Sometimes, when you have a loyal group of players whove been at it for a
while, some of the more ambitious of players will decide they can step up to
the plate and inflict their vision on to the group and run a campaign.
Great!! Some of us GMs encourage people to hold the mantle and give us the
opportunity to actually play in the game. And, believe it or not, there are
situations when this actually works . . . although . . . I have yet to see
it happen. In fact this is what happens nine times out of nine.
John says he has this great Military Hardcore game he wants to run.
Although the players arent too keen on a hardcore military campaign they
say, "Hey, why not." Then Eric chimes in, "You know what, I have this great
idea for an epic space opera game that I KNOW everyone will love!" The
players, secretly dreading an epic melodrama, begrudgingly allow the game.
To top it all off, Mike says, "I think everyone would really like to . . ."
But Mike never gets off his sales pitch because everyones too busy trying
to fit the original campaign, along with these other spawns and spin offs,
into their once a week gaming schedule.
So the new hybrid games begin to drag on and on, and the initiate GMs,
unused to the role theyve just undertaken, have become increasingly short
fused and intolerable of player whining and begin getting their feelings
hurt and frustrated with the whole scenario. Soon, the players get
disgruntled with everything and stop showing up to any of the games, and
everything turns into a war of you suck and whos popular.
Well, the trick to avoiding this my fellow gamers is to not let it happen.
More than one campaign per group usually spells disaster. Who wants to keep
track of three storylines and three sets of characters played once a month.
I cant even remember what I did last weekend on my day off, much less what
my character did in story number three a month ago.
