TOPIC: Too many continuation games?

From a relatively new member the rotation thing seems to be a bit if a lottery. Mind you I probably haven't done myself any favors by being absent from my own game. Saying that I did offer it up at 2 days notice. I'd be happy to gm again now I know when I definitely won't be able to attend. Tbh I feel that I've let myself and the players down a bit since the two new folks who were great players have disappeared, I feel partly responsible. Back to the topic I don't see a problem with continuation games as long as everyone actually has a game and new members more so, since a less than stellar experience might turn people off.

Hey, me again. Just in case anybody is interested, these are the games, off the top of my head and will change as I discover more.

* denotes powered bu the apocalypse games.

Numenera
Night's Black Agents
Dungeonworld*
Shadow of the Demon Lord
The Sprawl*
Apocalypse World*
Monster of the Week*
Mindjammer
Mutants and Masterminds

Hasta Luego

I would play Dungeonworld, but not until 2018.

I would definitely give Numenara, Dungeon World and the Sprawl a go, also Mutants and Masterminds.

Hi guys

First of all apologies for having been absent from the club for most of this year. Life has been getting in the way so haven't felt I could commit to playing or running any games myself.

I was considering running something for R5 but I don't think things will be satisfactorily resolved in time.

The relevant point I'm labouring to make is that I hope to return to the club soon and should be able to run something that is not a continuation game. It may help to alleviate some of the issue at least!

I picked up a full copy of Dragon Age at the expo this year so hope to maybe run that when I come back if anyone's interested.

When I'm ready to rejoin, I'll post it in the usual fashion.

Hope to see you all soon!

Andy S

This is a rehash of some old discussions and I guess inevitable
I am a fan of, and would prefer to play, campaigns. I tend to dislike games where the characters don't develop, as for me this is an opportunity to develop roleplaying possibilities as the character begins to explore strange or new powers. 8 week rotations tend not to allow that. I for one would prefer to continue with those campaign, but would be happy to drop out of some of them if the club decided on smaller groups for the benefit of us all. That said, I would not be happy with continually changing players in campaigns. Part of the campaign is that the players, and their characters develop through the game. changing players is therefore not a campaign and is generally going to be unsatisfying to players jumping in half way through, and to DM's whose enjoyment of the game is dependent on catering to the needs of the players.

My Vote: keep campaigns, keep the players in campaigns and ensure no more than 2 campaigns per rotation.

I agree completely that group size is too large, I tabled reducing group sizes to 4 not too long back. for me 4 is the optimum group size for most systems. it allows players to progress quickly and it keeps the game moving as each game round has fewer people to act. if we decide on 4 players maximum then by definition we get more games. The problem is that often we don't have the DM's for 4 tables, let alone 6 or 7. so the questions becomes how to get the additional GM's to run games. we did a taster session 12months ago that was organised (if that's the word) by Bane. a rolling scenario that each DM ran just one week. it worked to encourage some new DM's so maybe that is an option..not sure godlike power, and the roleplaying opportunities based on those.

MY vote is 4 to a game, with additions only if we leftovers... (you know who you are! )
encourage new DM's to run games

Game variation is something more difficult to address. folks want to play what they want to play... some way out stuff like rifts is great once in a while, but frankly I don't want to spend half the rotation trying to work out how the game works, what dice to role and discussing rules. which means playing games I am familiar with. Notable exceptions are those that provide something new and different, (warhammer3rd ed was the last game I REALLY liked and I've run it half a dozen times since acquiring it, but, as noted above, the modules provided are campaigns and take longer than the 8 weeks to run.

My vote: if we reduce numbers of folks in games to 4, by definition we will get more games, and then, hopefully some additional variety. I wouldn't try to force variety artificially. i.e. you can only have 2 tables of 5e.

last point : this is about having fun. we all need to do that, so we dont want to stress about hard and fast 'rules!'