thread: 2005-11-22 : A Seriously Social Issue
On 2005-11-23, Tom wrote:
Hrm...
How many of us get to play the games we want, with the people we want to play them with?
Right now, I'm not playing enough of the stuff I really want to. I really want to play PTA, BW, Heroquest and Capes with a mad passion.
On the other hand, I wanted to play Amber/Nobilis and I did. I wanted to play a round of Dogs and I did. After the Holidays I'll probably put out a call for PTA.
I really, really enjoy the d20 game I'm in.
Here are the issues for me:
1.) Limited selection of players—this isn't so much of a concern now, but it was when I was growing up. There were only 3-4 guys who were playing AD&D. That was it. If you wanted to play any RPG, you had to play AD&D and you played with them. I grew up in a very rural area and no one else was interested. Now, they were fun guys to play with. But I was lucky. There was no one else to turn to.
These days my options are much wider. But this is probably a real problem for a lot of people.
2.) Too many indians, not enough chiefs—I really want to play Heroquest. I don't want to GM it, I want to play it. The same is true for pretty much everything I listed above. That's why I really want to do PTA, Capes and Polaris so I can get some playtime in. I don't like being the GM and having to do everything. But for a lot of games, if I want to run it, I have to be the GM.
3.) Core Story Pizza—You know how hard it is to get a bunch of people to agree on what kind of toppings to get on a pizza they'll all be sharing? Same thing happens with RPGs. I want to play sci-fi, you want a Western, she wants to kick down dungeon doors, he wants court intrigues in 17th Century France. We can't all get what we want, we have to compromise. If we don't, we aren't playing anything at all.
How reasonable is it to expect?
I generally don't get involved in games that don't interest me. On the other hand, I usually don't go out of my way to cultivate new gaming groups that might want to play things I'm interested in. I just make the rounds with people I know.
I think it's reasonable for me to expect that if I want to play a certain game with certain people, I have to really "sell" it. Otherwise, it's reasonable for me to expect that I'll have to find other people more interested in playing what I want (so more of a "search" for the game).
How far should we have to compromise, and on what?
I think that the right group of people is far more important than the right game. The d20 game is a perfect example. I actually appreciate d20 for what it is and I enjoy it well enough, but it's the group of players we have that makes the game fun. Both our in-game activity and out-of-game socializations make it fun for me.
If, instead, I was playing PTA with a bunch of jerks, or just a bunch of unimaginative people, it'd be maddening, and I'd probably quit.
