Share your Projects and Campaigns

[ragr]

Didn't know about that, Agentorange. Thanks for the link.

[The Venomous Pao]

I'd love to hear a little more about the Arabian nights game. What kind of scenarios and episodes did you come up with? The tales have inspired some of my own campaign scenarios, but only a little. Did you manage to work in some of the sex runs through so much of the tales? And if so, how did that work in practice?

No sex in these here tales. That's just not a thing my players, pardon the pun, get off on. So it's been much more "Thief of Baghdad" and "Sinbad" stuff than it has been the Nights proper. And one could probably argue that a great chunk of the Arabian influence has really just been set dressing.

We started off with a group of three characters who were in a major city for the Sultan's riddle contest, got involved in some intrigue with a theft in the marketplace, and wound up being recruited to go rescue the kidnapped prince. This involved riding a flying carpet deep into the desert where they were attacked by a group of desert raiders/sky pirates also on flying carpets. The characters were jumping from carpet to carpet, narrowly avoiding falling to their deaths. It goes on from there, with ghuls and rocs and side trips to the City of Brass and the City Beneath the Waves. I'm not much of one for writing up actual play diaries, though, so that's all I can give you for now. But if you have any specific questions, I'll be glad to answer 'em.

Like the new avatar, BTW - it's a Kulullu, if I'm not mistaken.

Thanks! I'm pretty sure it's actually Dagon, though.

[Rungard]

I'm running a Prax/Pavis campaign and we are currently in Raus grantlands.

#Possible spoilers ahead, please be warned:#

After clearing the Stone Tower, Raus charged the PCs with taking care of the lands around the Stone Tower in his name, in order to look out for any attacks of Muriah's broos (after an all-out broo attack against Raus, all the settlements on the east bank of the river were forsaken, as it was considered too dangerous to stay there).

I'm also using Ian Thompson's fanzines, so we are currently with the "Smugglers!" scenario.

However, something unexpected happened and will lead to an interesting situation. You see, I wanted the PCs to be aware that while they are under Raus orders, the world keeps moving without them, so I started describing how increasingly often they see ships carrying loads of Lunar troops down to Corflu (to later tell them that Karse has been taken). As they are all anti-Lunar PCs, they were outraged that they hadn't done anything to stop this. So once when they were crossing the Zola Fel I described another Lunar vessel sailing down the river. But this time, they told me they hid among the vegetation. Then the newts of Five Eyes Caves started attacking the ship. Then the PCs saw their chance and with some lucky rolls and a shaman with "Control Undine", they managed to capsize the ship as it was crossing the Easy Ford and drowned all the troops within!!!

Now the Lunars in Corflu want to massacre all the newts in Five Eyes Caves with some troops and the help of Raus' mercenaries. There are just two little problems: 1) Krang the dragon and 2) three of the PCs are River Voices, and the river has asked them to stand in between and solve the conflict with harmony. What will they do? What will Krang the dragon do? Who will get his treasure? Will the PCs side with the Lunars or with the newts?

Any suggestions as to how to handle this are very welcome!

Edited November 1, 2010 by Rungard

[Thalaba]

We have a rotation of GMs running other campaigns , so with my schedule I run one session on alternate months. Long-standing characters are Runelord level...

Wow - so you only run one session every two months?! How do you find that affects the flow of the campaign? We used to play on alternating weeks and switched to weekly because we found inserting another campaign in between sessions was disruptive. To get to Runelords, your campaign must be pretty long-standing!

Also noted in this thread: Glorantha remains a very popular setting for BRP players.

I'm not much of one for writing up actual play diaries, though, so that's all I can give you for now. But if you have any specific questions, I'll be glad to answer 'em.

My players don't want to roleplay sex, either, which is why I asked. Like you, I'd have to gloss over that part.

My two questions would be: Which version of the Thousand Nights and One Night are you using as a reference, and what other references are you using besides that. I ask because I'm looking for reading inspiration for my upcoming campaign. At the moment I'm reading Sheba by Nicholas Clapp - a modern travelogue that seeks the Queen of Sheba in Palmyra, Yemen, and Aksum.

Thanks! I'm pretty sure it's actually Dagon, though.

Him too, but only in later times: http://symboldictionary.net/?p=3006

...Starting a sci-fi campaign as a side project using either Outpost 19 or the Fading Suns setting as a starting point;

Cthulu, using Masks Of Nyarlathotep as a campaign.

Of course these are plans. Best laid ones. What could possibly go wrong?

Outpost 19 is great. I'd also recommend you check out the Jovian Nightmares monograph for CoC (which goes with the Cthulhu Rising monograph). Cthulhu Rising also has a great website with more downloadable adventures on it. Maybe you could skip a step and get your sci-fi and CoC hit all in one campaign.

Any suggestions as to how to handle this are very welcome!

Sounds like you've got a nice organic campaign happening. I don't have much advice, except to 'roll with the flow' pretty much as you've been doing. Campaigns that go places GMs don't expect them to are usually the most memorable, and a party of PCs in conflict with themselves can be a lot of fun. My understanding of the region you're playing in is based on things I read a long time ago, but I suppose you might have Raus sit down with them and ask them to think about how they can best fight the forces of Chaos. Bringing the Lunars into conflict with the Newtlings and even Raus would destabilize the region, leading to more chaos, not less.

Can you tell us more about this fanzine?

[vagabond]

Very ambitious. I can see the Jorune project being especially interesting - it's a beloved setting that hasn't seen any new material in a long time. Is this something you hope to release to the public, or for personal use only?

It will be made available for consumption gratis. Miles has already given his blessing, and I have permission to reuse his artwork if desired, giving proper credit of course. I am still waiting on Andrew's blessing as well, but he has yet to return my email. I suspect I will go ahead anyway, and if he objects, I will pull it down. Generally, though, he is not opposed, based upon older correspondences and other Jorune fans' works.

Ian

[HierophantX]

Now that Masks of Nyarlathotep is back in print...

The last thing I played was a FASA Star Trek game believe it or not. Sadly one of the players rolled "layoff/sudden migration" on his real world life events table and then our "captain" had some inconveniently-timed reserve duty. So we've been on hiatus but I fear this loss of momentum may have killed the campaign.

Meanwhile, I got to edit a pre-pub draft of a future Harn product and...

Since I have consistently failed to convince another human to play Harn for many years of trying I have been converting a setting to MRQ2. I figure many many people in my area and everyone around here that I've gamed with previously has played Call of Cthulhu (and my old Delta Green group in particular), so maybe I can convince them to do it up RQ-style. Not alot to learn and chargen isn't painful. Success remains elusive. For it seems that everyone on my local gaming meetups only wants to play a version of DnD or Pathfinder (admittedly yet another form of DnD), or something else stupid. (stupid being broadly defined as "not my Viking/Harbaal campaign.")

So I salve my gamer-angst by burning villages in Mount & Blade: Warband and selling prisoners into slavery.

And I'm perfectly happy to shuttle my boy to the local gaming shop to play 4th E with some other 13-yr olds.

[ragr]

Outpost 19 is great. I'd also recommend you check out the Jovian Nightmares monograph for CoC (which goes with the Cthulhu Rising monograph). Cthulhu Rising also has a great website with more downloadable adventures on it. Maybe you could skip a step and get your sci-fi and CoC hit all in one campaign.

That's a very strong possibility given the curse of time. Great suggestion, Thalaba.

[Rungard]

Can you tell us more about this fanzine?

Well, Ian Thompson's fanzines are "Masks of Pavis", "Legacy of Pavis", "Shadows of Pavis" and "Beyond Pavis". I'm using "Beyond Pavis" right now, as it contains scenarios to complement the "Borderlands" campaign.

Some of them are sold out, but others can still be found at the Tradetalk site:

http://www.tradetalk.de/english/

Look in the "Sales" section.

[sdavies2720]

Wow - so you only run one session every two months?! How do you find that affects the flow of the campaign? We used to play on alternating weeks and switched to weekly because we found inserting another campaign in between sessions was disruptive. To get to Runelords, your campaign must be pretty long-standing!

Yes, once every two months. Flow is a little tough -- for a long time I was doing session write-ups, but then got too busy even for that. The first 15 minutes (for all the games) is usually a recap in any case. And we all remind each other of facts that may have been forgotten. It's a little laid back, but by Friday night everyone is a little tired anyway from the week (and usually wanting to beat something down) so it works ok. It's been a great way to release the week's frustration.

Campaign started in the mid-eighties, exact date lost in history. It's been run with greater frequency at times, and I had a few periods when it shut down completely for a while (children, grad school, that kind of thing). But it's going strongly now.

Steve

[The Venomous Pao]

My players don't want to roleplay sex, either, which is why I asked. Like you, I'd have to gloss over that part.

Yeah, we're just a bunch of 35-45 year old guys who get together to kill things and act out stories like we did when we all played together back when we were kids. The sex thing just doesn't come up for us all that often. And when it does, the scene fades to black pretty darn fast.

My two questions would be: Which version of the Thousand Nights and One Night are you using as a reference, and what other references are you using besides that. I ask because I'm looking for reading inspiration for my upcoming campaign. At the moment I'm reading Sheba by Nicholas Clapp - a modern travelogue that seeks the Queen of Sheba in Palmyra, Yemen, and Aksum.

I wish I could claim a bunch of scholarly effort here, but I can't. I've only ever read Burton's translation, and that was close to 15 years ago. This is more "Arabian Knights" than "Arabian Nights" proper by a wide margin. My players and I generally favor a pulp/action approach to our games. So what you've got is a bunch of half-remembered bits from the Nights themselves, a lot of imagery and inspiration from lessser works like the previously referenced Arabian Knights cartoon (from the Banana Splits Show), Sinbad movies, and even a dash of Disney's Aladdin movie. Blend that up in a Moorcockian stew (thanks to using the Sorcery rules from Elric! and The Bronze Grimoire) and serve with a reasonable side of pulpy cheese-n-corn and you're getting close to what we're doing. So I probably shouldn't call it "Arabian Nights" since that can be misleading. It's just the shorthand my group uses to indicate which game we're playing in a particular session.

Oh, and I shouldn't forget to mention the "Caliphate Nights" setting book for True 20. It had some good gaming-related takes on the setting as a whole, too.

The Sheba book sounds interesting. I'll have to give it a look. Thanks for giving me inspiration when you were, in fact, hoping I would do the same. Sorry I failed ya

Him too, but only in later times: http://symboldictionary.net/?p=3006

Ya learn something new every day. Thanks for schooling me, Thalaba

[rust]

Projects ... far too many of them ...

I am usually working on my "holy worldbuilding grail", the (almost) perfect science

fiction desert world and water world settings, and I think this will continue for a

couple of years, until I am truly satisfied with the result or finally give up the at-

tempt. The current versions (V. 5.01 each) are Godot (desert world) and Pando-

ra (water world). There are also some minor science fiction settings, like the In-

surgency, but most of them are shelved, and I only rarely add something to any

of them.

My second "worldbuilding playground" are pseudo-historical alternate earth set-

tings, usually "what if" scenarios where a small real world nation is replaced with

a fictional one. Among the victims of such replacements were Avignon, Bhutan,

El Salvador, Malta, Qawasim and Socotra, most of them during the early modern

age, but some also during the medieval age or during both historical periods.

Right now I am once more working on an improved version of the Thule setting,

an alternate history of a medieval Prussian settlement on Greenland.

[Guest Vile Traveller]

Dude, I finally tracked down your awesome smileys! Did you make all those yourself?

I can't take the credit for that - I'm just an avid smiley thief!

Out of curiosity, how many of these projects will see completion? There's an amazing variety there - you must be a good multitasker! I like the sound of the pirate setting in particular. BTW, shouldn't the RQ2 clone be called 'GlyphSeeker'?

All of them - eventually. The B/X compendium is completely typed up (I had to type Chapter 4 twice because I saved over it), I'm in the editing phase now. Not that anyone will ever see it, unless I show it to them in person - definitely not for distribution!

There are quite a few Spica MGT books in the the publishing queue before mine, so that will be a while, but writing is moving forward (at least when I can get hold of the setting owner - these arty types can be so unreliable ...).

Glyphmaster should be done early next year, although I can't be sure as I'm only doing some of the chapters (I finished Monsters and working on Treasure now - which is tougher from an OGL viewpoint). "Glyphmaster" is a working title by popular choice (and I'm happy to say it was one of my titles) so it might change later - why don't you pop over to the 'Pawnshop and post your suggestion in the title thread?

My two settings will take a long time, rather longer than rust's I suspect, but they have been distilled out of decades of trying every conceivable background so I think I will stick with them to the end (almost all with RQ/BRP) - Greyhawk, Glorantha, WWII, Thirty Years' War, Bladerunner, Aliens, Traveller 3rd Imperium, Domitian's Rome, Conan, Lankhmar, Cyberpunk, A Plague of Demons (book), Mythago Wood, Middle Earth with time-travelling unemployed PCs from 1980's Britain, Aftermath!, Star Wars, Various D&D-ish homebrews, Tekumel, Mystara, CoC, Late Medieval Fantasy CoC, Biggles, Vietnam War, Top Secret, Karl May (German Wild West author), Boot Hill, Near-Future Solar System SF, and I can't think of any more now. Anyway, that's to say I know what I like by now and a 5-star system STL hardish SF setting and a fantasy pirate world will set me up nicely for my retirement. Of course, I'll have to collate/write the appropriate BRP rules to match.

It will be made available for consumption gratis. Miles has already given his blessing, and I have permission to reuse his artwork if desired, giving proper credit of course. I am still waiting on Andrew's blessing as well, but he has yet to return my email. I suspect I will go ahead anyway, and if he objects, I will pull it down. Generally, though, he is not opposed, based upon older correspondences and other Jorune fans' works.

That's fantastic news, especially about the artwork which is probably what drew most people to Jorune in the first place.

[sdavies2720]

...Him too, but only in later times: http://symboldictionary.net/?p=3006

Thanks for that link!