Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Johnny Angel
I'm still a little unsure of what I want to do; I might ask some of my friends what sort of games they would be interested in.
|
I have recommended this before—in fact, I wrote a Pyramid article about it a couple of years back—but you won't have seen that, so I'll repeat the suggestion.
What I do is write out a prospectus. I come up with a list of ideas for campaigns I might run, and describe each in a paragraph or so. The description includes the genre (such as fantasy or pulp adventure), the setting, what kind of characters are wanted, what their mission is (if they have one), what the play style will be (how much violence, how realistic, how much character interaction, whether it's G, R, or X rated), and any source material (such as a novel, television series, or comic). Then I ask the players to bid on them; each player gets points equal to 2x the number of campaigns, to be assigned as they see fit. And I look for a campaign that no one rates at 0, ideally that no one rates at 1, and that has a high point total. Once I've actually picked the campaign, I do some serious work on the details of the world and on what part of the rules I'm going to use. It gives me the exercise of thinking out several different ideas for running a campaign and it ensures that the campaign I run is one that my players actually think is cool.
For example, the first half of this year, one of the campaigns I was running, a six-session miniseries, had the following description:
___Salle d’Armes: In pre-revolutionary France, a master fencer teaches his art to a number of students, mostly from aristocratic families, though students with unusual backgrounds will be possible with a good character story. Player characters will be talented but not highly trained as yet. The focus of play will be divided between combat and social encounters, including carousing in the streets, rivalries with other schools, and displays of savoir-faire in aristocratic gatherings. Play style will be mildly cinematic, but with realistic injuries. Rules system: GURPS Martial Arts.
Bill Stoddard