I could make a few arguments for that) but rather that I have matured quite a bit in 20 years and have a lot more life experience. In all though it has been a totally enjoyable experience.
Closing
There are always more games than there is time, but nothing is more frustrating than a game you yearn to run or play, but cannot find the outlet in which to do so. If you look around you may find your opportunity to take that game off the shelf and give it its day in the sun.
What are some of your dream games? Why have you not been able to play them? Have you ever had a chance to play one of your dream games? If so, how was it?
Over the years there has been at least one ‘dream game’ I have wanted to run for nearly every genre and just never had the opportunity. Most often it has been because not enough players were interested in the genre. It took a long time just to find a regular group of players willing to try something other than DnD in my area let alone a genre other than fantasy.
However, with internet gaming becoming more popular and with it a much larger pool of perspective players who may be open to new things, I now hope I can find the time to run at least some of those ‘dream games’ I’ve had to set aside over the years.
For me, the dream game has been some flavor of transhuman-style sci-fi (I’ve managed to sneak elements into other games) and the old Dream Pod 9 “Jovian Chronicles”…just haven’t had a receptive audience and the richness of the setting, in some ways, works against it. I find myself wo dering what I’d do for a campaign. (One of my gamers last night was saying his was “Bue Planet.”)
Always wanted to play Trail of Cthulhu, but every game I signed up for never happened.
So, I ran it myself recently at a mini-con at a game store, using a Free RPG Day scenario.
Now I’m a 30+ year veteran GM in the field of Lovecraftian Gothic Horror gaming and have earned some respect for campaign-length story arcs I’ve crafted. People still talk about our Masks of Nyarlathotep game that ran in the mid 80s with YT at the helm.
But this system was so alien to everyone that the experience was dry to say the least. No-one could grasp the idea of being somewhere and saying what skill they were using to hunt for clues when it didn’t involve a die roll.
The ToC system hands a clue over if the PC is in the right place and “uses the right skill”, which could be taken as an automatic and passive thing but then where is the player investment – how does a player grow if he/she doesn’t know how they are succeeding?
I tried to coach effectively but it broke immersion. I had the GM matrix of skills ToC recommends so, I could have just given the players the clues because they had the skills and were in the right place, but that was even worse because it felt to the players like the process was random, and that is definitely not what the Gumshoe system is trying to get people to do (I think).
In short I felt that the system was fighting me. I wasn’t experienced in the system which translates into a rough ride in most games as the GM feels for the bumps, and neither were the players, of whom more was expected than the usual D&D-family style RPG.
This has cemented in place my rule of “never run a game if you’ve no experience with the game engine”. If I’d had a chance to play opposite a GM experienced with ToC I would have had a better feel for the issues from a player standpoint.
When I contrast this with my experience with Ed1 Call of Cthulhu – where I was bullied into running a game the day I bought it and got up to speed in 15 minutes – it makes me gnash what’s left of my teeth.
I ran Trail of Cthulhu twice (two one-shots). While it read well and I loved what it was trying to do, I agree with you that the system felt awkward in play.
If I ever run another one-shot, I think I’d use standard CoC PCs and just let PCs with the relevant skills automatically succeed when the adventure calls for it and roll for the extra clues.
The only downside to that is that CofC uses the skill successes to drive the experience reward mechanic. Remove the skill rolls and you start breaking the delicate cogs inside. Of course, in a one-shot that isn’t important.
I usually use the Spot (clue) skill roll as an indicator of the time it takes to recover the clue in question. If I have time I’ll butcher a clue into pieces and scatter it around the adventure so it can be found elsewhere. The butchered parts also serve as pleasing confirmation of information found (to judge by player reaction). However, it *is* time consuming.
I should say that Trail of Cthulhu has the potential to offer an immersive RP experience unlike just about any other game in the genre, but that it requires a more intensive effort on the part of the players to understand the meta-mechanics enabling that process than a trad RPG like Call of Cthulhu.
Much like Dresden Files RPG in fact. If you understand how the mechanics work you can have an almost unbounded immersive RP experience in that system.
When your group doesn’t grok the “Samurai epic,” the Legend of the Five Rings “dream game” you have in your head just won’t ever happen. A lesson learned over a five-year period of constantly having that game pitch rejected or pushed back in favor of something else.
I’m not sure if these are dream games, but I want to run a long term Burning Wheel game. It is my favorite system and I rarely get to use it.
I also want to play a Jovian Chronicles game and a sweeping Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game.
I have about 20 L5R books, including all of the 4th edition ones. I am hoping to run a one-shot at the upcoming RPG Day. Maybe it will go well. I will try not to get overeager about it.
I’m about to run a 3-session story of a game that’d fit into this category, and I’m not sure which system I’m going to use! It’s going to be a scifi/horror mash-up, using either the classic Star Frontiers rules or the Pacesetter Chill/Star Ace system. I loved SF and Chill way back when, and either would do the trick, but having the built-in horror and monster mechanics and stats may tip me toward the Pacesetter rules.
Our group has decided to do short ‘ye olde’ games whenever we finish a Pathfinder Adventure Path book, so as to break things up. On the list, in addition to those mentioned above, are Traveller, and The Price of Freedom (WEG’s ‘Red Dawn’ game). We’ll see what else we add over time.
I agree completely that one-offs or mini-campaigns (like what we’re going to do) would work best to give the GM the opportunity to run the thing, and yet not force players to operate in a system or setting that might lose its attraction after a few sessions.
For several years now, I’ve really wanted to do a high intrigue game set in an Elizabethan Era Theater (or some low-fantasy simulacrum thereof) with an acting troupe that are secretly spies. I wanted the plays they were performing to counterpoint the spy missions they’d be sent on as well as the realities of their character’s personal lives.
A few things have kept me from running this.
1. Lack of player interest. As my wife so eloquently put it, “Sometimes your artsy-fartsy crap just doesn’t sound like fun.”
2. Lack of Time. To run this properly I’d need a complex web of NPCs, PCs, and their competing plots, plans, and schemes. I’d also wanted to write out a few scenes from each play and have the characters/players rehearse them. Then, after the mission/drama of the event, have the characters/players run through them again. Hopefully they’d feel how different the lines read the second time around. Ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat!
3. The abovementioned is not only a huge time-sink but an intimidating task to boot. I’m very uncertain if I’d be able to keep all those balls in the air.
Maybe one day I’ll find enough of the right kind of players, have that kind of free time, and then finally be able to make it happen. mebbe
You *could* get a mini-fix of this by creating a Fiasco!!! play set around the concept. Fiasco!! will attract players just because it is Fiasco!!!.
The notion of a Fiasco playset as a way to shoehorn in a game everyone thinks is otherwise “too much” is seriously genius. I must immediately begin pondering what I need to turn into a playset just to sneak it past people. 🙂
That is an excellent notion! I’d never considered running it as anything other than a longterm campaign. Fiasco could work great…
Even just rethinking the game as a one shot could be an option. Thanks, yo.
I game I want to PLAY as opposed to run is Empire of the Petal Throne (aka Tekumel). It was the very first published RPG I ever played and I’ve been jonesing for a game ever since. Unfortunately, no-one I know is interested in running it.
The game I want to play is Call of Cthulhu but no one else wants to run it and my attempts to play it at Dragon*Con last year were disasters: one GM didn’t show and one GM had never run the scenario before so it was a bust. A few weeks ago I got to run a one-shot of it for my regular group and people seemed to enjoy it but I felt like I, as Keeper, did not live up to my hopes for the game overall. Perhaps appropriately, it seems to be the game that will continue to haunt me, a problem for which the solution will always remain just out of reach. 😉
If you live within driving distance of Long Island, New York I’ll run the bugger for you.
I’m with Roxysteve! Empire of the Petal Throne is definitely my dream game. For years, I collected everything I could hunt down for it. Ultimately, I realized that, while I loved what I was reading, I simply felt overwhelmed by the setting and didn’t feel I could run it. I’d love to play in someone else’s game, but simply haven’t found anyone else able to run.
Currently I’ve been wanting to introduce Glorantha to a group of players who are not familiar with that setting. I’m waiting for my Kickstarter book to show up and will then try to decide which rule set to use.
Can I just add that “finding another group” might be as easy as going to your local friendly game store and offer your game there?
Nowhere else are you more likely to get a bite. I know many here are living the Campus Life and having been there, done that I know a certain tunnel vision can result when it comes to mixing, but consider: The LFGS is filled with people who want to game.
Even if the store doesn’t host games they might have a corkboard for people who stop by. I got my keenest Call of Cthulhu player by posting a card in Waterloo (Mineola) in ’85.
JM2C
Aaaand no sooner did I post that than I got a note to the effect that my LFGS is closing its doors at the end of May.
Ravenblood Games of Plainview, New York will be missed by many, and by me in particular.
My condolences on the pending closure.
I really don’t like seeing a good FLGS close up shop. They are starting to be few and far between.
My dream games have long been in the “Aged/Dated” category, I’m some kind of nostalgic packrat who wants to keep doing more with old games that I still have lying around. I also spent a lot of the ’90s buying up ’80s games (that I couldn’t have afforded while in college, or couldn’t get while I was in high school), and have been wanting to play (re-play) them ever since.
My solution has been to find other groups, and/or other rulesets. One of my all-time favorite settings was Space:1889, which I was able to run a bit at the time. Most of my friends, however, fell into a “nothing but D&D” mindset. When it was announced that Savage Worlds was going to release a version of that setting, I quickly found a group through RPG.net. Now, that group has played a lot of odd things with me, with us circling back to Space on occasion.
Ditto Star Frontiers, I found an unofficial Savage conversion for that, and sprang it on my teenage son and his friends two summers back. I may be revisiting that setting sometime soon, I hope.
Twilight:2000 has long been a favorite, it was the game I cut my GM’ing teeth on, really learning how to put together a campaign. Once the Cold War ended and WW3 was no longer hanging over all our heads (thank God!), it no longer seemed worth playing. Yet, at a convention, another fellow ran it– with packed tables– and so I have joined him at that GM table. I also tossed that game to the teenagers mentioned above, as last summer’s weekly game, and they mostly enjoyed that. My group long ago were all teenagers, my son’s group is all teenagers, and the convention groups were those looking to re-play that same teenager game. So, one of my current “dream games” is to run a campaign, for grown-ups, from scratch, to see what kind of serious RPing we could do. We may overdose on the grimdark, but I’d still like to try.
Man, not a lot makes me as happy as hearing a success story for Underground; I’m still waiting for my “one day” with that one.
I’d throw Unknown Armies on my dream list, too. I’ve been in the odd session here or there, but nothing tapping what I know could be that game’s potential.
Not exactly a dream game, but something I enjoy that I don’t find a lot of others do is Champions and the whole Hero System arena. I enjoy those rare occasions when I get a chance to play it, but I feel like the only one who likes to spend all that time and energy on character creation. 😉
Those are just some highlights, though. In the big picture, I feel like I come across SO many more games than I have time or resources to play. There’s a lot of fun to be had out there. “One day,” right? 🙂