Anyone effectively monogamEous?

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Worst part is when you've read through dozens of pages of character creation stuff that seemed really cool; only to discover the game is fucking stupid. I hate how many games leave the 'how to actually play the fucking thing' till the end of the book. I've learnt to start carefully checking the contents to figure out where the important bit is before I waste time reading the first seven chapters.
Several years ago I reviewed a supers game for my blog. I get through the game and the designer doesn't share the dice mechanic. Anywhere. I contact him, "Hey the dice mechanic isn't in the book, what is it?"

He kept telling me it was in there and I just published the review explaining I have no idea how to play the game because the designer is a tool.
 
Several years ago I reviewed a supers game for my blog. I get through the game and the designer doesn't share the dice mechanic. Anywhere. I contact him, "Hey the dice mechanic isn't in the book, what is it?"

He kept telling me it was in there and I just published the review explaining I have no idea how to play the game because the designer is a tool.
What's the game?
 
I don't see that I could ever settle on a single system because I like contradictory things. I also strongly feel that mechanics set a tone in such a way that having a system tuned to the setting and the feel of the play in that setting is important so a universal system needs lots of specific rules for different settings and feel and thus is not so universal.

On the other hand, I am narrowing down my systems to RuneQuest, Cold Iron, Classic Traveller, and early D&D (which are all pretty close). I'm not sure that Burning Wheel makes the cut anymore.

And then I'm willing to play in some other systems...
My preferences are very similar (except I don't know what Cold Iron is). RQ/d100 or Traveller are what I automatically default to when I think about gaming a setting. And in fact it would be d100 for pretty much everything except interstellar sandbox, although I know there are popular adaptations of Trav to fantasy and whatnot.
 
I suppose it violates the thread premise to point out that yes, there's overlap?



Seriously, I've read the books for a bunch of games but only played D&D recently. One set of rules to learn is enough. Getting a group together for rarer games is hard too (though I could probably find people playing Pathfinder if I looked).
 
I was pretty much monogameous with 5e D&D for a while, just the occasional fling with old flame 4e D&D.
Now I'm still with 5e, but now I have a couple Dragonbane games on the side, playing some Vaesen, and I often think about Mini Six. We were together for most of 2020 over lockdown; it tailed off, but those were good times.
 
She's looking *mighty fine*, isn't she? Did she tell you that you can push your rolls? Oooohhh, yeah!

Can I interest you in our Lord and Saviour, Dragonbane? Born of the triple union of BRP, YZE and 5e D&D. A truly immaculate conception! And you can push your rolls with her all night*!

*Disclaimer: Multiple Conditions apply. On fulfilling all Conditions, users have experienced WP and HP loss, nausea, and death.
 
I'm actually surprised at the number of actively monogamEous people here:grin:!

I mean, I used to be "all GURPS, all the time" player/GM, but that was a long time ago, and some of my players and fellow Referees from that group actually got me to play the game they were developping together, so that time also lead me to becoming polygamEous:shade:!
 
I want too much variety in games, setting and mechanics, to ever settle on one system even a generic system I like, like BRP.

To me the idea of playing one game forever would be like playing one video game, or reading one book or film forever. Although rpgs have the theoretical advantage of a much wider range within one system burn out would be inevitable for me.
 
I want too much variety in games, setting and mechanics, to ever settle on one system even a generic system I like, like BRP.

To me the idea of playing one game forever would be like playing one video game, or reading one book or film forever. Although rpgs have the theoretical advantage of a much wider range within one system burn out would be inevitable for me.

The video game analogy doesn't work for me in that I see the system more of a means than an end. In that respect I more likely to say "I could watch TV on the same TV set forever" because as long as the TV picture is good enough, it's the TV shows that entertain me, not the TV set itself.

But then I am not the sort guy who wants to play a tight, tactical game one day and a twisted, pychological drama game the next. I go for middle-of-the-road, comedy-adventure sort of games. They tend to be pretty undemanding, not need a whole lot of mechanical reinforcement to set the tone.
 
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My preferences are very similar (except I don't know what Cold Iron is). RQ/d100 or Traveller are what I automatically default to when I think about gaming a setting. And in fact it would be d100 for pretty much everything except interstellar sandbox, although I know there are popular adaptations of Trav to fantasy and whatnot.
Cold Iron is a college friend's home brew, I have some writeup here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nyOzdxP8VZV2oSyKnxnS160WBRpC1Cd9fNfn2Va9VAI/edit?usp=share_link

For me though, I have determined I am only interested in the RQ1 form of d100 and then only with the Glorantha setting. For other fantasy, I would use Cold Iron or even D&D, or possibly something more specialized (like Bushido).

To the extent that I would play non-fantasy, mostly SF these days, I would use Traveller for SF and if I really wanted to run some other genre, I would look at what games are available for it. If I WAS to run super heroes, I would dig out my Champions book.

So I'm not even close to monogameous...
 
I suppose it violates the thread premise to point out that yes, there's overlap?



Seriously, I've read the books for a bunch of games but only played D&D recently. One set of rules to learn is enough. Getting a group together for rarer games is hard too (though I could probably find people playing Pathfinder if I looked).

I think it's just an artefact of D&D being popular amongst people in general, queer people being able to be more open about themselves, and people being able to be more open about ENM.

For reference, my friend's polycule and my polycule are more into indie games and Call of Cthulhu, and I'm the outlier for enjoying a spot of D&D.
 
I think it's just an artefact of D&D being popular amongst people in general, queer people being able to be more open about themselves, and people being able to be more open about ENM.

For reference, my friend's polycule and my polycule are more into indie games and Call of Cthulhu, and I'm the outlier for enjoying a spot of D&D.
Fun fact, I was just going to say that the only polycule I've seen locally is mostly into d100 games and Exalted:shade:!
 
The video game analogy doesn't work for me in that I see the system more of a means than an end. In that respect I more likely to say "I could watch TV on the same TV set forever" because as long as the TV picture is good enough, it's the TV shows that entertain me, not the TV set itself.

But then I am not the sort guy who wants to play a tight, tactical game one day and a twisted, pychological drama game the next. I go for middle-of-the-road, comedy-adventure sort of games. They tend to be pretty undemanding, not need a whole lot of mechanical reinforcement to set the tone.

Yeah I get the idea that some rulesets can be used to play 'anything' but those systems or attempts to convert every genre to 5e or B/X just don't work for me as I prefer the system to be crafted with the setting in mind from the get-go.

Even those generic systems I like, like BRP, aren't really suited to everything.
 
Yeah I get the idea that some rulesets can be used to play 'anything' but those systems or attempts to convert every genre to 5e or B/X just don't work for me as I prefer the system to be crafted with the setting in mind from the get-go.

Even those generic systems I like, like BRP, aren't really suited to everything.

It is true that each system has its personality. BRP tends to be grounded, Savage Worlds cinematic, modern D&D tactical.
And in that respect it makes sense to choose the right tool for the right job. But these are pretty broad categories. I suspect one would find it very hard to quantify how much more fun in actual play Savage Worlds brings compared to Ubiquity, Cinematic Unisystem, Everwhen, Vortex or D6. Other factors, including the GMs own experience dealing with the syste, probably matter much more.

But digging deeper, there is also the concept of enjoying a variety of different mechanics across different roleplaying games simply for the pleasure of engaging with a variety of different mechanics, variety being the spice of live and all that. While perfectly reasonable, it's not something I personally feel strongly, hence the "means to and end" vs "end in itself" point I was making in my previous post.
 
I'll play lots of different systems but the only one I know well enough to GM properly is GURPS, so I stick to that when I run a game.
 
I'm currrently involved in a threeway with D&D5e and CoC7e. But I'd really like to get with the YearZero Engine ...

Well if yours is a love triangle, mine is a roman toga party, heh heh

So, if you use a sourcebook for one game (such as GURPS) with another system (like Mythras), does that count as a threesome?

Asking for a friend.
 
You play one game system or setting.

I am a big RuneQuest fan, so normally play that. However, over the last year we have playted a few other games, and I try to play other games at Conventions, but always come back to RuneQuest.
 
For anything other than "D&D style fantasy" (for which I use some flavor of old-school D&D) I've been pretty monogameous with Barbarians of Lemuria and its variants for the past 10 years, though I've had occasional flings with Traveller (CT/MgT1e) and Blades in the Dark. Currently running BoL-powered Fading Suns, but the Vortex system (Rocket Age, Doctor Who) has caught my attention big-time recently.

"I just looove those 2d6 systems, maaan..." /Wooderson voice
 
Not even close. And really, I never have been. In the first six years after I discovered RPGs, I played over a dozen different games spanning at least six different genres. If games were girlfriends, I'm stuck in some kind of harem anime that's entering its forty-fifth season, and the writing staff just keeps adding new characters.
 
Nothing wrong with wanting to stick to one game. I prefer to have a very open relationship myself.
I think it's only really a problem if you start with one game and never try anything else (that's rare to be fair). Because that would potentially be shutting yourself off to a host of amazing ideas, and that would have a stunting effect on your growth as a player and especially as a GM (IMO)..
 
I do serial MonogamEy: Extended periods (a year or more) of playing just one system (and campaign) regularly, eventually hitting pause and pivoting to another for a few years, eventually pivoting back to resume the prior system and campaign. I own a ton of game systems, but it's been a really, really long time since I actually played anything other than TFT or B/X (or equivalent, OSE etc.).

It's not that I don't enjoy other game systems - I'd be down to have an extended campaign of Flashing Blades, Runequest, Pendragon, Traveller, or any number of other awesome games. But I've got limited time and bandwidth in my adult life, and I really prefer the experience of campaigns with a lot of continuity and natural, player-driven development of various story lines. You just can't get that when you are constantly jumping from one game to another.
 
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