the next cycle

[whswhs]

Here in Lawrence, I've put together a campaign with three local players, though as yet we're meeting via Zoom. Satanic Mills is a Buffyverse campaign, set in Manchester in 1835—two years before Victoria's accession, and at the height of Manchester's economic growth and political radicalism. The three characters are a young middle class heiress who has been left in charge of a charity hospital, and two gentry: a young man who aspires to join the Royal Society, and an older army veteran who saw a bit too much in West Africa.

My long running campaign Tapestry has come to its climax and is due for its dénouement next month, so I'm circulating prospectuses among its players. I invited in one other old player who has moved to the Seattle area; but I've also gotten expressions of interest from three other players—two in the San Diego area, and C here in Lawrence. This is likely to result in my running two remote campaigns a month. That's probably a good thing, as the prospective players have quite disparate tastes: several of them favor dark fantasy campaigns and don't want science fiction, but a couple are enthusiastic about the science fiction and don't want any hint of horror. I could probably compromise on Mage: The Ascension, but I couldn't fit in everyone, and it's a second or third choice for most of the applicants—and it would also be set in Great Britain, though in London in 1905, just after Victoria's death. So I think it may be preferable to have two player groups in two remote campaigns.

[Polydamas]

How did you go about finding local players in a new city during a respiratory pandemic?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

How did you go about finding local players in a new city during a respiratory pandemic?

I discussed it with my friend who has lived here for years and years, and he recommended three people to me, two of whom signed up. Originally we were going to meet face to face, but my friend became uneasy, so for now we're Zooming.

[dcarson]

Is Tapestry the campaign with all the non human races?

Do you have templates for all those races anywhere, I think I could use some of them for a campaign I want to run.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Is Tapestry the campaign with all the non human races?

Do you have templates for all those races anywhere, I think I could use some of them for a campaign I want to run.

I have not only templates but multipage descriptions, including the cinematic skills and the Paths or Books favored by each race, and the major culture areas. If you'll PM me with your e-mail address I'd be glad to send you the lot.

One of the things I did, by the way, was to look for analogies between the races and various mammal species: dwarves to naked mole rats, elves to gibbons, ghouls to hyenas, men to horses, nixies to otters or beavers, selkies to sea lions, trolls to bears. Not that they were hybrids or evolved versions of the respective species, but that I went for behavioral analogies.

[whswhs]

I've now gotten back all the prospectuses, including three extras that I sent to interested players. I've looked over the results carefully, and settled on two campaigns.

The Gate of Horn was the most popular campaign, with seven of the nine applicants rating it at 3 or higher (where 2 is an average score). It's a dream fantasy campaign where all the player characters are people with lucid dreaming and more advanced abilities, who will meet in the dream realm—and maybe eventually in the waking world.

However, the other two players rated it at 0 and 1, so I needed to find another campaign to run (and nine players would have been too many anyhow).

One of the other campaigns got a zero rating from everyone. Another was liked by the same people as liked The Gate of Horn, but all of them rated The Gate of Horn equally high or higher, so I set it aside. Of the other four, the two science fiction ones were the favorites of the two remaining players. I wanted a bigger player group, so I looked at players who rated them nearly as high as The Gate of Horn. I found two players who rated each of them just one point lower: 2 and 2 for Omicron Polypi, set in a distant solar system, and 2 and 3 for Fronteira, set on Mars.

I'll be running The Gate of Horn in FUDGE, and Fronteira in GURPS. For Fronteira, I'll be drawing on GURPS Mars; GURPS City Stats for Pavonis Portal; GURPS Alternate Earths for the Shikaku-Mon timeline (with an Earth dominated by Brazil, France, Japan, and Sweden); GURPS Future History; and GURPS Ultra-Tech more generally.