NOW PLAYING VYou wanna play or not?RPGs require much more commitment then watching tv, as such it's not such a good spare time filler. What I mean is, if you don't have anything to do you don't go "let's play Shadowrun" just because you're bored and have nothing to do. If you want to play Shadowrun, you must want to play it, if you do it just because there's nothing else to do, the game will be very boring. All in all, if you don't want to play, don't.My latest Shadowrun game ended because of just that. One of my players asked me if I could gm a game of Shadowrun. It had been a fairly long time since the last one, so I agreed. It takes a little while to prepare, since I just had bought "Blood in the Boardroom" and wanted to play in this setting, whatsoever in Boston (so I had to re-read a part of "Target: UCAS"). After a little while, I was ready for that game, my players too and according to what they said, they were happy it started. A couple of game sessions later, two of my four players quit, among which the one who asked for that game in the first place, claiming that they're bored of Shadowrun. Great. You ask me to prepare a big game, then tell me you're bored of the game. Whatsoever, the same player tells me he want to do a D&D game instead. I'm not so good a gm in medieval worlds, but I still prefer that than to play in them, and I'm renowned as the best gm in my group of friends. As such, I quickly prepare an adventure, and start the game. I play one session, and he decides to quit it, along with the other player who quit the first one. At that moment I decided not to gm anymore game for them. So, what do I want to say through this sad story? Quite simply, that if you don't want to play, don't. Don't go out asking your gm to prepare a new adventure, and quit it the second week. Doing this only make your gm and the other players (and you) lose time. As such, if you'Re not motivated, don't play rpgs. They require commitment and deep interest for them to be fun, so if you can't bring that to the table, don't come. Of course, I'm probably speaking for nothing right now, since players who aren't motivated or who don't really want to play wouldn't be reading this right now... Read the books!Why do I have to explain to my players what the catacombs are in Boston? If they read the Boston part of Target: UCAS, they would know that, which is only logical. After all, if your character has been living in Boston's shadows for years now, he should know what it is, and other things like the fact that the stock exchange is downtown.The problem is, most players do not read the books, or not the background section at least (strangely enough, the "gear" parts of books seem to be read much more...). But the background is vital information for runners! "Knowledge is power", and that certainly holds true in the sixth world. You don't have to know every nook and crannies of every books, but at least read through the most important ones (you're a sammy in Boston? Read the corresponding section of T:UCAS and the beginning of FoF, Shadowtech and Cybertechnology, at least). You'll thank me later for advising you to do so... |