The dissolution of a game

The Friday Shadowrun game WO ran was riddled with problems from the beginning. One of our players was very argumentative outside of game and a bit of a rules lawyer in game. He was always on time, though, and his mannerisms eventually grew on me.

The other two players were never on time after the first week and couldn’t be bothered to notify anyone, much less WO-the-GM (game-master), when they were going to be late or not show up. Each of them had problems with money, to the point where one often didn’t have bus fare.

$1.65.

He could have called for a ride.

WO, the regular player, an myself would sit for an hour or so in WO’s apartment, waiting for one of them to arrive so we would have at least three people to play.

Finally, WO moved the game back an hour, to give those two time to arrive without being late. That was cool with me, because I could go home, shower, and play with the cats before game started. At this point, I was complaining almost every week about my Fridays being taken up with a game we barely got to play. I could be home, relaxing, reading, cleaning, writing, or out socializing.

This week, WO and I each got two emails. One was from regular guy, saying he was dropping game for work-related reasons. That alone really spelled the end of game. The second, just yesterday, was from the fellow without bus fare. His money issues drove him to move to another state, and so, needless to say — although it was kind of him to do so, for once — he wouldn’t be in the game anymore.

Leaving me and the other irregular, money-issues man. Meaning, no game.

WO had a really good idea for a campaign, and his execution was good. We were warned before we started the game, though, that people who like Shadowrun tend to rules-lawyer and nitpick on history, because there’s so much back-story in the books. WO and I are big believers in stretching the book-given world to its limits, which has caused us strife in folks’ D & D games. (“Wait, you really mean that when I’m 5th level, I’m in the top 1% of people’s abilities? 5th level? And no one has heard of magic? Really. Fuck the DMG 2. Who wants to play in a cookie-cutter world? This isn’t going to work for me.”)

Unfortunately, just that sort of thing happened. WO was nitpicked on historical details and rules and had to put up with a player who decided to get revenge by “min-maxing leading to invulnerability”, in WO’s words. It was, in many ways, a very rough game. There was never any party cohesion, and the players grew increasingly annoyed with each other. It wasn’t a game where any of us were inclined to kill each other (out of game) — no insults were thrown around or anything — but it stopped being… fun.

So on what is becoming a Friday of Finales, I say goodbye to this f’ing awful job and that slightly disappointing game.

I want to find the good gamers in Charlotte. The cooperative (rather than competitive) ones who want to create something, instead of destroy something.