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What stops you from running a game?
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I have reams of ideas; over the years I’ve put together about a dozen design docs with themes, mechanics, plots, etc. But I’m both very code dumb with a low threshold of frustration where it’s concerned…
And I’m also a giant flake. I just am. I have a hundred ideas every minute, and focusing on any of them usually requires someone else to be enthusiastic about one of them. That doesn’t generally happen, and I get distracted. Even if I put a game together, my expectations tend a bit more towards tabletop etiquette not ‘customer service’ and I suspect I would become seen as a tyrant very quickly. And then I’d get frustrated and leave.
It’s better to just shut that whole inevitable cycle down before I disappoint people.
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@Jennkryst said in What stops you from running a game?:
@L-B-Heuschkel said in What stops you from running a game?:
… otherwise, a player will rack up several hundred magic thingies.
One of the more recent editions of Shadowrun… 5e or 6e, solved part of this! At least… in theory, if not direct mechanical practice here. You have items degrade in power over a short to medium time. Like, hours to days at most.
That’s another way to go about it, yes. One which also requires you to code decay – and more importantly, to consider how you want that decay to impact different parts of the playerbase. People who play daily may spend their stuff daily and not be impacted as heavily as the async players who may take a week to spend loot.
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I am admittedly intrigued by the number of “code limitation” answers.
And then curious on the flipside: How many people who won’t open a game because of code limitations would still play on one where implementation was janky?
GH had a terrible implementation of FS3 that was totally unbalanced and all the custom code broke all the time, and people played there till the place was basically falling apart. As @Tat mentioned, her awesome magic code was often busted, and people still played SL till the day the doors closed.
Is roll play the limiting factor to role play?
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@KarmaBum
I do wonder why the option of doing something more freeform where things are just GM/player negotiated, or settled with a very basic dice roller, doesn’t come up more often, especially compared to plug-in code that doesn’t always fit what the game-runner wants to do. -
@KarmaBum So I’m missing a phone code, and places, The sheet could work, but trying to get in some of the newer merits. It is more I could open now. But it would be very buggy and limited, with the powers and such. I also don’t think all of the Hunter sheet items are updated to 2nd. But, I don’t know how to even pull up the code to double-check it.
So that is my personal issues.
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@KarmaBum I would absolutely play on a place where implementation was janky. I do like to roll dice, I ADMIT IT, so I wouldn’t be as interested in a place that was all negotiation and no ‘let’s see if this works’. But a very basic dice roller and character sheet code would work for me.
However. As a game RUNNER, that would frustrate me, because I would feel like I wasn’t doing enough to make it a good, easy place to play. That’s my damage, though. I don’t judge other people by the same standards.
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@KarmaBum I don’t think so. Because all I have my players do is just a bunch of skill checks, and then I roll checks against them. In my mind, I treat it like DnD as best as I can.
It’s not elegant, it’s not pretty, but it does work. It is however, hard to track at times. I think it is more about role play than roll play. But there is something to said about wanting things to be easier despite that. So I’m all for more automation in these kind of things.
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@Pyrephox Same!
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It’s my impression that people are happy to play even very janky setups as long as they feel that an attempt at game balance has been made.
On Keys our magic system is skill based. The more experience you pour into the relevant skills, the more spells you get. People feel balanced with that because it’s their own choice whether to aim to become powerful sorcerers or be good at more physical things instead.
It’s certainly very simplistic. It’s meant to be – we wanted to be able to fire up the game pretty much right away rather than wait on ourselves managing to code something more complex.
… Not that that stops me from still pondering how to expand it, but that much is obvious.
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I think there’s Role Play which takes place a lot by players, but there’s also the Game element which is the more system in place element.
The beauty of his hobby is that a lot of times both exist together. Players role play through a lot of the game, but then there’s the events or actions that trigger game events. Those of us that are looking at the code barrier to entry are talking about the fact that we want the game element to be as functional for the players (and ourselves) to help with that part of things.
Otherwise, why not just set up a big google doc?
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@Pyrephox said in What stops you from running a game?:
I don’t judge other people by the same standards.
That’s what I think a lot of the hang-up for people is. But then I figure… Bot’s use of FS3 on HM2 was enh and all manual and strange, but we still had a good time. GH was never well-balanced, but we had some good times.
IDK. I want more games to play. Get over yourselves and make games.
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The main thing keeping me from running a game is a lack of time. Making a game, and running it, takes a heavy time investment that I just can’t dedicate right now. And probably will never be able to do so.
And I’d rather not do something rather than do something poorly.
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ADHD
and
burnout, still
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I half joke about having manic energy every now and again (and probably shouldn’t without a diagnosis, or even if I eventually do get one because stigmatization), but a thing stopping me from MAKING a game is that deep down, I know I will do the same thing I do with chatacters:
I will go 120% and be INVESTED and have IDEAS and it will be PERFECT until some minor random, possibly even unrelated hiccup happens and then my urge to do anything other than read the backscroll and maybe (MAYBE) do +job/xp/equipment-type busywork (because at least THAT will give me a sense of progress/being useful)… the urge to do anything BUT that just dries up.
That is probably why SPACE SIM was always a thing I liked (and continue to demand). Tiny progress bar ticks up while I can’t be bothered to put in more than minimal effort.
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Lack of time
Lack of energy
Lack of willingness to deal with the not-fun side of player management -
Lack of time, lack of energy, lack of follow through, not enough worthwhile ideas to build a metaplot out of…
Also ADHD.
let it be a challenge to you
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@sao said in What stops you from running a game?:
Lack of time, lack of energy, lack of follow through, not enough worthwhile ideas to build a metaplot out of…
Also ADHD.
… title of my sex tape.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
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@sao said in What stops you from running a game?:
Also ADHD.
Oh, also ADHD here, on top of the rest. That one I DO have a diagnosis for.
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@Testament said in What stops you from running a game?:
Another thing that came to mind in regards to Ares. Balancing weapons/armor/enemies in regards to automated combat.
I really, really enjoy playing with these numbers and testing things out. I’m happy to help out any game that wants help coming up with numbers for FS3 autocombat. I’m no Faraday or Tat, but I’ve gotten a pretty good look under the hood and think I do a pretty good job with coming up with something that can fit a wide variety of themes/settings.
@Paradox said in What stops you from running a game?:
Take for example even the simplicity of adding a ‘bonus’ to your actions based on a BG skill in FS3 automated combat.
You could do this as a non-specific Weapon/Armor Special. Just list the Specials as “One Attack,” “Two Attack,” “Three Attack,” “One Init,” “Two Init,” “Three Init,” “One Defense,” “Two Defense,” and “Three Defense” and then trust the players/GMs to handle providing the appropriate bonuses based on their BG Skills. It requires a little more knowledge on the part of the players/GMs, but it can certainly be done (it can’t be done for KO rolls, but most others work – you can use Stances for bonuses to Treat rolls).
This doesn’t, of course, speak to the balance issues of adding up to +3 to combat rolls.
@Testament said in What stops you from running a game?:
A limitation of FS3 is you can’t buff your teammates en masse, but you can debuff opposing NPCs.
A hybrid system would work for this, where you have the player Pass in combat, do the rolls, and then have the GM set mods on their allies (just remember to take the mods off after the round of combat). That’s how we did “Other” actions in combat on TSS.
As for the original question, my answer is the same as @Pavel’s: Time. I just don’t have the RL time to dedicate to running a game. Creating one, certainly (Blu and I have a Dresden game within a few short steps of completion), but not keeping story running to the point where I would be happy opening a game for players.
