The problems of choice

On monday I was off ill. I couldn't manage to come to work because I was choked up with the cold. So what did I do instead of sitting in the shop? I rearranged my entire living room. For those who don't know what that involves, I had to move 3 6 foot bookcases (all full or RPG's) a Welsh Dresser and another bookcase full of other books. On top of that I built a new bookcase and filled it with the overflow of games lying around and the stacks of folders and boradgames too.

So what does this have to do with choice? Well I'll tell you. Those 3 bookcases of games are only about half of my RPG collection. In fact my collection of RPG books is huge. Too huge it turns out. I've been trying to find a new game to get my teeth sunk into for a while now. I've run WFRP for ages and don't feel entirely happy going back to it. 20 years is probably enough for one game.

I now have too much choice it seems. I have over 70 different fantasy RPG's (and that doesn't include the D&D and D20 stuff) and that makes picking which one to run really hard. I could go with WFRP, but its been done before, and anyway I'd then have to choose between 1st or 2nd edition, both of which have little niggles. Runequest is great, except I hate the Strike Rank system with a passion. HARP looks good on the surface but then you find that its got all the problems that D20 clones have while being built on the Rolemaster system: Levels and classes, not my thing. Undiscovered looks cool but has the same thing, levels and classes. Rolemaster is too crunchy, Polaris too weird, Dawnfire too shit. The list goes on and on. And as long as there are more games out there on my shelf, you know the ones that might contain that gem of wisdom that I'm looking for in a system I just keep on skimming through them.

I'd give up on fantasy and go looking for a genre that I have less books for but primarily nothing has inspired me in ages. Blue Planet is fantastic. In fact I like both editions and have both. Coming up with a good campaign for it seems to be beyond me at the moment though. Shadowrun I'd rather run than play, Cyberpunk 2020 is old and shows it but CP3 is just a bit weak I feel. Star Trek could be good but my players just never seemed that interested.

You can see that the list does just keep going on and on. When you have as much choice as I do its hard to pick one thing and settle down to it. Also there's the problem of referencing. I get an idea and then I have to try and pick what to do it with. I want to put together a campaign set in a pseudo bronze age setting with a little functional magic. Runequest could be good. I could probably convert WFRP to it quite easily. The BRP, GURPS, Hero or even D20 could be mangled into it. Pendragon using the information in the saxons book maybe? Sorcerer and Sword with a bit of crowbaring. Shadow of yesterday maybe, but thats a bit more narrative than I'd like so maybe we could discount that one. Maybe Soothsayer, oops, nope, looked at the cover art and remembered why... Forge: Out of Chaos, er probably not. Gah! What do I run it with! I know, I'll convert WFRP. Thats easiest, but now I need to reference Saxons, because that'll have some of the culture stuff that I'm looking for. Oh and Runequest because it'll have the appropriate technology level. Oh, tech levels, yeah, what about those GURPS books I've got. Like vikinms and Low Tech and stuff, oh and then there's the D20 setting books on vikings too... Dammit why's my reading pile 6 foot tall again!

So too much choice is a bad thing. If I only had 2 games to run it with I'd probably write my own but with so many to choose from it seems thats beyond me now...

- Liam