Closing Out A Game

I hate ending games improperly. I love my multi-year sagas that end with some form of closure. Unfortunately, my Dresden Files game isn't going to get one of those endings.

I realized after running Exalted and then trying to run a game of Reign that I needed to swap genres. I needed to tell different stories to cleanse the palate and recharge my creative juices.

But this time it would be different, right? I ended my Changeling game just before the birth of my daughter, and then took about six months off. That should have been enough to let me go whole hog into my Dresden Files game.

Should have. Would have. Could have. Wasn't.

So today, I sent an email to my players confessing that I'd hit burn out and that after the current arc, I was going to take a break. And of the four, one had to drop shortly to up her athletic training, and another had the opinion of "if it isn't fun, why do it?"

Because it is fun, I just wasn't inspired. I had NEAT ideas on what to do next, but I couldn't find the motivation to move from the opening sequence to the neat imagery I saw as key points (subject to change to player intervention).

So what's next? A short break, maybe some board game ideas, then something different. Right now the lead contenders are Marvel Heroic Roleplaying or 13th Age for some good casual fun. Only War is definitely an appealing thought, but I'm not sure I could get the right folks for what I'd want to do for it.

But first? A break from running, or thinking about running games for a bit.

40k Only War Bug Bit Me

So, based on the recommendations of my friends, I picked up the new 40k book from Fantasy Flight Games: Only War, and it arrived Friday.

And yeah, the gaming ADD bug has bit me hard. New! Shiny!

But can you blame me? Fantasy Flight put out a beautiful book, in a universe that eminently gameable - 40k. Yes, it is grimdark and bleak, but if you are okay with that, it just works. As a GM, I don't have to figure out why the other "heroes"/"supervisors"/etc. aren't here doing this task, there's just the PCs so if they want it done, they will need to do it themselves! Or get shot by the Commissioner trying and showing insufficient valor and fortitude. 

I'd run as one part grim and dirty combat, of going house to house, with the panic of not knowing what was inside the doorway. One part will be the preposterous of orders and commands, contradictory and impossible, that fills the stereotypical soldier's life. Then finally, the comedic silliness that is part and parcel of the gaming table, as translated into the actions of bored soldiers who are on permanent deployment and will never be going home.

I'd want to run it as a series of Campaigns, from start to finish, as a war/conflict moves forth on various planets. Very much in line with Gaunt's Ghosts. I'd need to come up with some sort of tracking system so as the arcs progress, the players can watch as how the fight moves forwards and backwards.