Post by gamedave on Jun 27, 2008 7:49:20 GMT -5
Telephone is a fun game. Apparently, there are some rumors going around about the Supers campaign.
I canceled this Friday's game session. I did not cancel the campaign.
There is a bit of truth to the rumor, though. I'll be posting elsewhere about some general problems I'm having with GMing, but in this post I'll concentrate on Supers.
My game system doesn't work. The one I've been working on, on and off, for over a decade. It doesn't work. At least, not with this group.
No matter what specific die-rolling mechanic I try, no matter how simple and intuitive it seems to me, several players always have trouble grasping it. Minor problem.
I love the Feats mechanic (which I stole from the old Marvel Superheroes RPG). I still think it's the best way to model comic book powers, and it involves the players directly and lets them use their imagination and creativity. It's great. It doesn't work. Major problem.
Here's the thing. I'm not going to spend half the game session arguing with players about why they can't take a particular Feat, or how a particular Feat should work. I'm just not going to do it anymore. It's just not any fun for me, not to mention it slows the game down enormously. I seriously think about 50%-75% of the actual time spent in a combat encounter is taken up with players trying to create Feats, and a substantial portion of that is me saying "No", which is frustrating for everyone.
So, three possibilities I'm considering.
1) I sit down and tweak the game rules (again) and, more importantly, write a true "Big Book o' Feats". Players will be able to select Feats out of that book; if they want to create their own Feats, they will have to write them up and submit them between game sessions for review and revision. This option will take a while.
2) I use a published RPG, and we convert the characters over. I'd probably use "Silver Age Sentinels" (based on the "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" game system), with some tweaks. Other game systems don't allow the kind of player input and creativity that my game system does, but they are also a lot better developed and much more clearly defined, meaning (I hope) a lot less arguing.
3) We scrap the campaign entirely and move on to something else.
What do you all think?
I canceled this Friday's game session. I did not cancel the campaign.
There is a bit of truth to the rumor, though. I'll be posting elsewhere about some general problems I'm having with GMing, but in this post I'll concentrate on Supers.
My game system doesn't work. The one I've been working on, on and off, for over a decade. It doesn't work. At least, not with this group.
No matter what specific die-rolling mechanic I try, no matter how simple and intuitive it seems to me, several players always have trouble grasping it. Minor problem.
I love the Feats mechanic (which I stole from the old Marvel Superheroes RPG). I still think it's the best way to model comic book powers, and it involves the players directly and lets them use their imagination and creativity. It's great. It doesn't work. Major problem.
Here's the thing. I'm not going to spend half the game session arguing with players about why they can't take a particular Feat, or how a particular Feat should work. I'm just not going to do it anymore. It's just not any fun for me, not to mention it slows the game down enormously. I seriously think about 50%-75% of the actual time spent in a combat encounter is taken up with players trying to create Feats, and a substantial portion of that is me saying "No", which is frustrating for everyone.
So, three possibilities I'm considering.
1) I sit down and tweak the game rules (again) and, more importantly, write a true "Big Book o' Feats". Players will be able to select Feats out of that book; if they want to create their own Feats, they will have to write them up and submit them between game sessions for review and revision. This option will take a while.
2) I use a published RPG, and we convert the characters over. I'd probably use "Silver Age Sentinels" (based on the "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" game system), with some tweaks. Other game systems don't allow the kind of player input and creativity that my game system does, but they are also a lot better developed and much more clearly defined, meaning (I hope) a lot less arguing.
3) We scrap the campaign entirely and move on to something else.
What do you all think?
