10.22.2008

Sometimes I Get Bored

In my 25 years of traversing the galaxy (a.k.a. my room) I've gained a good bit of gaming experience. Mostly I'm a DM, because my imagination is so overactive and it takes so much to keep me entertained that there just isn't enough to do brain-wise as a player, but I don't mind taking up a character so long as the game has at least a certain level of intrigue or a fast enough pace. And pace-wise, my two gaming groups are almost polar opposites of one another. In one of these groups, (the one in which my 1st-level 4th Edition Elf was mercilessly slaughtered before I could obtain a firm grasp of the new rules) I am the youngest member.

So one evening each week - give or take a week - I get together with a bunch of middle-aged married guys who are looking to escape from the responsibility of their lives for a few hours so they can roll some dice, drink a few beers and quote 80's movies like it was going out of style. The style of play in this group is such that a rogue-ish character investigating a 5-foot square for a trap is an ordeal in the most epic of proportions. We will literally make travel arrangements based around the amount of treasure we are carrying; have a half-hour long discussion about whether we want to go left, right or straight; and endure a combat encounter each session that makes the thousand-years war look like a 30-second rollercoaster ride.

I wouldn't dare DM for these guys, because my personal style is more fluid and easy-going. They aren't (all) rules lawyers by any stretch, but I'd just as soon give them a free trip home from an adventure as make it a logistical nightmare because, well, "how are we going to get this Mystical Item of Galactic Importance we just found back to Safehavenville without being attacked by the 57 Liche-Kings who suddenly know we stole it from a family of goblins?" is kind of a time-waster question IMHO. The reason I enjoy being a part of this group is because I learn a lot from the other players and because they know a lot more than me. You can never go wrong spending time in an environment where you're constantly learning. Our style of play is solid; it's stable and it makes for long-lasting games.

This is the sentence that probably should be a vague, yet transitionary phrase or reference that will lead me into describing my second gaming group. Ah, gaming group 2... now these guys know how to bomb shit out. I play in a group composed of ages ranging from 15 years to around 35, where just about anything goes. If someone isn't murdering a helpless townsperson just because they feel like it, or looking around for a child to sacrifice to their self-imagined cannibalistic god, we're galavanting around in different directions finding ways to get into trouble. There isn't a 'party' so much as a hapless group of thrown-together rapscallions who end up wanting to kill each other almost as much as they wouldn't blink before slitting the throat of any number of random NPCs they might come across.

Our games rarely last more than a few levels before someone gets captured by the Powers That Be and thrown into some hamlet-hick prison, where they are randomly and uncomfortably raped for the remainder of eternity. I have literally watched the entire party enter into combat with each other - and without a single monster, or even the silhouette of a menacing shrubbery that could possibly be mistaken for an enemy, in sight - multiple times. Usually everyone starts circling around each other, using the flats of their blades to smack a bitch down until somebody gets knocked unconscious. Then someone inevitably gets tied up or stolen from and a proper course of party action is 'negotiated.'

The more measured and heroic pace of gaming group numero uno has taken us through games up to 15th level in D&D (and I'm told they've achieved epic status in previous games before I joined them). So sometimes I get bored with both groups, for different reasons. When the party works as a team, each session ends in a satisfying manner but it can be boring to get there. When we stab each other in the back it's ridiculously exciting when you do get to play, except that you have to wait your 'turn' because the party is consistently split up into anywhere from two to four groups. Plus, usually you end up with a knife in your back.

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