A peek behind the curtain at some campaign prep ideas from my campaign, a while ago.
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Category: My Game Ideas
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End of the World
Recently I’ve had strange thoughts cross pollinating and thought I’d share. The common theme is the end of the world– in a transformative way.
The idea was inserted into my brain by Joshua’s quick overview of Children of Men. That, in turn, brought back memories of Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, a different book about a humanity that just stops reproducing and slowly dwindles. It’s a cool look at cloning and social biases– not on the same point as Children of Men (as I understand it), but closely related.
Recently I’ve been reading The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure, a book about the Wraeththu. After reading some good critiques of the original series and overall setup, I know I’m reading the new book with a somewhat tainted mind, but it’s still interesting. In the backstory, a successor race (the Wraeththu) emerges from the midst of humanity and starts competing and killing it off. It’s kind of a “vampire/zombie plague” like spread, and is a fascinating look at the struggle between humanity’s remnants and its heirs.
In that, it reminded me of Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear. In Darwin’s Radio, a few people giving birth to Homo Sapien’s (assumed) successor, strange children with talents as different from us as we are different from Neanderthals.
The other thread it sparked was the fantasy twist– the Patryns and Sartan from the Death Gate Cycle. They too are descended from humanity, grow up in its midst, and eventually blow up and recreate the world in a new pattern. (That’s all backstory!) The Deryni series is another story of insiders… thinking of the Wraeththu and Patryns and Sartan makes me wonder if their history, shadowed and paralleling the larger humanity’s, would also work.
So, five or six threads came to mind, none of which match together smoothly. The Deyrni are different from the rest– but always close to my heart I guess– I’ll set them aside. The rest are about a huge upheaval, the changing of the world.
On further thought, I can think of one RPG that kind of fits this mold– including the ambivalent role of a newly emerging superrace. White Wolf’s Aberrant is reputedly straight on target– super beings emerge in a relatively “realistic” world of today. It’s a bit like X-men (at least the movie versions I’m familiar with), with their interactions in larger society a little strained, with everyone trying to figure out how to pigeon hole them.
I wonder if an interactive history style game would work. For the first four ideas (humanity dies out, what replaces it), it’d be interesting to have a general timeline [maybe play out society wide stuff Reign or Aria style], then dip into specific characters at times of crisis in the history. So maybe start with a short series centered on the eruption of the alternate race, with the PCs playing both sides of the fence. Then hop forward a few decades or centuries and play characters in the new situation, as the balance between the new and old changes.
Anyway, I’m not actively planning anything along these lines at the moment– strangely, this came up just as I was studying the very heroic Spirit of the Century. I wonder if my interest is as a balance to the optimism of the pulps. Or just getting hit with similar plot ideas several times in succession.
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Resources for my game
I’ve updated the D&D links page with character resources for the game. Other useful resources include:
The Dawn of Worlds PDF
Pen, Paper and Pixel’s Autocalcing Character Sheets
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Pitch Ideas
I have four different pitch ideas; games I think would be fun and I’d be happy to run. Here are my contenders.
Dogs in the Vineyard: It’s the old west, sometime around the middle of the 19th century. You’re Dogs… roving problem solvers and defenders of the faith. You’ve been given your authority by God… what will you do with it?
Primetime Adventures: We get together and pitch shows, until we find one we like and run with it. The potential settings are incredibly broad. The game plays out like TV; it’s not whether the PCs will win, but what they have to give up that’s the core of the show. Will they grow and change, or will their hangups overwhelm them? [Ideal for Buffy or Battlestar Galactica type play.]
2182:The PCs are a Morgan Team; elite agents empowered by the confederacy to keep things running. Teams may battle pirates, bring around recalcitrant rulers, thwart secessionist plots, and discover new worlds. Sleek vessels unfurl delicate Tachyon catching sails, while below, ice is mined in frigid, near vacuum bubbles. The free wheeling sci-fi universe is powered by the FATE system.
Burning Wheel: Two hundred years ago, your people went to war with the elves… and lost. A long occupied province, your culture is unique in the world. Here, elves and men interact more than anywhere else. A few mechants grow rich, their loyalty bought by the elves. In the flickering light of tallow candles whispers of rebellion, of alliance with the Tomi empire, of traitors within the Elvish prince’s guards, of coming war– many whispers are heard. How will you be remembered?
(Details follow)
So, Burning Wheel. When I first read through, this was the setting I came up with immediately. (It’s seriously sketchy still; hopefully a bit more will be done to make a one-sheet & perhaps a map.)
The setting: a long occupied province. A human empire went to war with the elves next door long ago. They lost & their westernmost province was occupied. That was 200 years ago.
This province is unusual– it’s one of the few places a human will ever encounter an elf in a human-style town. The elves are somewhat inflexible– the same people are still running the province.
Here are some setting sparks that worked for me:
a) Snobby elvish “royalty” (like 3rd son to the throne rules the province; he’s distracted & bored, because it’s not elvish culture).
b) Human resistance fighters! After 200 years it’s more a revolutionary war thing– citing current complaints and less so historical freedom, etc.
c) Some humans do very well; for simplicity of administration, the elves concentrated authority for large chunks of trade, etc., in specific humans (and later their families). So there’s a human oligopolgy; lots of human families with a monopoly on specific trade goods and the like. They might like the current set up (with its generous profit margins and high status) too much to join a revolution.
d) Elves have “completely unreasonable” restrictions on town growth, forest clearing, and the like. [They’re very reasonable, perhaps even permissive, from an elvish point of view.]
e) Revolution’s not a requirement at all; that’ll follow from player BITs. Other interesting settings could be Prince’s guard, negotiators from the (human) empire seeking allies, etc.
f) Geopolitics still up in the air. Perhaps the nation that lost to the elves is gone; one province now elvish occupied, the rest swallowed by a rival empire.
g) Common Enemy– perhaps the Orcs are spreading south, nastily… but their agents promise to spare the humans if they don’t fight for the elves. Can they be trusted.
Anyway, lots of seeds of ideas for discussion.
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Core rules, ideas, etc.
As you are all aware, I’m easily seduced by new systems and the like. White Wolf greatly improved their die system in the New World of Darkness; amazing what happens when you let someone who understands statistics look at it.
The core of system is the same. Roll Stat+Skill dice vs. a TN [target number] Each success means a more impressive effect.
There are changes. One success is always enough to have an effect. (IE, you’ll never hear “you need three successes to do X.) Combat is no longer an opposed roll. Botches happen only if you’re unqualified or desperate.