Most people here know me as the crazy guy who stats up everything (I think so far the 2 biggest crowd pleasers have been the SPU write up and the Fizzy Soda Vending Machine) For a (mostly) complete least just go to this link .

Long story short... something happened that made me just want to toss all my SR4 books and stuff into the trash. I swore that I wasn't going to waste my time on it again.

But after all this time it started to creep up on me again...

What do people do when you start to feel the "spark" of a setting again to get the creative juices flowing again? What are the things that draw you back into a game that you either burned out on or had such a bad experience you never wanted to play again? Have you ever had something go so wrong that you just said "I'm never playing or running XXXX AGAIN!!!"

Honestly, I just switch to a different game for a while. Usually I wind up wanting to come back to x (in this case SR) on my own. It just takes time.

Of course, SR is unconditionally my primary defining fandom, and my favorite fictional universe. I've never really got mad at it, just bored with it, and wanted to try other things.

I am curious though...what happened in your case?

Hm... nope, never had that feeling. But i did have a "Ah well... no fun anymore... i need a break".

It is great after that to try something new. Get a new group or something. Maybe a different game. Maybe begin to gm, or be a player (change your role). Then after a while you might love it, OR begin to remember that what you were doing was more fun and you now have recharged your batteries to do it again.

I make a lot of stuff. It was suggested that I submit a proposal for an official netbook. I was really psyched about it. I have an infant son, so I spent a lot of not so free time working on it only after he went to bed late at night and on the weekends.

And then the whole "implosion" thing happened. I heard the horror stories about the freelancers. I thought about all the time I spent working on the proposal when I could have been playing with my son or working on something else. I got angry and I chucked everything I had been working on in a folder and said "Screw it."

Note: I did not get screwed over by anyone. I didn't even submit my proposal. I just decided that it wasn't worth the risk of putting in a ton of effort into something that I might not get anything out of.

I try to run at least two different games a year. You can get burned out and trying another system for even a few months can make a big difference when you return to another system. (Were currently on break from SR we'll probably return when the complete DotA books are out. (Still waiting to hear if were gonna see the rumored follow up material.) Trying out Eclipse Phase right now and having a blast. Although also getting ideas on items or plot points I might steal for when I go back to SR.

For me SR has been a mainstay since the first time I ran it and even when I'm not running it follow blogs,forums,rumors,websites pretty religiously.

I think theres always one game that stands out and resonates with a GM this is the game he'll preform best at for this players which will cause the most repeat business.

Wow...this is....eeily similar to my own situation.

I too was/am gearing up to submit something to beg to work in any capacity for CGL when I found out about the entire incident (via this thread, which I read almost in its terrifying, vitriolic, two-sided-mud-slinging 75-page entirety). It was...extremely disheartening. I finally got to talk to some of the writers of SR, my favorite product of all time...only to find out that they now hated CGL/SR. Imagine your favorite group of people. Now imagine they hate each other vehemently. It was heartbreaking. I always imagined that these people were more-or-less perfect and in-more-or-less-perfect-harmony. That couldn't have been further from the truth. The kind of crestfallen realization that most people have about their parents as adolescents I had about the Shadowrun devs as a grown man.

Ironically, while it did put the breaks on my submission fever, this incident actually caused me to get more into PLAYING/GMING Shadowrun as a game than ever. As a matter of fact it is specifically because of this that I joined Dumpshock. Which in turn has me thinking about SR/wanting to play it more than ever.

Two thoughts:

1) Since I mainly run games, my burnout rarely comes from the setting/rules, its the current campaign. It normally takes me about 1.5 to 2 years to get to the point of wanting to try something new, but that normally means starting a new campaign. Even in Shadowrun (where I feel I am most restricted in my campaigns, as there is a lot of canon history that I usually try to avoid contradicting), I have a plethora of valid campaign options that play so different from one another, it can something feel like a different game. So, I really don't get burned out from a setting. Now, if I was only playing, I guess I could see wanting to chuck my books sooner and more often if I was playing the same things over and over. I may also have a safety to burnout, as my weekly group has been alternating between to different campaigns and GMs for the last few years. Playing a single game only twice a month keeps it fresh a lot longer.

2) Pet Peeve Alert: I just have to say and especially in our current times, feeling like you have to get some company's approval to publish something is ludicrous. Well, assuming you are not looking to make any money (and even if you do get paid, as all freelancers will tell you, its not a ton of money anyways), why not just publish what you have and let the "people" decide what its worth. That meaning, if they want to get it in their hands and use it. If you got good material and players want it, you'll get to where you want to get (whether that be a freelancer or some kind of participant at an official level). Just write your stuff and put it out. If its good, why not let 100s of people critique it and help you make it better than a handful of devs and an editor?

Because some of us want to get paid (and getting paid 'shitty freelancer pay' is a lot better than nothing) to do something we love? It is hubris of the worst sort, I suppose, yet it is also a pretty defining human characteristic.

Anyway, Ancient History certainly didn't let the CGL mess stop him from releasing his material. And considering BRodda has 0 contractual obligations, the only thing stopping him from releasing his content for free as homebrew is any hope he may be holding on to of selling it (unless it is the backbreaking thankless work it would take to finish it).

Additionally, if praise and audience reception is important to you, (many to most) people will like what you did better if it is a published product that they had to pay for than if it is available for free online. It is a quirk of human nature.



I agree with this a lot, but my own ADD tendency to switch campaigns and game systems triggers much more frequently, at least twice a year.

I do post TONS of stuff free on the web, mostly here on DS. Here is a partial index of the stuff I've created. .

I should update it as I'm missing the following from the list:
Sharks with Lasers on their heads
Mutant Sea Bass
Ares’ Secure Rail Transporter (SRT)
A new Strain of HMHVV
A pollution cleaning Bioform Oyster.
Low level poisons.

and the Gunship I just posted today.

So the point was that there is a point where you want to go from being a guy who creates a ton of stuff for the web to a professional game writer. And lets be honest, money is nice. I'm not planning on making my living at it, but an extra few hundred bucks every couple months could go a long way in my son's college account.

Yeah, I feel like I'm pretty much at that point myself. Although I do feel like joining Dumpshock was something of a step backwards. Since now (if I ever do try to take that step) I will be coming from 'within the fandom' as just as much as coming from 'I have degree x from school y'.

Not really. I was approached by people who worked with Catalyst who said "We see your stuff and we like it. Do you think you can take some section of it and turn it into a cohesive book?" There is nothing wrong with being "from within the fandom". All the fancy degree's are nice, but they want to see your take on the SR universe and see your "voice". I am some what notorious for my non-powergaming fluffy stuff. Things that are interesting, but are not overpowered or genre-breaking. They now know that. And if I submit something they know not only that I can produce a ton of stuff, but that it will not be all MaryJane or Munchkin.

Good to know.

La la la, I'm not listening. I'm going to try to pretend I didn't read this or click on that thread you linked to. Everything is fine... everything is fine...

Game Systems are pretty much all flawed. You find ways to work around the egregious errors and have fun. So, to that end, there are few games that I think , "Ugh, I'll never play that again!" -- the closest would be Rifts.

However, PLAYERS...yeah, there are many people over the years that I've decided to never again game with.

The opposite happened to me in that Other Game. The last campaign I played was run by a professional writer with great talent. She wove a story and epic plot so intricate and so wonderful as it came together, and brought the great world-saving adventure to such a conclusion, and made me and each of the other players feel so integral to the whole thing that I was certain never to have that level of experience again. I haven't played a single game of that system since.

I read an old shadowrun novel like 2xs. I listen to burning chrome, hardwired or snow crash on audiobook. I flip through my old 2nd edition stuff, reading rules and remembering the good ole times. I concentrate on the people and games around me, flip the bird at the developer and remember that there are non evil companies out there like posthuman. Lastly, I grumble and complain.... A LOT.

I approve of Platinum's post.

First I ask myself was it the players? the rules? the game/setting? or a fluke?

players? find new ones

rules? use different rules

game/setting? run a different game

fluke? try to figure out what went wrong and what I need to do to be sure it doesn't happen again.



As for the professional freelancer gig. There is a section of rpg.net dedicated for getting gigs. You may have to invest a bit of $$$ buying lots of different systems so you can write appropriate material but after your first few you'll have your name in some stuff and it gets easier. Also go to conventions and hang out with the people who do what you want to do. Don't be a crazy fan just say "heh I like your stuff, can I buy you a beer"

Only way to affect how you feel is by what you do.

Personally, I've found that playing again has renewed my interest in running games. That and I've cut back from running 2 games a week to 1...
That's all the advice I can give.

The sad thing is I no longer play. I don't have the time with my newborn son. I make this stuff not for me to use, but just as a creative outlet.

I guess me reading DS again and I'm writing stats right now for a gas pump answers my question.

How old is your newborn? When my daughter was born, her mother and I put her in a basket on the end of the table and she would sleep through a large part of the game. Later, our GM bought her a t-shirt, with "Wandering Monster" written on it.

He is 13 months today. I could have played when he was little, but now I can't even find the time to draw. (My job also makes it so I'm out of the house 13 hours a day.)

My wife tells me that I should find a "gamer dad" group and have all the husbands volunteer to watch the kids one night in a big "playdate". Wives would get the night off and we could get guilt free game time.

Haha, like that would work. Sounds like mommy wants out of the house for a break. If gamer dads are babysitting, then 1 of 3 things will happen.

1. no playing will actually get done.
2. kids will either die or be maimed within the first few sessions.
3. kids will be heavily sedated.

Ah, but a little 'scratch my back' could be in play here. Sure, the gamer dads get together, roll up characters, watch the munchkins, and the ladies can go party, but that means the dads get their game time one other night that week, unfettered by filial obligation.

I recall during this time with my own munchkin, I showed her how *ahem* happy people were when I delivered cakes to them in a video game.

Sure, it happened to be Hitman: Blood Money, but she's of the mind that a really good cake can make someone fall down now.

I've been to a few gamer dad groups (ironically before I was a father) and I have to say they were a mixed success effort at best.

Only a poison cake I like mine to EXPLODE! On a side note I'm currently replaying Hitman: Blood Money oh the fun of simple mass murder.

I'm told they're making a new Hitman. I'll have to brush up on Blood Money - my Hitman is like my Shadowrun. I prefer quiet and clean.

I enjoy both flavours. Though I'm currently failing the casino mission.