1) I've been consuming stories for over two decades. I have very few hobbies that don't involve the consumption of writing in some form (reading, watching, playing, whatever) so it takes up the majority of my time.

2) Over the last 5-10 years, reading Wikipedia and TVTropes has consumed a sizable portion of my time, to the extent that I look at a work and just automatically start counting the tropes.

3) I am double majoring between Psychology and Comparative Literature, with minors in Philosophy, Sociology and Economy; so it's basically my job to criticize and question things.

4) 99% of my human interaction is with geeks, social activists, or both.

As a result, I have come to the point where I have trouble enjoying things. I can still enjoy comedies (I watched the Hangover for the first time on TV the other day and enjoyed it) because they tickle a more primitive side. The standards are lower, I want to laugh. But anything "serious"; be it horror or drama or action, I start ripping apart. Then most of the time (but of course with exceptions) I decide it's all the same story, full of formulae and clichés, and I have a lot of trouble enjoying it. I saw The Gods of Egypt on TV and I enjoyed it even though it was pretty poorly made, and I suspect it was just because it mocked itself.

When it comes to video games, I can happily play puzzle games or the Sims or MOBAs or whatever. If it's about the gameplay, I still enjoy it. (So I know it's not just depression. I've been there.) If the game is story-heavy though, I just feel this...reluctance.

I enjoy things that subvert the tropes, poke fun of genre conventions, try something different...for example, I loved the story (and the gameplay) of the Magic Circle, but I'll be damned if it wasn't one of the most meta things I've ever seen.

Anyway, my consumption issues aren't a problem there. I have more than enough games, webcomics, etc. that still satisfy me. The problem is my cynicism has affected my approach to RPs.

Last semester I played a D&D 5E game that was a pure dungeon crawl. There was little to no roleplaying or story, just beating monsters and solving puzzles. I enjoyed that fine, because there was nothing to be cynical about. It was just a pure tactical challenge.

But for the last few months I've been playing in another game...and I'm bored out of my mind. I like the GM, he's not the best but he's pretty decent. Same goes for the party. The system's good too. (Pokémon Tabletop United, though it's not a Pokémon game.) But the game is 90% story and the story's nothing new. It's regular medieval fantasy. It's not a bad story by any means. There's conspiracies and secrets and lots of things to do. But it's just...bland. I had this exact response to Skyrim. Sure it was well made, but it wasn't breaking any new ground. Couldn't play it. I'm only gritting my teeth for this game for the GM's sake. (Don't get me wrong, it's not torture. It just doesn't excite me.)

Now, it's my last year at my university. I have about a dozen people BEGGING me to run a campaign or two before I go. And I want to. I just...can't. I keep weighing ideas in my brain and I hate them all before I do anything.

I thought of a game where the characters are aware of the rules of the system, full of meta jokes, things taken to their absurd conclusions, etc. (Like a Wizard ordering dozens of students to cast Summon Monster all day to calculate the statistics of the spell, then getting chastised by an angel for disrupting the cosmological balance.) My inspiration was the webcomic Order of the Stick. Problem is, as can be seen by the webcomic, for this idea to be fun you need a very crunchy, very traditional system so that there's more to subvert. Such as D&D. And I know for a fact that I can't run D&D games, because writing bosses for the party to fight before every session is torture. If I minmax them, it takes too long. If I don't, I know the party will beat them because I'll be allowing them to have OP PCs. If instead I say "you're 1st level Fighters, now fight some Goblins", then I'll be bored because that's a waste of such a huge system.

I thought of a game where they were superheroes and they had to deal with the philosophical and political ramifications of being an Übermensch. If you want to help the people, shouldn't you be using your super strength to plow farmlands in Africa and your ray of cold to re-freeze the icecaps instead of punching villains? And if you have the capacity, the will and the knowledge to "fix" the world, should you allow pesky things like "governments" and "mortal armies" to stand in your way? Great idea. Except, I know of absolutely no system that can handle anything like this without it dissolving into "I punch the aircraft carrier". I could run a freeform game, I like freeform games, but there are very few players I would trust with that sort of a responsibility. (Not that I'd be completely comfortable deciding on such things myself either.)

I could just say screw stories and run a pure dungeon crawl and try to kill my players, which I'd enjoy. But like I mentioned, I hate writing bosses and puzzles. Now, I could grab lots of pre-made dungeons and torture my players, I've done it before, but at that point you're basically playing a board game. I don't think it would satisfy them or me. (Still an attractive choice though.)

But I completely dread the task of running a "normal" game. Last year someone was going to run a WarCraft game and I begged him to let me play a two-headed ogre just because it would be a challenging roleplaying experience. I want something DIFFERENT. I don't know what to do. I thought maybe I could run something like Eclipse Phase and deal with social issues and such...but I don't know if my players would be interested. (When I say "my players", I actually have more people than could fit in one party, so any group of 3-5 from those would be "my players".)

It feels like at the end I'm going to say "screw this, I'm running Paranoia, let's get silly". Which...is okay, I guess. The new edition's coming out and all. It's still not a very satisfying solution.

I...I'm not sure what I'm asking here, this turned out way more rant-y then I wanted, but does anyone have any suggestions? I'm not doing it just out of peer pressure, I WANT to run "a" game...I just don't want to run any of the options I can think of. (I'm sure most people have felt something similar when it comes to video games.)

Well, I'm not studying Psychology, Sociology or Philosophy, so no doubt you've heard this before, too...

But, perhaps this indicates why our literature is full of tropes and clichés.

There are a finite number of stories to tell - sure, a monkey with a typewriter can put words into a completely new form, but it won't make much sense to us - we can't identify with it.

People can only identify with things that are familiar to them. People (that is, the ones whose professions don't make them cynical about such things) actually like familiar stories. It's why children never tire of Red Riding Hood, even though they know the ending - it's the way the story is told that matters.

Probably the way to tackle it is the way psychologists tell addicts to tackle other things they may be jaded about. Avoid it for a while. Abstain from stories until you crave them again, and then maybe try to create a story that revels in tropes and clichés. See the thing with a child's eyes again.

Hope that helps. :)

That's actually very good advice, but I don't think a short "cleanse" would cut it for me and I can't play Minesweeper for six months.

And sure, stories aren't infinite, but they're not that limited. Like I mentioned, I actually have plenty of video games and webcomics (and more than a few movies) that I still quite enjoy, I haven't gone completely numb.

It's just that I enjoy say, Shrek, more than Snow White. And I don't know how to run a game like Shrek without it being an incredible amount of work.

All games are work. Better games are more work.
You just need to find a game that gives you enough pleasure to be worth the work.

And that's the whole point of avoidance therapy, isn't it? Play so much minesweeper that you're glad of a story - any story! :)

I took a break from rpol for a while. It was because I was paranoid, every game I managed to get into, would fold within a few thousand posts, and I was to... anxious? Nervous... no I don't think that's quite the right words for it, to run a game. So I bailed. I just started hanging out on the forums for a few months, and back I am.

Maybe avoiding, or just chilling out, would be a good idea.

On D&D the trick is not to have a 'Boss' but a Quest. I been running an AD&D game for 2 years now. Few battles, mostly thinking and planning and trying to find their way out of a Dungeon in which they were all randomly teleported in to. (Going in to a dungeon is standard, finding yourself and a group of strangers in the Middle of an unknown underground place is a different twist on things.) They got out, found their way to town and learned along the way they are in Realms, which makes things weird for the gamers in the group to be sure.

But I digress. The idea is not to have a fighting game, but a thinking game. The 'Boss' need not be a person / monster, but finding an answer, or seeking the right questions to ask, or even looking for a treasure, or magical place or something else. Done right and you get an interesting story and happy players.

 Or even play with expectations some - I've seen a game run where the party were all droids serving in a Star Wars household with 'quests' like 'oh no, there are rats in the basement!' and 'the masters party simply must be a success.'

 One amazing (accidental) concept was running a D&D game (using Birthright) where the players were all petty lordlings helping run their parts of a low-tech (I'd set it bronze-age myself) nation or two, only to realise part-way in that those mysterious raids and disappearances?
 Aliens. In Spelljammers. Cue struggling to bring one down in order to reverse-engineer iron then steel weapons, develop better swords and crossbows and understand their freakish magic and technology in order to take the fight to the mind-warping spider monsters on their own ground.

 Or you could just say 'screw it' and run Paranoia or Feng Shui.

 Actually, forget what I said, just run Paranoia or Feng Shui. ^_^

Tabletop rp is about the journey and the conflict the PCs endure, challenge and overcome, or dramatically fail.


Be a lazy gm, https://forum.rpg.net/showthre...ide-to-Gamemastering

Much more fun, and the players write the story, and, as its about their very real choices, it matters and has impact

ooo use D&D world, but Paranoia rules *WEG* .

I was getting burnt out by trying to absorb all of the details about a detailed town for a module that was supposed to be about scheming between factions. I thought the town was boring, particularly for the fantastic realm and intriguing race it was supposed to represent, and I thought the factions were not engaging. I wasn't going to be able to be interested in them, and I wasn't going to be able to interest my players in them. I realized too that even if I did make the town interesting, players tend not to get interested in what they're "supposed" to be interested in anyway, and so all my memorization and preparation would probably go to waste.

I had let our sessions slide because I was hesitant to set them up and just not very enthusiastic. Finally I felt like if we didn't get a session together the momentum would be lost and we'd fall apart, so we got together, the module weighing heavy on me.

Just as I was about to start describing the look of the town, I looked around the group and decided the heck with this. What, I asked them, do you think a town in this part of the fantasy world, founded by this race, for this purpose would look like? We spent maybe an hour talking about it, giving it a look, different districts, a social strata, a communication network, and other details. It was just like sitting around gabbing with my friends about fantasy and it was a blast.

And that's what the city became, in that session and subsequent ones: our collaborative idea. I would wager that all of them remember more details about that city than about any other aspect of any other game they ever played, apart from their own characters, and it's because the city, like their characters, was something they helped create. There was never any pushback of how ridiculous or dull something seemed, because they had made something that made sense and was interesting to them. They had not made something that I could write down and publish with any likelihood of success, because that's not what it was for; it was for them.

So, that's how I avoid burnout. If I have a concept I'd enjoy running, I run it past the players and get their "buy in." Then I get their input, with the guideline that they can add to the ideas I or anyone else present, but can't contradict them.

That's how you know if your players would be interested: you ask them if they'd be interested.

I'd take those ideas to the players and establish the elements you need for it to be fun for you. "Gods among men." "Not just 'punching aircraft carriers.'" "Not free-form." "Different." Or whatever. Then ask those who are interested in those elements to add whatever else they would need in order for it to be fun for them. Maybe one needs it to involve magic, rather than mutant powers or tech. Maybe one wants it to be all about Earth, not aliens or alternate dimensions. Get them to add to it, and it will be something they have helped create. When we help create something, we usually want to see it succeed.

Those GMs who have players, as opposed to those who are seeking them, have a major advantage, in that they don't have to proof their ideas against every criticism or out-of-control player. An idea that the wider world would shred can work just fine with a select group. Start with that powerful advantage.

Player buy-in with 'add but don't contradict' can work sometimes - if you have a good player group around you; a core group of people you've gamed with before.

However, it's not something I'd recommend with a new group. There's always that one guy who puts in all the really weird stuff - the flying werewolf spellcasters and such - and then he's the one who ducks out of the game three weeks in and leaves the rest of you with his drivel.

An imaginary worst case isn't a good reason not to try it, even with a new group, especially if the new group is recruited based on the concept. If that sort of thing is really a concern, though, the GM can take a firmer hand by asking guided questions, rather than just opening the floodgates. In addition to that, when I do this sort of thing, I usually ask that one's next suggestion build off of, or at least connect to a previous one. I also ask that absolutes be avoided.

Anyway, even if it happened exactly as in that hypothetical, it's just a matter of leaving the "drivel" aside and focusing on something else. TV shows, which tend to be a collaborative effort, are known to do this, letting things that seemed like a good idea at the time fade into the background.

In reply to karuoun (msg # 8):

That's a good article, karuoun. I don't think the approach needs to be called "lazy," as that's just going to turn people right off the idea, and in my experience there is still plenty of effort involved helping everyone participate and have their ideas implemented and accepted.

In reply to icosahedron152 (msg # 11):

And then the flying werewolf spellcasters inexplicably vanish?

In reply to Gaffer (msg # 14):

Leaving a new mystery for the players to solve - whatever happened to all those flying werewolf spellcasters that used to be around here?

In reply to karuoun (msg # 8):

Wait, that is being lazy? the only campaigns I ever crafted in detail I never brought myself to run because of how scripted they felt. An easy change I know. Maybe one day I will post one.

My best lazy suggestion is to give them hints of a puzzle...where there's nothing there to solve.

I was running a Pokémon game in Unova. There's a desert with Darmanitan (that's a Pokémon statues) in Pokémon Black/White. If you have a specific candy bar, you can make a statue smell the candy and it wakes up, transforming from stone to flesh. Although there are several statues, you can only wake one up, even if you have more candy. Now, obviously they just didn't want to hand out several of the same Pokémon. But I decided to give it some lore. I said that SOME of those statues were petrified Pokémon and SOME were built by ancient humans who saw the statues and decided to copy them. (The statues are found among ancient ruins already.)

My players got to the desert. One of them was a Psychic, he found a Darmanitan belonging to an archaeologist and spoke to it. It said "I'm pretty sure only a few of us went into hibernation, I understand that humans built all these statues. I certainly can't feel any life signs, but then again I don't think I would feel anything if they were alive either."

They spent about two hours trying to wake the statues up. They didn't have any of the special candy, so one of them used his father's company to import several crates from another region. They were still checking back two sessions later.

The statues were all statues. I'm just a jerk. I sat there and designed other encounters while they tried everything they could think of and argued with each other.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 15):

Exactly.

survival prepping, and physical fitness.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 15):

They had a big fight and killed one another?

Perhaps lay a different kind of RPG.

Try Polaris. Or Wushu. Somewhere where the other players have enough say in the game that they make you engage enough of your jaded psyche that you begin to enjoy the experience. Let the players entertain you, instead of the other way around.

In reply to Morty (msg # 21):

Or at least just take some of the approaches and advice from such games for the games you already play.