As I posted last week, several of my campaigns are at
transition points. I discussed my love for these moments on The Gauntlet
recently. With our 13th Age
game on summer hiatus, we’re switched over to a short Dresden Files Accelerated campaign. I’ve also started a mini-campaign
of The Veil for Sherri, Kali, and my
nephew David while he’s home for the summer. We started that Sunday, getting
through character creation and several scenes. I didn’t go much further since
I’d run Mutant Year Zero in the
morning and played Apocalypse World
in the afternoon.
In the good (?) old days, I’d say “hey, I’m running X now.”
Usually the group would go along; maybe we’d have some players switch out. But
times have changed and our f2f player pool has tightened. What I run needs to
appeal to everyone. I want collaboration and buy-in from those players. Once I
figured that out, I tried putting together massive lists of pitches. Way
too massive. I diluted the pool and common interests. The few times I did
that we got a final result with shared light enthusiasm over something everyone
dug. The Paradox of Plenty.
Now I limit myself to 3-4 pitches at most. That gives me a
pool I can invest energy in, time to explain each one, the ability to hand
around materials, and few enough games that they’ll recall each when they vote.
I present the games with a caveat. If any of them are a “Hard No,” I’ll pull
them from consideration and add something else. I don’t want a game on offer
that someone would quit rather than play (or play under duress). I also tell
them we’ll check in every six or so sessions to see where we are and if we need
to wrap. After explanations and questions everyone votes secretly, even me. I
break any ties. Last time Mutant: Year
Zero won, but all three other contenders tied. I bring passed-over, but
well-voted games for later consideration.
SUNDAY GAME
Our bi-weekly Middle Earth campaign wrapped after 27
sessions. It’s a good, four-person group. Generally we’ve aimed for more traditional
games and action oriented campaigns. Both the player group and the time slot
lend themselves to straight line plots. Deep mystery and angst aren’t on the
table. A simple system’s preferred. I put forward four games to them:
That’s a diverse set. Originally I wanted Blades in the Dark in there, but since I
didn’t have the hard copy yet, I subbed in Tianxia
at the last minute. Godbound won
by just two points. Then Coriolis
& The Veil came in with a near
tie, and finally Tianxia. That group
generally prefers fantasy, so the final pick wasn’t a total surprise.
Godbound has both
a premise and a setting. The former has the PCs gaining/ channeling/ receiving
divine powers from dead gods. There’s been a centuries long conflict, leading
to human sorcerers storming the gates of heaven with artificially constructed
gods. That all blew up, leaving behind remnants and threats like The Night
Roads. Godbound has an Exalted vibe. Players start with powers
and can deal serious damage right out of the gate. They’re not gods per se,
just potent.
Godbound’s setting
takes up a good chunk of the book. Crawford’s built a striking world, echoing
some of his earlier fantasy work. It has distinct nations, lightly defined with
problems and relations. Many have a strong Earth-culture parallel. They’ve
released a couple of sourcebooks for the setting. While they’re solid, I’d
rather build some things ourselves.
Luckily Godbound
supports that too. It has the designer’s trademark tables for generating plots
and content. I expect I will combine that with a Microscope-like approach. I haven’t yet decided what level to begin
at. I put together a blank fantasy map in Hexographer. I might have everyone
add nations and name places. Alternately I might focus on building just a city.
Then we could discover the rest of the world as we play, hex-crawl style.
WEDNESDAY
Our Wednesday group plays online. These five originally came
together in the City of Heroes MMO.
Several players I grew up with before they moved away. So far I’ve finished a 13th Age and a three part M&M 2e campaign with them, both fairly long. Our
current Mutant & Masterminds 3rd edition campaign will probably wrap tonight with session 27. It’s a group that leans
trad. Also there’s a lot of real world distractions during play. As a result I
have to carefully consider multi-thread plots and mysteries. I’ve been running on
this night for years, but I still haven’t developed the perfect style for them.
I choose three games, all of them PbtA. I wanted to try
something new, with different approach. A couple of the players have tried
these games, so it isn’t entirely alien. I offered three games, two with a
highly built in structure which I think the group will dig.
The Sprawl won,
but Blades in the Dark came a close
second. Urban Shadows followed
slightly behind. Each game had at least one first place pick and one last place
pick in the voting. I’d regretted leaving out BitD after Sunday’s offer,
despite not having the hardcover. I decided to offer it anyway, since I figured
I’d have it soon (spoiler: still don’t have it as of this writing). Cyberpunk
will be an interesting switch after fantasy and superhero.
All three have excellent Roll20 sheets, an added bonus The Sprawl has an especially nice one.
Some users have figured out how to build striking interactive Countdown clocks.
I need to work those out. The Sprawl
also a tight mission structure, more episodic than other games. That may lend
itself to our game, with weird schedules in the summertime. The group also
loves doing world-building so that’s a plus.
The only downside I can see will be figuring out the netrunning
rules. It’s the section I’m least comfortable with right now. We didn’t have a Hacker
in the two Sprawl sessions I played.
We’ll see. It may just take a little prep work.
FRIDAY
Our Friday f2f group just finished our Mutant: Year Zero campaign after 16 sessions. I loved it and the
players clearly would have hung on for more sessions. But we’d gotten to a
great point in the Ark’s arc. I wanted to stop while ahead. The awesome player
epilogues made me certain about my choice and sad to see it end. Despite the
session going a good hour later than usual, I made sure we picked the next game
before we left.
- Base Raiders (Using 13th Age)
- Blades in the Dark
- Coriolis
- Urban Shadows
I’d had Urban Shadows
when they last picked, so I brought that back. I’d also planned to present a
collaborative world-building fantasy idea with anthropomorphic animals. But I
couldn’t find the materials I’d assembled for that. Instead I subbed in Coriolis. The group had also discussed
doing Mutant: GenLab Alpha, but I
didn’t offer that. I’ll offer that next time; I didn’t want to do it right away
after MYZ.
The group chose Blades
in the Dark (25 points) despite not having a copy of the book to look at. I
printed the character and crew playbooks to hand around instead. Then it was Coriolis (17 points), Urban Shadows (16 points), and finally Base Raiders (12 points). Opinion and
votes went across the board. While Base
Raiders came in last, it got a couple of #2 picks.
I’ve read through the Blades
in the Dark pdf a couple of times now. It has a lot of moving pieces and
some dense playbooks sheets. I hope playing it f2f will be easier than online.
Five of the six players play Pathfinder,
so I’m not too worried about complexity. I’m excited run this. I love the
concept and can’t wait to see it at the table. I briefly considered using a Planescape skin I read about on G+. But given
the number of players and our unfamiliarity with the game, I’m sticking with
the default set up.
OTHER GAMES
I had other games I seriously considered for these
offerings. I only skipped 7th Sea because I’m still not sure how to solve the duelist imbalance problem.
Maybe I will in the future. I strongly considered Cryptomancer, but I’d need a small, mystery-focused group for that.
I looked using Dungeon World for a
version of the Iron Kingdoms setting.
Finally Dragon Age and 13th Age rounded out my
shortlist.
What do you have coming up? What are you considering for new
campaigns?
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