After a disasterous session GMing last night with my group playing Shadowrun, I suddenly realized that I enjoy SR much more alone and preparing or reading than the actual playing.

For instance, I made a really nice character (or so I think), I put in all the details and even calculate emcumbrance. She's all ready and set to go running.

The fault of who/what did the session in is debatable at best, but I noticed...If I had been using this character with my current group, my efforts would have been wasted. Encumbrance isn't calculated, canon is ignored and reshaped and altered. And then all the little things I plan to be part of her personality, like how she might walk over to someone with a particular kind of smile, or what clothes she wears, it's no use at all.

In online roleplaying, Sarah walked over to the bloodied dwarf holding a medkit under her arm. She smiled pleasantly to him as she knelt before his side and began first aid.

turns into

I rush over to the dwarf, smile at him and attempt to bandage him up.

Because we're typing, and it gets tiresome, long detailed descriptions are avoided. And (especially with AIM which doesn't show you who's typing at the current moment), we have to type fast to get something in before another character says or does something which will make our two actions/statements conflicting in some way.

So what worked best with visual(ization in my head) becomes severely filtered in written form and even yet again filtered in roleplaying online.

I suddenly don't feel like playing much anymore. I'm staring at my sourcebook now and thinking, it's such a cool game, but why isn't it when we play? It just goes wrong. Everything cool, all the little things, are gone.

Try some play by post or email games. You can describe as much as you want in those.

As for tabletop or IM games, you probably just need to find a group more in tune with your desires and needs.

I agree with Tinker Gnome. I also found when playing that the time between games was a lot of fun. You can spend that time imagining what you're going to do to finish this adventure, how you're going to spend your karma, etc.

The other thing I've enjoyed is IC, OOG (In Character, Out of Game) time. Usually that's before the game starts when we read over our character quotes and 20 questions to get into character, and we start interacting as our characters, but nothing is happening in game yet.

AIM games can work. It's just that due to the restrictions of the format, the players must be equally disciplined. Consider running all subtle player actions through the GM and throwing up a * as a quick message to tell everyone to wait for you to finish typing, etc.

If playing Shadowrun isn't fun, (horror of horror), I'd recommend a different game. Hey, it's what led me to WoD, L5R, 7S, Deadlands, etc. Sometimes it's fun and you can get more genre's and ideas under your belt.

OTOH, if you're deadset on Shadowrun, take the aforementioned options above.

Don

Also, don't expect all parts of your character to show up right away. Think of it more as a tv show, where we might not learn until episode 12 that the Dark and Brooding Hero never got along with his parents. In the begining to the show, we just know he's dark and brooding, carries lots of guns, and likes to use them on members of ye olde evil organization.

Most of this makes sense I think I'll try to look for a play by post game as I'm more experienced with those.

FYI, I ended up with SR because playing D&D was no longer fun. I had a similar mindset Still, new games never hurt. I think I'll go look for an indy one, those can be really undiscovered gems.