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Old 07-23-2017, 09:54 AM   #1
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default my new campaign ideas

Having run a short introductory campaign and found a local group of interested players, I've reached the point of putting together a list of ideas for a longer-term campaign. So here it is, for your entertainment, I hope:

Please rank the following ideas from 1 for for your first choice on down. If there are any you have no desire to play in, please put an X by them.


___ GURPS Mars [4th edition GURPS]: Carry on with the current campaign. Setting: An inhabited Mars in the nineteenth century, which people from Earth have begun to visit. Theme: Exploration and discovery. Characters: Ordinary human beings who have travelled to Mars in search of knowledge, wealth, or strange experiences.

___ GURPS Space [4th edition GURPS]: A campaign about frontier life. Setting: Pavonis Portal, a colony of the Brazilian Empire on Mars, and the ground terminus of the orbital elevator on Mars in the twenty-fourth century. Theme: To be chosen by the players. Characters: Residents of Pavonis Portal, often but not always of Brazilian descent.

___ GURPS Supers [4th edition GURPS]: A campaign about people with superhuman abilities. Setting: The United States in the years right after World War II, in a world where people with special abilities have been around since the 1800s. Theme: Changing the world. Characters: Human (or other) beings with extraordinary abilities trying to find or make a place in a postwar world where they or others like them played a major role in the war. Power level to be decided by the players: streetlevel, classic, or major military asset.

___ Mage: The Ascension [2nd edition]: A campaign about secret magic in the modern world. Setting: London in the years before World War I. Theme: The conflict between science and wonder. Characters: Students of magic who have awakened to the true nature of reality—and the struggle to control it.

___ Sorcerer (part of the World of Darkness): A campaign about the slow failure of civilization. Setting: A college town in the Midwest in the mid-21st century, in a world where technology is breaking down and magic is reawakening. Theme: Survival and mutual trust in the face of the unknown. Characters: Small town people with useful knowledge and skills. A minimal level of magical arts will be an option.

(You'll note that a couple of these come from GURPS material I've published: the space campaign from City Stats and the supers one from my latest Pyramid article.)
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Old 07-23-2017, 07:27 PM   #2
dcarson
 
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Default Re: my new campaign ideas

You posted them in my choice order (although 2 and 3 might swap based on mood) so

1
2
3
4
5
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Old 07-24-2017, 01:21 AM   #3
johndallman
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Default Re: my new campaign ideas

2
3
x
1
4
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Old 07-24-2017, 01:46 AM   #4
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: my new campaign ideas

  1. GURPS Supers. The theme of changing the world is interesting to me, and I'd be interested in playing something with a Stark-like level of impact on the world. Causing a divergent tech path some time after WWII would be the thing I'd hope my character to achieve.
  2. GURPS Mars. It sounds vaguely interesting just for the novelty factor (inhabited mars in XIX).
  3. GURPS Space / Pavonis Portal. Don't remember the setting too well, but on first read of the pitch, it sounds playable. Depending on themes.

I'm currently playing in a Mage the Ascension campaign (ruleset from Revised Edition, but playing in the 1920s, so the setting is in its pre-1e state). And my impression is that nostalgia ain't what it used to be, and that my memories of loving MtA are overstated. So I'm disinclined to want to play MtA at this point, especially in almost the same time period. Be warned though, that I realize that different GMs are different and that my impressions from playing in your campaigns (hypothetically!) would be different; I'm just sharing my current stance towards the idea of playing MtA.

On Sorcerer: On one hand, I like the theme of mutual trust and reconciliation (and it's one of the things which attracted me to MtA), but I think that 'tech breaking down' is a misrepresentation of the paradigm that the actual traditionalists are pushing towards. The modern mage isn't someone who disbelieves phones and airplanes. A modern mage is someone who believes that both phones and moxa burning are effective. And even if people in general will begin believing in magic, they won't suddenly stop believing in jets. So I think that the state of affairs you offered is a misunderstanding (or misrepresentation) of the mages' victory condition (perhaps one popularized by the Technocracy!).
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Old 07-24-2017, 05:07 AM   #5
RogerBW
 
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Default Re: my new campaign ideas

If I were in a position to play:

2 GURPS Mars [4th edition GURPS]: An inhabited Mars in the nineteenth century, which people from Earth have begun to visit.

Would depend a lot on the specific activities but I'd probably enjoy this.

1 GURPS Space [4th edition GURPS]: A campaign about frontier life.

Not sure where it would go, but one of the things I notice about your campaigns is that you often have PCs going off and doing their own things more than acting as a group.

5 GURPS Supers

I don't get on with supers in general. I'm working up a short campaign now, and when I've done more on that I may have a better idea of what it is about standard supers that annoys me.

4 Mage: The Ascension [2nd edition]: A campaign about secret magic in the modern world.

I love the idea, but I can't get on with the system. Run it as GURPS Mage and this would be #2.

3 Sorcerer (part of the World of Darkness): A campaign about the slow failure of civilization.

Again, make this GURPS and this would be my #1. (Thoguh I wouldn't trust most GMs to make "failure of technology" something I could believe in.)
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Old 07-24-2017, 05:32 AM   #6
whswhs
 
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Default Re: my new campaign ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
On Sorcerer: On one hand, I like the theme of mutual trust and reconciliation (and it's one of the things which attracted me to MtA), but I think that 'tech breaking down' is a misrepresentation of the paradigm that the actual traditionalists are pushing towards. The modern mage isn't someone who disbelieves phones and airplanes. A modern mage is someone who believes that both phones and moxa burning are effective. And even if people in general will begin believing in magic, they won't suddenly stop believing in jets. So I think that the state of affairs you offered is a misunderstanding (or misrepresentation) of the mages' victory condition (perhaps one popularized by the Technocracy!).
The key to this is that I would not be running it as a World of Darkness campaign. There would be no Traditions, no Technocracy, and no Ascension War. I picked Sorcerer for it because I thought its low-key magic system was kind of interesting, and adaptable to a non-WoD setting. (I've done this sort of thing before; I used Amber Diceless to run a campaign set in E.R. Eddison's Renaissance high fantasy world Zimiamvia.)
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Old 07-24-2017, 05:37 AM   #7
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Default Re: my new campaign ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by RogerBW View Post
4 Mage: The Ascension [2nd edition]: A campaign about secret magic in the modern world.

I love the idea, but I can't get on with the system. Run it as GURPS Mage and this would be #2.

3 Sorcerer (part of the World of Darkness): A campaign about the slow failure of civilization.

Again, make this GURPS and this would be my #1. (Thoguh I wouldn't trust most GMs to make "failure of technology" something I could believe in.)
Feel much the same way
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Old 07-24-2017, 05:48 AM   #8
whswhs
 
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Default Re: my new campaign ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by lachimba View Post
Feel much the same way
The one local player who's returned a questionnaire has said that the Mage campaign is his top choice, but he would really prefer to play in GURPS: Mage the Ascension. I don't quite get that; I really like the OWoD system a lot, and I was very happy with running my one Mage campaign in it.
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Old 07-24-2017, 07:38 AM   #9
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: my new campaign ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
The key to this is that I would not be running it as a World of Darkness campaign. There would be no Traditions, no Technocracy, and no Ascension War. I picked Sorcerer for it because I thought its low-key magic system was kind of interesting, and adaptable to a non-WoD setting. (I've done this sort of thing before; I used Amber Diceless to run a campaign set in E.R. Eddison's Renaissance high fantasy world Zimiamvia.)
Ah. I took it in the context of discussing the possible outcomes of the Ascension war, as it usually is when such a scenario is mentioned next to Sorcerer.


Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
The one local player who's returned a questionnaire has said that the Mage campaign is his top choice, but he would really prefer to play in GURPS: Mage the Ascension. I don't quite get that; I really like the OWoD system a lot, and I was very happy with running my one Mage campaign in it.
The Storyteller system has many issues that range from 'a matter of very polarized preference' all the way to 'game engine design positively messed up and not thought through'.
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Old 07-24-2017, 07:46 AM   #10
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Default Re: my new campaign ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
The one local player who's returned a questionnaire has said that the Mage campaign is his top choice, but he would really prefer to play in GURPS: Mage the Ascension. I don't quite get that; I really like the OWoD system a lot, and I was very happy with running my one Mage campaign in it.
OK, I've played Werewolf, GURPS Werewolf (with some of the same characters converted), and GURPS Mage (Elizabethan customised variant based on MtA 1e).

Various things rub me wrong about oWoD to the point where I'd rather not play it again.
  • I find it very difficult to get a hold on a character and what they consider important: I know all about their cool powers and supernatural vulnerabilities, but almost nothing about their personality. (GURPS Disadvantages are great for this. FATE Aspects might do it well too.)
  • I find it all very granular and low-resolution.
  • If level 2 is typical competent human and level 3 is best possible human, then shouldn't level 3 feel like something special?
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