When a game is dead

[jeregenest]

I was reading this thread on RPG.net on Ars Magica and I think it perfectly sumarizes for me when its time to move on from a game. When yu realize that different people are saying the same things (with no variety) that were said 10 years ago. Including things you yourself said and have moved on. When the core fans can't think of anything new and creative to do with the game, then its time for me to move on.

Of course I'm currently butchering up a definitive dead game, so take this statement as you will.

Comments

[ptevis.livejournal.com]

Even worse: This is almost exactly the same "discussion" that the BerkList is having right now. I love Ars as a game, but man does the fan community irk me.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Really? Can't someone just point to the archives on this one?

I once tried to do that with paradim wars, summarizing the maor views on a webpage but then no one ever used it and we ended up having the same old discussions again and again.

A major failure of email lists like that, no institutonal memory.

[(Anonymous)]

In my earlier days as a role-player, ArM was like a legend for me and my gaming circle (We could not easily reach gaming materials in those years). I've always interested in games about occult, so I always thought that ArM is the ideal game or more likely the perfect game for me. Now, after years of waiting for a proper opportunity to play it, I must say that I'm totally disappointed. I'm disappointed because of its dry style, endless, trivial and equally fruitless rules discussions in the BerkList, its shallow background and superficial story hooks etc (My actual list is really really long). And now, I don't want to have a go for another game. I want the ArM of my dreams! I know this is the place neither for whining nor complaining but believe me after so much hopeful waiting, one can get pretty frustrated by the bitter truth. Thanks. I really needed this.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

That, at the heart, is oe of the main reasons I stopped playing. The game and I seperated over what was cool and what was important. Mysteries was my last hurrah, and whil ts influenced the game, it never went as far as I wanted.

[earin.livejournal.com]

And believe me, it is the best and most inspiring sourcebook in the whole ArM range. I think "time to move on from a game" means besides not playing ArM, you will also not write any new publications for the game. If this is true then I'm really saddened by your decision. This game greatly needs the contribution of people like you, now more than ever. Because, after years of evolution ArM gained what seems like consistent rules at last and now its lack of content and style appears even more vividly in the current edition.

[kniedzw.livejournal.com]

I still owe you (and the rest of LJ, I suppose) my commentary on ArM5. Hm. I should get to that.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

That would be cool. You are probably as close to my way of thinking about the game as anyone else.

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

I like the new AM quite a bit -- more than prior editions -- but I'm still stuck on how one introduces the cool parts of it to people in a short period. The stuff I like best (covenants, extended timescale, the whole troupe-style deal) requires a lot of buy-in from prospective players.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I think those are the gems of the system as well. I also, unfortunately, feel they are traditionally the least supported in the published matter.

While there are games that have brought the covenant idea to new places (Conspiracy X and Nobilis come to mind), there are few games that have touched on extended tmescale (Pendragon, and ts really simultaneous in publication) and I'm hard pressed to thin of another game that put troupe-style in an important place. Unfortunately I feel like troupe-style has always received little more ta a nod and a wink, and sometimes felt it was retained in the game as an historical relic.

[bluegargantua]

I've seen troupe play crop up recently in:

Godlike
StarThugs

Although the later only has cool concepts and not much of a real game.

I might argue that HeroQuest has a form of troupe play (which was highlighted in its Men of the Sea expantion) when you look at followers/associates, but they're really more like traits and less like full-blown characters in their own right, although you could expand out on it.

later
Tom

[ivan23.livejournal.com]

I always thought Godlike would be good for trouple play.

[bluegargantua]

not just good -- necessary.

Godlike is lethal.

Tom

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

What is StarThugs?

[bluegargantua]

It's....not very good.

The problem is that the game wants to be:

a.) H.O.L. (for the attitude)
b.) Teenagers from Outer Space (for the wackiness)
c.) Traveller 2300AD (for the hard science technobabble)

and it succeeds at being none of them.

The main conceit is that you control a starship, the captain and the crew. The captain is the "main character" but you can play with everyone. The rules are d12 based and they have a nifty mechanic called BENDing (i.e. "tapping" in Magic) that let you break the rules in creative ways. So if your crew member has a skill or piece of equipment, he can BEND it to take some action.

I think the actual starship battles would really be a lot of fun to play under this system. However, roleplaying (past a one-shot that focused on a space battle), is almost impossible. The main problem being that everyone has a starship and no incentive to stick together for any reason. The pititful GM section in the back only highlights the game's problems.

That said, I do think it'd be fun to have a couple of starship fights with the system.

later
Tom

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I didn't think Godlike was troupe-style. Troupe-style being both playing more than one characer and sharing gammaster responsibilies. Its that second part tha most often falls by the way-side.

[gentlyepigrams]

Three words: Amber Mailing List.

I love my circle of Amber players, but I'm ready to move on to other games for new stuff.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Amber? Really? I always felt that the reason Amber has survived so long was because the core kept on finding new and different things to do and think about the game.

But your much more an insider than I'll ever be in that scene.

[gentlyepigrams]

I think the Forge is going to kill Amber. Used to be Amber was where you went when you wanted diceless or something different. Now you've got all the indie Forge games and a whole subculture around that, and people who used to be stalwarts for Amber are off running HeroQuest and Dogs in the Vineyard. And a bunch of the Amber cons are full of Amber-themed variants on indie games (Cats, DitV, kpfs, MLwM for sure, and probably others).

And while all this is happening, the Amber mailing list recycles the same old arguments it was recycling in 1997 when I first got on it. And two of the Amber cons have shut down, and Jack Gulick doesn't want to run ACN any more, so it may fall apart (especially with the currency issues).

I'm doing my first ACUS this year, but I'm going primarily to do FTF with people I game with online. My online gaming is heavily skewed toward Amber, but I'm about to start two FTF games (1 GMing and 1 playing) and neither is Amber related. I'll be playing Prime Time Adventures and GMing Dogs. And I've unsubbed from the AML because the best stuff appears on people's blogs anyway.

I don't think I'm alone in feeling that way, either. The woman who runs MaB's Amber links has been saying the same thing for years. Doyce Testerman and Dave Hill used to be big in the Amber community and they're off doing Forge stuff. Ditto Michael Curry and Jack Gulick, who keep bringing indie games to Ambercons. There are still people who do a lot of Amber, but the people I think of as really creative are moving on.

GoO may finally get Amber 2.0 out there and find that it's too late.

[multiplexer.livejournal.com]

GoO may finally get Amber 2.0 out there and find that it's too late.

If they get it out at all. GoO is flat broke.

[gentlyepigrams]

And they're dealing with the Wuj, who is known for his timely followup and willingness to relinquish creative control on things like, say, the Rebma book.

There's supposed to be a discussion about ADRPG 2.0's status during ACUS, which I plan to attend.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

It's important, when speaking on the subject, to seperate Amber the Setting from Amber the Setting/Mechanic Combo.

I bring this up because I was running Amber the Setting LONG before there was an 'official game' using that diceless mechanic. I was running Amber back in the 80s while the second series of books were only about half out in print, and using a diced mechanic to do it with.

(To make it more interesting we crossed Amber with Pier's Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality... and that 'Law and Chaos' were positions that replaced what would one day be 'Good and Evil' - since Anthony had not yet published those books in his series).

I think the setting will continue, but that the system will die. Which, as a person who feels that systems that lack a true solid mechanic (Diced or Card based randomization of some sort) is probably for the best.

A GOO version of the setting would be interesting, but I doubt we'll see it from what I have heard of their financial situation.

[gentlyepigrams]

I think the setting will continue, but that the system will die.

Oh, no doubt about that. I've been GMing an Amber (setting) PBeM for 3 1/2 years using Everway as my underlying mechanic. I wouldn't have touched the system as a GM with a 10' pole. And I knew people who were adapting Amber source material for their own games before Trumps of Doom came out.

But I don't think Jere was talking just about the system--he's also talking about the community. The Amber community has begun to lose its most creative people because those people have better outlets for their creativity.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Yeah, systems can lve on forever. But for me the community is important. Take James Bond for example. I know for a fact that people are still playing the old Victory game. But theres no real community for it. And community is what interests me the most about games.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

It's important, when speaking on the subject, to seperate Amber the Setting from Amber the Setting/Mechanic Combo.

Definitely. The mechanics is something that I think only works for Amber and a exceedingly small number of similar works - in most settings and genres bidding for stats makes absolutely no sense.

OTOH, Amber is a cool setting that could easily support several radically different rules systems. I created set of rules mods for Castle Falkenstein that would work (in my opinion at least) at least as well as the current rules. If GofO can get it out, I'd love to see their Amber 2.0 rules.

[gentlyepigrams]

The ADRPG mechanics only work for certain types of Amber-setting games. They're designed to emulate throne wars, and don't really support other kinds of games. This is why a lot of people modify them heavily or outright ditch them for most Amber-setting games.

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Are the people in the RPG.net thread (to the extent you know or can tell) people who have been around Ars as long as you or newcomers to it?

Because if it's the latter, well, shouldn't the newbies have the right to work through all the same stuff that you did (not that you have any obligation to read it). But if it's the same actual people having the same actual discussions, then some kind of grognard paralysis / Wizard's Twilight has obviously set in.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Mixture of both. Which is what annoys me. The whole lack of instiutional memory.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Such is why I stopped reading the berklist several years ago - I was on for almost decade and eventually I got tired of the endless cycling threads.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I think any long-lasting fan list is going to hae cycles of comments. My fault wih the berklist is it never seems to learn from them.

Pointing

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

The words of Nelson say it best: Ha ha. ;-)

I think the funniest part of ArM5 is that I still haven't seen it, nor will probably ever see it, yet I'm still in the credits. I got a text message from my friend [Unknown site tag] when he saw my name in the "Special Thanks"; my immediate response was to think I was being thanked for staying away. Which I will clearly continue to do.

A mythic Europe is still a good idea. But it was better when the troupes decided what Europe was for them. And the game's just too long in the tooth. Let the kids come along and find it, and repeat the same arguments, and grow past it, I say.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know jack about Ars, but I think I know what you mean. Call of Cthulhu seems completely played out to me these days.