RPGsitites, I could use your help once again!
I have been asked repeatedly for 18 months by several good friends to start a campaign. Some of them old gamer friends, some of them casual non-gamer friends and most of them unable to commit on a weekly basis due to work and family obligations.
Their situation is totally understandable and I have come to the conclusion that if I wait for the perfect time for everybody, this time will never come. And thus I have decided to try it anyway with a varying cast of player from week to week.
I have some questions but first, here's what I have so far:
-I will be the GM
-Six players interested. This is a mixed group, with a wide range of age, profession, interests. roleplaying experience varies from 0 to decades.
-We've agreed that it will take place on a week day and the sessions will have a 4-hour duration. This includes EVERYTHING. Arrival, discussion time, snacks, actual play, conclusion, character sheet adjustment and leaving. So short sessions.
-Barring disasters, I'm dedicating one day per week. As long as ONE player shows up, the session DOES take place.
GAME/SYSTEM/CAMPAIGN CONSIDERATIONS
-We have not decided on a system yet but everybody agrees it will be medium or lighter in complexity.
-The genre is not determined yet but here's what's OUT: 4-color supers, westerns, comedy/romantic dating shit or crap that has to do with mormons. Super brainy games and games that adhere too strictly to historical factuality are also out.
-Each player will control a single character and no GM rotation. I am the GM. If a player does not show up, his character does not show up that session.
-More importantly, the game needs to be EPISODIC. This is key right there. Because it is impossible to predict if the players (and thus their characters) will show up for the next session, I need my adventures to be tied up in one session. This possibly implies a sort of complete-mission-return-to-base setup.
What sort of campaign could I run with this? Long quests to save the world are definitly out. Genres and systems that rely on players acquiring information and magic items are probably out too. I'm looking at a genre where advancement isn't a priority.
I need a concept where a player can miss 4 sessions in a row and his character can comeback without missing a beat.
The only thing I can think right now is to run a sort of cop/CSI investigation team. Each week, whoever is "on call" (whichever player attend) get to solve the puzzle. But that sounds... lame. Can it be spiced up?
All seven of us would probably appreciate an element of horror/occult but I am terribly short for a campaign concept. I would have liked to run survival horror but this seems impossible under this concept. (Survivors tend to split, move around and plots do not tie themselves nicely in that genre).
I could use help in coming with a campaign concept. I also welcome system ideas. And if you have experience with a rotating crew of players, I would also appreciate any sharing of experience, possible pitfalls, etc...
Quote from: Consonant DudeI need a concept where a player can miss 4 sessions in a row and his character can comeback without missing a beat.
The only thing I can think right now is to run a sort of cop/CSI investigation team. Each week, whoever is "on call" (whichever player attend) get to solve the puzzle. But that sounds... lame. Can it be spiced up?
All seven of us would probably appreciate an element of horror/occult but I am terribly short for a campaign concept. I would have liked to run survival horror but this seems impossible under this concept. (Survivors tend to split, move around and plots do not tie themselves nicely in that genre).
I could use help in coming with a campaign concept. I also welcome system ideas. And if you have experience with a rotating crew of players, I would also appreciate any sharing of experience, possible pitfalls, etc...
Hi Consonant Dude,
What follows here is all self promotion, but I'm going to suggest Dreamwalker Revised. The initial campaign model (Guardians of the Real) is investigative occult horror, with the players tracking down and destroying nightmares that have entered the real world (where they take pretty much any form imaginable, leaving you a lot of leeway to design new monsters or tweak exisitng ones from d20 Moden).
The PCs default as part of an established group or agency who hunts down nightmares and also evil mortal-types working with the nightmares. You typically play in a large city, so if a few players can't make it that night, they're still available to catch up later if the episode is still in session.
I recently finished a Guardians of the Real campaign with 5 different players, only 1 of which I could count on to show up every week. I kept the investigations fairly short, the clues plentiful, and the final encounter climactic, so we usually wrapped it up by the end of the night. Although I threw in combat to keep things moving, it was generally nonlethal or low-threat combat until the final encounter.
Other Dreamwalker Revised campaign models include dream/nightmare and dream lands-type adventures (which are also episodic), but these do not ever have to be addressed if you're having fun playing the investigative occult horror angle.
Anyway, the product link is in my sig with a full preview available there as well. Be happy to answer any questions.
Pete
PS - You might also try out gritty crime-related games like Dog Town or not-so-gritty 1980s crime/cop-related games like Vice Squad: Miami Nights.
Well, what I do when we have a few folks around who want to play something is run my semi-campaign called Rifts: MercHouse. The idea is that the players are part of a mercenary outfit on the border between Vampire Mexico and the Pecos Bandits (we've also gerrymandered it so that a few Coalition outposts are nearby). Whomever is there has been picked for that week's mission, which I usually keep to a limited objective (the village of Crapton has bartered half of next year's apple harvest if we'll get rid of that small but menacing biker gang that's set up camp in the abandoned structure on the edge of town). Players aren't there? Clearly, they had another mission (which is also fun to make up).
There's still a shot for continuity there, players like to talk about mission they've survived (and didn't), and you can always eventually build up disturbances to be part of a larger picture. I do it with Rifts, but I don't know why you couldn't do so with the ArrPeeGee of your choice...
Quote from: pspahnOther Dreamwalker Revised campaign models include dream/nightmare and dream lands-type adventures (which are also episodic), but these do not ever have to be addressed if you're having fun playing the investigative occult horror angle.
Anyway, the product link is in my sig with a full preview available there as well. Be happy to answer any questions.
Thanks Pete! That sounds both practical and interesting.
I do have questions. Can you talk about these two other campaign models? And is it possible to mix and match between the three types in a long campaign or do they contradict each others?
Thanks man!
Quote from: Zachary The FirstThere's still a shot for continuity there, players like to talk about mission they've survived (and didn't), and you can always eventually build up disturbances to be part of a larger picture. I do it with Rifts, but I don't know why you couldn't do so with the ArrPeeGee of your choice...
Yep!
I was very caught up in CSI-style investigations and did not think of commando-like missions. I'm not too keen on RIFTS but I like traditional post-apoc and your writeup could come straight from some sort of Mad Max-style campaign.
Thanks Zachary!
Quote from: Consonant DudeThanks Pete! That sounds both practical and interesting.
I do have questions. Can you talk about these two other campaign models? And is it possible to mix and match between the three types in a long campaign or do they contradict each others?
Thanks man!
Hey, always glad to answer questions. Okay, there are actually a total of six campaign models:
1 Guardians of the Real - investigative occult horror, as mentioned above. The Guardians of the Real model allows you to introduce dream concepts slowly to the characters. In the real world, each nightmare is surrounded by an "astral blight" that is essentially a bridge to the land of dreams, which means it can occupy a space much larger than it does in the real world. The area of the blight can appear entirely normal, but it sometimes distorts reality for a short distance around the creature. This change can be subtle and/or cosmetic (blood on walls, a haze hanging in the air, etc.) or it can be extreme (a blight centered around a tar pit might take the characters back to prehistoric times until they navigate their way out of the blight or destroy the nightmare that created it). "Mundanes" who enter the blight fall into a sort of dreamlike state and either repress the memories of their experiences or assign some rationale to it--the PCs are not mundanes.
2. Project Dreamwalker - the PCs default as part of a Dreamwalking organization. In a nutshell, one of the game's core concept involves dreams being invaded by a hive-minded race of psychic parasites known as the Brood. The Brood feed off negative emotions, so what they do is tamper with dreams in order to create feelings of fear, guilt, inadequacy, etc. in the dreamer. In the waking world, the dreamer meanwhile sinks deeper and deeper into a state of depression and/or madness. The goal of Project Dreamwalker is to rid dreams of the infestation, but before they can tackle the Brood, they have to achieve the dream's "goal" which can be anything from piloting a WWII fighter plane into battle to baking a cake for someone's birthday. These are the adventures the characters will undertake. Succeeding in the dream goal produces feelings of triumph and happiness which weaken the Brood's hold on the dreamer, so the various Brood creatures in the dream use different tactics to try to keep the PCs from achieving the dream goal. These dream adventures tend to be very episodic, with the group journeying into a dreamer's mind to confront and hopefully destroy the Brood colony. It also helps with absent characters because if the mission lasts longer than a session, the other characters can join them in the dream (the journey to the specific dreamworld sometimes takes longer for some than others). I actually ran a cool campaign where we rotated GMs every month or so, so I got to play my own character with the group.
3. The Clinic - The Clinic campaign model is very similar to Project Dreamwalker, except the Clinic deals with darker themes and completely insane patients (as opposed to just troubled or depressed patients with the Project). It also focuses on extracting information from dreams by a process known as dream sleuthing, and certain Clinic teams conduct real world special-ops (security, antiterror, etc.) using information gained from dreams.
4. The Sword of Gaia - This is a sort of modern fantasy model that is similar in some ways to the Guardians of the Real. The Sword of Gaia are a society of Dreamwalkers that are dedicated to combating the Brood in the real world and in the spirit world, so they hunt down nightmares that have entered the real world and also go on various dream-related adventures.
5. The Lost City of Revead - This is a "fixed" dream island that lies at the heart of the dream lands. The core concept involves a dream realm that is only held together by harvesting mana (used for dream magic). This mana is harvested by doing good deeds and collecting items randomly imbued with mana. The players will be asked to harvest mana for the good of the realm (or their own personal use), which is what throws them into adventures. Revead has a lot of fantasy trappings, but the shifting nature of its outer regions means any kind of adventure can be held here.
6. The Kingdom of Malice - This is a dark setting that is designed mostly to round out the Dreamwalker cosmology, but is also suitable for campaign play. It is the birthplace of the Brood nightmares.
I specifically wrote the models so they would all intertwine. Ideally, I would start new players out with Guardians of the Real, have them investigate nightmare manifestations which steadily get more surreal until at last they are recruited by a dreamwalking organization such as Project Dreamwalker, the Clinic, or the Sword of Gaia. I would then eventually have them travel to or stumble upon Revead and later perhaps the Kingdom of Malice.
With my last campaign, however, the players were having such a good time playing occult horror with Guardians of the Real that I never went beyond that.
Does that answer your questions?
Pete
Rainbow Six baby.
The players are part of an elite group of counter-terror and urban ops operatives who specialize in a special kind of case, the sort where things have a tendency to happen that don't make an fucking sense.
Keep the game episodic, one discrete, complete mission per game session. The team is chosen on a per mission basis, thus giving the perfect out for the transient nature of the player base: they simply didn't go on that particular assignment. This even gives a convenient in character excuse for the players to BS about their last mission to the returning guy.
Easy peasy.
Also, just wanted to mention that Silent Hill is one of the key inspirations for the Guardians of the Real model--otherwise normal people trapped in a nightmare world they cannot easily escape. The guidelines for designing a nightmare's "astral blight" reflects this, so if Silent Hill is your sort of thing, this should be right up your alley. The blight is also what sort of sets it apart from typical investigative horror games like Ghostories and CoC.
Pete
Quote from: J ArcaneRainbow Six baby.
The players are part of an elite group of counter-terror and urban ops operatives who specialize in a special kind of case, the sort where things have a tendency to happen that don't make an fucking sense.
Keep the game episodic, one discrete, complete mission per game session. The team is chosen on a per mission basis, thus giving the perfect out for the transient nature of the player base: they simply didn't go on that particular assignment. This even gives a convenient in character excuse for the players to BS about their last mission to the returning guy.
Easy peasy.
Yeah, two of the players (and myself) would salivate over that but some of the others, not so much. There's a cold, technical feel about this that is not going to appeal to some of the players.
But it's an excellent idea nonetheless.
FULL DISCLOSURE: After posting this thread, I have been asked by Pete if I'd like to review Dreamwalker and I gladly accepted. I took it as an interesting "assignment" because it looked intriguing but now that I started reading, I think it's actually perfect for the wide range of tastes/interests of these particular players. So I plan to test the game on them.
u can totally do that wiv wushu.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Check out Dark Heresy, though, it might work (the genre's not anything you guys have eliminated), it assumes a reasonably episodic structure, combats can be reasonably quick and character progression isn't so steep that you can really be "left behind" - no matter how tough the other PCs are, it's always useful to have another gun along.
I've made good experiences with Shadowrun for such kind of play - it's character-independent mission of the week, teams are put together in varying order depending on the mission, and if someone drops out completely it doesn't hinder the campaign itself.
Moreover, you still have a sense of continuity by the connections and the recurring characters of the more active players.
While the system itself might be a bit too rules-heavy for you (even in the 4th edition), and while 4 hours maximum are a bit short for the typical hi-tech dungeoncrawl, the core story itself is easily stolen and used for other games.
I'm gonna suggest you check out Reign by Greg Stolze. Make your players the leaders or even just part of a "company" (using the company rules in the game) which could be anything from a band of hardbitten mercenaries to a cult of religious fanatics. Have the one's present go on personal or company missions that cater to their specific abilities and goals when everyone's not there, and use the company rules to play out the bigger actions of the entire organization when everyone can make it.
Quote from: J ArcaneThe players are part of an elite group of counter-terror and urban ops operatives who specialize in a special kind of case, the sort where things have a tendency to happen that don't make an fucking sense.
Keep the game episodic, one discrete, complete mission per game session. The team is chosen on a per mission basis, thus giving the perfect out for the transient nature of the player base: they simply didn't go on that particular assignment. This even gives a convenient in character excuse for the players to BS about their last mission to the returning guy.
This is what I was going to say. You could vary the genre and set up to suit tastes. The 2 key points are:
1. they're part of a larger organization that changes the line up for the given missions.
2. They are going on missions with clear goals that define the adventure for that evening.
There can still be recurring villains, rivalries, and other long term issues. For fantasy, they could be agents of a king or members of a knightly order. They could be cops/investigators in any genre.
Or they gould have a dangerous game show set up - Let's drop the contestants in the dragon's lair and see whoe get's out alive - or something like that.
This is actually pretty easy to do, and in most normal gaming systems not too hard to pull off.
The issue is a revolving cast of players, right? You never who you are going to get. Or how many.
What you need is a "home base" and a "playground".
The home base is where the players do their upkeep, get briefed, and do whatever downtime stuff they need to do (shop, invent stuff, whatever)
Make sure the game always starts and ends at the home base.
The adventure takes place in the playground, wherever that happens to be.
So for a fantasy game, the home base could be "the town" and the playground could be "a dungeon area"
For a superhero game, the home base could be "the secret lair" or "the superhero hq" and the playground could be "the city" or "the mission zone of the week"
For a vampire or monstery chronicle the home base could be "the secret crypt hangout" and the playground could be "the city" or whatever.
For a sci fi game, the home base could be "the ship" and the playground could be "alien planet of the week"
For a spy game, the home base could be "the safehouse" and the playground could be "the mission zone" or "Prague" or whatever.
If you can establish just a set of norms that involves a start and end being in any given place you can just revolve the cast every week. This is especially rewarding if you are willing to work on and develop the "playground" area as the campaign goes on.
Run a space opera campaign. The players are agents for either an intergalactic gangster or a rebel group. A ship is loaned to them. They carry out missions, depending on who is available.
Regards,
David R
...actually for a Sci-fi game its makes more sense of the "home base" really IS a Base of some kind - something like BABYLON 5 or DEEP SPACE NINE or Starbase 375.
Or even "Stargate Command" - and the "playground" is all the various planets that could possibly be visited.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Abyssal MawThis is actually pretty easy to do, and in most normal gaming systems not too hard to pull off.
What you need is a "home base" and a "playground".
If you can establish just a set of norms that involves a start and end being in any given place you can just revolve the cast every week. This is especially rewarding if you are willing to work on and develop the "playground" area as the campaign goes on.
What Maw said. Emphasize the geography. When reading your OP, I got visions of the old R.L. Asprin
Thieve's World collective environment models.
Multiple heavy influence peddlers bumping up against one another with work to be done and grudges to be dealt with, and the players trying to forge their way in the big city. Maybe it's a neighborhood or enclave thing? All the characters have an investment in the success of a place or entity, but the challenges for preservation and growth change from week to week.
Quote from: SkyrockI've made good experiences with Shadowrun for such kind of play - it's character-independent mission of the week, teams are put together in varying order depending on the mission, and if someone drops out completely it doesn't hinder the campaign itself.
I'll second that. Shadowrun and Cyberpunk both work well for episodic games.
Quote from: Consonant DudeAfter posting this thread, I have been asked by Pete if I'd like to review Dreamwalker and I gladly accepted. I took it as an interesting "assignment" because it looked intriguing but now that I started reading, I think it's actually perfect for the wide range of tastes/interests of these particular players. So I plan to test the game on them.[/B]
Well, you have officially made my day. :)
Thanks,
Pete
Quote from: Abyssal MawThe issue is a revolving cast of players, right? You never who you are going to get. Or how many.
What you need is a "home base" and a "playground".
The home base is where the players do their upkeep, get briefed, and do whatever downtime stuff they need to do (shop, invent stuff, whatever)
Indeed, indeed! Excellent advice there, Abyssal. I plan to do just that.