I’ve got pretty much a complete set of Golarion sourcebooks/APs/modules/etcetera and they are amongst my favourite RPG books ever. I can count on one hand the number I didn’t think were at least “very very good”. Any time I flip through one I find them an excellent mix of inspiring, informative, pleasurable-to-read...
Nonetheless, of late I’ve found myself less enthusiastic about my monthly subscription package. I don’t devour the books quite as voraciously as I used to and in fact, have still not read some of January’s shipment despite February’s being on the way. I still think each individual book is terrific, yet the overall enthusiasm for each monthly release day is waning.
Has anyone else been in that position? Anyone have any recommendations for rekindling that “Christmas morning” experience when a Paizo package arrives? I don’t think the quality has dropped (in fact I like the revamped Player’s guide, am looking forward to Ultimate Campaign and am hopeful the switch in modules format will reinvigorate a slightly stagnating brand – intellectually, at least, I’m very happy with “where things are going”. I just can’t seem to muster the same enthusiasm I used to). :/
Take a pause. It's not strange. It happens. One day, pretty soon, you will get back to it. Still... the sheer volume is pretty massive by now. It is already far too much to take in. For a solution to this through RPGs, make an adaptation of something. Take one of the monsters revisited books and drill out an adventure for parts of it, ignoring everything else about Golarion, and make it as kick-ass an adventure as you can. Try to nail it down to a four-hour session with premade characters. Otherwise, find an obscure 3.5 book and throw something together with it. Or, if you are feeling murderous enough, let Rovagug loose and build something around destroying Golarion. Still, I think a better idea is pausing the RPG stuff a while.
Been there with Pathfinder.
In my experience, your options are twofold:
1. Put it away for a while, move on to something else. Maybe even go outside, or something. Personally, I moved on to running a Dark Heresy game which is going well.
2. Let other people put something forward that piques your interest. A mate of mine has been running a game that involves us all being slightly toned-down members of the Monster Races - I'm playing a grindylow monk, we have a Brownie summoner, a Ratfolk, a Mite and a Goblin, and that's doing really well, I'm getting a kick out of trying something new (Boar Style + Panther Style + Grindylow Trip is great fun). I even got to make the terrible "my panther style beats your dragon style" joke to a bad guy in game last session.
Basically it comes down to being patient and letting the inspiration come to you, rather than chasing it out.
Which sounds eerily similar to something I was told regarding relationships and dating, but that's a different story for a different time.
Another thing you could be experiencing is something I nicknamed the 'Gray Area Effect'. You're getting all this information about things that are happening here there and everywhere, and you're not able to really fit your game into the world as it exists because you're not able to get enough elbow room to tell the story you want to tell.
Anyway, hope that things improve for you.
Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll try just packing the books away unread somewhere as they arrive. Maybe if I take a few months off it will rekindle the enthusiasm. Ultimate Campaign is on the horizon, after all..