Quitting

[alanajoli]

There's that old adage: "winners never quit and quitters never win." Here's the thing, though: sometimes, it's okay to quit. Sometimes, in fact, it's the right decision.

I was going through a lot of old e-mail trying to reduce my gmail load (I'm using 70% capacity! How did that happen?). I figured the quickest way to free up some space was to delete old attachment-laden messages, and so I ended up rediscovering a lot of old Living Kingdoms of Kalamar e-mails that are of no use to anyone any more. I had some really good times volunteering on that campaign, and later, running the campaign staff. But eventually, my passion for it was gone. The hours I was putting into the campaign were no longer a labor of love, they were a labor of duty, and I did them in a disgruntled fashion.

The time came when I needed to quit. It was the only way I could preserve my love for the campaign and the game -- and my sanity. And once my passion was gone, well, it was probably best for the campaign that I not be running it. (I mean, look what happened to Batman when someone who hated the character got a hold of it -- it became a campy, cheesy comic that inspired the Adam West TV series, rather than the dark, serious comic it had been, and has become again.)

This is also true of reading books. There are far, far too many books I want to read to force myself to finish a book I'm not enjoying. I recently started a novel (okay, I've recently started five novels; I'm doing one of those read-several-at-once stints again) that grabbed me in the first two pages and I was sure I was going to love it. But by about thirty pages in, it was starting to lose me. (Actually, the instant that I realized it was set on a post-apocalyptic, futuristic earth instead of a fantasy world was where it started going downhill. I like p-a books as much as the next person, but I like them better when I know that's what I'm opening.) At sixty-odd pages in, I made the decision: too much else to read. This one can go back to the library.

Sometimes, quitting really is the best option!

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[vladimir barash (from livejournal.com)]

This makes quite a bit of sense! I have been very fortunate to have a long and mostly enjoyable history of gaming, but there are always times when I know it is best to quit. Those come when I treat the game as work, and they certainly apply beyond games - to reading, to writing (often, quit = come back later!), to all parts of life.

One issue I've had to grapple with is having that feeling (of wanting to quit) appear with my players. I write some interesting games, I think, and yet, it is important to remember that at some point these games come to a natural end, and the players have had a lot of fun but don't want to play anymore. It is time to close things up, thank everyone, take a break and let everyone relax their creative muscles :)

I remember Inferno, a DnD 3.5 campaign that I put about 100 pages of single-spaced raw written material into. And that was just the plottings! There was a set of wiki pages; hand drawings; and endless, endless hours spent poring over dnd books devising the latest villains for my party to face (hint to self: don't do that in the future. Your party will still destroy them in one round and you will face complaints from the fighter that he only hit it five times for 150 damage and then that stupid wizard had to come in and Gate an Elder Wyrm... but I am getting too caught up in the details here :)). And in the end, after a good year-plus of play, it was clear that nobody wanted to go on. The storyline was effectively done and I was dithering, waiting to plot out the final battle to end the campaign in style. And then, one day, the campaign had ended in style - the players had outsmarted and outplayed and out-coordinated the Big Bad and there was nothing for him left to do but to leave in a disgruntled fashion, and nothing left for them to do but retire. I accepted that the ending would be anticlimactic, and I stopped the campaign. In the end, everyone was happy, and now has fond memories of that campaign, that, I think, would have been slightly less fond if I didn't recognize that it was time to quit, for my players and for me both.

I realize this story is not exactly parallel to a Living Campaign, where new players come and go all the time, but it was a nice war-story inspired by your post, so I thought I'd sahre it.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

You're right that it's a different type of scenario, but it's exactly the type of thing I'm talking about -- knowing when to quit. I think it's great that you managed to hit a natural conclusion with your players without having to agonize over it and keep folks engaged! A lot of games I've been involved in just peter off into nothing. They were fun while they lasted, but life just gets in the way... It's a really unsatisfying way to end a story, though. :)

[bccreations.livejournal.com]

Solidarity.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

:)

[(Anonymous)]

That makes sense, so long as we're just talking about books and games.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

I think it is more far reaching than that. A bad job. A bad relationship. A bad apartment. Sometimes it's silly, stupid things, but sometimes it's important life things. I think it's important to know what your limits are, and when you need to get out of a situation to save yourself.

[(Anonymous)]

Yet, it's important to remember the adage exists for good reason. Sometimes quitting just shows you're a weak loser.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Each must judge his own, of course.

[(Anonymous)]

But no one has to respect them for it.