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[tek2way]

Das Schwarze Auge...or, The Dark Eye

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Let me tell you a story. It's not terribly long, but it goes back a fair bit. You see, back in the very early 90s, I would get the latest Advance Comics and Diamond Distribution catalogs, and browse through them. I treated them as a sort of a wish list that I, realistically, never intended on completing. It was in one of those catalogs that I ran across a mention of some very popular German roleplaying game. Later, I was unable to recall the exact name, though I knew I'd remember if I ever saw the trade dress and title. I was fascinated. There was a very popular fantasy RPG other than Dungeons & Dragons?

However, as was often the case with foreign entertainment in the late 80s and early 90s, nothing ever showed up, and I forgot all about it after a while.

Then, in early 2016, I discovered a Kickstarter for something called "The Dark Eye". Reading the description, I learned it was none other than the German RPG I'd heard about all those years ago. Excited, I bought into the Kickstarter at a level that would get me a lot of the goodies and extras, such as spell cards, fate tokens, stickers, bookmarks, a soundtrack CD, and DICE!

I began to tell my friends -- well, and whoever would listen -- about the system (you want 1s on a d20 and lower is better) and setting (one that has only advanced in time in-game the 30 years in real time it has been released). I found it a fun departure from the standard of D&D, yet still familiar enough to offer some kind of starting point to try it. I printed out the Quickstart rules, and tried to show them what it was like. I was extraordinarily unsuccessful. One person got up and wandered off, later claiming that they forgot because they got pulled into a conversation elsewhere in the house, and while the other two seemed to enjoy it (for the most part), their schedules were such that I wasn't sure I'd be able to get them in a game.

Despite being disappointed in the reception, I resolved to continue to explain details; this time, however, I would focus on those elements a certain person liked, and only that person, rather than trying to tell everyone everything about it. For my part, I found myself more ensnared by the ruleset and setting, every time I read more about it.

Last year was disastrous for me from a gaming perspective as well. Nothing we did could get a regular game going, and the lack of anything like a regular game increased my stress level to the point I was beginning to have serious trouble sleeping. As you might have figured, I never did find a quorum for a game.

Fast forward to this evening. Another Kickstarter I had helped fund was the setting book, the Aventuria Almanac, had finally come in. It came with three coasters from prominent taverns in the setting, another die several maps, and a short story set in the world. For a short few minutes, I was all excited about it. Then, I began to think about what games I might run set in that world, and reality settled in again.

If you remember, I'd detailed a situation a couple of weeks back, where my hope to ever get a game going with my current circle of friends evaporated, leaving me a broken, sad man. A friend of mine, being candid because I asked, said that it was because I had no other responsibilities that I wanted a gaming group to play with weekly, and that gaming isn't important enough for most people to set aside time to play.

I still feel that it's no different than poker night or making a point to always shoot hoops with your friends: everyone's enjoyment is dependent upon your attendance. Oh, their enjoyment isn't completely ruined by your missing once, but I feel that there is a social contract when you agree to participate that you will be present more often than you're not.

Regardless, between my seemingly irrational hope for a regular group, plus people's lukewarm (at best) response to the game, I can't generate the energy to even read the books. And the books are GORGEOUS. I figure that I'll eventually want to read them, and when I do, I will enjoy them for their own sake. That day isn't today, though.

For now, I'm going to bed, since I work late tomorrow..

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P.S. - I'm sure there's something I forgot to mention in here. Hopefully, not too much is missing.

Comments

[argent_raptor]

I feel the same way about gaming groups. For me, gaming is one of the best ways for me to interact with people without it being ridiculously stressful. I loved gaming once a week or more with my friends. When I lived in Clarksville, I thought it would be super easy to get a group together with the military base and a major college right there. The best I could get was once a month with most people cancelling the day of. I had a super cool campaign, probably over a 100 maps I generated, and a pretty cool adventure hook (You have been recruited by the Lost Library as a Ranger to seek and preserve knowledge in a world where literacy and magic is forbidden. Perhaps you have inherent magic that will get you consigned to The Fires, perhaps you want adventure, perhaps you want to make some coin, or perhaps you want to preserve knowledge...who cares!) I had a group, we were ready to go and before the first game session, everyone had shit come up. Then the next week too, then well, can we do it on Tuesday instead of Friday? Oh wait then I can't come and and and...yeah. Now that I live in Phoenix, a major fucking city, I thought about getting into it again but again...no groups play regularly or want a new member. If I lived in Memphis, I would run a solo Changeling game for you and if other people wanted in, it would be with the understanding that, commit or their probably wouldn't be a lot for them to do. Heavy sigh.

[tek2way]

For me, gaming is one of the best ways for me to interact with people without it being ridiculously stressful. I loved gaming once a week or more with my friends.

This. Every bit of this. While I'm sure I'm not as sensitive to people as you may be, I referred to gaming for years as "my sole bit of socialization during the week". I didn't mind occasionally hanging out, doing nothing, but I vastly preferred to play an RPG (lesser options, but still okay, included board games and card games). It gave structure to our gatherings, and if things went well, we had stories to tell years later.

I don't understand this shift(?) to placing gaming so low on the priority scale, that games never happen. For me, gaming is life. It's socialization. It's fun. It's creativity. Back in 2002-3, I ran a game that I spent most of the week thinking about and planning, because I was having that much fun with it, and I had people who attended every weekly session.

I can point directly at the spotty attendance that has increasingly plagued the group that got together on Saturdays as the key reason I didn't invest more effort into preparing for those few games I did run, as well as why I hold myself back from stuff like The Dark Eye, even now. The lore of that world is so gods-damned fucking amazing, I want to absorb it and begin to plan all kinds of plots. Then I think, "oh yeah, I can't get anyone to regularly attend a D&D game, much less a new system from Germany."

I may read the core book and the almanac (campaign setting book) anyway, to hell with everyone else. There are three playable races: human, elf, and dwarf, but culture drives this setting, so there are nearly 30 total possibilities for those three. Factor in that your starting profession is NOT analogous to "class", and you have all kinds of fun options. The world is alive, and even the entries in the monster book included folklore regarding them, ecological traits about them, and such. In short, it's precisely the attention to detail I always wanted, without making me feel overwhelmed.

But that's enough out of me. I don't want someone else to get tired of hearing about the setting. (If you're curious and don't mind reading PDFs of dead trees, I may see about ensuring you get a way to read the Almanac.)