Guys,

Thank you for your patience, persistence, and diligence that made this game an exciting and engaging experience.

...But I am horribly burnt out from GMing. It’s been building for a while now I think, but it’s finally gotten to where I really need a break from running stuff. What follows is a terribly long and vague semi-explanation, semi-rant. Warning: I rarely get wangsty. This may be one of those times, however. Be warned.

tl;dr: My gaming preferences changed over the last 5 years and I’m taking a break from JI, but not the forums.

My life completely changed over the course of running Jade Imperium. Multiple moves, a daughter, a new job, and a house later, I find myself with less time and different priorities. My gaming preferences changed too - I’m drawn to lighter, faster things. Less detail, or at least less vital details. JI has always been about noticing details to some extent (mostly out of pride in my setting), although that’s varied wildly too (to where you have to be psychic to know what you should bother paying attention to). I got burned out, I lost free time, and the quality of the game suffered.

Nowhere is this more apparent than for Reagan (Community Lotion). I apologize to you most of all. I mean, Robin was marginalized to the point where there really WAS no point. Most everyone else had their turn being marginalized on Hedion too but you were the worst.

And now I’m going to talk about plans, sorry. Honestly? Yeah, there’s too much planning. Specifically long-term plans. Plans that restrict choices to the point where I think to myself “Should I wait to see what Eric or Robert post? Nah, they’re just gonna go along with the plan anyway, because I trust that the plan I am told has the group’s approval, and I really don’t have the time to ensure each player is informed myself. There is an OOC thread for that. I guess I can squeeze an update in then.” That’s a big part of what laid Robin low too, I think - her cover was basically “henchwoman” - someone who follows the group, follows orders, doesn’t act on their own. I lost character moments too, like Zaef’s stim addiction. It was just too difficult to expose him to that subplot given that his cover involved constant surveillance by his teammates. Then I plan events too far ahead, fall into the trap of wanting to get there already and see what happens next, and end up blowing past opportunities for witty banter or character reactions or introducing new ideas.

I figured I’d spice things up with combat, but then I realized that it wouldn’t work. You need consequences for combat (or generally any action, but especially combat) to be interesting, but Whiirr showed me combat in JI - because of the kaukas - is you win with no lasting consequences or you die, which sucks. If I can’t bring myself to threaten PCs’ lives with “ninjas attack” side quests, there’s no point in starting those quests. Might as well skip to the end where you stand victorious, regenerating your wounds over the bodies of your enemies. That’s entirely my fault and if I come back to JI, kaukas are the first thing on the “revamp” pile.

Furthermore, PbP lacks the immediacy of rolling dice as a group. I’m the only person who gets to feel that uncertainty, and realizing that really hurt that enjoyment. Nobody but me gets that moment where the bullet just misses or the triple-called-shot-off-the-top-rope actually WORKS, and to continue to indulge myself in that respect just seems masturbatory.

I love moral dilemmas, but there’s nothing I can throw at you where the answer isn’t already some obvious response. Your characters are idealist good guys; moral dilemmas don’t work (or rarely at best). One of the reasons I didn’t push the situation on the mesa here is because I had enough of threatening civilians on Whiirr. I mean, during JI’s run I was neck-deep in all those “hard choices” type shows: The Wire, The Shield, nBSG, 24, and so on, and it set a tone that I still can’t break from completely. I still prefer choices to be meaningful choices as opposed to “do I do a called shot or try multiple attacks”, but I’ve found that inflating the stakes or muddying up a situation generally results in two outcomes:
1. How I chose to structure the situation doesn’t match up at all with the PCs’ morals/objectives. One option is clearly the right one to you guys even though to me, it looks like a meaningful choice. In other words, I’ve provided only one choice by accident, and only one choice isn’t actually a choice at all.
2. Every choice results in compromises, sacrifices, or concessions that to me, are acceptable, but to you guys, are not. Therefore there are NO choices as far as you’re concerned and I suck. This situation usually resolves itself into #1 but it takes several hours of typing in chat programs to get there.

Mechanically, social combat is too weird still. Rolling dice for that seems counter to most if not all of group’s preferences. Can never convince a PC like a PC can convince an NPC. Uneven playing field, if NPC can’t win what is the use of rolling after all? Only takes a few minutes on invisiblecastle to learn Angel outclasses someone in a gunfight. Takes far longer to write out a social conflict where you already know the ending.

Speaking of knowing the ending... Planning things out and then working towards them drains my will to write about a known quantity like that. The revelation’s happened, I’ve worked it out with Kasey or whoever, he’s going to gtalk everyone about it or it’s already on the Wave and why am I trying to steal time from work to write an IC update again? Everyone knows what happened already, you know?

There are still stories to tell and loose ends hanging around, but I can’t be the one to tell them right now. If I come back, I’ll have to mutate and modify things to fit my changed preferences. Otherwise I’ll be right back in burnout land, and that doesn't help anyone.

Adam, I want to thank you for running this game as long as you did. I know I only just joined the fun(read: last year. Fuck, has it really been a whole year?) and that you don't think you did your best on the last two missions. But I had a fucking blast playing in Whiirr and Hedion, even(actually, especially) when I almost died several times in the jungle, and I can safely say that nothing else I've played before I joined Head on a Stick even comes close to how awesome this game is.

So thanks, Adam. Thanks for the best fucking year of gaming in my life.

I'm tempted to meet wordiness with wordiness, but let's cut it short: Adam, thanks a ton for running the game.

Thanks guys.

And if for whatever reason anyone wants to take this and run with it, go for it. I ran Heroes? for a long time too and after that was done you took it and made it awesome.

Adam, I've enjoyed gaming with you tremendously. I'd take offense at Ross' assertion that none of the other games he's been in have even come close, since I ran several of those other ones, except that he's completely right. HoaS has been a big part of keeping me interested in and excited about gaming, and your GMing has been a big part of that--if fact, if I recall, JI was what lead me to start the local game that was one of Ross' first, so he may owe you two ways.

A lot of the points you make about JI as a setting are very astute. The combat does become very all-or-nothing since kaukkas are common, and the long-term plans (while fun to make) can hurt the ability to create tension. Whirr and Hedion have both been a blast, but I can see how the game has changed since the first few missions. This is getting to be a more social-focused campaign, and Buskit isn't the best at that, either as you say.

Long story short, I've enjoyed every campaign I've played with you as GM, and I'd love to do so again if you feel able to come back to GMing here in the future, whatever that future campaign may be. As for JI at the moment...I want it to go on, I love the setting too much to be happy to see it end, but if the game just isn't fun to run anymore, then that's that and something has to change.

Some very astute observations there, Adam. I think you're making a good choice and hope that someday you'll be able to work out your disatisfactions and be able to take up the GMing reins again.

For my part, I greatly enjoyed Semo Putupu and this game, up to the point where my life became overwhelming and I disappeared into the electronic ether. For that I appologize and I hope to get to play in one of your games again some day - whether JI or something entirely different.

Gordon

Thanks for everything with JI, Adam. Seriously, everything. It's one of the brightest and most vibrant settings I've ever seen, and it has tons of room for growth and exploration. The game has been run magnificently, just everything about all of this is, for me, the ideal of what I want my games to be, and I'm a bit sad but I completely understand the reasons why you want to move on. These problems have, in one form or another, always been there, and they've just overwhelmed the fun for you. I totally get that.

And I do want JI to continue. I've been talking with Adam and those of you that I can get ahold of about taking over the game from Adam, and so far I've been getting positive replies. I'm going to need the help of everyone involved to keep the feel true to the game so far, but I think I can do it. What do you all say?

Gatac wrote:

I'm tempted to meet wordiness with wordiness, but let's cut it short: Adam, thanks a ton for running the game.

I couldn't agree more. Although my time with JI was all too brief, it was really a pleasure to read; both due to Adam's creativity and to the creativity his sandbox inspired in the players. Glad you are not disappearing, though!