Sample prospectus - Page 5

Kyle Aaron · 07-13-2006, 11:29 PM

No offence, flyingwombat, but I do think that remaining conscious is a pretty small thing for a game group to ask of a player.

Anders · 07-14-2006, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flyingwombat

I am always looking for something to prevent this issue from recurring.

Massive amounts of caffeine?

Rupert · 07-14-2006, 01:20 AM

In my experience this isn't enough if you're simply unable to stay awake.

Flyingwombat, you may want to consider seeing a doctor about that, if it's happening outside gaming, and/or at a particular time of day, as it could be a symptom of some more serious problem.

whswhs · 07-14-2006, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Massive amounts of caffeine?

Not everyone can do that. I've cut down to 10 ounces of caffeinated soda a day, to help lessen the effects of acid reflux. One dose in the morning and that's it.

Kyle Aaron · 09-04-2006, 08:27 PM

Digging up this thread, since I've seen over on rpg.net that there's another group a bit like Stoddard's. It seems they don't have a person like him organising things, but the same basic principle is being applied - a circle of about twenty people, with various campaigns happening.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plume

I'm firmly convinced that's part of the secret to gaming success--not feeling pressured to take everything that comes along, or even a lot that comes along, because the group has to have you in it or it doesn't work.

flyingwombat · 09-05-2006, 02:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Bob

No offence, flyingwombat, but I do think that remaining conscious is a pretty small thing for a game group to ask of a player.

None taken. I quite agree. I have taken to naps before going to a game and so on. I happen to have a legitimate medical condition. I have been diagnosed with sleep apnea. I am to get treated for it in 2 weeks.

quarkstomper · 09-11-2006, 06:00 PM

This is a brief prospectus I passed around my group last weekend. Our current Infinity campaign is starting to tire and I want to start planning the Next Big Thing:

Dungeons & Dragons: You go into a dungeon; you kill the monsters; you take their gold. Old School hack 'n' slash the way God and Gary Gygax intended it.

Castaways: The good news is: you have been selected to be on a reality TV show where you compete against other contestants on a desert island. The bad news is: all the cameramen and TV people have disappeared and you find yourself cut off from civilization. Can you team up to survive with your fellow castaways and discover the secrets of the island? Yes, this is another LOST riff.

Spooky Crimes Unit: The city has really been going to hell since the ghosts and demons started appearing around town. That's why the mayor set up the "Special Crimes Unit" of the police department. It consists of police officers who have shown supernatural talents and abilities; mundane officers who have experience facing supernatural horrors on the street and don't scare easily; talented civilians who have been given crash training in police procedures; and supernatural criminals who have been given the option of "community service".

The Justice Friends: This is your basic super-hero team. You have powers beyond those of mortal men. The logical thing to do is get a costume and join the local super-hero team and fight the Forces of Evil.

Planet Mongo: Pulp adventure in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs. You find yourself on another world where alien creatures and strange beings dwell and people seem to wear a lot of skimpy clothing. Action and danger and six-legged thoats abound!

I had my group rate each one on a scale of 1 to 5. "Spooky Crimes Unit" and "Justice Friends" got the highest ratings; "Planet Mongo" to lowest. (The fact that I didn't give as clear an idea what that setting would be about might have something to do with that.) My wife Lute is lobbying for "Castaway" (which had a fairly high rating too) because the last two solo games I ran with her were a supers game and a horror game and she'd prefer something different. The big drawback with "Castaway" is that it will require more prep work than I usually put into games. But if I do it right, it should be fun.

whswhs · 09-11-2006, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by quarkstomper

Dungeons & Dragons:

Castaways:

Spooky Crimes Unit:

The Justice Friends:

Planet Mongo:

I had my group rate each one on a scale of 1 to 5.

I would rate Spooky Crimes Unit at 4, The Justice Friends at 3, Planet Mongo at 2, and the other two at 1. But only because you don't seem to allow a 0 rating for "I'd rather sit out the next N months than play that." If you allowed that rating, Dungeons & Dragons would get it from me.

Pmandrekar · 09-11-2006, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whswhs

But only because you don't seem to allow a 0 rating for "I'd rather sit out the next N months than play that." If you allowed that rating, Dungeons & Dragons would get it from me.

My game group occasionally suggests doing something like the Hack and Slash Treasure Grab campaign. My reaction to that is that if I'm just going to wander into places without context, to kill things and take their stuff, I might as well play the *same* game on the computer (a la Neverwinter Nights+both expansions). My thinking is that rather than invest in learning the game system, if there's no plot, I might as well have the computer do all of my combat resolution, and the computer has some graphics representing my actions and the monsters...

Best of all, with the miracle of the internet, and online games, I can team up with friends to play this game without leaving my home. Without getting out of my pajamas.

My point that I'm making is that if you're going to get people out of their homes and to some location to game *face to face*, you probably should take advantage of that medium. Roleplaying games (the pen and paper kinds) allow GM's and players to interact with each other in character, to put themselves into the situation more immersively, I feel, than any computerized system will be able to do.

So, I have to agree with whswhs here. If the object of a pen and paper RPG is going to be to just walk into a subterranean cavern that has no context, no interpersonal interaction, no storyline, you might as well play a computer game.

Not to say that any one type of game or another is necessarily *better*. When I feel like teaming up with friends and bringing down a Dracolich online, that's exactly what I do. I'm the Captain of a elvish battle guild on a server running Neverwinter Nights...

But then, I insist that my in-face RPG's consist of a little more in the plot and the interpersonal interaction department...

By the same token, the "Spooky Crimes Unit" Campaign looks like it has a *lot* of potential for interaction, mystery, intrigue, as well as sending the Beasts back to the Hellmouth that they belong in.

Professor Phobos · 09-14-2006, 09:41 AM

Here's the tentative prospectus I'm writing up for my game. My three-year Buffy game may well come to a close within the year, and I usually like to tinker and prepare a campaign for months in advance, doing a little work every so often, so I'd like to get an idea as to what my players want beforehand.

Still, the prospectus is too long, so maybe y'all can help me trim some of 'em. It's also not entirely honest- the Dogs in the Vineyard campaign is basically guaranteed to happen, because I have the burning desire to run that game, but it wouldn't be very long. There's also the option of extending my Buffy game or doing a spin-off, but I might veto that as I'm burning out on the characters and the setting I constructed. Anyway, here are the ideas I'm kicking around now...

1. Undying Mars: After the End Times, a small group of human survivors ekes out a ragged existence on Mars. Campaign will be a mix of science fiction, post-apocalyptic survival and cosmic horror. Characters will be dissidents, unconvinced that Mission Command has the interests of humanity at heart. Events will eventually move to the devastated Earth. System: Call of Cthulhu.

2. The Most Logical Thing in the World: Delta Green is an unofficial conspiracy within the Federal government to combat the forces of the Mythos. Characters will make up a full Delta Green cell and attached friendlies. Emphasis on "personal apocalypse", cosmic horror, and investigation. System: Call of Cthulhu.

3. Insomniacs Anonymous: The characters are all regular, normal people in a modern day American city. The only thing tying them together is that for the last several months, they have been unable to sleep without being completely exhausted or sedated. But they do dream, and they have all just met one another at an Insomniac Support Group to discover that they've been having the same dreams of a strange old man and a dog-headed girl. System: Unknown Armies.

4. Driftwood: A frontier boomtown on Poseidon is the home of smugglers, freelance Long John miners, two rival incorporates, a handful of GEO Deputy Marshals, and a rapidly brewing native insurgency. Combine it with a run of aborigine sightings and a Haven University field team investigating them, and you have an interesting town to be in. Emphasis on individual character arcs and development. Troupe-style play as the players will take on the roles of multiple characters, alternating between them as necessary. Inspiration: Deadwood. System: Blue Planet.

5. The Books of Life: You are Dogs, sworn to the King of Life. You travel the lands of the Faithful dispensing justice and judging the sins and false doctrines of your fellow men and women on the great frontier, before the railroads and sinful ways of Back East come out West to corrupt the Faith. This is a short campaign, focusing on themes of justice, judgement and morality. System: Dogs in the Vineyard.

6. Age of Blasphemy: A group of Imperial Inquisitors and Knights are summoned to a small monastery in the Grey Mountains, to investigate reports that a man rose from his grave. There they confront the first harbinger of the Age of Blasphemy, when the dead rise and all mankind will be destroyed by the forces of darkness as the natural order is disrupted. This is a Dungeons and Zombies game, in a homebrew, semi-generic fantasy world. Inspiration: The Malazzan Books of the Fallen, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Black Company, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Baldur's Gate. System: Unisystem.

7. Battlestar Romero: This is an All Tomorrow's Zombies game set onboard a rag-tag, fugitive fleet fleeing the destruction of their homeworld and pursued by the slavering undead. Inspiration: Battlestar Galactica. System: Unisystem.

8. [Untitled Exalted Game]: This is a Dragon-blooded game; the characters are all part of the same noble house as the Realm falls apart into chaos. Alliances, backstabbing, political maneuvering, warfare, and all that good stuff. System: Exalted.

9. Voyages of the Shining Beetle: The characters are all the crew (or passengers) of the trading vessel the Shining Beetle. Plying the waters of the Old World, you'll trade with Imperial manufacturies, Araby spice merchants, Bretonnian tailors and even visit far off Cathay. Naturally, you'll run almost continually into trouble as you struggle to make a living. Inspiration: Firefly, Discworld. System: Warhammer FRP.

10. Secrets of Freedom City: The Freedom League- the world's premier team of superheroes, champions and heroes. You are not members of the Freedom League. You are reformed (or coerced) supervillains, antiheroes, rogue covert operations specialists and officially dead men. You are the Shadow League, and your job is to keep the countless conspiracies and secret threats to the world at bay, to protect the League from threats it cannot perceive, to do its dirty work when public disclosure would be impossible and, if necessary, to destroy the League if it ever became a threat. Inspiration: Justice League Elite. System: Mutants and Masterminds.

11. New York Anthology: This is a troupe-style World of Darkness game set in New York (alternatively, Chicago or LA, whatever you want). Players will have Mortal, Werewolf, Mage and Vampire PCs and stories will rotate between them, intersecting when appropriate. Emphasis on horror, though in different styles depending on each critter type. System: Storytelling.

12. Cold Space: Antigravity is discovered in the 40s. The Soviets steal it and the Cold War is off...in space as well as on Earth. FTL follows swiftly, and it is an interplanetary alternate history. Campaign will start in 1949, and proceed all the way to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, with new characters brought in when old ones die or retire. The basic point is to indulge our inner contemporary history geek, only with spaceships. System: GURPS or Unisystem.

07-13-2006, 11:29 PM	#41
Kyle Aaron MIB Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Melbourne, Australia	Re: Sample prospectus No offence, flyingwombat, but I do think that remaining conscious is a pretty small thing for a game group to ask of a player. __________________ * husband * father * personal trainer * gamer * ... in that order "Kyle's games aren't remotely thespy... I'd say they're more high-minded hack."

07-14-2006, 01:20 AM	#43
Rupert Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Wellington, NZ	Re: Sample prospectus In my experience this isn't enough if you're simply unable to stay awake. Flyingwombat, you may want to consider seeing a doctor about that, if it's happening outside gaming, and/or at a particular time of day, as it could be a symptom of some more serious problem. __________________ Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."

09-11-2006, 06:00 PM	#47
quarkstomper Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: The Enchanted Land-O-Cheese	Re: Sample prospectus This is a brief prospectus I passed around my group last weekend. Our current Infinity campaign is starting to tire and I want to start planning the Next Big Thing: Dungeons & Dragons: You go into a dungeon; you kill the monsters; you take their gold. Old School hack 'n' slash the way God and Gary Gygax intended it. Castaways: The good news is: you have been selected to be on a reality TV show where you compete against other contestants on a desert island. The bad news is: all the cameramen and TV people have disappeared and you find yourself cut off from civilization. Can you team up to survive with your fellow castaways and discover the secrets of the island? Yes, this is another LOST riff. Spooky Crimes Unit: The city has really been going to hell since the ghosts and demons started appearing around town. That's why the mayor set up the "Special Crimes Unit" of the police department. It consists of police officers who have shown supernatural talents and abilities; mundane officers who have experience facing supernatural horrors on the street and don't scare easily; talented civilians who have been given crash training in police procedures; and supernatural criminals who have been given the option of "community service". The Justice Friends: This is your basic super-hero team. You have powers beyond those of mortal men. The logical thing to do is get a costume and join the local super-hero team and fight the Forces of Evil. Planet Mongo: Pulp adventure in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs. You find yourself on another world where alien creatures and strange beings dwell and people seem to wear a lot of skimpy clothing. Action and danger and six-legged thoats abound! I had my group rate each one on a scale of 1 to 5. "Spooky Crimes Unit" and "Justice Friends" got the highest ratings; "Planet Mongo" to lowest. (The fact that I didn't give as clear an idea what that setting would be about might have something to do with that.) My wife Lute is lobbying for "Castaway" (which had a fairly high rating too) because the last two solo games I ran with her were a supers game and a horror game and she'd prefer something different. The big drawback with "Castaway" is that it will require more prep work than I usually put into games. But if I do it right, it should be fun.

09-14-2006, 09:41 AM	#50
Professor Phobos Join Date: Dec 2005	Re: Sample prospectus Here's the tentative prospectus I'm writing up for my game. My three-year Buffy game may well come to a close within the year, and I usually like to tinker and prepare a campaign for months in advance, doing a little work every so often, so I'd like to get an idea as to what my players want beforehand. Still, the prospectus is too long, so maybe y'all can help me trim some of 'em. It's also not entirely honest- the Dogs in the Vineyard campaign is basically guaranteed to happen, because I have the burning desire to run that game, but it wouldn't be very long. There's also the option of extending my Buffy game or doing a spin-off, but I might veto that as I'm burning out on the characters and the setting I constructed. Anyway, here are the ideas I'm kicking around now... 1. Undying Mars: After the End Times, a small group of human survivors ekes out a ragged existence on Mars. Campaign will be a mix of science fiction, post-apocalyptic survival and cosmic horror. Characters will be dissidents, unconvinced that Mission Command has the interests of humanity at heart. Events will eventually move to the devastated Earth. System: Call of Cthulhu. 2. The Most Logical Thing in the World: Delta Green is an unofficial conspiracy within the Federal government to combat the forces of the Mythos. Characters will make up a full Delta Green cell and attached friendlies. Emphasis on "personal apocalypse", cosmic horror, and investigation. System: Call of Cthulhu. 3. Insomniacs Anonymous: The characters are all regular, normal people in a modern day American city. The only thing tying them together is that for the last several months, they have been unable to sleep without being completely exhausted or sedated. But they do dream, and they have all just met one another at an Insomniac Support Group to discover that they've been having the same dreams of a strange old man and a dog-headed girl. System: Unknown Armies. 4. Driftwood: A frontier boomtown on Poseidon is the home of smugglers, freelance Long John miners, two rival incorporates, a handful of GEO Deputy Marshals, and a rapidly brewing native insurgency. Combine it with a run of aborigine sightings and a Haven University field team investigating them, and you have an interesting town to be in. Emphasis on individual character arcs and development. Troupe-style play as the players will take on the roles of multiple characters, alternating between them as necessary. Inspiration: Deadwood. System: Blue Planet. 5. The Books of Life: You are Dogs, sworn to the King of Life. You travel the lands of the Faithful dispensing justice and judging the sins and false doctrines of your fellow men and women on the great frontier, before the railroads and sinful ways of Back East come out West to corrupt the Faith. This is a short campaign, focusing on themes of justice, judgement and morality. System: Dogs in the Vineyard. 6. Age of Blasphemy: A group of Imperial Inquisitors and Knights are summoned to a small monastery in the Grey Mountains, to investigate reports that a man rose from his grave. There they confront the first harbinger of the Age of Blasphemy, when the dead rise and all mankind will be destroyed by the forces of darkness as the natural order is disrupted. This is a Dungeons and Zombies game, in a homebrew, semi-generic fantasy world. Inspiration: The Malazzan Books of the Fallen, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Black Company, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Baldur's Gate. System: Unisystem. 7. Battlestar Romero: This is an All Tomorrow's Zombies game set onboard a rag-tag, fugitive fleet fleeing the destruction of their homeworld and pursued by the slavering undead. Inspiration: Battlestar Galactica. System: Unisystem. 8. [Untitled Exalted Game]: This is a Dragon-blooded game; the characters are all part of the same noble house as the Realm falls apart into chaos. Alliances, backstabbing, political maneuvering, warfare, and all that good stuff. System: Exalted. 9. Voyages of the Shining Beetle: The characters are all the crew (or passengers) of the trading vessel the Shining Beetle. Plying the waters of the Old World, you'll trade with Imperial manufacturies, Araby spice merchants, Bretonnian tailors and even visit far off Cathay. Naturally, you'll run almost continually into trouble as you struggle to make a living. Inspiration: Firefly, Discworld. System: Warhammer FRP. 10. Secrets of Freedom City: The Freedom League- the world's premier team of superheroes, champions and heroes. You are not members of the Freedom League. You are reformed (or coerced) supervillains, antiheroes, rogue covert operations specialists and officially dead men. You are the Shadow League, and your job is to keep the countless conspiracies and secret threats to the world at bay, to protect the League from threats it cannot perceive, to do its dirty work when public disclosure would be impossible and, if necessary, to destroy the League if it ever became a threat. Inspiration: Justice League Elite. System: Mutants and Masterminds. 11. New York Anthology: This is a troupe-style World of Darkness game set in New York (alternatively, Chicago or LA, whatever you want). Players will have Mortal, Werewolf, Mage and Vampire PCs and stories will rotate between them, intersecting when appropriate. Emphasis on horror, though in different styles depending on each critter type. System: Storytelling. 12. Cold Space: Antigravity is discovered in the 40s. The Soviets steal it and the Cold War is off...in space as well as on Earth. FTL follows swiftly, and it is an interplanetary alternate history. Campaign will start in 1949, and proceed all the way to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, with new characters brought in when old ones die or retire. The basic point is to indulge our inner contemporary history geek, only with spaceships. System: GURPS or Unisystem.