So I have a few weeks off work and as a result I have committed to a fair few games. These games are long standing games or groups so it is very welcome but it also comes with a few issues. Games that have been left a long time tend to have too many what ifs attached, you spread your GM prep (and ideas) too thin and your time for real life becomes massively less.
We will recommence our Burning Wheel game tomorrow. I am very excited but also a little scared by this. It has been about six weeks since our last session and the state of the game has become incredibly complicated. The situation is quite loose, the players always separate and the intricate relationships are complex. We finally have our orcish horde marauding across the land to stand on the doorstep of the leader of the empire, the Andorrans. This is the ‘overarching’ story. But, in Scojya itself, there are many random threads coming about. The party is kind of against each other. They scheme and plot against each other trying to out do or depose the other of power. It seems that at the moment the building of alliances and the gathering of dirt with which to blackmail each other has become the name of the game. This means that the players often have separate scenes, rarely are they all in the same place at the same time. The relationships have become so varied that I find some anxiety over trying to keep them all consistent. I think I need to create a relationship map to have an overview of it all. I have concocted a few scenarios for tomorrow’s session which should see some interesting game play; out of which I will direct the game accordingly. Maybe this is Burning Wheel?
My GM prep time has become quite thin. This is mainly in the arena of well-rounded NPC’s with proper motivations and reasons for doing what they are doing. My Eberron DnD campaign is in pretty good shape, I need to read up on my Storm King’s Thunder campaign and really decide how certain NPC’s will react and my Burning Wheel campaign has already been detailed. It just feels like I am running a lot by the seat of my pants and hope this doesn’t make a hollow game play experience. Burning Wheel, especially, feels like planning for three games at once due to the fractured nature of the ‘party’. They are three individuals out for their own ends and the possibilities are multiplied accordingly.
Today, I have used the line “I am playing at RPG at that time” too often. Maybe I have shot myself in the foot by committing to so many games during the Christmas period but time off is time off. Between planning, writing and playing, you time is so thin. It is so hard to stop a game in progress. I guess I don’t want to disappoint anyone. Also, I feel that my Burning Wheel experience will cease if the current game expires. Getting my other regular friends to play Burning Wheel is a task too hard I fear.
That is my little rant for the day. Hopefully Burning Wheel will be Burning Wheel and things will just evolve. I guess I don’t see a clear path for where the story is going. Bring on the games and bring on Christmas. Oh, and bring on my Deck of Many deck of NPC’s. These are definitely the DnD ‘monsters’ that are used most frequently and the poor Monster Manual has shown signs of strain at the back pages constantly being opened.
Merry Christmas and Happy (gaming) New Year!
RPG Downtime 