New year, new game, insanity?

One pop definition of insanity is doing to same thing repeatedly but expecting different results.  I'm very conscious of that every time I think about starting (GMing) a new game.  After all, every other game I've run -- and I've been playing for over 30 years -- has ended.  Usually not with a bang, but with a whimper and unfortunately not in a poetic way.  The brave heros abandoned mid quest as other interests come up, or time pressures get to the group or engagement just seems to fade away.  So why suggest getting a couple of friends over and playing a one-shot while hoping to get them interested enough to start something longer?

The facetious reason is that it gives justification for having gaming books and buying new ones.   Maybe not the best reason, but the lonely fun of reading game books isn't really that much different than the lonely fun of reading in general, and if you read something good, you often want to talk about it with friends.  An RPG session isn't the same as  a book group, but maybe there are some similarities.

A related, but less facetious reason is that it is an excuse to have people over and sometimes an excuse is good to have.  It seems silly to schedule time with your friends for no purpose, but throw in an RPG and suddenly a bi-weekly date doesn't seem too weird.  Maybe we didn't need that when we were in school, but we aren't and the extra nudge of having something specific and ongoing that we're planning to do helps get us together in the fact of the usual weekday hassles.  Sad to say, I often need that nudge.

A philosophical reason is that we know all things will ultimately fail, but the doing is the important part.  I probably won't ever be part of a 20-year long campaign.  Never mind gaming,  it is pretty unlikely I'll work for one company for 20 years.  (I have managed to stay married that long though, which is sort of like not splitting the party I guess.)  Twenty years isn't the standard though.  If I get a second session, that's a win.  That means we did something in the first session that didn't exist before and was worth coming back to.

Ultimately though, it is because I want -- I crave -- shared creativity.  To be involved in groups where people can put out ideas and have those ideas picked up, modified, pushed-back on and reflected back in changed form with a common, if nebulas, goal.  At its best, role-playing provides that, and not much else does.  So, insanity it may be, but I'll try again.