What the fuck do I run?

Ok so, I've got three (3) core players. That means I have only three persons that can have a say in what I run. The other five players aren't there enough to be able to choose what we do.

So we just finished a campaign of low/dark fantasy D&D, and now we need something new to play, so I suggested different ideas. Here are the things people agree to NOT DO.

Low Fantasy, Dark Fantasy
Sword & Sorcery
The 20s
Modern setting in general, so no 20th/21th century
Futurism/Anticipation/Cyberpunk
Space Opera, Science-Fiction both hard and soft
Space Cowboys (cause it's Sci-Fi)
Western without Space (cause no western)
Feodal Japan as Samurai

So yeah, wtf. What do I run. What do I even *try to suggest* to my players and hope they'll be into it? The worst is, all of those options are appealing to one, or two out of three players, but I can't just run for two persons, and I'd like those three core players to be there and entertained cause they're the best members, and the group is quite new since I made a new one without the That Guy that had infected other of my old players.

I don't need a game system, I need ideas for campaigns.

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A high-politics crusades game

No Politics says player 1 and 2, they're both traumatized by another DM's Masquerade campaign. Good idea in itself tho, do you have more?

I'd like to do some kind of Sword & Planet thing, such as Carcosa, but we all want to take a break from D&D as a system for a while.

Run a setting of nations they have control over and let them all kill each other over land/resources, religion, etc.

What kind of games do they all agree on? Looking at the list it seems like they literally don't want to play in any kind of setting.

Native American psychedelic spirit animal rite of passage featuring Viking invaders trying to explore Vinland.
Thor meets the peace pipe.

What do you want to run OP?

Have you tried the most basic one of all, High Magic Medieval Fantasy? Just add in some humor and non-edgy stuff and it'll be fun!

Yeah we did, I found that so very boring. Plus the system I'm using means you usually play the peasants in a high fantasy world. Or regular people in a non-scaled world. You know, no level-scaling or things like that, just harsh nature, and one's own taste of fantastic.

But yes, High Fantasy is interesting. I mean, it's been years since I haven't tried to do something like that, but it really can't work without a system that emulates it and is light, and frankly, I don't have that. Maybe Talislanta 4e but it requires a fucking lot of reading.

Either caveman era, 15-1700's sailing game, or WW2, or do a board game. Because, fuck those guys, they eliminated nearly every other genre.

Oh yeah I forgot about caveman era, that's frigging amazing. I think I've only one out of three that likes that tho. The others feel there's not enough talking and too much dying by cold winter and wolves.

We can't even board games, we play using skype to fullfill our need for regularly schedules gaming (they all love RPGs, especially ran by me, some have been playing for five, six years, and we're all friends from RL, but we live in different places and have busy lives)

Seriously. You need to either tell one of them to suck it up and try playing a different kind of character than they usually do, or you'll play nothing. These kinds of complaints i usually hear from players who just play the same kind of char across all games.

It is borderline comical how fussy these guys seem, like 4 years olds who want nothing but attention from their mommies.

Do pirates.

Or you find a game everyone wants to play. Not everyone has whatever bullshit you have to deal with.

Nah, they're not shitty players. They all have good reasons, just a lot of incompatibilities.
They play various characters, they don't do shitty stuff.

Cyberpunk is a no-go with P3 because he already tried Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 with me and didn't find anyway to contribute, and ended up being silent, so it makes sense to not do that if he's gonna be a main player.

Low Fantasy is off because we overdosed on it, after 2 years of LotFP, we want something new.

Space in general causes an issue the same way Cyberpunk does with P2, who can't figure out how to play a character in future stuff. Though it mostly comes from him playing in another DM's shitty scifi game, I never had an occasion to do good space stuff cause, well, never had players or the bravery to pull it off with complete noobs.

Yeah I'm leaning toward that, slowly. I'll need to find something that makes me go "oh yeah I wanna run a pirate campaign".

Tell me, are there actually "players" in this "player group?"

>who can't figure out how to play a character in future stuff.
How does this happen?

Yes. I have 12 years of experience as both DM and player. My best friend has about 6 years of experience. The two other core are 1-2 yo rolists, we're all friends but are nerdy enough to care about tabletop games. The one thing you can't get, in my experience, is non-cringy-nerds that also focus on tabletop games enough to actually help you find the game to run, as players. Players are all lazy fucks when organization is in question. Sure, they'll build super interesting characters with in-depth background if I ask them. But something as freeform as "hey, tell me what you like"? That's too hard for them.
And those are the good guys, the people I enjoy playing with. There used to be shitty guys. I threw them out.

I dunno, I don't have this issue with Cyberpunk. But I do have this issue to Roleplay modern day characters, or soldier-type NPCs. From me, it comes from a dissociation between my media culture, which is mostly english, and the language I talk at the game, which is french. For P3, I dunno really.

Ok I solved the issue by telling my players that from now on, if they're not going to move their asses and actually suggest games, they'll have to play what I say we play and try it out before saying they don't like, and THEN, if they're not enjoying it, but only then, I'm perfectly ok with trying out something different, even if we switch games every week, because at least I can actually do something.

Very enjoyable, and well put together. I highly suggest the darkening of Mirkwood adventure path.

OP this thread is like the Monty Python skit about the Cheese Shop with no Cheese.

You have "players" who won't play any games.

The problem isn't with the system or the settings - the problem is with the players. Sounds like they've had bad experiences before, but its not due to inherent problems with the system, but due to mistakes made that specific game / player

Welcome to roleplaying. Its hard and often awkward. Nothing to do but pick yourself up and work out how to not have that problem next time.

The good news is if these are core players, this is their problem too.

Its not your job to bend over backwards to sort out impossible requests. Sit em all down and have a chat until you can all agree on something.

Make getting "buy in" a shared problem. People who are enthusiastic about setting X can try and sell the unenthusiastic players on it.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Post-apocalyptic (if you don't count that as modern)
Setting based on Middle Eastern (pre-Islam) themes
Planes of the afterlife (e.g. D&D Ghostwalk)
Bizarre planes / planar traversing / multiverse (Planescape?)

Those are some ideas that immediately come to mind.

that's why i went " Ok I solved the issue by telling my players that from now on, if they're not going to move their asses and actually suggest games, they'll have to play what I say we play and try it out before saying they don't like, and THEN, if they're not enjoying it, but only then, I'm perfectly ok with trying out something different, even if we switch games every week, because at least I can actually do something.", basically.

The veteran (6years of gaming) player told me "ok, I'm ok with this, it's understandable and efficient". I just told P2, and P3 isn't there so I'm waiting for him to come around to tell him.

>"oh yeah I wanna run a pirate campaign".

Pirates of the Carribean?

I'm still in that primordial brain state where if I hear anything vaguely pirate-y I get all giddy and excited and YAR HAR HAR

Ryuutama, Legend, Meikyuu Kingdom.

>Low Fantasy, Dark Fantasy
I was going to say High Bright fantasy, but that's what Sword & Sorcery counts as, huh.

Run motherfucking Mechanical Dream. They haven't shot it down, because who the fuck could anticipate THAT?

>Characters reside in the world of the dual world of Kaïnas and Naakinis, a 30,000 mile disk lit by a sun-like orb called the Pendulum. This disk is surrounded by the Sofe, a 40-mile-tall wall of black ether that kills that few, if any, have ever returned from. Kaïnas (the rational world) and Naakinis (the mythic world) exist with overlapping topography and ecosystems. Flora and fauna of Kainas are scaled normally by real-world standards, while Naakinis exists on a much larger scale (such as the "Kioux" trees that reach many miles in height).

>The Pendulum spends roughly ten of each day's thirty hours beyond the Sofe, creating night-like darkness. During this time, a phenomenon called "The Dream" manifests, becoming stronger as less and less light permeates Kaïnas. The Dream is a fabulous and dangerous world that overlaps with reality. It is initially hazy and hallucinatory, becoming as solid as reality during the darkest parts of the night. Areas where the Pendulum does not shine are affected by permanent manifestations of the Dream.

>The Aran world is a separate existence, accessible only in places the Pendulums' light cannot reach (underground or deep underwater). It is fiercely primordial, rejecting inorganic matter and operating by rules entirely different from reality. The creatures inhabiting Aran are unpredictable and poorly understood.

>The vast majority of the setting's population depends on the weekly consumption of the orpee fruit to survive. Without orpee, a rapid and excruciating death is guaranteed. Orpee naturally concentrates a life-force called "eflow" that fuels life. The politics and economics of Kaïnas are primarily driven by the collection and distribution of orpee, as it is an absolute requirement for life.

Attached is a setting overview. Link to PDFs is here -- mega.nz/#F!iwxRETYC!92YZNGq7TKlSeEFBCMOWYA

>Sword & Sorcery
I though that stuff was usually low and somewhat dark.

Gamma World. It's future apocalypse science fantasy (not science fiction).

Wow, 8 people. That's a pretty large group.

Run Paranoia and make sure to tell us what happens.

>You have "players" who won't play any games.
Sometimes groups can be difficult because of some dynamic that gets set up. And you'll have 2 out of 3, or 3 out of 4 players agreeing on a lot of shit, but there's always one holdout.

You could always do some kind of ballot. Give people three "for" votes and three "against" votes. These can be however wide or narrow people want them to be. The first "for" vote is worth 5 points, the second is worth 4, and the 3rd is worth 3. The first "against" vote is worth -7 points, the second is worth -5, and the third is worth -3. Everybody secretly writes their shit on a piece of paper, then you tally up the choices and see what has the highest number of points. If nothing has a positive value, punch your players in the dick.

Play GURPS using the low tech books and be medieval knights. That slips between those arbitrary restrictions.

Nah, nah, 3 core players that are actually there for 90% of the games. At best we're 6, but it's pretty rare. The others are great guys too (and girls), as I threw out the shitty players and started over recently, but they're just busy people and I'm ok with them not playing much, since they're super cool when they do play.

Right now I'm hesitating between Barbarians of Lemuria and HQRPG, but I think I'll check out Gamma World cause this one has been bugging me for a while.

>Space Opera, Science-Fiction both hard and soft
>Low Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery
>Modern setting in general
So only non-dark high fantasy? What about an Arabian Nights sort of campaign with all sorts of wondrous magical creatures and shit? Or hell, any high-mythological setting, only dial down the tragic shit and make it more noble bright. Or a happy, cheerful fairy tale campaign.

>I think I've only one out of three that likes that tho.
Then make it a lost world sort of thing. The players are stone age hunters in a land of dinosaurs and shit.

I had a great time when I did it, one of the players who was resistant to playing such a "realistic" system and had fallen for the "You have to do calculus to move in GURPS!" meme ended up being the same guy who refused to play pathfinder or the 40k RPGs and demanded each game be run in GURPS.

I guess what I'm saying is that you'll not think some part through, and one of your players will end up exclusively doing nut shots with his warhammer because you just put chain kilts on the evil knights and bludgeoning penetrates that kind of shit like it wasn't there.

>Barbarians of Lemuria
Is awesome, but it's definitely low fantasy.

>Gamma World
Is awesome too, though more for the setting than the rules. There's a fan-made Savage Worlds port for it that I've heard good things about.

1st through 4th edition Gamma World (the Savage Worlds port is in the Third Party folder) -- mega.nz/#F!z9wHCQwC!HCeMOum5467vvbTd2XwiMw

Gamma World 2e is the "classic" edition, being essentially an expanded, tweaked 1e GW. 3e has some great ideas but is a mess organizationally, and needs some tweaking, so it's better as source material or a foundation to build on than a ready-to-run game. I'm not a fan of 4e's move towards AD&D (it already shared a common lineage with D&D, and its differences were there for a reason). 5e was an Alternity thing, and that system folded right after 5e GW was released, so it didn't get much play. 6e is d20 Modern, which is a terrible system. 7e is supposed to be geared to silly, zany pick-up games, which isn't my cup of tea, but supposedly it's pretty good for that kind of thing (it's based on 4e D&D's system).