Campaign Options
Herein we list potential campaigns for the group to play. Please refer to them when voting on a next campaign.
Luke's ideas
Mine are listed in no particular order. World Wide Wrestling is the least crunchy of the systems that I'm looking at, though I think any of these games should be fairly accessible.
For my part, I like making games that are fun and funny. I find that the format of gaming is more fun when it's about the players doing big, overblown, badass actions while the GM sets up a game world that builds them up and makes each player stand out as a unique and interesting person. I sometimes like to blend elements of mixed media, horror fiction, melodrama, and theatre into my games, but ultimately if we're not laughing for most of the session I feel like I've done something wrong.
As far as things to expect, or influences...
- I will try to make you laugh.
- As said above, I try not to take things too seriously and try to avoid big "epic" plots. When I do them, I usually add healthy doses of humor and self-deprecation to avoid making things too dire.
- I have a passion for history, especially European, Mediterranean, and African history.
- I also am extremely interested in Greco-Roman mythology, Arthurian lore, Celtic folklore, and Fae myths.
- Mixed media (audio, video, artwork, etc.) is something that I enjoy to set the mood and make you feel more connected to the world. I try to plan this stuff out ahead of time and will usually make regular usage of this wiki to prepare for sessions to have these things ready to deploy.
- I will also try to fuck with your heads by making characters surprise you. I believe that any NPC who shows up more than once or twice should be a complicated, realistic person, and I think I can safely say that I've had pretty decent success with making cool, unique NPCs in past campaigns. This is something I plan to continue working on.
A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES!
Diana: Warrior Princess
Italic textDiana paused at the edge of the ravine and listened.
Nothing but the howl of a distant coyote, the soft slither of sand blown by the wind, and a faint hiss of steam from the crashed helicopter's boiler below. But she could sense there was something out there. She silently pulled herself over the rocky edge, checked her sword and bow, and crouched, waiting.
Fergie slid up beside her, cupped her hand to her ear, pointed, and whispered, "That way..."
Diana turned slightly and listened again. Now she could hear it; faint music, drums, and the soft twang of a sitar.
"An Indian raiding party..."Italic text
Mechanics
The game is meant to be extremely simple to learn and play. Everybody picks a character (the setting is meant to be played with everyone being a premade character like Diana, Fergie, etc. but we can discuss whether you would want to just play your own group allied with Diana or one of the other main figures in the setting, or whether you'd want to control Diana and friends yourselves...I'm open on this) and the whole thing is meant to play out like a television series.
Characters have a status rank based on being a star, guest star, co-star, extra, etc. This status can be improved with experience (as you capture audience by being interesting and engaging!) and determines how easily you succeed. Rolls generally involve a d6, and your status determines how well you have to roll to succeed. You roll a number of d6s based on your attribute that you're using. The number of successes you get determine how awesome you are at what you're doing, or how spectacularly you fuck up. That's pretty much it for the rules. It's very simple.
There's equipment, vehicles, gadgets, etc. but everything pretty much follows these rules for how things work in the game.
The Setting (paraphrased from the manual)
Imagine that 3,000 years from now, our descendants decide to make a holo-novel series about the 21st century. Our descendants, as remote from us as we are from the ancient Greeks, and with as many gaps in their knowledge. With the same loving attention to historical accuracy that we have come to expect from our own television producers.
Realism can fuck itself. Eva Peron is Hitler's mistress. JFK had an affair with Queen Victoria. Zulu hordes invaded Vietnam. The Spanish Inquisition stalks heretics in Spanish Harlem. Steam cars line the roads even as ICBMs lie in silos, waiting to annihilate the world. Babbage engines, stealth bombers, and sorcerers all coexist - though not peacefully.
Other interesting details include Sly and the Family Stallone - a band of wandering minstrels and vagabonds including Sly Stallone, Sharon Stallone, Emma Stallone, Rocky Stallone, Rambo Stallone, John "Demolition Man" Stallone, and Tango Stallone. There's Wild Bill Gates, a computer cowboy and riverboat gambler famous for his catchphrase, "Make Money Fast." Ron L. Hubble, a con-man and thief. And, last but not least, the benign Emperor Norton of America, a wise ruler well-respected for his kindness and jovial nature.
It's the real world as far as the characters are concerned, but it's far from a real world by our standards.
The Story
The autocratic Queen Elizabeth sits on the throne of England, almost entirely rural with the exception of the sprawling metropolis known as MegaLondon 1 at its center. She has ordered the death of Princess Diana for divorcing her son, the Bonnie Prince Charlie. Aided in her plots by the evil sorceress Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth forces Diana into exile in the nearby country of Britannia - ruled over by Queen Victoria and her red-coated Beefeater armies. To the north, the free lands of Scotchland are a desert wasteland ruled over by kilt-wearing barbarians riding in spike-festooned steam cars.
Diana left Bonnie Prince Charlie because she has been awakened to the corrupt nature of her era, and the secret truth behind it. Suspecting her husband was unfaithful, Diana investigated and uncovered evidence of Charlie's involvement in arms dealings and trafficking of the drug "tobacco" to children in third-world countries. Fleeing the country, Diana uncovered evidence that the world has been overrun by agents of the evil God of War, Landmines. Armed with this knowledge, Diana swears that she will not rest until she can free the world of the evil of Landmines forever as the greatest hero of her times. Allying herself with stout heroes like Fergie, the barbarian chief Red Ken, Wild Bill Gates, and others.
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.
Benjamin's options
These are in approximately the order of how much I'd like to run them right now. The relevant first three are also in order of least to most "crunchy" (i.e. how heavy they lean on the numbers/a system and how much the player would need to get familiar with the system).
See my user page for the games I've run in the past.
General trends/influences that might affect my games:
- I'm reading up on Burning Wheel and a lot of the ideas in that system are looking interesting to me right now.
- I tend to improvise a lot more than other GMs. It seems to work well.
- I want to find ways to incorporate audio into the gaming experience to set the mood.
- Expect experimentation.
- Since the last game I ran I've had a lot of exposure to European history, especially Rome, England, France, and the German speaking countries. This might weigh a lot on how I design cultures and political entities in my games.
- I've also been learning Old English and gotten interested in some bits of linguistics. I promise not to invent a language and make you learn it, I am no Tolkien.
Tinker Tailor Merchant Clerk
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, or possibly based on Burning Wheel.
You are all civilians. You are not gallant knights, you are not fire-flinging 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
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 warrior Queen who took his throne. 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.
Planescape Nights
Mechanics
D&D 3.5. Ish.
The Setting
The Story
Epic high fantasy, sword and sorcery, all this and more! Be a wizard pretending to be a cleric! Or whatever you want! We will hit the streets of Sigil and adventure will find YOU. I promise you the finest in improvisational fantasy as you trek across the planes.
You are all adventurers. You could be gallant knights, you could be fire-flinging wizards. You could even be soldiers, but you might not be heroes.
If you want a more traditional campaign, this is the option you want.
