another campaign prospectus

[whswhs]

It seems to have been a long time since I posted one of my lists of proposed campaigns; I don't see one for late 2022, the last time I set up a new cycle. But I'm planning to distribute one in about a month, so here's my draft list, for anyone who's curious.

What I do is have prospective players assign points to the proposals according to their interest, with total points equal to 2x the number of offerings (in this case, 14 points). Players can bid 0 points for a campaign they don't want to play in at all, and then I won't have them play in it. (In principle, a player could bid all 14 points for one campaign, but if no one else liked that campaign they'd sit out the cycle.) Then I'll pick a set of campaigns that have all the players in campaigns they like. In the past I've almost always been able to put players in campaigns they assigned 3+ points to.

I try to have offerings in varied genres, and using varied rules systems. Typically I end up running one campaign focused on action and adventure, one focused on relationships and roleplaying, and sometimes a third campaign that departs in some other direction.

Here's the list:

_____ Capital. Contemporary fantasy/pulp science fiction. Mage: The Ascension. Source material: Mage: The Ascension; Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley; Gladiator, by Philip Wylie; Darker than You Think, by Jack Williamson; The Man of Bronze by Lester Dent; “The New Accelerator,” by H.G. Wells; The Prestige.
A campaign whose heroes come from the Order of Reason rather than the Nine Traditions, set in London, the center of the British Empire and of international finance and the home of the Royal Society, shortly after the start of the twentieth century. Enlightened scientists will explore strange new worlds and protect ordinary people against natural and social aberrations. Extraordinary abilities and inventions will use the Spheres, but with Society taking the place of Prime, and with a much stronger requirement for material foci.

_____ Demobbed. Streetlevel supers/noir. Absolute Power. Source material: JSA: The Liberty File; Planetary; Top Ten: The Forty-Niners; early Fantastic Four; Wild Cards by George R.R. Martin et al.; Captain America: The First Avenger; The Defenders (Netflix series); Gone for Soldiers by Marge Piercy.
It’s 1945, and the boys (and girls) with special powers are coming home from the war. How will they fit into civilian life in a world at peace? Player characters will be streetlevel supers—not necessarily “superheroes,” but generally inclined to obey the law, protect the innocent, and help the helpless. The focus of play will be partly on superheroic combat and partly on inventing a role for people with strange powers and abilities. Combat will be realistic and death will be possible, as will legal consequences for going too far with your abilities.

_____ Heritage. Gothic. Vampire: The Masquerade. Source material: Dracula, by Bram Stoker; Crimson Peak; The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy Sayers; The Age of Illusion, by Ronald Blythe.
In the years following the Great War, the children of Jonathan and Mina Harker have reached adolescence or young adulthood, and at least their oldest son Quincy is a veteran of the war. Now all of them are common to terms with various peculiar gifts, and some of them with associated disabilities, while puzzling over the secrets of their parents’ past, amid the complexities of postwar British society. At least most player characters will be among them, and will have modest vampiric Disciplines. Play will focus as much on passions and internal conflicts as on adventures and covert activities. There will not be an ancient, world-spanning society of undead lurking behind the scenes of mortal life.

_____ Manse II. Historical fantasy. Big Eyes Small Mouth. Source material: Exalted; The Abhorsen novels by Garth Nix; the Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peake.
Continuation of a previous campaign about an isolated community ruled by sorcerous aristocrats in the midst of a landscaper of wild magic. A decade later, young people from that community will be going out into the wilderness to found a second community. Play will be "troupe-style," with each player having several characters from different social strata. Some characters will have access to magical spells. Players will design their own magical traditions and family customs, taking into account the continuity of the earlier campaign. Players from that campaign will have priority, but there will be some room for new players.

_____ Science Heroes! Four-color supers. Hero System. Source material: pre-World War II superhero comics; the Wold Newton chronicles; The Phantom; Planetary; The Man of Bronze by Lester Dent; At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft.
In the 1930s, the first costumed adventurers have begun to appear, as a byproduct of sciences ranging from archaeology to mechanics to zoology—but they aren't evenly distributed geographically. One of the centers for this sort of activity is Arkham, Massachusetts, on the banks of the Miskatonic River. Player characters will be Arkhamites who have powers and abilities beyond those of mortal men contending with street crime, mad scientists, supernatural powers and principalities, and other threats to society. Power levels will be modestly superhuman; powers will be based on science, from archaeology to zoology, including fringe sciences such as cryptozoology and parapsychology. The setting will not be based on the Cthulhu mythos.

_____ Shadowlands. Near future apocalyptic weird/dark fantasy. World of Darkness: Sorceror. Source material: the Cthulhu mythos, by H.P. Lovecraft and others; “Waldo,” by Robert Heinlein; Conjure Wife, by Fritz Leiber; Dies the Fire, by S.M. Stirling; the Laundry Files, by Charles Stross; Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand; Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis.
About a decade from now, human civilizations are faced with a new dark age brought on by the progressive failure of technology. In a small city in the United States, people are doing their best to survive as machines and medical treatments become unreliable, and some of them turn to the supernatural as an alternative. Town residents will have to deal with threats to survival, lawlessness, and supernatural incursions. Scenarios will include some combat but will have more emphasis on investigation and problem-solving.

_____ Trucking. Science fiction. GURPS. Source material: Jupiter Project by Gregory Benford; April by Mackey Chandler; Space Cadet and The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein; Learning the World by Ken MacLeod; Planetes.
In a remote solar system, human star travelers have established colonies on several planets of two stars, while retaining the slower-than-light starships that brought them as orbital habitats and manufacturing centers. A small fleet of spacecraft link the worlds together, and young people are trained as their “drivers.” A new class begin their studies on the orbital habitat, contending with an unfamiliar environment, a challenging curriculum, and their own political and cultural divergences.

(There's a small chance any comments might inspire me to drop one of the listed options, or to add another one. There's a larger chance they might show me where one of my descriptions needs to be improved. Beyond that, I'm interested to see what people like and dislike.)

[Mark Skarr]

I'm pretty simple, and, really, none of this should be too much of a surprise.

0 Capital
5 Demobbed
0 Heritage
0 Manse II
4 Science Heroes!
2 Shadowlands
3 Trucking

For Capital and Heritage, I'm just not a big fan of WoD. I know Shadowlands is WoD, but that seems strange/unusual enough that I'd be willing to give it a shot. For Manse, I'm not a fan of historical fantasy.

I'm also weird, in that, while I'd rather not play any of the ones that I gave a 0 to, if those were chosen by the group, I would suck it up and play, none of them are game-breakers for me. (Becuase, unlike Mr. Stoddard, most of us don't have that large a pool of players to draw from.)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

I'm pretty simple, and, really, none of this should be too much of a surprise.

0 Capital
5 Demobbed
0 Heritage
0 Manse II
4 Science Heroes!
2 Shadowlands
3 Trucking

For Capital and Heritage, I'm just not a big fan of WoD. I know Shadowlands is WoD, but that seems strange/unusual enough that I'd be willing to give it a shot. For Manse, I'm not a fan of historical fantasy.

So this time, at least, the proposed supers campaigns appeal to you most. Is that a common preference of yours?

Heritage is actually NOT a WoD campaign, if by that you mean a campaign that uses the WoD as a setting. It's intended to use Storyteller mechanics, but not the WoD history or cosmology. I'm not sure if that was unclear to you (which would suggest I need to make it clearer in the description!) or if you object to the mechanics as such.

I'm also weird, in that, while I'd rather not play any of the ones that I gave a 0 to, if those were chosen by the group, I would suck it up and play, none of them are game-breakers for me. (Becuase, unlike Mr. Stoddard, most of us don't have that large a pool of players to draw from.)

If I got your questionnaire, the only way you would be excluded would be if both, or all three subsequent campaigns were ones you had given zero points to. The chance of that numerically would be 3/7 x 2/6 = 1/7, or 3/7 x 2/6 x 1/5 = 1/35. But in fact, I would expect to have enough correlation between Capital, Heritage, and Shadowlands that I would not run more than one of them (or at most two out of three), which would make the odds a bit lower. I have never had to exclude a player because all the campaigns I ended up running had 0 points on their bid sheet. In fact I've never had a player end up in a campaign to which they gave less than 2 points, and rarely even that low.

As for size of player pool, I would have very little player pool if I were insisting on face to face; I've had very little luck in recruiting players here in Kansas. So I'm running things via Zoom. But that allows me to retain my San Diego circle (which includes people who now live in Nevada and Washington, having moved). The size of my circle is restricted not by geography, but by how much time I have for gaming. (Though I do have one former player who will not return, because apparently the thought of taking part in Zoom gives him the horrors—so much that he insists that his roommate go somewhere else to play in one of my current campaigns. People are strange!)

In any case, thanks for the responses. Always interesting to see what people choose, and why.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by whswhs

So this time, at least, the proposed supers campaigns appeal to you most. Is that a common preference of yours?

Yes. I'm a huge supers fan.

Originally Posted by whswhs

Heritage is actually NOT a WoD campaign, if by that you mean a campaign that uses the WoD as a setting. It's intended to use Storyteller mechanics, but not the WoD history or cosmology. I'm not sure if that was unclear to you (which would suggest I need to make it clearer in the description!) or if you object to the mechanics as such.

I got that it wasn't WoD, but, I'm not a fan of the WoD/Storyteller mechanics. I do, actually, find their world interesting, just not their mechanics. Shadowlands seems interesting enough that I would be willing to deal with the mechanics to give it a try, but it wouldn't be my first choice.

Originally Posted by whswhs

As for size of player pool, I would have very little player pool if I were insisting on face to face; I've had very little luck in recruiting players here in Kansas. So I'm running things via Zoom. But that allows me to retain my San Diego circle (which includes people who now live in Nevada and Washington, having moved). The size of my circle is restricted not by geography, but by how much time I have for gaming. (Though I do have one former player who will not return, because apparently the thought of taking part in Zoom gives him the horrors—so much that he insists that his roommate go somewhere else to play in one of my current campaigns. People are strange!)

Absolutely! My pool has dwindled quite a bit, but, we're always open to more. We play through Discord and Tabletop Simulator.

Embrace technology. Embrace your AI overlord!

Originally Posted by whswhs

In any case, thanks for the responses. Always interesting to see what people choose, and why.

Always happy to see what your running and see how I would rate them.

[RogerBW]

For calibration, I haven't been in one of whswhs' games, so for each of these I'm going to assume "if the GM did it in a way I liked, or a way consistent with my best guess as to how whswhs would run it". (For example, I'm not a great fan of superheroes or WoD and wouldn't sign up for a convention game of either with a GM I didn't know, but nor do find them entirely without appeal.)

That said:

Capital: I wouldn't call "shortly after the start of the twentieth century" "contemporary". Could be fun but I'm in a not entirely dissimilar game and another one wouldn't suit my current mood. 2

Demobbed: yeah, I think this might be more interesting than "can Wondrous Man punch Dr Evil into orbit". The setting is appealing particularly as the people who were out at the sharp end come back and see the results of what they were fighting for as done by people who weren't out there with them. 3

Heritage: I enjoy reading Gothic but not sure I'd want to play it. 1

Manse: I've read about the previous iteration of this. Not sure I could keep up with all the social manoeuvres but I'd like to try. 2

Science Heroes! Not really my style and I'd really rather keep Arkham Lovecraftian. 1

Shadowlands: I'd need to be convinced by the technology decay but this kind of transitional setting appeals to me. 2

Trucking: the shape of this will depend a lot on the tech level. Are the "trucks" realistic (i.e. effectively trains, once you've set a course for X you are either going to X or dying in the dark) or more cinematic (you can divert to answer a distress call)? But I'm a sucker for school/learning stories. 3

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

Capital: I wouldn't call "shortly after the start of the twentieth century" "contemporary". Could be fun but I'm in a not entirely dissimilar game and another one wouldn't suit my current mood. 2

A fair point. "Modern" would really be more accurate; I do think of Edwardian as modern.

Demobbed: yeah, I think this might be more interesting than "can Wondrous Man punch Dr Evil into orbit". The setting is appealing particularly as the people who were out at the sharp end come back and see the results of what they were fighting for as done by people who weren't out there with them. 3

Heritage: I enjoy reading Gothic but not sure I'd want to play it. 1

It's the most experimental of my proposals. It might either be wildly popular or totally shunned. I'm curious to find out which.

Manse: I've read about the previous iteration of this. Not sure I could keep up with all the social manoeuvres but I'd like to try. 2

I actually have the complete campaign log for Manse; if you'd like to see it, private message me and I'll send a copy.

Science Heroes! Not really my style and I'd really rather keep Arkham Lovecraftian. 1

Shadowlands: I'd need to be convinced by the technology decay but this kind of transitional setting appeals to me. 2

The key pointer here is the mention of "Waldo." Heinlein suggested there that what amounted to a loss of faith was causing technology to become unreliable. Of course the player characters wouldn't know that!

Trucking: the shape of this will depend a lot on the tech level. Are the "trucks" realistic (i.e. effectively trains, once you've set a course for X you are either going to X or dying in the dark) or more cinematic (you can divert to answer a distress call)? But I'm a sucker for school/learning stories. 3

Well, I'm experimenting with the non-cinematic options in GURPS Spaceships to design a fleet, and I'm using actual orbital mechanics to figure how much delta-V is needed for various maneuvers, at least to a first-order approximation. (It turned out that the figures in GURPS Spaceships don't really work for that.) I expect that the first part of the campaign will focus on flights in near orbits of the primary colonized planet, where there's more chance of correcting an error; later on we'll look at interplanetary flights and even flights between planets of the two different stars. I'm thinking about what the curriculum would be and how to map it to GURPS skills . . .

It seems to me that your strongest preference looks to be for realistic campaigns, or at least campaigns with a realistic aesthetic?

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I actually have the complete campaign log for Manse; if you'd like to see it, private message me and I'll send a copy.

You've actually sent me this before, but thanks.

Originally Posted by whswhs

Well, I'm experimenting with the non-cinematic options in GURPS Spaceships to design a fleet, and I'm using actual orbital mechanics to figure how much delta-V is needed for various maneuvers, at least to a first-order approximation. (It turned out that the figures in GURPS Spaceships don't really work for that.) I expect that the first part of the campaign will focus on flights in near orbits of the primary colonized planet, where there's more chance of correcting an error; later on we'll look at interplanetary flights and even flights between planets of the two different stars. I'm thinking about what the curriculum would be and how to map it to GURPS skills . . .

I have some notes on skills in a Royal Navy in space game which started with naval training (which I built off Back to School in the first place) at https://tekeli.li/wives-and-sweethearts/ .I generally do interplanetary dV somewhere between Hohmann and brachistochrone.

Originally Posted by whswhs

It seems to me that your strongest preference looks to be for realistic campaigns, or at least campaigns with a realistic aesthetic?

I think that's fair. A complex character, which is what I like to play, is IMO best if they have a complex world to interact with, which tends in turn to "feel" realistic even if it isn't.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

I have some notes on skills in a Royal Navy in space game which started with naval training (which I built off Back to School in the first place) at https://tekeli.li/wives-and-sweethearts/ .I generally do interplanetary dV somewhere between Hohmann and brachistochrone.

Yes, actually I've visited that site several times and read much of it. It's one of my inspirations for the way I want this campaign to go.

I think that's fair. A complex character, which is what I like to play, is IMO best if they have a complex world to interact with, which tends in turn to "feel" realistic even if it isn't.

That's very much how I feel. My current GURPS campaign is set on a future Mars in the Shikaku-Mon timeline, in a Brazilian colony that I took from City Stats; the player characters have detailed personal histories and a complex family history going back two generations. And the one before that was an anthropological fantasy campaign in a Bronze Age milieu, where among other things I worked out the plate tectonics so that I knew where the tin deposits would be . . . Long, long ago, a player who is still with me said, "Bill, there are national governments that keep fewer statistics than you do!"—which is hyperbole but delighted me.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Capital

Does "Capital" here only refer to London, or is it a pun where it also refers to investment capital? You mention finance, so I assume the latter.


I've never played MtA. I find it interesting that almost every game you list has a different system attatched to it. I do think MtA is a lot more appealing than VtM or most of the other associated systems. Its also a fun theme. Though in some ways that's just because its open ended.

Demobbed.

I've never heard of the system before. I'm somewhat curious WHERE the game would be set, and how big of a role the military would play: does it start with folks doing occupation in europe, on a ship crossing the pacific, or with the first hug back home? Is it in a more rural setting, somewhat urban, or in an iconic big city?

All my questions would seem to indicate I like this one... potentially.

Heritage.

Not especially interested. Found a typo:

Now all of them are common to terms with various peculiar gifts

Manse II

I've heard good things about the system, and its the sort of campaign that I love. There's LOTs of questions, but all of them seem to be related to "Previous Campaign", which means someone getting into this should know they won't be able to learn everything in a short prospectus.

Science Heroes!

I'd personally want a better description of the "Supernatural Powers"... is this inspired by the mythos but different, or are faeries and ghosts on the table? Maybe you want to keep that secret, but I'd personally like to know what I'm getting into. And the answer to that question really effects my answer, I have a dislike of the underlying attitudes and feel of the mythos.

Shadowlands

Did the supernatural end things or is it reemerging as things end? Not especially interested.

Trucking

Sounds fun. Any superscience or is it all hard science? How transhumanist is it? what's the general tech paradigm? This is probably my favorite.


calling an Interstellar vessel an "Orbital" habitat is a bit weird. Its not orbiting: its going back and forth between two stars under acceleration.

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by ericthered

calling an Interstellar vessel an "Orbital" habitat is a bit weird. Its not orbiting: its going back and forth between two stars under acceleration.

From the description, the old STL colony ships aren't moving at all, save in orbit around a couple of the worlds; it's the smaller ships, the "trucking" fleet, that goes between them. The ships/orbital habitats are used as space stations, basically, and appear to be vital to (among other things) training the crews of the "trucks".