We've been playing Eclipse Phase – a game I actually get to play when I'm not Games Mastering Iron Kingdoms. I generally don't enjoy playing as much as Games Mastering, but I have enjoyed this game a great deal.
It's not only my preference for being the Games Master that stands in the way of me enjoying playing a game – particularly this one. There's a host of other factors at play that make my enjoyment of the game remarkable.
I've had several depressive episodes while we've been playing that has made me distracted. I have also been through a number of med adjustments over that period that have had me falling asleep at the table, easily distracted or spaced out. In spite of this, I've enjoyed it – but don't quite know how to apologise to the GM for my spaceyness. Meds and depression also lead to anhedonia, which is worse for me worrying about my own games, but also applies here.
I play a 'useless' character. That is to say, he's no good at combat. He's a defrosted cryo-capsule head with a re-grown body who used to be a science fiction writer. The best I can do is schmooze, trade pre-Fall knowledge for favours and gaze in wonder at the world in which I find myself – something I deliberately amped up by NOT reading the sourcebooks so everything would be new to me. Despite being useless, he's fun to play and to poke at the setting with.
We have a large gaming group, so people often go a long time on the sidelines or out of the spotlight, especially a social/'useless' character like mine.
The makers of Eclipse Phase are often arseholes. Fortunately I can – usually – separate art from artist.
Despite all that, I enjoy playing this character in this game, getting a lot of self-contained enjoyment from the character concept alone – and putting myself in his jaw-dropped wonder and love of the wider universe he woke up into.
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