From out of the mists of too much work I have emerged. My two concurrent courses are done and I am down to one. I am hoping that I’ll have more time to write and game, so hopefully you will be seeing more of me.
That’s not a pledge, that’s an aspiration.
The playtest for the system that is going by the name Riggers has gone really well from a developmental standpoint, but the campaign itself fell down. This seems to have squarely been a factor of too many players.
I remember the days when I was straining to get three players together in the days of my Viking campaign. For Dream Riggers I had eight players. Eight. Now, granted, usually we had six or seven at the table, but that was way too many.
There are those who regularly run with large numbers of players. I don’t. My sweet spot is between three and five – four preferred. With seven or eight, there is not enough time for everyone’s character to get the spotlight regularly. Fights – which the system allows to be pretty quick – lasted long periods because of the number of characters involved. People could not get very invested in their characters because their characters often weren’t involved in a third to a half of what was happening in any give game.
So I split the party. The players, that is.
I now have two groups of four. While the scheduling has become an issue – so many games, so little time! – I am excited to get back to intimate games in which I can really focus on the players and their characters instead of trying to manage a full table.
Though not all my problems have passed.
But that’s for another time.
You can read more about Dream Riggers here.
You can read about and listen to my Viking campaign here.
You can read more about my Viking campaign here.