OCI: Portals, VR, and Campaign Iterations

This month's RPG Blog Carnival covers Gates & Portals, hosted by Tales of a GM. One of my current campaigns relies on the idea of Portals. This post covers that in depth. The first lengthy part talks about the evolution of the campaign, in particular the two previous iterations which came before it. If you'd just like to read the cool synopsis of what's actually happened in the campaign, jump down to the What We've Done So Far section. This is a long post and it hits on some ideas I've gone over in other posts, but I wanted to assemble a synthesis of that. 

THE FIRST CITY

Back in the ‘90s, we had a flux of campaigns. Many ones ened simultaneously and we had a sizable group of free players. That ended up re-configuring into two GURPS campaigns, a Champions run, two Rolemaster games, and one other. In that a local GM gathered some of the best players for an ambitious campaign he called "Hudson City Interface" (or HCI). The name came from the Hudson City, then being used in the Dark Champions sourcebooks. In this game, everyone would make up near-future characters, scattered across the globe. But no one would reveal their identity to other players. Those characters would then have an alternate identity and persona within the HCI, a shared VR hub. Going down one more level, those PCs would play together within Portals: VR game worlds of various genres.

HCI had a solid concept that borrowed from Dream Park, Mindplayers, Snow Crash, and other VR fiction. It adapted anime elements for its modern setting (in particular Bubblegum Crisis). This came well before .dot Hack, Log Horizon, Soul Hackers, or Sword Art Online. The game mostly alternated arcs of sessions between the Interface and the Portals. But a huge amount of play went on privately outside the game, with the GM describing out the “real world” of these characters in one-on-one play-by-email exchanges. Some portals lasted a session or two, while others stretched on and recurred. HCI had a large and overarching story which came out in pieces, mostly in those away from table interactions.

The premise had several opportunities. The GM could play different genres within the same campaign. They could easily use and integrate modules into play. It supported several levels of mystery. NPCs could appear in portals, the interface, or the real world. Fun could be had finding connections between those. As well, group played might off each other- trying to discover various RW identities.

On the other hand, the framework had many disadvantages. Portals dragged on for many sessions, with players becoming attached and reluctant leave. It also required repeated character creation sessions. Different player opinions on portals and what they wanted from them made things tense. Importantly, the portals' VR nature meant they had less weight. What happened there could be treated as a game, without seriousness or consequence. Finally HCI had a great deal of complexity. All players had to participate heavily or get left behind and confused when meta plots came up. The reliance on out of game communications and effectively one-on-one PbF play with 7-8 players taxed the GM heavily.

Ultimately HCI died in mid-campaign, to the disappointment of the players. Part of the failure came from the GM’s reluctance to pull the trigger on the cool plots he’d set up. When players pushed to figure out a big secret, he’d defer or create another layer. So while the "real world" level had depth, it had no resolution. He wanted to keep all the plates spinning. Social tension at the table created problems, with new players added late to an already full table. Finally the sheer volume of PbF was unsustainable. The GM burned out and dropped the campaign without explanation or promise of continuing. He took it up again a few years later with a select set of those players, alienating others who’d enjoyed it. But that campaign lacked the spark and fizzled out again.

PLANNING OCI v1.0

I didn’t play in that campaign, but heard about it through my wife. I’d also spoken and batted around ideas with the GM before he ran. I saw what happened and tried to learn from the problems. I decided I would run a game, called Ocean City Interface (to move it away from the Hudson City reference). Initially I came to it because I wasn’t sure if I could run a sustained Legend of the Five Rings campaign with our Sunday group. But rather than try or aim for a shorter campaign, I thought I could bootstrap one into the other. To do that I made a dumb choice that I’m lucky didn’t upend everything. I started them out in the L5R world of Rokugan, thinking we'd begun a samurai game. Three sessions in, I switched things up when a crisis event occurred.

EXECUTING OCI v1.0

They found themselves awoken in a VR interface, having been together in a created world. However, that world felt stronger and more real than it should have, subsuming their memories. More importantly they discovered OCI didn’t have a samurai portal. Somehow they’d gone to a non-existent VR world. The campaign took off from there, with the players working in the interface and dealing with events in the real world. They discovered they all lived in Ocean City, though they didn't actually meet until late in the campaign. They went traveled through various portals and returned to Rokugan several times. Eventually they learned this all connected to Mage the Ascension. The PCs were Awakened in a world which recovering from a magical catastrophe. The Portals were real places, refuges for Mages who had fled before the disaster. The Ocean City Interface was a means for Technocracy survivors to take control of the world and cut off passage back. The whole campaign ended in a massive battle in Rokugan following the Emperor’s death. That conflict stood in for their final struggle against the Technocrats.

GROUP PROBLEMS OCI v1.0

The campaign barely managed to hold together. While the players expressed overall enjoyment, it had many weaknesses. On the one hand, we had real world problems impact the campaign. We added a problem player after the start. Selfish and disruptive, he made things uncomfortable for other players. For a long time one of the other, older players kept his worst tendencies in check. But then that veteran player died. His death shook the group and for a time I considered shutting things down.  On top of that had a house fire that put us out for many months. We only managed to play irregularly during that time. When we returned the problem player kicked into a higher gear. But their tenure with the group, passive-aggressiveness, and martyrdom-complex made correcting the behavior hard. In the end, I wrapped the whole campaign quickly to be done with it.

STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS OCI v1.0

I made many missteps in this campaign. First, I did “switched up” the campaign without consulting the players. They'd gotten into the groove and we could have done a solid L5R campaign. But I was so wrapped up in my idea I didn’t see that. Second, since we started with L5R and had the longest continuous sessions throughout, players became attached. If another portal frustrated them, they could think why aren’t we playing L5R? Third, in the beginning  I tried to echo the previous GM’s approach, doing a ton of PbF individual material. Responses varied so a few players got more info and attention. Eventually that overwhelmed me and I cut it off for the last third of the campaign. But that inconsistency frustrated players. Fourth, I kept the “real world” stuff loose and unfocused. The players wandered around without direction. They’d find a clue and then be distracted by portal business. Fifth, I made the mistake of switching systems around for the portals. The previous GM had done that as well. But in my case the players hated some of the new mechanics. In particular they despised the Fading Suns and Dying Earth rpg systems. Add to that having to learn new rules all the time and it just didn’t work.

But I decided to try it again five years later.

BUILDING OCI V2.0 FROM LESSONS LEARNED

A couple of players requested a new OCI campaign. They hadn’t played in my earlier version. Besides them we would have one veteran from OCI 1.0 and three newbies. I set some principles for this campaign. 

• Transparency: At the beginning I made clear the campaign's structure: what we’d be playing and how we’d be playing it. I talked about the system and pointed to some of the game themes.
• Player Choice: Rather than Portals chosen by the GM, the players selected them. In fact, each player would select one of their own. They would be considered the “leader” within that portal, and we’d reinforce that during play. I created a list of 28 possible portals, each with a name, simple “x meets y” description, and list of tropes. The players talked among themselves to make sure they had a good spread of genres.
• Establishment: We would do each portal in turn, returning back to the “Alpha” world in between. A portal would last 6-8 sessions. Once we’d gone through a full cycle of the portal worlds, we’d return to the start. On following cycles the portals would be tighter (2-4 sessions) since we’d already established the premise and goals. I also made clear the order we’d go in.
• Clear Goals: When players arrive in a new portal, I make objectives clear. They might have several goals, but they know what they need to be doing. When they solve a problem, I make the next one’s on the horizon. At least some problems can be solved in the span of sessions they have. That idea holds true for sessions between portals when they return to the Alpha World. I make sure they have something concrete and specific to investigate, usually connected to the most recent portal. Eventually I’ll loosen up on that. Still I try to keep the reins in the players’ hands. If they choose to go X, then we go X.
• System Continuity: Everything- the Alpha real world of Ocean City and the various Portals- uses the same system. That's Action Cards, our Fate-flavored homebrew. We tune some of the surface mechanics genre (skill and stunt lists). As well each portal adds a unique element or system. For Sellsword Company, we had managing a mercenary group. For Neo-Shinobi Vendetta, they had unique cyberninja powers to choose from. For Masks of the Empire, each player received a unique magic item they built at the start. For Sky Racers Unlimited, we added mechanics for aerial dogfights and building planes.
• Character Continuity: Players create new characters for each portal, but there's a connection between them. The player-deck structure of Action Cards allows this. A portion of their deck remains in across portals. That core element is fleshed out with drafted cards for the particular world. Since each portal has a unique card frame design, the base cards serve as a reminder of the link. Players can buy up “shared” cards, but they’re a little more expensive.
• Stakes: From the start I wanted to make clear that while these portals might or might not be “virtual” they had an impact on the Alpha world. People, events, and forces from them could impact their daily lives. At time has rolled on, it’s become more and more clear that the Portals aren’t exactly VR, but they’re also not exactly a full reality.
• Slow Introduction of Complexity: Rather throw out many, many threads and NPCs, I’ve restrained myself. I use index cards at the beginning of sessions to note important outstanding threads and NPCs. That gives me a firm sense if I’m too complex (I have too many cards to put out).

CHALLENGES

While I’m positive about the campaign, I’ve hit a couple of rough spots.

• Just People: For the Alpha World of Ocean City itself, I had the players make up competent people with a small strange ability (compelling voice, ability to hide, talks to computers, etc). They have skills, but at core they're ordinary people and not adventurers. That’s made them a little skittish about some of lines of investigation. I have to keep that in mind. Throwing them directly into a High Adventure gun-battle doesn’t fit. They’re evolving, but I need to offer them challenges appropriate to their characters now.
• Player Loss: We began with six players. Two I expected would play through the first portal or two and then drop. One left after portal one and some sessions in Ocean City. The other left after portal two. I’d expected that, but I didn’t have a graceful plan for writing them out. I could have planned for that better.
• Time: I’ve tried to keep the initial portal instances tight, but haven’t always succeeded. I think I’ve got a good balance of “I Want to Keep Playing This” and “I Want to See What’s Next.” But it’s tough. I’ve been lucky that the group’s good and I’ve been delivering an engaging experience throughout.

WHAT WE’VE DONE SO FAR

Sellsword Company

The group finds themselves members of a fantasy mercenary company. They have a vague inkling this is a game, but can’t see other evidence. They’re given a mission which brings them into conflict with Northern Raiders. They win and then descend into an ancient dam where they’re forced to disable a sentient magical structure.

Ocean City: Alpha World

The party returns to the “real world” of Ocean City. They discover they’ve been logged wirelessly into a VR simulation. They never signed up for what they find is called "Ocean City Interface." Discovering newly added contact info in their phones, the six meet up. They investigate in several directions. Eventually they uncover a recent murder linked to this. The victim bears a weird similarity to a character from the Sellsword portal.

Eventually they follow leads back to a crazy computer expert. He was been booted out of OCI, but not without a fragment of source code. He’s kidnapped people to attach them to a micro-VR he’s built from that code. The group raids his hideout and discover the kidnapper has the ability to see through cameras from a distance. They take him down and anonymously call the police to aid his victims. Back at a PC's house, the group begins to questioning. He drops several names and references. When the kidnapper realizes the group doesn’t know anything, he activates some power.

Neo Shinobi Vendetta

The group finds itself transported into another portal. They assume roles in the game, but find they're able to keep meta-communications via a linkshell. They have access a in-game interface, but it does little beyond minor info. They decide to go along with the simulation to see where it takes them. The lines between their two selves begin to blur.

In this portal, they’re cyber-ninjas betrayed by fellow clans and brainwashed to serve corporate masters. These five (formerly seven) shinobi clans work from the shadows. Having broken their programming, the PCs now secretly hunt those at the conspiracy's head This leads them in search of a broken ninja, an encounter with a mysterious rival shinobi, and finally an assassination mission at a future amusement park. While in the portal, they detect other players- but only get code names.

Ocean City: Alpha World

The group returns to the real world. For a strange moment one of the PCs seems overtaken by the nano-kami from the NSV portal. But the force of this artificial intelligence is cut off quickly. The PCs discover that their captured kidnapper has been shot, and one of their number is missing. Another PC agrees to head off the grid to conceal the body while the rest investigate.

They look into what’s happened and what Ocean City Interface actually is. Then abruptly they find themselves in another place.

Atlantis: Interface Hub

They’re drawn into a VR, without the exact detail of the two portals they’ve previously visited. Is calls itself a closed beta for some kind of online entertainment. The names of the admins (five, formerly seven) match up to some of those dropped by the kidnapper. The group discovers they’re listed in the beta and given virtual space and credit. However, neither of the two portals they’ve been appear in the listings. The group confirms they can move back and forth at will between this "Atlantis" and the real world.

Ocean City: Alpha World

The party continues to look for their vanished member. They discover she’s apparently one of the bad guys and aided in the kidnapper's shooting. This leads to a strange corporation. Observations of it suggest many employees have behaviors echoing the ninja clans of Neo Shinobi Vendetta. Have they come from there to Ocean City? Is the simulation built by them? Or is there another connection? The plot thickens when they realize the shooter bears looks like the strange Shinobi they met in the portal.

Another line of investigation leads the group to their shared upbringing as orphans. They discover a weird family syndicate clearly hunting certain orphans with special gifts. Through clever detective work and legal machinations, they expose this operation. When they confront a lawyer  for this strange clique he calls on a bestial transformation. They accidentally kill him, but his body vanishes. With more questions than answers, they leave. Tat night they find themselves pulled into another portal.

Masks of the Empire

The group becomes agents of a great empire. Each bears an ancient and potent magical mask, the unique symbol of their role. A section of the land, magically closed off for almost a century has mysteriously opened. The PCs are to go there, survey, offer aid, and bring the locals back into the Empire’s embrace. They’re also to ascertain how the vanishing happened in the first place.

Their first obstacle is an evil Geomancer determined to control access to the outside. The party brings locals into their confidence and manage to root him out from his castle. With a new base of operations, they head north to one of the seven lost magical towers. On the trip they discover that at least one other player is in the portal with them.

They find that the Tower has been mysteriously cut off- affected by the insanity of a Sound Wizard. They fight their way in, disabling the traps and wards. Emerging they find another force has arrived. Those adversaries have with them one of the artificially-intelligent walking Colossi. Usually used for service, they’ve repurposed it. The group resorts to subterfuge and misdirection to overcome the superior force, and they enemy eventually retreats.

Ocean City: Alpha World

Back in the real world, players discover more and more strange phenomena. At least one PC’s hidden secret power seems to be growing. They meet with a self-proclaimed Luchadore devil-wrestler dealing with children infected by “Mindworms.” When they follow up, they find out he’s not wrong. A strange Hopping-Vampire spirit exists within the kids. They party's hunted briefly by a flying figure, bearing a mask not unlike those of the most recent portal. Finally they make a connection between strange energy traces scattered across the city. The flare ups of these spot fit with the timing of their forced transition into the portals.

When they go to the sites, the group find itself shifted over to a world not visible to everyone around them. They see bastions, fonts, energy sculptures, and defenses overlaid on the sites. These seem to control a ley-line energy. The players trace that back and find one site weirdly out of synch with the rest, scattered with the wreckage of a great battle. When they approach, a two-fisted guardian attacks and warns them away. After convincing him they’re friends, he tells them his story. He’s the last of the Dragons, a group dedicated to fighting forces who want to control these sites and gain powe. Because the party made it here, he expects they must be the new Dragons. When he tries to show them something else, the group slips into another portal.

Sky Racers Unlimited

They’re the B-team pilots aboard an experimental grand cruiser participating in an intercontinental aero-race. The course will take them across a world devastated by Mad Science, only just now returning to bloom. When rogue dragons take out the A-team pilots, the group must scramble to the rescue. They save the day and receive a promotion.

Now they’re heavily involved in the hotly contested race of seven ships from various countries. One vanishes in the Atlantic crossing, but the other six proceed on. Intrigue, publicity, and mechanical upgrades keep the group busy for the first leg of the race. Then, while on forward air patrol, they pick up a faint distress call. They convince their Captain to delay in order to follow up. The squadron finds a Sky Bandit base, with an escaped Aero-Bus from the lost liner. The party breaks in, rescues the bus, and fights off scrambling bandits in a brief escort mission. From the survivors of the lost ship they learn it was sabotage which took out their vessel.

Next the group heads to Baltimore, the region's capital. They’re assigned to bodyguard the European Heavy-Weight Champion for the big match taking place on their ship. It’s a publicity coup which agents of the fallen Spanish nobles try to disrupt. They don’t succeed. But the players learn the notorious Boston gang, the Kennedy's, has kidnapped the Champ's sister. They investigate and rescue the sister from a moving train. Then they race back to the main event where they prevent a lethal robot doppelganger from killing the American Champ.

Finally, before leaving Baltimore they follow up on info from airfield raid. That leads to the Helldiver Club, a seedy bar built in a beached battleship. They discover a major information network selling details on the ships in the race and planning for accidents. The group breaks up the ring when another faction's spy sets off a bomb to cover her escape. They return  to the ship, but suddenly the player’s in-game interface pops up. A list of names scrolls by, apparently the real identities of players currently in the portal, including their own.

That’s where we left off. We’ll have a few sessions back in Ocean City and then on to the final Portal, Assassins of the Golden Age, my mash-up of Mage the Sorcerer’s Crusade and Assassins Creed. 

I'm sure Sherri will have some comments on this. 

This post is part of the RPG Blog Carnival Gates & Portals, hosted by Tales of a GM.

Gamemaster Prep Survey

I've put together an online survey examining how much time we spend getting ready for a session. 

That's inspired by this month's RPG Blog Carnival hosted by Leicester's Ramble, "How and Where I Write and/or Game Prep."

I've been curious about how other GMs handle prep. I've seen some gamemasters talk about moving to low or no-prep approaches. At the same time, I've seen others going over the energy and time they invest into each session. I don't think either approach is necessarily better, but I'd like to get a sense of where GMs typically fall. I've put together a set of six questions. These are rough and, particularly when I get to the activity breakdown, wibbly-wobbly. I'm not a social-scientist, there aren't any control groups, and the survey by its nature will be self-selecting & biased. 

But if you run games, I'd like to know how much time you spend preparing for individual sessions. Not for the campaign as a whole, but for a typical session. 

This is a basic Survey Monkey set of questions, so it doesn't have bells or whistles. I won't get any identifying info. My aim is to pull together responses by the end of February. At that point I'll post all the info and results, making them open and available. This is my first time using SM, so there's always the chance I'll goof this up! I set it to one response per computer and to allow editing of your responses. 

Please reshare this and spread it out to various forums, blogs, groups, and sites. I'd like to get a good cross-section of responses!

GM PREP SURVEY

Steal These Worlds: "Campaigns I'd Like to Run" RPG Blog Carnival Wrap-Up

"OK, YOU'RE ON A BEACH"

Today wraps up the RPG Blog Carnival for May, “Campaigns I’d Like to Run.” That concepts represents heaven and hell for a GM. On the one hand, there’s the pleasure of coming up with campaign ideas and then hammering them out- figuring out what they need and what you need to do to get them to work. On the other, they’re a distraction when you are running a game. Yes, this campaign’s running smoothly and players are having fun…but you have an even better idea. Dangerous!

I’ve saw some great ideas posted last month, so below I present a list of those. I hope I’ve caught all of them- if not, please send me an email or leave a comment and I’ll get those added. The new RPG Blog Carnival for June has the topic “Favorite NPCs” and hosted by Arcane Game Lore. For more information on the Carnival, see here. At risk of being a bad host, I’ll begin with a round-up of my entries. I generally ordered these as they appeared in the comment thread.

Age of Ravens offered five posts. The kick-off post for the carnival and Destroy All Monsters, a steampunk fantasy kaiju vs. mecha setting. The Years of Mithril and Lembas, a fantasy setting in the wake of a massive plague. Ocean City Interface, a reworking of a previous campaign frame which incorporates many other campaign seeds. Seven Settings, a look at publishing settings worth running in. 23 Campaign Concepts, a catch-all list of ideas crossings genres and types.

Sycarion Diversions gave us The Eye of the Needle, a riff on Spelljammer with a novel backstory and set-up. 

Games I’ll Never Play is a blog dedicated to the campaign ideas. He offered several distinct and interesting worlds to play in. Tanien, which plays around with the backstory for the races.  The Great School of Magic, a Glantri frame. Landfall, a magic/tech hybrid concept. 

Greyhawk Grognard gives us My Dream Campaign. He offers an interesting take. Rather than ideas about details, he considers how to change up the scope of the game. How might Greyhawk be used to offer a grander and more wide-ranging campaign? Great stuff here for those thinking about new ways to approach an established setting. 

The Bleeding Scroll pitches Werewolf & Vampire Academy, Now on ABC... . I love school campaigns- especially with the rising tide of strangeness presented here. 

Game Knight Reviews (or the Gassy Gnoll if you want to get specific) gives us A Summer Campaign. He works through a number of concepts- showing some of the process of wrestling with these ideas. 

Derek at Harvester gives a couple of sharp and solid campaigns. Mage: Technocracy Risen takes the Mage Ascension War to a kind of logical conclusion, creating a post-crash sci-fi heavy vibe. I like how he’s fused a number of sources and inspirations to create something striking and new. His Night's Black Agents post breaks down what he likes about the setting. He has a frighteningly detailed vision on offer here. I suspect he’s been thinking about this for a while. 

Aggregate Cognizance gives us a great spin on an often neglected sci-fi setting, Blue Planet. Last Resort Poseidon offers a narrow and compelling frame. It brings the key issues into focus while offering the players difficult decisions. 

Doctor Checkmate Returns gives The Short, Short Version, a collection of ideas and concepts- demonstrating the push and pull GMs feel about campaign seeds and systems. 

The DM from Outremer in Campaigns I’d Like to Run gives three striking campaign ideas. The first, a steampunk and supernatural game set in an alternate WW1 made my jaw drop. Brief but dense concepts which deserve an extended write-up. 

Kaijuville steals my idea preemptively and does it better than me with Fight the Future, an X-Com/STALKER mash-up. 

Exchange of Realities offers Campaigns I Want To…Err… a meditation on the ‘style’ of gaming which attracts different GMs. 

The Armchair Gamer gives us several excellent and detailed posts this month. Mystara Mash-Up considers a touring/travel campaign in the classic setting. He brings together a massive list of his previous work on the topic. A must-read for any Mystara fan.  In “Give Chance to Others” he considers several niche campaigns that deserve a shot.  A Quick Look at Kitchen Sink settings offers three campaign frames that embrace everything. 

Tower of the Archmage with Campaigns I'd Like to Run faces the tough choice of figuring out what to run and explicates the fate facing all GMs brainstorming “…on any given the day, the list changes.”

Arcane Game Lore (host of the June Carnival) gives us Power Play, a well-developed mini-campaign of competing teams racing to secure an alien artifact on a deadly world. 

The ever-excellent Shorty Monster tackles Campaigns I’d Like to Run and ends up wrestling with the breakdown between the kind of game he wants to run and the limits of time. 

Lunar Shadow hits three targets with Torg, Demon Hunters and Corporation. I like the way these are pitched tightly. 

The Other Side blog (from Timothy Brannan, designer of Ghosts of Albion and other excellent products) offers four campaign pitches in Campaign’s I’d Like to Run. I’ll be stealing some of these… 

Dispatches from Kickassistan puts us In the Shadow of the Black Giant. The rumblings of a volcano signal the rise of chaos in this darkly-tinged D&D setting. 

Roleplay-Geek shows off The Lands of Dual, complete with an interactive map. 

Graphs, Paper, and Games is actually running his dream game, but his Campaigns I'd Like to Run post offers two more that appeal. 

Harbinger of Doom brings us The Demon Dreams, a novel take on the idea of a dream-based campaign. I especially like the idea of building it around the Dreamblade minis. 

Age of Ruins brings together Dark Sun and Dungeon Crawl Classics in Blistered Skin Beneath a Blood-Red Sky. 

Kobold Enterprise traps us in a puzzle-dungeon campaign with Dear Friday night group GTFO. 

Uncle Bear (on Asparagus Jumpsuit) drills down and considers the problem of the rpg vs. other games- the difficulty of just sampling. As well in Campaigns I’d Like to Run he offers two campaigns along with work that needs to be done to make them work. 

Blessings of the Dice Gods offers a really interesting approach with First Time Blog Carnival Participation! Jeff looks at several dimensions of the question and addresses the individually. 

Impossible Boulder gives us a new take on the oft-forgotten Al-Qadim setting from TSR with Djinni Unchained. I love, love the hook on offer here- really excellent and worth lifting! 

23 Campaign Concepts: Things I'd Like to Run

RUNNING THROUGH MY BRAIN 
As we get to the end of May, we begin to wrap up this month’s RPG Blog Carnival theme “Campaigns I’d Like to Run.” You can see the announcement post here, with tons of links to great responses in the comments there. You still have time to post a response if you have an idea. You can see more on the RPG Blog Carnival here. Next week I’ll put together a organized post which goes through all of the submissions- at least the ones I know about. 

To finish up my contributions, I decided to write out all of the little campaign brainstorms I’ve had recently. In the past when I’ve had campaign change-overs I’ve done big lists of pitches for the players to consider (you can see some here and here). For this list I’ve tried to get down on the page all the random ideas I’ve had bouncing around. Ideally these are all new to me- not featured on previous lists. Some of them are pretty fleshed out, while others are more sketches or hooks that appeal to me. A few really deserve a post of their own- and could be easily put together for play. I suspect many of these will appear as Portal options if I get around to running Ocean City Interface. 

TWENTY-THREE FOOTPRINTS

1. Victorian Shadowrun: A world with Steampunk technology, perhaps run rampant. Then the weird mystical wave rolls through, changing things and returning magic and creating the various fantasy races. We take up five or ten years on, with Queen Victoria herself having been transformed. Perhaps take a different spin on the fantasy races- borrow from For Faerie, Queen, and Country or even Magicians of England. Most importantly, bring in cyberspace by stealing the Etherscope VR concept. Cybertech might be steam or might be more like Rippers.

2. Victoriana X-Men: I fell in love with the X-Men during the Byrne era, and I love it when it is more science-fiction or space opera than conventional superheroics. I know some people despise Grant Morrison’s run on the books, but he had some interesting sci-fi roots concepts. In any case, this might be one of those hidden campaign seeds. For this you sell the premise and it only becomes clearer as the campaign rolls along that it is something else. Borrow a little bit from the Kerberos Club, but without a publicly recognized patron. Everyone has a singular power, gifted by the Nimbus, a sign that appears when they use the powers. They’re feared by the general public, but have been brought together in this Victorian Era to fight for recognition. They battle secret steam scientists, Martian invaders, updated monsters, and a cabal of Nimbus users who wish to rule the world. Inspired more than a little by the Aaron Diaz's illustrations. 

3. Superheroes Beyond: I’m a big fan of Batman Beyond and I’d love to do a campaign which riffs on that. For years I ran a Watchmen-style vigilante campaign. One of the last iterations of that was more Cyberpunk than supers. I don’t necessarily want the grit of that. I like the four-color, slightly darkened version of the world presented in the TV Show- with ubiquitous tech and legacy heroes. Ideally I would run this as a sequel to another supers campaign. That would allow me to play with existing characters and give the players some buy-in to the setting. Perhaps a substitute version could be created by using Microscope to build a history?

4. Ghost Worlds: Characters wake up in a Silent Hill-esque world. Realize they’ve been stolen from the real world and have to make their way back through obstacles and tricks. A surreal fantasy or horror land. The hook is that when they sleep, they have visions of the real world and see the nefarious plots the possessors of their bodies are undertaking.

5. WoD Fantasy: I kind of like the nWoD system for its simplicity. I wonder if you couldn’t strip things down and use it to do a more classic or directed fantasy game. Magic could easily be lifted from Contracts in Changeling or Spells in Mage. Some of the combat options in Machine God Chronicle might make that decently easy.

6. Crime & Punishment: A superhero game with an odd twist that justifies some of the problems of a classic comic book world. Supervillains have some common origin- an incident, a recurring genetic event, or something else. The world’s done relatively gritty in relation to them. The problem is that if supervillains are killed, they come back- sometimes in a new form, sometimes not. They take over someone’s body or something. Perhaps more like a Time Lord reincarnation in a different place- and something they’re not enamored of. Regenerating isn’t any fun. The only option is incarceration, but like Arkham Asylum, it is only a matter of time before they break out.

7. Adventure People: I’ve been thinking about how one could run a solid spy game in the 21st Century. One idea is to go totally retro and run a campaign set in the ‘60’s or ‘70’s. Night’s Black Agents has another approach- suggesting the breakdown of order and the establishment of a new apolitical foe in the form of the undead. Then there’s Spycraft’s competing agencies, which has some appeal- cool code names, weird factionalism, and more a sense of super-villainy than practical espionage. But if you’re going to create a cartoonish version of the world for these kinds of stories, why not go all the way? This campaign would be about super-spies, action heroes, and high weirdness. It would essentially be The Venture Brothers rpg. Ideally I’d get the players to create a tight-knit yet dysfunctional unit. They’d go on a mix of research, exploration, and counter-espionage missions. Everything would be over the top and insane. Ideally I’d use something with plenty of room for adaptation and improvisation, like FATE.

8. No Man’s Land: Dark Knight Rises borrowed liberally from a number of comic arcs, including bizarrely enough "No Man’s Land." In that long, long, multi-book event arc, Gotham’s struck by natural disasters, goes into anarchy, and is declared no longer part of the US. It becomes isolated, ala Escape from New York, and things go downhill from there. All of the “Bat Family” and their extended titles end up spending a year trying to establish and maintain order against lawlessness and gangs, many backed by arch-criminals. There’s some interesting stuff in the series, but most of it is messy and more nonsensical than most. That aside, it does offer rich territory for stories.

I ran a super campaign set in New Orleans once. It had been devastated by Katrina and then by a massive supervillain attack. That later disaster had been at least partly the fault of superheroes. One of the themes of the campaign was about restoring faith in superheroes. But it ended up being more conventional. I’d like to do a campaign which aims squarely at reconstruction. The characters first have to reclaim the city from lawlessness (ala NML) and then help with rebuilding. Along the way they will make themselves a symbol of one kind or another. Would probably work best as a street-level superhero game.

9. Space Station Zebra

I like Ashen Stars which offers the players a ship as a shared resource. But on the other hand, I like players having a static “home” they can live in and interact with. That’s why I run so many city-based games (a rut I perhaps need to break out of). I wonder if I could do a “first season” of Ashen Stars where the players patrol and protect a space-station or a particular planet. It might be a little like Space Precinct. It could be done as a vetting process- with the PCs then getting a ship to take out for adventures. I’d be borrowing more than a little from DS9 and Babylon-5.

10. Abstract Suikoden

I really love the idea of the Suikoden video games. In most cases the players begin as members of the orderly society, but then get pushed out. They have to find their own course and become heroes. Within that set up we have two key elements: 1) the establishment of a base which can be expanded and 2) the recruitment of many NPCs for support and active roles. With the latter, some require conversations to recruit, others storyline actions, and some optional side-quests. I think a campaign explicitly built on that model could be fun. Once players build up enough people, they could begin to send them out on resource & objective missions, increase their reach still further.

11. What Doom?

I’d like to run a post-apocalypse/crash game with a couple of distinctions. One, what happened wouldn’t be certain. Either the nature or the source of the disaster would be uncertain. Related to that mystery would be figuring out how to live and deal with that threat. I’m not sure how to set that up- some kind of shelter, cryogenics, or shared amnesia. Two, the game would be a building game- with the community having a central hub: facility, ship, caravan, which would need resources and development. Three, the game would be run online, with reservations and a revolving cast- depending on players and characters (like if they got killed they’d miss a session or something).

12. Conspiracy X-Com

My friend Steve beat me to the punch a little with his very cool campaign idea, Fight the Future. I like his approach. I’ve also been thinking about how you could bring the X-Com experience to the game table. I’d do that by making the first part of it more like ConX, stripping out everything except for the alien portions of it. In any operation, you’d go in first as investigation agents to check things out. Once the threat had been assessed, then the team can gear up and head in for an assault. Another way to play that might be for everyone to have two characters. The investigator and the squad member. That could be particularly cool.

13. Build-a-Bugbear

Extra Credits has mentioned the concept of making even mundane mechanics/sub-systems interesting through novel play mechanics. I’ve mostly done building games through resource management and menu choices. (OK, we’ll spend on building the fortress up rather than the farm fields; OK I spend my Green Mana to make this Magical Cake). I’d like to figure out some mechanics which would make building things- crafting, nation-building, alchemy, community development- more interesting. Reign has dimensions to track with some of those concepts, but I wonder if I can develop an engaging sub-game that doesn’t distract. That’s one of the things I admire most about the video game Puzzle Quest. They take the basic concepts and them modify and switch them up for several of the sub-games.

14. The Future Will Destroy You

What if magical power was discovered and developed, but you had to be kind of a dick to use it. To harness the true forces, you had to be a selfish person. (A little like Unknown Armies, but even more out there). That’s the classic model of the Evil Wizard from Conan. Transplant that to a modern setting where douchebag, slacker, and emo sorcerors have managed to destroy society. The players would be Conan-like post-apocalypse barbarian avengers with guns.

15. Luchadore Hunters

I’ve just started watching Supernatural; only though the end of the first season. The show isn’t great yet- but there’s a vibe I really like to it. I love the road-trip and Americana feel to it. Going through the backroads with occasional stop offs in major places, tracking things through rumors and bits of apocrypha, and a weird network of supernatural hunters. I’m also a fan of Hunter the Reckoning- in the many different flavors it presents, from long-suffering lunatics to superhero vampire slayers. I’d like to do a HtR campaign with a different origin for powers, a campaign that borrows stylistically from Supernatural and thematically from Lucha Libre. The PCs would be hunters to the weird and strange. They’d roll into town and look into matters. And when they figured out what was going on- that’s when the masks would come out. By donning those, they’d gain the powers they need to fight evil. The Masks would be unique- each with a story to them. The PCs would put down the monsters and then hop in their car for the next town.

16. Steampunk OTE

Way back in 1997, Pyramid Magazine published “An Assignation with Her Exaltedness” offering ideas for using Over the Edge with Castle Falkenstein. That remains a supremely awesome idea; steampunk fits perfectly with Al Amarja. But I don’t think I would necessarily use the CF backdrop. I might build something of my own- stripping the best ideas from various steamtech rpgs. I’d want something a little grittier and with some odd tech, so The Kerberos Club and Etherscope for example. It would be fun to do twists on the various ideas- perhaps the Kergillians look more like something from War of the Worlds? The weirdness of the Cut-Ups would be closer to their original surrealist origins (though that’s a post-Victorian invention).

17. Skyship 7th Sea

I have to admit that someone’s comment on G+ inspired this. I had one of those “why didn’t I think of that…” moments. I like the world-building in 7th Sea- the nations are interesting and well-done. Like L5R 7th Sea manages to riff on history, but make it fantastic enough that players find it open and inviting. But a sea-based, for example pirate game felt limiting to me. I wanted the chance to explore the whole of the map while keeping the ship theme. Now with skyships I can do that- perhaps steamtech, perhaps magic, perhaps a combination of both. Players can have their raids and sailing, but still travel to the distant hinterlands. And I’ve been thinking that you could keep sea ships as well with their being too great a disparity. Skyships would have sails which only worked in the absence of wind- an inverse sympathetic magic. The greater the wind, the slower they would go. Storms would becalm them. They would also be vulnerable to the presence of water- too much close by would negate their effect. This would mean such sails couldn’t be used on water. Storms could also be dangerous as they could bring too much water close by. I imagine there would be airships, sea vessels, and then those ships which could change sails. I have to think more about the impact of that….

18. Witless Minions

I have two versions of this that I’d like to actually get around to running. On the one hand, there’s the version I created for one ofthe 24-Hour RPG contests a couple of years ago. I’m actually pretty fond of it. I like to think that it didn’t do as well because it came later in the alphabet, but that’s rationalizing. Still it offers cool and adaptable ideas- and would be worth going back to rewrite and expand. I’d use that if I want a more action-oriented approach with capers and such. On the other hand, if I wanted a more narrativist approach, I’d return to the DramaSystem frame I wrote up- Malign, Inc. I like the idea of that being done as a BBC miniseries.

19. Arclight Revelation Tianmar

I like the concept of this RPG I wrote- steampunk, post-Martian Invasion, anime school life contrasted with secret adventures in mecha suits. What’s not to like? I’d like to explore this world a little more and figure out how the rest of humanity lives. To do so I’d probably need to go back and take a hard look at the mechanics I came up with. One of the requirements of the 24-Hour design process is to come up with a new system. That doesn’t necessarily mean I came up with the best one for the genre. I like some of the systems- especially the character creation ideas.

20. A War on Christmas

The other DramaSystem pitch I wrote appeared on the Pelgranesite. I put that together in a few hours, but it feels surprisingly compelling to me. The idea of underground revolutionaries battling against a land run by a power-mad Santa Claus appeals to me. Honestly, I would watch a show like that- especially a BBC miniseries with that premise. This could also be a nice break mini-campaign to run around the holidays. With some planning, it could be quite amusing.

21. Microscope Supers

So far most of our experience with Microscope has centered on fantasy worlds- of the dozen times I’ve played it (either for campaign creation or as a game of its own), only once have we done sci-fi. I’m really curious about what a collaborative superhero universe would look like. My first thought was to set some boundaries- like tracing events from post WW2 on. But the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of anything goes. Start at the beginning of time with Eternal-like creatures? Or perhaps a more modern evolution- with supers arising out of a conflict like Vietnam? I’m curious to see origins- singular or multiple. I always think of supers as a genre requiring a certain amount of experience and buy in. But what might it look like with people who aren’t as into it crafting the background?

22. Colony Six Has Fallen

One of two ideas I had for Game Chef that I didn’t write up. This one borrows heavily from the concepts behind the video game FTL and the rpg Fringeworthy. The player’s space exploration/empire proceeded through a series of gates or warp points. The PC party is at the end of a long chain of that exploration, when something goes wrong- some kind of attack or catastrophe which disrupts the system. Now the party has to make their way back- with incomplete information about where the gates exit to or what has happened on the other side. When the group heads through, they have to find the next egress point and carry out whatever tasks are necessary for repairs or analysis. While the gates and events would be episodic, the spine of the game would be about resource management. Equipment break-down, loss of NPCs, diminishing supplies, etc. Eventually the use of the most powerful things found would be a critical choice. Ideally going through a gate would allow a choice to the players based on some scattered info they could obtain.

23. Bad Robot, Worse Robot

In a future time, people will work together to build some cool cyborgs. Of course they get out of hand- and in a Blade Runner-like move they’re made illegal and destroyed. But some still exist- blending in with humanity. These have been made by strange eccentric scientists (ala Mega Man, Astro Boy, or other secret robot families). The PCs would be good robots, trying to protect humanity, maintain their secrecy, and battle against the bad robots. Well, most of the PCs would be. At the start of the game, assuming four players, the GM would shuffle five red and one black card. Each player gets one card, if they get a black one, then they’re actually a bad robot. In play, if all the other players agree- they can grab the remaining player and “reverse his polarity” making them good if bad…and vice-versa. The game would be about a mix of social challenges (going to parties, trying to avoid eating too much, understanding human emotions) and fighting off bad guys in set-piece battles. Good robots would always have the option of solving problems through brute force- usually with collateral damage in human lives. But they want to do things with more finesse. Characters would have a Stress and a Suspicion track. 

Ocean City Interface: A Splintered Campaign Frame

NOT A DREAM PARK...

The RPG Blog Carnival for May Continues, with the theme “Campaigns I’d Like to Run.” Great ideas keep rolling in. You can see links and notes on those in the comments section of the original post. If you’d like to join in the RPG Blog Carnival, write up a post on the topic. When you have it up, put a link in the comments of that post (or this one) or send me an email. At the end of the month I’ll do a comprehensive round up of them. You can see more on the RPG Blog Carnival here- if you have a theme idea, consider hosting a future carnival. They're hunting for someone to host June!

Give me a heads up if you do a post so I can keep track for the big list at the month’s end.

WELCOME TO CITY OF OCEAN

One campaign I’ve been thinking about running more seriously is both easier and tougher than most for me. On the one hand, it is a campaign frame run by another GM in the group once and once by me. Those campaigns generated awesome sessions. But at the same time, the premise itself creates pitfalls and additional challenges. I’ve seen problems arise and derail whole arcs of the campaign. I want to consider how I can lift the best elements while reducing the worst.

That campaign’s gone by several names, but my version I’ve always referred to as OCI or Ocean City Interface. The original form, crafted by another GM, takes place in an anime inspired near-future. VR systems unite the world and experts in their manipulation and design have great power and influence. Each player makes up several levels to their character. On the one hand, they have their Avatar, how they appear within the OCI. They craft an identity and personality for that Avatar. But at another level they also have their Alpha, essentially person in the real world. Players begin only knowing one another’s Avatar. The Alpha characters may be spread out across the globe. The Avatars interact in the Hub of the OCI, where they may have their own virtual space and realms. But Portal offer the real challenge to the group. These are adventure simulations within the Hub. Groups go into these to play- in them they may meet other players (NPCs) but not know them except through personality. It has several levels of interaction and play. Each Portal, of course, can be a completely new and independent campaign using different systems. The original version of OCI used this set up to create a world of future conspiracy- with AI’s, hacking, lifts from anime as diverse as Bubblegum Crisis & Tenchi Miyo, and dark secrets related to the family had helped to create the OCI. It reminds me most of Tad Williams’ Otherland, but remains distinct from that. The GM who ran this used it to create a sprawling, complex, and tangled narrative. He had eight players at one time and danced around between many different systems. The players loved it when it ran well- and the GM did tons of private emails with subplots. However when the players pushed to get at the heart of the mysteries, the GM pulled back, refusing to pull the trigger on anything and keeping revelations away from the players. Eventually the pressure and the work got to him, and he shut down the game leaving things unresolved after a couple of years of play. He tried to pick it up again with a smaller group later, but once again burned out.

I didn’t play in that campaign, but I watched it secondhand via the players I interacted with (including my wife). They really dug it and everyone was disappointed when it shut down. There were various recriminations and blame thrown around, but frankly the campaign looked unwieldy from the outside.

Which, of course, prompted me to think about how you might go about making it wieldy. It actually started because I wasn’t sure about how compelling a Legend of the Five Rings campaign would be. More than I wasn’t certain it was a good fit for the group I had. I thought that perhaps I could get around that by making the L5R campaign a portion of the campaign (an idea which would come back to bite me in the ass). I would use something of the framework from the original campaign, but with some changes. The biggest came in the opening, in which after several sessions, I revealed that they were in a simulation, but one that no one in OCI had actually created. That led to the big mystery: if that world wasn’t a standard VR portal, then what was it? The campaign spanned several genres and systems: Superhero, Fading Suns, The Dying Earth, Exalted, Wuxia, Grimm, Polaris, and a couple of others but with a returning focus on L5R and the “real world.” In the end I pulled the curtain back to reveal that this was in fact a Mage: The Ascension campaign, with the OCI serving as a kind of refuge for Mages who had fled a disaster that had swept across the world.

The campaign worked in parts, but in others it fell flat. I loved many episodes of it, and so did the player. Perhaps the biggest problem arose when I discovered that yes, my group could play an L5R campaign and enjoy it- but that realization came after I’d already introduced the other elements… Beyond that I stumbled over a few of the structural traps this set up offers. We also had a problem player join the campaign late and had one of the best players die.

So…troubles, you know?

COOL STUFF- what makes this an appealing campaign?

• Identity: Sherri suggested she found this one of the best subtle elements in the campaign. It might seem a too meta, but playing characters who play other characters offers interesting opportunities. In some ways, it makes that contrast between internal and external explicit. Alphas may play portal characters expressing desires or regrets about themselves. Players who like those kinds of expressions and details find this a real pleasure.
• Mystery: The structure of OCI offers a great larger campaign mystery: the how and why of everything. In the original campaign, that tied to a familial conspiracy and AIs; in the second, a war between supernatural forces. The existence of a large-scale plot’s obvious at the outset, and players recognize that they can investigate via the portals and NPC interactions.
• Multiplicity (Players): Players get to play different kinds of characters and games, but there’s continuity. They can use that to more easily come up with resonance and connections. The links between the different portals avoids the sense that this is simply a throw-away character. At the same time, players who like a particular genre less know that they’ll get to play in others they love.
• Multiplicity (GM): We have too many ideas and not enough time to run all of them. This offers the opportunity to try out many different settings. That has the add-on effect of making modules and campaign sourcebooks more useful. Usually I don’t use these because they don’t necessarily fit with the large-scale campaign I’ve built. Here they’re much easier to play with.
• Contrasts: Different portals allows for interesting switches in pacing, tone, and style. That can obviously happen in an ongoing campaign, but this structure has that built in, making the GM’s job easier.
• NPCs: Secondary characters in this campaign frame break into three categories: standard NPCs, real world NPCs, and meta-NPCs. Real world NPCs expand and play with a player’s Alpha existence- often separate from other players. There’s a pleasure to having a set of “personal” NPCs. Meta-NPCs are those who also play on the OCI and in the portals. This allows interesting revelation of their personality, ambiguous objectives, and even uncertain identity. Characters may not recognize one another in the portals. Then a revelatory detail suggests that this NPC is actually X- which changes the complexion of the story and interactions.
• Nostalgia: An element only for our group. Many of the players played in one or both of the previous OCI campaigns. One everyone loved but saw cut down in its prime. The other was solid and had a full arc with a solid wrap up.

OBSTACLES- what gets in the way of the game?

• Switches: Changing between campaign frames can feel awkward. Need to have transitions to make events not whiplash around.
• Stakes: If the portals are simply VR, then the stakes are fairly low. Players need to feel like events at each level matter.
• Player Buy In: Players may not care for some portals. If a portal outstays its welcome, they may lose interest and investment in the game. If they enjoy/know one genre only, then they’ll have a tough time switching.
• Portal Love: If one portal gets a greater emphasis, then players may resent having to go to others. In the first OCI, the fantasy portal Shining Path occurred several times. The players invested in that heavily which made the others feel pale and incidental. In my version, the players loved the L5R portal.
• Complexity: With multiple layers and characters, the campaign story could become convoluted and hard to follow.
• NPC Maintenance: Too many characters can be hard to keep straight. Managing them when they appear across several portals and levels offers even more of a challenge.
• Rules: Both earlier versions used different games systems for different portals. That means leaning new game systems constantly. It also means building a new character completely for each portal.
• Game Logic: If you think about it, the premise becomes problematic. If I’m in a fantasy portal, does my character have knowledge of modern tech? If the portal’s not VR then what goes on when I’m not present in the portal?
• Email: Both earlier versions of HCI used away from table email as a major tool. Usually that revolved around real world events and interactions. That potentially means much more work for the GM.
• Dispersal: Real world set up has players from across the globe. Getting them together is tough.

SOLUTIONS?

• One Rule: I need to use one core system across all of the levels. That means using a generic system or engine that scales well, has lots of resources, and is easy to adapt. Both GURPS and HERO are a little too heavy and have some genre blind spots. That probably means Savage Worlds, True20, Basic Role-Playing, HeroQuest, FATE, or our homebrew Action Cards. GUMSHOE and World of Darkness, while interesting don’t have all the necessary resources. Ideally I’d like to have some of the mental aspects of characters carry across levels.
• Reality: The portals have to be real in some way: alternate timelines, fragment realities, metaphors for some cosmic struggle, or simply other worlds. What happens there has to have weight and implications back. I’d love to figure out a mechanic for scars and injuries in the portals which has them carry on back up to the Alpha level.
• Limited Portals: We don’t have an infinite # of portals. There’s the real world, the Hub, plus one portal per player. In fact, each player should get to pick the theme/setting for one portal. That’s their key place and connection. Depending on the time and structure of things, perhaps we could even do a Microscope session before entering into some (or all of the portals). We could have a drafting session at the campaign start, allowing each player to pick one (from a list of ideas I’d create).
• Rotation: Each portal gets a fairly strict number of sessions- a single arc with a key story and perhaps some interaction time. We don’t go back to a portal until we’ve done all of the other ones.
• Linked Thematic: There should be a recurring motif, theme, or set of images across the different portals (science gone wrong, the perils of power, hidden secrets come back to haunt, revenge, etc) which also serves as a connection.
• One Place: All of the Alpha characters need to be in geographic proximity. The same country or city.
• Markers: Other “players” within the OCI should eventually be identifiable. Perhaps all of their characters with portals share the same mark or tattoo (hidden?).

FINAL THOUGHTS

I have to admit that good deal of the appeal of OCI lies in the diversity of campaigns it contains. I have more ideas for campaigns and frames than I’ll ever get to run in full. This approach allows me to play with some of those ideas, perhaps those that wouldn’t necessarily work over the long term. Granted you could run these games sequentially, but you would lose the extended stakes that yoking them together offers.

The key realization I’ve had is that this campaign framework has worked before- and fairly successfully in two distinct campaigns. I’ve also had players request it. So I know it can be done and I know it works- I just have to figure out ways to improve it. It may not work for everyone, and tuning it to the particular group will be essential. I think the payoff’s worth it, if I can take it to a new level.