I am actually currently running a Castles & Crusades campaign - the first game I have GM'ed in roughly ten years. Coming up with the group took quite a while and involved recruitment posters at a couple of local game stores and posting on Nearbygamers.com. The group is an interesting mix - another old-school minded gamer (who some might know as k-slacker), a roleplay-focused guy who usually talks in character, a story-focused 2e guy who feels that characters can only be differentiated if there are mechanical differences, and a guy from Europe who wrote for computer games. I went with C&C as I thought it would be a bridge between new-style players and old-style players like myself.
The campaign has been fun and hopefully will continue for a while. I have been going with a sandbox and, if anything, I have been giving them too many rumours and leads to follow. I think this format has required some adjustment on the part of a couple of players and the first character death was a bit of a road bump they players had to get over.
My preference would be to use a different rule-set but as I mentioned it was kind of a concession on my part to find a group. How have others put groups together? Have you found it necessary to make concessions to get a group together? What kind of learning process did your players have to go through?
I found that my players preferred D&D 3.5; while I managed to start a campaign with Microlite 20 and run a one-shot using Microlite 20, the feedback has been the same, always: "I'd play M20 if I have to, but I really prefer D&D 3.5." And when I mentioned all the problems we've had in that one campaign between levels 10 and 15, I am offered a plethora of improvements to make. Nobody shares my opinion that switching to Labyrinth Lord would solve all of that... :(
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