How often do you play? Once a week is the most common answer, with several times a month being a close second. I was surprised to see such a showing for several times a week: to all you multi-game night warriors, I salute you! And one lone person says that he or she plays daily, which I would assume is assisted by the Internet in some fashion, but if you’ve got a face to face game that happens every single day (and aren’t 12), then I bow down before you and your frequent playings.
Speaking of game nights, I’ve gotten into more and more games lately, joining new campaigns and trying to settle back into a grove for old ones. So far, the three games I’m in campaigns of are all 4e. This is great and gives me the chance to DM and then play 2 very different characters. However, I own a fair number of games (over 200 board and card games, and a bookshelf full of RPGs) and so I get cravings for other games. 4th Power is one out-cropping of it, but recently, a few of us have decided to embark on a mission to mix in some other games into our busy schedules, focusing on one-shot adventures and such to experience a wide range of other games.
Our focus for this is going to be those things we call “story games” or “indie RPGs“, a term that I cannot myself fully define, and have a little experience with but not enough to call myself an expert by any means. There’s also a world of politics and such around it that turns me off into getting too much into it, but I continue to pick up the stuff that seems interesting and try to seek out convention games that sound good. All that has meant that I’ve built up a number of games that I have never run or played but have been itching to try, and I’ve found a few others in the same situation, and so we’ve finally decided to do something about it.
Thus, that is my long, rambling way of asking you how experienced you are with these types of games. Again, there’s no hard and fast definition that’s going to work here to define “indie/story games” but a part of my own definition would exclude D&D, World of Darkness, GURPS, and most of the other big games. My definition includes games that I own such as Dread, Dogs in the Vineyard, Mountain Witch, Primetime Adventures, and so on.
[poll id=”145″]
Any insight into your experiences (try to keep it friendly) would be appreciated as we dive in.
My group owns: Shock, Sorcerer the RPG, and Primetime adventures. As of now, we’ve played in 4 Sorcerer games in the last five years, one lasting 3 sessions, the other three dying out after one session.
We’ve played one session of Shock (which turned out to be a complete comedy game).
Primetime Adventures has yet to be cracked by anyone other than the guy who bought it.
We keep wanting to play other games, but our primary game, D&D has always held center stage. With 4e’s structure (the ddi, ease of prep and play, etc..) it’s become even less likely we’ll play something else. I don’t see this as a bad thing; I’ve played my share of other RPGs and have found 4e to suit my tastes perfectly.
Dave, would this category of games include Chivalry and Sorcery (lol)?
I enjoy playing some of these. Like anything else, it depends on the particular game and who I’m playing it with…
I ran a campaign using Spirit of the Century. I really like Don’t Rest Your Head. I own several (Sorcerer, Kill Puppies for Satan, Puppetland, and a few others) that I haven’t played, though. Some I definitely want to try.
.-= Stuart´s last blog ..Rules Hacking: Combat, Reach, Facing, and Areas of Control =-.
I used to play story/indie games quite a bit, but don’t these days. So none of those poll choices fit me or my group.
Only rarely, though I would very much like to play them more often. I own several and find the concepts and approaches to gaming intriguing. But the others in my regular RPG group haven’t yet been willing to stray from their traditional games. Thus, my only opportunities so far have been at conventions.
.-= David´s last blog ..thru-the-portal, A Quarterly Digital Publication =-.
Well, I come from the teenager-riddled and romance-addled (and consequently, oft-misunderstood and misrepresented) world of freeform roleplay, where storyline is king and the words “dice” and “system” have never been uttered.
It’s such a shame that transitioning this niche into a full-blown adult RPG community has been such a challenge (one that I might add I’m working on diligently with projects like RolePlayGateway (RPG)) or even disregarded at all.
“Story Games” are likely the single greatest form of true roleplaying there is, as there is less chance for “roll” playing and more incentive to play the role of the designated character. In essence, we play to have fun, and there are a great many varying flavors of RPG, but we’ve already got the time-honed methods provided to us through theatre and fiction-writing, and I think those are great methods to build on.
In the mid-70s when wargames were king, the likes of Gygax and Arneson envisioned a group of systems that defined individual play and, most importantly, adventure. Some of these early games (which came long before my time, being born at the meager date of 1987) were often the most intriguing pieces of work that generated the greatest amount of enjoyment.
It’s this mystique that a lot of the main stream games are missing, particularly from D&D 3.0 forward. It’s a shame that storyline-driven gaming has been reduced to secondary gaming groups and what we call “Indie” RPGs (wonderful in their own way, of course), where even the most modest of perspectives views them as the “fringe” of the gaming industry.
Myself and countless others of the most youthful generation have filled this gap with text-based freeform roleplaying games. Most of these kids haven’t even heard of “tabletop”, let alone the introduction of dice to any degree–and I honestly think that’s one of the greatest benefits of our ignorance. However, what we’re looking for is more traditional gamers willing to bridge the gap between our Internet-enabled systems and the wargame-derived tabletop games that you oldies enjoy so much (we’re getting there, with things like DungeonMastering Tools, but not quite yet…) — the right attitude and awareness would go a long way to enabling a future for tabletop games by engaging younger players at a far greater rate.
.-= Eric Martindale´s last blog ..THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!! =-.
I think the boundary between Rarely and Never is too fuzzy, since you can’t be precise about what is an indie/story game.
.-= Joshua´s last blog ..Out-RAGE-e-ous Accents =-.
Really, it’s the difference between “I only play D&D” and “I’ve tried other stuff once or twice.”