Reduced enjoinment playing RPG
Christoph Boeckle:
Ciao Rocco, welcome to the Forge!
I agree with Rafu in that it is difficult to identify your preferences if you've only ever played D&D of the sort you explained in your last post. At least you seem to have identified that that's not what you like. I was in a very similar situation five years or so ago. Fed up with mastering D&D and not being able to really find anything playable on the market (we did have lots of fun with Call of Cthulhu, which we played in a silly manner, never finishing an investigation, but that's hardly what the text suggests) I almost came to the point where I was "done" with RPGs. I stumbled upon the Forge and quickly tried some of the free games around. If I have to single out one game that reconciled me with roleplaying, I'd name The Pool. It does this wonderful thing of basically just telling the players who gets to describe the outcome of a conflict, with the player being able to give himself more or less chances according to what he is willing to bet on a given conflict. I played PlaneScape, Call of Cthulhu and some kind of Cyberpunk with this system and it blew my mind. A friend uses it to play in the world of Harry Potter. From these simple rules you get the ability to influence the pace of the game as a player, focus on what you really find important and just bloody simple get to speak up and decide something which actually takes effect.
Beware, the text as written is not to be considered a finished game (The Questing Beast is though). If you do not want to play slapstick comedy, there are a few things to watch out for which Ron Edwards explains through one of his own play experiences and some more theoretical analysis.
I always recommend playing this game to people trying to find out what they like in roleplaying. If you try it out and post an actual play report I'm sure we can dig in deeper into what you do or not like.
Stregheria:
Rocco, it's good to see an Italian role-player at the forge.
First up, I'd better apologise to Ron for a bit of self promotion here but it does have a point outside of just plugging my game.
I'm half Italian and my Stregoneria role-playing game (even has an Italian name! ;) ) has a setting influenced by renaissance Italy which you might find interesting (It contains the Condottieri for instance.) It's also a game concerned with story and atmosphere over number crunching which sounds like it might be what you're looking for.
In fact, I've been trying to research what the rpg market is like in Italy as I'm looking into getting the game translated into Italian.
Unfortunately it's not released yet (September 31st) but I'll make you a generous offer as it would be nice for my game to be introduced to some Italian players. When the game is released, I'll send you a free copy of the pdf. All you have to do is go to my game's site and contact me via the contact form there so I have your details. Perhaps you could try it out with your group and if you like it, tell some more Italian role-players about it!
www.stregoneriarpg.com
Rocco:
@ Christoph
Hi Christoph, thank you very much for sharing your own problems with me. I hope to regain the same pleasure that I used to have in playing games, and I will look in the game you suggested. When I will have some new actual play not regarding D&D (my actual only experience), than I will post it.
@ Stregheria
Thank you very much for your kind offer. I just responded to you on the "contact" page of the site address you gave me.
Stregheria:
I've got your details now Rocco thanks.
I'll send you a copy of the game at the end of September for you to try out.
InkMeister:
Hey Rocco!
Interesting to read your post. I can identify with a lot of what you are saying. I've been in games lately where it felt like we went from A to B just to get into a new fight. I've been in games lately where it felt like there was not much of a setting, and not much of a point.
Still, I don't see enough in your post to try to assign a creative agenda to you. Nor do I think it is really strictly necessary. You DO seem to know what direction you want to move in. You want to get away from serial combats, and start focusing more on character development and setting. The thing is, you don't even need to leave D&D to do that, although there is no reason NOT to leave D&D.
A free game that I've been impressed with, but haven't played, is FATE 2.0. It's based on Fudge (a game someone else recommended to you). You might enjoy reading it to get an idea of some different possibilities of how to build characters and play RPG's. What impresses me about it is that the game allows you to mechanically represent pretty much anything you want. You can be a member of some secret society, and the most basic and core element of the rules can take this into account in a way that will affect your actions and their consequences in the game world (ie having a secret society as an aspect of your character could help you accomplish things associated with that society, such as, I don't know, stealing...). It is pretty simple and very flexible. Also, I think it would be easy to take some of the cool ideas of FATE and put them into other games, including D&D.
Even with another system, you still have to zero in on the kind of game you want. You could do mass serial combat games in a lot of different systems, but that isn't what you want. You need to get a game going, even if it is D&D, where you can focus on character and setting. May call for a new group to play with.
Nick
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