Thread "Had anyone else lose interest in Tabletop RPGs?" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 4:12PM, Dec. 27, 2019

Hey, I was wondering if anyone else lost interest in Tabletop RPGs as I feel like I'm losing mine and when I searched if this feeling was normal on RPGnet and a few other sites I read things like "you'll get over it" and "Tabletop RPGs are perfect, it's you".

Why I got into TRPGs in the first place was because I was interested in this box set I got when I was a kid, the Denver Expansion for Shadowrun first edition (I thought it was a PC game). I loved the story options and the setting, the rules I never paid attention to. I loved the series so much I read the Never make a deal with a dragon series. I became "serious" about TRPGs after encountering Hunter The Reckoning for the Gamecube, which I loved the lore and sought out the books, which lead me down a long road of picking up various books and other game like Don't rest your head, Attack of the humans, Chill, Beyond the Supernatural, several TMNT and other strange tales books.

Which I had to sell for 50 dollars and an anime dvd set to a guy I knew to scrape up cash for bills, he try to scam me by trying to trade them for pot but I stood by my guns for cash only.

I also started to make my own games too, mainly based off of West End Game's Ghost Busters International with a ton of modifications as I had only D6s and found a lot of other games extremely needlessly complex. I learned about game design, editing and so many other things for publishing. Why I was making them is because I actually wanted to make video games, as they were my passion was and it still is, but felt at the time I couldn't come up with storylines and characters for the kind of games I liked (point and click adventures) but I could come up with settings and mechanics. I actually made quite a few of games for drivethrurpg (under the name furwerk studio), and make some pocket change for them too, but eventually I lost steam making them.

The last couple of years I felt less and less passion for tabletop rpgs though, there is a lot of factors but a massive one is kind of the feeling of not belonging. I often go into communities looking for friends only to find many love laying down restrictions, not just for their groups but gaming over all like "no furry races", "nothing historically inaccurate in our DnD game!", and my favorite, "that is not how Gygax would do it!"

Another piece is I use to listen to podcast about rping, honestly I never really enjoyed them and found many boring but I was trying hard to understand the appeal. Now I only watch A crap guide, Puffin Forest and Dingo because I love the storylines and find their creator's charming, everything else is… Feels like fan fiction with some kind of randomizer ready to ruin their day.

I have a lot to say but yeah, at times I feel very alone in thinking that losing interest in TRPG and want to move onto other hobbies like video games and comic collecting (just as an example) is normal.

(P.S. Here's a weird caveat, I am trying to learn Japanese and pick up a few RPGs from Japan and find so many of them very enjoyable, rules are easy to understand but take a while to master and I love the various settings from being undead robot girls trying to hang onto memories to a fantasy world where one can be a furry baker, sad thing is nobody I know in the rpg community would go near these with a twenty foot pole because they are "weird".)

Posted at 12:12AM, Dec. 28, 2019

I can't say I've felt this myself, but I think it sounds like you've not found a group you enjoy being with. The thing about RPGs is that they only work if you enjoy spending time with the people you play with. I get how frustrating seeing restrictions however I understand why people would use them for an open group, but there is a big difference between "no rape in the game" and “no furry races”. Interest change over time maybe you'll come back maybe you won't you'll just have to find out for yourself.

Posted at 7:12AM, Dec. 28, 2019

Yeah it's understandable about some restrictions like "no rape at this table because it upsets some of the players" or "this is a Mouse Guard game, a human might be out of place", but I get frustrated with places like RPGnet and 4Dchan, and a few storytime RPers on youtube getting really upset and just outright declaring some subjects the darkest affront to the sky pie, and must never be thought of under punishment of excommunication.

One time I brought up the idea of consensual sex rules within a game in Reddit/RPG, the flood gates of hate was opened up with a few calling me "gross" and saying "no one wants to talk about sex, ever!"

I just gave up on going to online communities, weird thing is players I meet in person were fun, I would talk about ideas and they would help work it out like my "the dude" inspired half-gnoll fighter, whose father was a sorcerer/mage with a massive libido so he has a lot of half siblings and "knows" magic, as in he recognizes it but cannot cast magic missile or presentation except a caltrop that allows one to detect a blood relative at sight.

Posted at 10:12AM, Dec. 28, 2019

I stopped playing about the time I got married. Most of my fellow players still collect games but have no time for anything. It's nice to see Steve Jackson' GURPS and Chaosium's Runequest and Call of Cthulu coming back, but that's another generation.

Back in the day I had guidelines for pregnancy as well as various spells and potions for fertility and sterility. I was a Medievalist who happened to have created a world, then adopted it to D&D. Created my own character subclasses to fit my milieu.

Even introduced early gunpowder weapons and made it work.

And then I got married, sold off all the books to indulge another hobby ( a gaming con and model con were the same weekend.)

And started writing stories based on the characters. One story is an unfinished webcomic on this site. Other stories are from other game systems I played. I kept all character sheets and scenarios and adapt them into stories.

One led to another and now I have folks in the gaming business telling me I should turn around and adapt the stories and settings to game systems.

They all go hand in hand and one can feed another. So waste not, want not.

Posted at 5:12PM, Dec. 28, 2019

I want to play so much, but I have very very few friends, none local or into D&D, and I don't like communicating with "new" people. So last time I played was decades ago when my brother let me join a game with his friends. (My bro is usually DM. He loves storytelling, game mechanics, and math, so he is big on tabletop games, esp. D&D.)

When my bro and I get together, we play story-driven video games, and I write to fulfill my rp and storytelling thirst.

Posted at 5:12PM, Dec. 28, 2019

I'm very into TTRPGS - I ran my university club for years, I met my partner playing, my friends and I all play together. It's an outlet for my creative writing and desire to make things together with a group. I love them, but there's no harm in falling in and out of hobbies. Interests ebb and flow for a lot of people and that's normal.

It sounds like, to me at least, that the groups aren't lining up for what you want from the game. No TTRPG is better than bad TTRPGs, and groups that don't line up with what you want are definitely bad TTRPGs. I don't find a lot of joy in restrictive tables myself, but if it works for them it works for them, I suppose.

Have you tried something super freeform, like Grant Howitt's collection of one page rpgs (I'd recommend 'sexy battle wizards' or 'goat crashers' but all of them are very good) or maybe something fun like Fiasco? If you have a creation itch to scratch, I've found that microscope is an amazing worldbuilding tabletop that can be played in an evening. There's a lot of indie RPGs now that might fill a niche, rather than just bog standard DnD/Pathfinder.

Posted at 9:12PM, Dec. 28, 2019

usedbooks wrote:
I want to play so much, but I have very very few friends, none local or into D&D, and I don't like communicating with "new" people. So last time I played was decades ago when my brother let me join a game with his friends. (My bro is usually DM. He loves storytelling, game mechanics, and math, so he is big on tabletop games, esp. D&D.)

I got into A.D.'n'D. more or less by accident, when I was nearly 40. Just back from a trip to the U.K., my wife had started child-minding, and one of the first group were boys whose parents were both doing mature-age teaching degrees (as was my wife) and we looked after them from school until they were picked up around 5-ish.
They only lived around the corner, and my wife was there having a cuppa and commented on the glass cabinet full of figurines. Some months later, having got friendly with them, we holidayed together, with the bringing the game along…I loved it and we played for some years, with other students joining the group.
I really miss it now, as I'm pretty much inactive, with health problems, but like you, there's no-one to do so with.