Hi Michael -- welcome! Some thoughts: Has the Master of the Cult retreated -- or the entire cult is going quiet for a while? If that cult is withdrawing, what sort of vacuum (power and otherwise) does that create? Does some other group step in to fill the void created by the cults absence? Does some sort of other organization (the local law, the Wizards' Circle, a tribe of forest elves) step up to press the temporary advantage and try to destroy the cult for good? In addition to trying to open a portal, did the cult have some other ritual responsibility? Had they bound a supernatural creature years ago and now that they're in disarray does will that creature break free? Did they ameliorate the effects of a curse which causes the weather to go wild or a blight to spread?

I've never played BitD before -- but I've read the rules. Ok to join?

I found this character creator -- super useful! https://arazni.github.io/blades-in-the-sheets/

For people whose passion involves imagination, a lot of gamers can get really hidebound -- "change is bad" ;-) Every new version of D&D going back to 1977 (and I expect there were Chainmail fans who objected to Dungeons & Dragons in 1974...) had people who objected to it. Every version and variation has things to recommend it -- and usually has some issues as well. D&D of any version is definitely the RPG with the largest mindshare. It's been around the longest and thanks to things like the movies, (terrible) Saturday morning cartoon, *Stranger Things*, and tens of thousands of APs online, it's just the name that everyone knows. To a certain extent, 'D&D' has become synonymous with 'TTRPG' and a lot of people who have never heard the term 'role playing game' know the basics of Dungeons & Dragons (even if they've never played). I have a lot of favorite systems for a lot of reasons. My go to these days is Monte Cook Games 'Cypher System' and some of its derivatives. I like Cypher for its simplicity and versatility, but I like some of related titles (like 'The Magnus Archives' and 'Old Gods of Appalachia') because I like the original IP they're based on. Waaaaay back in the dawn of RPGs, I liked playing "Tunnels & Trolls" because it *wasn't* D&D. I liked 'Paranoia' because I liked the world... There's all sorts of stuff out there, some of it very niche -- but sometimes my needs are very niche ;-) Don't let someone else yuck your yum.

My thoughts (FWIW) - "Stars & Wishes" is an explicitly meta/OOG/above the table tool -- it's *not* the characters making the wishes or highlighting something; it's the players. A player might say "Boy! I Wish that Assassin's Guild became a recurring enemy" or "Wow! Stars to Dave for his reaction when we got back to his village and discovered that ogres had killed his family" -- but a *character* is unlikely to see things that way (there are always exceptions). Sure, there can be some overlap (especially with Stars), but S&W is for gathering player feedback, so it's not surprising your players are a little confused by what you want. A way to work on Character perspective is to lean into the /differences/ between the Player and the Character. Use something like Do, Are, & Feel -- ask each player to list 3 things they Do (could be 'like to do'), 3 things they Are, and 3 things they Feel. You might get answers like -- "DO: ride my bike, workout, play board games; ARE: an older sibling;, right-handed, short; FEEL: people should be honest with each other, snowstorms suck, Jethro Tull is the best band ever" then ask them to do the same thing for their character and you might get "DO: serve my patron, cast spells, ride a horse; ARE: half-elven, intimidating, 116 years old; FEEL: the ends justify the means, dwarves are rude, I made a bad bargain and want to get out of it."

@Eric Person Ah! I see what you mean. Well, the techniques I mentioned for thinking about what the player wants vs what the character wants is probably still useful ;-)

A lot of people play what I think of as 'short' sessions (around 3 hours) in the evening on-line. Startplaying let's you search for games by schedule so that might be a place to look if you're Ok playing for the entertainment (I know some people aren't).