Games You Want To Play But Never Will

[selderane]

I've noticed a tend amongst my gaming comrades: We all have games we want to play but never will.

This usually happens because no one wants to run the games we want to play. The closest we may ever get doing something with the game is running it ourselves. Of course, there's the the case where we have no interest in running, and simply wish to play, but then that only gets resolved if you can find someone who wants to GM that particular game.

I find myself most often in the former group. I have no problem running a game. In fact, it's a general policy of mine not to suggest a game to play unless I'm willing to run it. It's a stance my current gaming group has adopted, I'm happy to report.

In my group, however, I'm really the only person willing to run a World of Darkness game. I'd kill to be in a Vampire: The Masquerade or Hunter game. Typically, they're willing to play (with some grousing), but that means I'll never get to play. That goes with most horror-themed RPGs really. So, my newest love, CthulhuTech is not even an option.

What about you guys? Any games you want to draw up a PC for but can't?

[ArchAngel]

That's pretty much all the tabletop games for me.

[Deepfreeze32]

^Likewise, except for fourth edition DnD. I'm the only person in town who even knows how to play a White Wolf game, let alone run it. On top of that, most of my friends are all "Nah, DnD works just fine".


I want to play Call of Cthulhu, dangit.

[selderane]

That's pretty much all the tabletop games for me.

No one else to run a game? Or just not much tabletop gaming interest in your area?

^Likewise, except for fourth edition DnD. I'm the only person in town who even knows how to play a White Wolf game, let alone run it. On top of that, most of my friends are all "Nah, DnD works just fine".


I want to play Call of Cthulhu, dangit.

Have you tried running it for your group? Sometimes that's the gateway drug.

That said, were I in a group like yours, I'd give serious consideration to finding a different group. I'd go insane dealing with a mentality like that. There are too many great games out there to be stuck with just DnD.

[ArchAngel]

The friends I have that do play I rarely see.

[ArcticFox]

My experience running Vampire:The Masquerade was... traumatic.

Call of Cthulhu was pretty fun but of course, characters die in that game. A lot.

[selderane]

The friends I have that do play I rarely see.

Then make new friends! Is there a gaming store in your area? Odds are there are people looking for new groups if there is. There are a number of websites dedicated to linking gamers to groups, and the other way around, too.

My experience running Vampire:The Masquerade was... traumatic.

Call of Cthulhu was pretty fun but of course, characters die in that game. A lot.

Tell us about the trauma!

But a longtime observation of mine has been that the biggest hurdle to White Wolf games are its players.

[ArcticFox]

Tell us about the trauma!

But a longtime observation of mine has been that the biggest hurdle to White Wolf games are its players.

Yeah that's prettymuch it. Every single aspect of character creation is based on the idea of each individual following their own agenda. This all came to a head in an incident that has come to be known - infamously - among my gaming club members as the Night of the Reservoir Vampires. (A reference to Quentin Tarantino's movie, Reservoir Dogs)

The party was riding in an open topped vehicle equipped with a large machine gun on the way to perform a task for the Prince when, at some point, the Malkavian player became bored and fired on the player next to him. This resulted in the two Brujah going berzerk and attacking each other. The Ventrue was FD'ed in the first round of the fight with the Malkavian running madly into the night, laughing all the way. The Gangrel got the full force of the output from that machine gun to the face.

In a party of 5 players, 1 or 2 survived.

What made it traumatic, besides the utter disintegration of the party, was the fact that every single player was clamoring for my attention at the same moment, arguing rules to try and stay alive, and generally making my life utterly miserable for the 4 hours it took to resolve 3 rounds of combat.

Never. Again.

[selderane]

Tell us about the trauma!

But a longtime observation of mine has been that the biggest hurdle to White Wolf games are its players.

Yeah that's prettymuch it. Every single aspect of character creation is based on the idea of each individual following their own agenda. This all came to a head in an incident that has come to be known - infamously - among my gaming club members as the Night of the Reservoir Vampires. (A reference to Quentin Tarantino's movie, Reservoir Dogs)

The party was riding in an open topped vehicle equipped with a large machine gun on the way to perform a task for the Prince when, at some point, the Malkavian player became bored and fired on the player next to him. This resulted in the two Brujah going berzerk and attacking each other. The Ventrue was FD'ed in the first round of the fight with the Malkavian running madly into the night, laughing all the way. The Gangrel got the full force of the output from that machine gun to the face.

In a party of 5 players, 1 or 2 survived.

What made it traumatic, besides the utter disintegration of the party, was the fact that every single player was clamoring for my attention at the same moment, arguing rules to try and stay alive, and generally making my life utterly miserable for the 4 hours it took to resolve 3 rounds of combat.

Never. Again.

Dude, that's hilarious!

I wouldn't have allowed the Malkavian player attack the other PCs out of boredom unless it made 100% sense for the character to have done so at that very moment. The party was on a mission from the Prince and he pulled that? Yeah, he and his sire gets staked for the sun for his stupidity.

This is why I generally disallow Malkavians in my games; most players have no idea how to run them properly. Too often they're used as an excuse to be obnoxious.

[ArcticFox]

Too often [Malkavians]'re used as an excuse to be obnoxious.

Truth.

But in this case, I think the Malkavian was just the spark that lit the powder keg already formed by the various conflicting agendas of the characters. I admit to my own share of the blame for that... In my defense, that's the way the game is designed.

[selderane]

Too often [Malkavians]'re used as an excuse to be obnoxious.

Truth.

But in this case, I think the Malkavian was just the spark that lit the powder keg already formed by the various conflicting agendas of the characters. I admit to my own share of the blame for that... In my defense, that's the way the game is designed.

Yeah, that game is, to a point. I mean, the setting plays up the whole "you're all predators with a monster inside you clawing at your brain, wanting to eat all things with a pulse" but once you drill down, any vampire who does that is quickly dispatched - Camarilla or Sabatt.

That's what Frenzy and Humanity/Morality tests should help determine.

But, hey, in none of your players called foul, 'dems the bricks.

[ArcticFox]

Yeah the problem was that a couple players were genuine, bona fide rules lawyers in a system with a very loose rules set, a couple players had no idea how the rules worked and just thought everything should work the way their imagination said it should, and the rest didn't really care.

[selderane]

Ouch. That sucks. I don't understand rules lawyers in any White Wolf game. If any RPG ultimately says, "Do whatever you want!" it's the Storyteller system.

Fundamentally, I think rules lawyering comes down to a lack of trust in the GM. I try to make it clear to my players that if you don't trust me, if you don't think I'm trying to give you an entertaining experience, don't play in my game. Neither of us is going to like it.

[ArcticFox]

Yeah I agree. Rules lawyers spend a lot of time tuning their character and min/maxing it to perform the way they think it should according to their interpretation of the rules (which is often not nearly as accurate as they think it is) and then become annoyed at the GM when things don't wok the way they thought.

[selderane]

I was in a few really good White Wolf games at GenCon. It's too bad that's the only place I can find a good World of Darkness game.

I was also in a few horrendously bad White Wolf games at GenCon too. Like, "OMG my brain cannot process why these things are happening" bad. Let's just say I'll never participate in a Game Base 7 event again. There were serious problems with every game I attended that they ran. I'm getting angry again just thinking about them... I will rant if asked...

The White Wolf games I was in that were great were all run by Darkness Remembered. They're were fantastic.