Campaign Options

Herein we list potential campaigns for the group to play. Please refer to them when voting on a next campaign.

Benjamin's ideas, at the top because of his extreme insecurity

Low-magic Fantasy

A low-magic fantasy campaign in a world based loosely on a fantasy Europe-esque dark ages-kind of setting. The setting and mechanics will be home-brew.

You are all civilians. You are not knights, you are not wizards. You aren't even soldiers, but you just might be heroes.

Mechanics

The players will all be civilian "classes", using a freeform skill selection with a player determined aspirational career or class. The more specific the skill, the better it is for specific situations, but the less applicable it will be in general (obviously). Example skills could be the obvious appropriate ones from D&D or similar, like speechcraft, diplomacy, knowledge: whatever, craft: mundane item, brewing, etc; or make up your own (with GM approval/discussion on effectiveness/availability). Some magic related skills are fine, but keep in mind that your character is not, and can never be, a wizard or cleric in the D&D sense.

The career or class title you select mostly exists to give focus and identity to your character as they are played. Your occupation can also say a lot about your place in society, based on how society treats merchants, priests, craftspeople, and so on.

For example: a character could select skills like "appraise item", "haggle", and "knowledge: (locality)", and pick for a career "travelling merchant" or just "merchant". They could also just as well pick for a career something like "quartermaster" or "innkeeper" (though innkeeper may be more difficult to play as a member of a potentially travelling group).

The Setting

Danger lurks in the dark places, but power, too, for those willing to pay the price.

The starting region has the flavor of continental Europe, lol fantasy trope. Cultures mix and trade enough to bring in the occasional people and goods from neighboring regions. This is not a time of empire, but of a collection of generally independent kingdoms coexisting or feuding as it is politically expedient.

Supernatural and magical elements exist, but are not highly systematized, are not easy or well know, and come at a high cost. There are no wizards of the D&D sense, but some may practice alchemy or runic/ritual type magic. There are places of power, most not well known or forgotten, and remnants of old magic that most folk will avoid at all costs.

Similarly, there is no monolithic Church. Think instead of decentralized Greek or Germanic paganism with strains of animism and ancestor worship.

The Story

You all start out as residents of a village on the cusp of townhood at the mountainous outskirts of your kingdom. Until relatively recently, the native people in your area didn't really care or even know much about the specifics of a war that reached the capital, where the previous King was killed, and the invading barbarian Queen took his place. That is, until her soldiers and officials showed up to reopen the nearly forgotten mines of the nearby mountains. As the mines were made operational, trade and attention were brought to your village for the first time in the memory of anyone living there. And are there more guards patrolling the roads these days?

The times are changing, and opportunity abounds for those who can change with them.

(Not ready to run)

I will eventually finish my campaign/setting to follow up from my preview test campaign. I'll put more information here as I flesh it out.

Luke's ideas, down here because you have to save the best for last

Pendragon - Anarchy in the UK

Continuing the adventures of the Ursine Order, now the most revered knights in Salisbury.

Mechanics

Almost all of us have played Pendragon in the past during the Uther Phase. The Anarchy Phase still uses the same rules, but is much more dangerous. The game takes place where each session is intended to represent one year of time in the game, and is followed by a winter phase where you can pimp out your manor, bone your spouse, and try to groom your heirs into powerful and honorable knights themselves.

Everyone plays a knight, and the sooner you accept this the happier you'll be. You can pretend to be something else, but you'll still be a knight. You can be all different kinds of knights, but everyone plays a knight.

The system is, admittedly, somewhat crunchy when it gets to the winter phase, but it's up to you how much we go into that stuff. Overall the game is all based around the d20, with d6s for damage rolls.

The Setting

Pendragon takes place during the years leading up to, during, and at the end of the rule of King Arthur. The plot for this game takes place over 85 years. This is a world of magic, intrigue, romance, chivalry, myth, war, and diplomacy. The Arthurian cycle is probably the most well-known and well-loved epic of the western world. This game's version of the myth combines Le Morte D'Arthur by Mallory with the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, T.H. White's The Once and Future King, and even some stuff from the original Welsh myths.

The Story

When we last left the Brotherhood of the Bear, our heroes had narrowly survived assassination at the hands of the vile Saxons at a feast after the Battle of St. Albans. Virtually all of the nobility of Logres was killed, leaving the land without any obvious ruler. Worse still, one of the fallen lords was Earl Roderick of Salisbury, the Ursine Order's sovereign. Salisbury is now in the hands of Robert, a young child, and is being stewarded by his mother, Earl Roderick's widow.

Currently the land is torn between the threats and blackmail of Saxon lords from Sussex, Wessex, and Essex, the promises of Briton kings from the north and west, and the rumors of an heir to Madoc, Uther's fallen son. The knights of Salisbury have a chance to influence the decisions of the Countess and determine the future of Salisbury.

World Wide Wrestling!!!!

ARE YOU READY TO RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMBLE!?!?!?!?!

Mechanics

This game is another Apocalypse World game, just like Monsterhearts. It's the same basic system, but with a bent towards Pro Wrestling. The game encourages big, overblown antics. Each match involves two wrestlers, either with one or both being a player character. The matches are fast-paced to avoid excluding people, and during the matches other players act as announcers, giving ridiculous descriptions of the action and even putting the wrestlers over when they fuck something up to make the audience believe it was all part of the action.

The Setting

You'll all be middle card wrestlers in a regional wrestling chain in the 1980s, the era of hilarious, ridiculous gimmick wrestlers and steroid abuse.

The Story

As wrestlers in a regional wrestling organization in the Pacific Northwest, you'll tour around the west coast as you quest to rise through the ranks and grab the championship belt! Along the way you'll deal with politics, both kayfabe and backstage. You'll fight for position and camera time and the love of the audience. If you can get enough attention, you'll be rewarded with amazing opportunities.

Darklands

Adventures in medieval Germany.

Mechanics

I'm building my own pen & paper system which converts the best aspects of a 1992 computer game into a tabletop game. The game system is quite a lot like Top Secret, in that most stuff is handled by d100s. I'm also making some physical tools to help with the gameplay since one of the coolest things about the game is that as you fight you get worn out and become fatigued, meaning that rope-a-dope is a viable strategy in this game. It's quite realistic, in that a guy who is barely hanging on to life will not fight as well as a well-rested warrior. The tools I'm building will allow you to slide and adjust based on your current stamina and strength so that it can do all the work on telling you what your weapon effectiveness will be like.

Another cool thing about the game is that you will be able to make a lot of decisions for your character based on their class, their upbringing, their education and training, and their career aspirations. You can be a lifelong soldier, a wandering monk, a scholar, a merchant, a woodsman, a vagabond, or maybe you've been several of those things throughout a long, eclectic life before joining a small group of adventurers for drinks at a Berlin tavern.

The Setting

This game is set in 15th century Germany, as perceived by the Germans of the 15th century. It's historical fantasy, where dragons - while rare - do lurk in the mountains. Where mines can be overrun by knockers and dwarves. Where wildmen, monsters, and witches hide in the woods.

Satanic cults, religious orders, traveling alchemists, and robber knights are just a few of the enemies - or allies - that you might meet.

The Story

A varied and diverse group of people meet in a tavern, itching to get outside the city walls and seek out adventure. There's always work for mercenaries and sell swords in the countryside. You make your decisions. Do you want to hang out in the city for a time, becoming a group of local heroes by cleaning up the streets as vigilantes? Or do you want to set out of the city to search for fortunes in the woods outside? Do you want to ask for work from the Medici family's banking empire? Or perhaps the church might have need of your services?

Your only mission at the start is to make a profit and become famous. Each character will be tasked with coming up with their own goals and desires, which may just conflict with others in the party. Over time, you just might find that there is something more sinister going on in Germany, of course...

Like Nazis. Fucking Germans.

And, once again proving that you have to save the best for last, Dallas: The Next Generation - The Television Mashup Roleplaying Game!

You know you want to play it, people. WHO SHOT CAPTAIN PICARD?