I moved to the Atlanta, GA area back in March 2007.After becoming a father and settling down, curiosity and a need to have a hobby, led to "meetup.com" and the "Atlanta Gamers Guild" (back then it was the "Atlanta Dungeons & Dragons Group"). I've already discussed Call of Cthulhu in an earlier post, but there have been other games that I've played and ran in the last two years.
First was Pathfinder 3E. This was originally a homebrew take on D&D resulting from fanbase frustration with the fourth edition. It was my return to gaming after the 90s and the first thing I'd played Stateside. It was good to be back and the game clearly has a passionate following. I felt it had great ideas but was too tactical...I thought it was more about what characters had the ability to do rather than who they were. That sparked the return to Cthulhu. Pathfinder is a very good game indeed, just not for me.
One of my Cthulhu players, Michael Bay, was running "Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying" in the same club on a monthly basis. We have a good rapport so I thought it'd be fun to play in a game ran by one of my players...also interesting to try a setting and system I'd never tried before. It was a very rich experience, there's a distinct Germanic feel to the game. I played a Witch hunter, completely got the concept and ran with it.I ended up taking actions in the game though that brought the campaign to an early close..something we still laugh about now! I did learn that as a player I prefer to stay true to what I think my character would do rather than trying to win.
I then played another game ran by Michael, "Apocalypse World". This is a very new game and has a clear improv influence. It puts the narrative more in the hands of the players with the GM playing more of a reactive role. The GM doesn't bring a structured storyline to the table so you never know what's going to happen. It's a superb, rewarding game though very challenging. It requires more of the players than most games and shines when you have a creative group who aren't afraid of conflict with each other.
In terms of GM'ing other games, I've done one-shots of two other systems. I like doing this as it allows me to try different games without laying out a huge plan in advance and also gives a good opportunity for players to do the same. As they're "throwaways", players can takes chances with their characters in ways they wouldn't normally do and really get a feel for the game. I'll do more of these in the future. The first was "All Flesh Must Be Eaten". I did a scenario blatantly pulled from "The Walking Dead" TV show. It's a great game, the players liked it, but it just wasn't for me. Too heavy on combat and tactics. Also, everyone knows what the "bad guy" is before the game has even started. I prefer, as a GM, to have plot twists and surprises to spring on the players. I'm sure another GM would've done it more justice.
The other game I ran was "Unknown Armies". I chose a published scenario called "Jailbreak", written by Greg Stolze. This was phenomenal...I loved the scenario and prefer to system to CoC. I had a group of players I'd never met before and we really nailed the game. The influence of CoC is clearly there but the emphasis is more on personal horror than cosmic. I ran it again at Dragon*Con in 2012, again to great success. There's a strong possibility I'll run this in 2013 depending on interest and my schedule...which is the subject of next weeks post.
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