On Wednesday nights I run a world of darkness game that has a healthy dose of call of cthulhu in it. I have been running this current campaign for I believe close to two years. It's been a lot of fun, but I'm running out of steam. Unfortunately I have two personal pet peeves in table top role playing, the first pet peeve is campaigns that don't last very long, and the second pet peeve is lack of diversity in my gaming. I know... I know... it's a horrible combination, just when the gaming group has some stability in it and things are going great my mind starts to wander to a new system or a new plot line. However I have been able to stomach running the same plot lines, characters and system now for what I consider a sizable amount of time for me. The plot lines are all coming to an end the game is closing and we are reaching the climax. Its energizing me to continue and finish this campaign with a bang.

So what do I have planned for my next campaign/game? A epic storyline that takes the player characters from the age of five to the age of fifty! I seriously love the epic stories, I love the games where players get plenty of time to develop their characters personalities and build up a serious repertoire of stories. I don't know how I am going to keep my energy going for the long epic type of campaign I have planned and the type I love while suppressing the desire to switch to something else and start something new. I am going to be running this new campaign using the silhouette core rules from dream pod 9 because it fits the setting I want to run the game in and I really like the core mechanics of the silhouette rules.

I think part of my problem is my Wednesday night gaming group gets sidetracked easily, they get on conversational tangents, and we don't get a lot of role playing done. I think we all have a lot of fun, but sitting behind the game masters screen puts a different perspective on the game. I know what the plot is, I know what the clues mean, and I have a decent idea of where the game is probably going to be heading. Honestly the part that makes the game fun for me is the pace of the story and the action. Sure many times my players will do unexpected things and the story will be derailed for several hours and I enjoy those times more then the more mundane adventures, but when I'm really having the greatest fun is when the pace is moving at a good clip and the story is feeling very cinematic. However my players are generally the reason we slow down, I give them a great deal of freedom and sometimes they cannot come to a consensus decision or they start talking about other things while I'm trying make them decide what their next move is. I'm not sure how to rid them of these habits short of constantly interrupting their off topic discussion. Somehow I must figure out a way to keep them focused so that over the long haul I will remain interested and focused.