Casting Shadows

Before I moved to Korea “for a year or so” a quarter of a century ago, I had multiple games a week. Sometimes those games were all using the same system with slightly or very different genres, themes, settings, and intentions. Sometimes they covered the spectrum of what was available in those days. We still had waiting lists for games to try, but, generally speaking, if one of us got a new game, we were able to play it within a few weeks. There really was no “Never” in terms of playing one game or another. If someone in the group wanted to play something, we could and would. It was a big part of our culture of play. Most, sometimes all, of the players were regular game masters. We all bought and read games. Gaming was our primary hobby, and we all socialized with each other in other ways, so we were friends outside of gaming. Gaming though, was the main thing we did together.

Day 6: Favorite game you NEVER get to play

These days, of course, things are quite different. While the Internet has allowed me to continue to game with some of my old crew from “the Old Country” and with new friends that I never would have met without it, the frequency, depth, and variety of play has diminished a lot. My life has been pried open and filled with dependents and I have gone from working for others to working for a company we own. All of that gives me a vastly different relationship with time. That means a desire to play a game might take years to manifest as the other games ahead of it run their natural and often-interrupted courses. Don’t get me wrong. Life is not worse, nor is gaming. Both are as good or better than they always were. They are, however, slower to take shape and instead of having quite a few on the go at the same time, it is rarely more than one.

Of the games on the waiting list that I would claim as among my favorites, we end up with the need to draw a distinction. My favorite games are often so because of the system that they use, and it is very likely that those few, favorite, systems are in use in any given period. What I end up waiting and pining for are particular expressions of one system or another.

Examples are Mythic Britain which uses Mythras, and Luther Arkwright which does as well. I end up using Mythras regularly, but it has been far too long since I could play for an extended and satisfying period in the myths of Arthur or travel the Parallels. I would like to play those games all the time, as I would like to play All for One and Leagues of Cthulhu – but that seems rarely, if ever, to happen.

By now, I suspect that regular readers of and listeners to my words, have begun to recognize that I have been using a common term, “play” to mean a thing that I don’t believe it means. For me, any use of a game, be it as GM or as the player of a character, is play. Asymmetrical play, to be sure, but play nonetheless. For this Day 6 post, however, I am limiting that view to simply playing characters and it is true that in that context, among my most favorite of games, it seems like I NEVER get to play.

I do, however, get to play characters in lots of other things.

For more on this, check out the Podcast where I discuss the reasons~