Failed Games

If you’ve been paying attention to this series of posts, you may have noticed that there was no actual game play mentioned between my June 22 post about my new Marvel Super Heroes character, and my July 28 post about getting back into D&D. That’s because the Marvel Super Heroes game I was supposed to be a Player in failed to start.

In all the years I’ve been playing RPGs, there have been probably a dozen or more failed starts for new games and campaigns. Just off the top of my head:

I remember creating a character for a Middle Earth Role Playing game campaign. I never actually played a single game session with that game.

I created a character for the Living Steel role playing game, but the game never started. I never even got to read the books for that game.

I created a character for the Mechwarrior role playing game. I’ve played many Battletech table-top war games, but never the role playing version of the game.

I’ve played a couple very short Star Frontiers games (less than 5 game sessions each). I created a couple characters for SF that never saw even one game session.

I’ve played a few Marvel Super Heroes campaigns of from 3 to 10 game sessions. I created a couple characters that never saw more than one game session, and now I’ve created a character that never saw the first game session.

I’ve played only one Star Wars campaign that lasted more than just a few game sessions. I created a couple SW characters that never got past the first game session.

I’ve played only one Shadowrun campaign that lasted many game sessions, and I’ve got two or three SR characters that I never played more than one or two game sessions. (I’ve got one character that was created specifically as a background support character for my main SR character, but I don’t count that character among the “failed to launch.”)

I’ve created a few D&D characters through the decades that never saw a single game session. I’ve created and played a handful of other D&D characters that I never gained a single level. (This is not counting the character I created just for the fun of creating characters.) Ironically, I’ve created more D&D characters that never did anything than I’ve had D&D characters die doing stuff.

It’s kind of sad now that I’m sitting here thinking about them. All these characters that got created but never really got play love in a game. I think I’d rather have a character die in the first game session than to never even reach the first game session.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com