The Setnin Sector. Our own slice of the Star Wars galaxy. It was independant from the rest of the galaxy although it was severely affected by the goings on in the Republic and then the Empire, but it was our own playground to have Star Wars adventures with the grandiose feel of the movies without treading on the toes of official canon. Star Wars D6 was the game of the moment and we were loving every single minute of it.
Me and Paul were the primary GMs - we knew each other well and swapped the GMing role once our campaigns were finished. Because we had a similar attitude to the games and the setting we were pretty much interchangeable and the players could use the same PCs in either game. Great. When three other players asked if they could run their own games we were like, 'Sure! Why not? Bring your own ideas to the sector and add to the mix!'
In hindsight, maybe it wasn't such a great idea.
It's not that the other GMs were bad GMs, it was that their idea of how to run a game was... different to what me and Paul had been doing for the past year. Their approach, attitude and style was far removed from what we had been doing and they didn't mesh well with the games that had come before. The PCs were suddenly in a very different place and had gone from sandbox to railroad. The games were becoming something of a struggle. Not only that, but the deviousness and subterfuge had gone beyond the characters and was starting to become a little personal. Certain players took great delight in the anger and frustration of others at being double-crossed or cheated in the game and it stopped being about the story and more about who could get one over on who. I'm all for player character conflict, but definitely not player. there was part of me that found it all quite childish and my frustration with the games grew.
Anyway, I'm not going to go into particular games, but I knew it was time to jump ship when the PCs were sucked through a wormhole and ended up in the Star Trek universe.
Yeah.
Me and Andy especially were starting to feel the squeeze, like the destinies and decisions our characters were making were making no difference to the route the story was taking. I felt I was beyond that kind of linear game and was rapidly losing interest.
Here's a hint - two GMs running games in the same world for the same PCs is difficult but possible, but five? Don't try it. It only leads to frustration and disappointment for everyone. In the end me and Andy bailed. The venue changed, anyway, and we had lost interest in the games.
So, burned out and dejected, Andy came around to my place and saw Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition on my shelf.
'Is that any good?' he asked.
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In hindsight, having 5 GM's was a lousy idea. I remember well 2 GM's would end one session with their character in peril,then take over as GM the next week and bail them out (I also remember being tied naked to a lampost while my ship was painted yellow with pink flowers).
ReplyDeleteI also remember the infamous 'suicide moment' after Andy had tried to kill Darren and, on 3D, he needed 18 and rolled x3 sixes with a plus 2. Classic for the rest of us, but could see you a Andy hated it, especially when, backed into a corner with no hope if escape, he topped himself instead of letting Andy have the satisfaction of the kill.
Yeah, the Trek crossover was especially naff (though there were some decent action scenes to be fair) but Mr Gold, transporting himself from obit down to any chosen place in Amagad was...bloody ridiculous