“Screw This Game/Campaign”: Pulling the Plug on an RPG
This is a variation of my post over at RPG.NET.
As much as I like (maybe love, okay love) tabletop role-playing games, I’m not perfect, others aren’t perfect, and sometimes things just go sideways. Sometimes it’s someone’s “fault”, sometimes it’s everyones fault, sometimes it’s nobody’s – it just happens. Below are some examples when I or persons I know have simply had to essentially stand-up during a game and say “Nope, this isn’t going to work” and walk off. It’s a disappointing thing to have to do or have done, it feels like a failure of some kind and it can be taken personally sometimes, but regardless, sometimes I think this kind of bowing out or putting a game out of its misery, is necessary.
Lured of the Ring
A friend of mine GM’d WFRP1E for myself, my aunt, her two sons, two cousins, and another friend of ours, for a long time, not sure how long, I’d say at least a year, maybe two for all I know, once a week, we had all kinds of characters at all kinds of skill levels and accomplishments. I tried to GM a couple times, because he would occasionally complain he couldn’t ever play, but then he would generally want to GM if I asked him if he wanted me to take a turn, so I only got to run about six or so times then.
Anyway, people were emailing him character intentions and maps and town fortifications and ship deckplans, which he thought was cool, but I think after a year or so of weekly GM’ing for 2-4 hours (sometimes more) for like seven people, with almost no breaks, I think he was really burning out and when my aunt told him she wanted her gnome to grab some ominous glowy orb which I admit we kept getting the feeling was chaos-related, he just said “Okay. The Universe blows up.” *blink, blink* I definitely consider that “walking out”, though I don’t think, for the most part, it was really due to any particular player/character behavior, as much as burnout/boredom.
The Keep and the Ninja Scientist
I attempted to run a game of …something, Wushu maybe, before I had a real handle on it, some rules lite thing anyway, using the old Byrne/Prochnow occult/war movie The Keep as a base, but I was holding a bit too tightly to the faithfulness and plot of the movie and as a result, the players only got as far as getting into the village at the beginning of the movie where the Nazis were pushing the peasants around, before numerous confusions, misinterpretations and abuse of the system (and my inept knowledge of the rules) pretty much broke its back.
Looking back, at the time, I thought the main problem was a young cousin was using his “Scientist” trait to allow him to do everything from climb walls to mix chemicals to repairing/disabling vehicles to reading ancient languages – the other players were getting upset that he was doing this; even if I denied him some things, he just kept at it, always interrupting. And while that’s true, he was majorly overreaching and overextending the trait, I should have had him narrow it down to begin with, and I should have reread the rule about player Vetoes. As it was, it devolved into an OOC “intervention” airing of grievances and trying to explain what people were unhappy with, etc. I’d like to be able to say the game ended because “a player was just totally crazy and obnoxious and uncontrollable”… but it really wasn’t like that.
I called it off as something they weren’t into or understanding, and I wasn’t able to GM correctly and also didn’t have a firm understanding of, though I think the players were also on the verge of abandoning it anyway.
The Walled-In Lil’ Pit-Fighters
That same player wanted to run WFRP, so we all indulged him, but all made Halfling Pit-Fighters, which made him look crestfallen to begin with. We weren’t intentionally trying to be totally contrary, but wanted to jokingly run him through some of the difficulties GM’s face, so when it got to the point we couldn’t follow a certain avenue of pursuit because he said “an invisible wall blocks you”, and it extended everywhere except where he was wanting us to go, we all started throwing torches and lanterns and weapons at this accursed, magical wall, obviously erected by some infernal chaos power. He didn’t take it quite as well as we thought and got upset and “gave up”. But he was a mid-teen, so it was understandable. I still felt like it was partly the players’ fault for not playing more within that GM’s style and ability, and allowing him to get used to running a game. I am happy to hear that he is currently in a group that plays Legend of the Five Ring, which I’ve heard of but know nothing about.
Music of the Spheres
I ran one prepublished CoC scenario for a fairly good sized group, which for the most part, went pretty well, even with my underestimating the pure stopping power of an 8 guage shotgun on a monster, but when I attempted to start a second one out of the same booklet, with a little more globe-hopping and in-depth investigation and clue-based play, nobody seemed to have any idea what to do, where to go, who was where or what was going on, some of it my fault, some of it was player inattention, I sensed the “not into it” vibe pretty heavy, so though I wanted to run and for them to play, I had to call it off as the right thing to do.
D&D 3.5 Pole-Sword Debacle
Finally, my only real but very memorable “screw you guys, I’m going home” was a game of D&D3.5, famous module, original Homlet? I started off already having some personal issues with the DM though we both have GM’d and played in each other’s games fairly objectively. Another friend who was playing but for some reason also was having a bad day, or also issues with the DM or something, was playing very erratically, unthinking and “hurry, hurry, I’m bored, let’s kill stuff”, to the point where he wound up jumping a retired warrior/blacksmith about five levels over any of us, and being dropped on the spot. “Finally!” my friend said, “Now I can go get some pizza!” and walked off, but came back later and started playing around on the computer and playing videos and songs loudly, which I had to ask him to stop or turn down, as we were all being irritated – he finally left that session and didn’t play again.
I played my Dwarven Paladin a few more weeks with them, maybe a couple months, but the rules were a lot more heavy and constrictive than I like, and tactical situations were occurring (which I hate and have an inability to suss out) and then that damned “check for traps every 10 feet” thing, and instead of any bonuses or XP or even neutral reaction to any attempts to perform heroic or cinematic actions or attacks, I kept accumulating penalties to the point where I rarely succeeded and in fact got knocked out in one hit, from full HP to nothing, by a polearm wielding ogre in a cave – later turned out he couldnt have wielded said polearm because of the dimensions of the cave, so the DM retroactively turned it into a longsword, but kept the polearm damage – I have since referred to this incident as “The Pole-Sword Debacle” – I think it was a magic morphing weapon. I had gotten to the point I was simply kicking in or throwing open doors in towers and dungeons and striding boldly in, basically (nonverbally) daring the DM to kill me off, and usually getting a chestfull of crossbow bolts but surviving.
Disagreements, rarely arguments, about the rules or misinterpretations of things people declared, me feeling slighted, incompatible styles, etc. resulted in headaches for me during and after every session and tension and dread as the next session approached. The headaches and dread, coupled with what I realized was not a player-creativity-inspired personality for my dwarf, but was dysfunctional, passive-aggressive protest, finally made clear to me that I was not enjoying playing, and could in some ways be hindering the game or providing stress for the others, so I bowed out (a little gracelessly as I don’t like confrontation), because as the saying that gets thrown around but for me is absolutely true, “No gaming is better than bad gaming”.
Polesword
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