Wednesday, April 22, 2009

I need a tabletop group

I've concluded that a major source of my incipient burnout is that I spend a lot of time working on and thinking about setting concerns, but I don't get the big payoff/creativity catalyst of regular tabletop play. I'm working in a vacuum. (Play-by-post is nice, but it can take days to resolve a single combat, and it's an altogether different experience than face-to-face gaming.)

Time to actually look for gamers ...

Apparently I'm getting D&D 4e for free, so I'm going to check that out. I have no idea if I'll like it enough to try running it for a group, or if I'll recoil in horror. If I end up not liking it, I'll probably stick with T&T.

Another side effect of burnout is that I've had the urge to use someone else's setting for a while. When one's brain is tired, sometimes it's nice to have the heavy lifting done, fill in a few blanks, and get to rolling dice. If I'm using someone else's stuff, I prefer fairly standard fantasy settings like 1980-era Greyhawk or the Wilderlands -- if a setting is idiosyncratic enough that I have to study it, I might as well use my own.

Judges Guild's Verbosh might fit the bill. It's cheap, it provides a basic outline, it allows/requires a lot of customization, and it's obscure enough that one is unlikely to encounter canon-wonks. And the stupid humor fits right in with Tunnels & Trolls ...

No comments:

Post a Comment