Campaigns You Would Run If You Had The Time And Players And Energy

[Setherick]

I swear to god we already have a thread similar to this, but I'm not going to search for it to merge this one. So just consider this a warning. 

[Mckma]

I swear to god we already have a thread similar to this, but I'm not going to search for it to merge this one. So just consider this a warning. 

I thought there was, but I was also too lazy.  And didn't want to say anything because it was also quite possible I just imagined there was one...

[Joven]

I don't think I have an original idea in my head, all my ideas for games are based on or shamelessly stolen from other sources.  Of course it doesn't really matter, I haven't run or played in a game in years and will probably never will again, but if I did:

I'd like to run a game set in Gotham city, where the players aren't evil madmen, just your average criminals trying to get by, maybe doing some henching when the pay is right (or to try and pull a Witless Minions type thing).  The Goddamned Batman wouldn't really be an adversary, more of a force of nature, something that they would try their damnedest to avoid/escape, and is a constant source of fear, but would really only show up if shit got really bad.  Alternatively, a PI agency in Gotham, which kinda resent batman for always fucking up their cases.  I just like the setting of a kinda noir-ish 'midnight all the time' place like Gotham, where in addition to the normal run of criminal activity and hard luck people just trying to get by without being killed, you also have to worry about some guy crashing a blimp full of hallucinogens into a city square.  Not sure what system, maybe savage worlds with gritty combat mod and no powers.

Also have half-made a scenario where the players are called in to investigate/stumble upon an theme park. The owner is a slightly crazy man who made arrangements with dark forces to save his daughter and give her the childhood she never had since she was ill or in a coma after an accident.
People go missing and they're locked in cages in hidden tunnels running throughout the park, their shadows are stolen and implanted into stuffed mascots to give them life, and if the people are exposed to sunlight without their shadows they burn up into ash.  The mascots have all their characteristics but are controlled by the park owner, they feel no pain and can be stitched back together if necessary and act as his army when needed.  His daughter acts as the park's princess and lives in a fake castle at the center of the park, but she actually died a while ago, and is just her stuffed body with some other girls soul implanted, and doesn't even know it, unlike the mascots she still has free will and is very nice and can help the players, but is still brainwashed to love the park owner.  The players would have to rescue all the captives, while not allowing them to be exposed to the sun until their shadows are returned and the dark forces defeated.  Also, maybe have some of the players' shadows stolen and make them go up against themselves.  Probably would use something like CoC or something where investigation is emphasized and combat is lethal.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I swear to god we already have a thread similar to this, but I'm not going to search for it to merge this one. So just consider this a warning. 

There is, I made it months ago. It was "Games you'd run if you had the players you want" or something to that effect.

[Setherick]

I swear to god we already have a thread similar to this, but I'm not going to search for it to merge this one. So just consider this a warning. 

There is, I made it months ago. It was "Games you'd run if you had the players you want" or something to that effect.

Found, merged, updated.

[ristarr]

I think this works better for me "Campaigns You Would Run If You Had The Time And Players And Energy".  I am more a victim of my own time and energy.  I have a couple of things I want to run in the future.

The Inquisition - A 4e game where all the characters are of divine classes.  They would start off as Inquisitors and slowly get disillusioned with the tactics employed to maintain the theocracy.    This could work as a New World campaign, but I would probably want to run it in a more "historical" setting as a combination of the Crusades and the Inquisition.  I don't think I would have any trouble getting my current group of players to play in this, but we would have to finish our ongoing campaign first ... or I could just kill their characters and then mention the new campaign.  They probably wouldn't suspect anything.

Phenomen-X Delta Green campaign - we got to the point of rolling up characters and then went on hiatus.  Just having a scheduling issues getting everyone together.  I don't think it will get back started until after Dragoncon.

Atlanta Dresden files game - I have just done some big picture location and theme work.  Once again it will be after Dragoncon at the earliest to get it started.  Pretty sure I can find the players.  There is a good bit of Dresden interest in Atlanta.

... maybe doing some henching when the pay is right   ...

love this!  "crap, gotta pay the rent this month.  Maybe Dr. Impossible is hiring some temps?"

[Charlie72]

I've allways wanted to run a M&M game where the players you gaint robots to fight terrorists in space, but can never find the players.

[mathey]

Sorry about the redundant thread!

Here's another one:

David Simon's "Hudson City": Take the city sourcebook for Dark Champions. Apply the logic behind HBO's The Wire to said sourcebook. Add a mix of PCs that are cops, vigilantes, or criminals. Shake. Stir. Explore social ills and expose bureaucratic incompetence while also having scenes of caped crimefighters smashing in through skylights. 

[Setherick]

Sorry about the redundant thread!

Don't worry. The other thread on inspection had been dead a year, but I managed to get them all merged together.

[mathey]

Ross, I listened to your podcast about Real World Campaigns and saw the parallel to the All Mages Must Die in the peasant rebellion discussion. I therefore take credit for the idea retroactively.

Speaking of Real World Sources of Inspiration, here's some things you may or may not have heard of that would all qualify as Campaigns I'd Run If Etc...

Killing Pablo: By Mark Bowden, the guy who wrote Black Hawk Down, this is the story of the attempts to assassinate Pablo Escobar, the cocaine kingpin who essentially ran things in Colombia. The facts of the situation and how it played out are kind of insane, particularly when it comes to describing just how much power Escobar had. For instance, dude paid for his own luxurious prison when the Colombians were trying to appease the U.S. on jailing him. Ultimately, a combination of an NSA group called Centra Spike, U.S. Army Special Forces (including Delta Force), and Colombian cops finally cornered the guy - but getting there was quite involved and quite gameable. If you want to see how taking down a "real" Bond villain might work, its great stuff.

Generation Kill: This is a book and it was adapted into an HBO miniseries by the guys who did The Wire. Its about a Marine unit that's "the tip of the spear" in the invasion of Iraq, and the experiences a Rolling Stone journalist had with them. The best thing about it is its uncensored straight-forwardness about the trivial, the brutal, and the just plain incompetent aspects of the invasion and subsequent occupation. There's maybe one or two firefights of note, but its mainly about the guys in the unit and the logistics of trying to take over a country. You come to respect the soldiers (some of 'em) but its about as unglamorous as you can get when it comes to depicting modern conflict.

All The President's Men: Book and movie. The true story of how two plucky reporters investigated the Watergate break in and eventually took down the Nixon White House. No chases, no shooting, no magic CSI computer use; just smart, dedicated people who did their research, hounded potential sources, and figured out a top down conspiracy and exposed it to the public. If you like Fox News, it'll probably sound like science fiction, but this shit actually happened.

From Earth to the Moon: HBO miniseries - look, I like them alot, okay? - about the Apollo space program that landed a couple of people on the surface of the moon. In terms of premises, I'd have to say that successful space exploration is one of the more upbeat ones, at least if your test pilots and astronauts don't die in launching pad fires. So, while we've obviously got a laundry list of hate crimes, mass murders, and tragedy in the human experience - people did this kind of thing too.

[Joven]

From Earth to the Moon: HBO miniseries - look, I like them alot, okay? - about the Apollo space program that landed a couple of people on the surface of the moon. In terms of premises, I'd have to say that successful space exploration is one of the more upbeat ones, at least if your test pilots and astronauts don't die in launching pad fires. So, while we've obviously got a laundry list of hate crimes, mass murders, and tragedy in the human experience - people did this kind of thing too.

Oh sure, of course they did...

Oh right, they actually did, still, should be able to run a scenario that aims to expose the moon landing as a fake.  Breaking into NASA and finding the bloopers and outtakes of the faked moon landing, being chased by MIB's etc.  My personal favorite moon landing conspiracy theory is by the Hari Krishnas, who basically say that its clearly impossible for anyone to have landed on the moon because according to their holy book (which is OBVIOUSLY correct) its further away from earth then the sun is and would take much longer then the 91 hours that NASA claims.  Also, how could the astronauts have stepped on the moon and taken video of them doing it, when in order to travel to the moon you have to shed your corporeal being and attain a new body suited for the moon?
You would get to unravel not only a hoax to fake landing on the moon, but the systematic cover up of the true nature of reality by the higher echelons of all the worlds scientists...for some reason...(dun dun duhhhhhhhhhh)

[mathey]

Space landing hoax game?

There's a movie for that:

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[joecrak]

I'd run a Weird Western Tales type game that the premise was about rounding up bounties in a old west type setting mixed with the races of fantasy worlds and the horrific monsters of lovecraft.  Sort of Brisco County Jr. and Jonah Hex meets gun slinging elves, orcs and shoggoths

[Setherick]

I'd run this. It was a game idea I came up with several years ago and never did anything with.

Iron Heroes: Fortress of the Five Hills – “To Save an Empire”

   Emperor Maximillian IV was dead. After a reign of thirty-seven years, the Emperor had been laid to rest in his sepulcher beneath the Fortress of the Five Hills, leaving behind a legacy and questions. The Emperor had left the four kingdoms of the continent Abashom in a peaceful state. He had learned which Kings to press on and which Kings to have free reign, and under his guidance each of the kingdoms had grown prosperous. But now the Kings of Nordland to the north, Geldland to the east, Brotland to the south, and Hinterland to the west eye the capital city nervously. The Emperor had left no heir.
   At sunrise of the appointed day, the high cleric representing each of the four kingdoms met atop the central tower at the Fortress of Five Hills. Since the Emperor had left no heir, the ceremony of wax had to be performed. Each of the clerics had taken a piece of wax, which they had fashioned into the likeness of the King they represented. The likenesses were then placed on a four beam scale and perfectly balanced. As the sun progressed along its path, the wax would melt tipping the scale. The King whose likeness melted the most, and thus would be elevated above the others, would be crowned the new Emperor. The clerics ascended to the top of the tower again at sunset only to find that there was still no Emperor; the likenesses had as melted equally.
   The ceremony of wax had never failed and rumors of prophecy and sabotage flitted throughout the Fortress of the Five Hills. The Emperor who everyone days before had admitted dying of old age had suddenly been assassinated by spies from each of the four kingdoms. Centuries old blood feuds began to erupt the in the streets. The Royal Guard was near mutiny.
   In attempt to end the brewing chaos, the Emperor’s Lieutenant Bartholomew enacted a seldom used law and named himself Lord Protector of the Empire. The act entitled Bartholomew all the powers of the Emperor with the condition that as soon as a new Emperor was chosen, he would abdicate his position. This measure seemed to work. The streets of the capital quieted. Talks of mutiny subsided.
The act had a price; Bartholomew was the son of Apgar the King of Hinterland. Though Bartholomew attempted to assuage the fears among the Captains of the Royal Guard that he was not putting himself in a position to hand the Empire over to Apgar or seize power for himself, he was challenged vociferously by Ghorn a Captain from Nordland. The feud between kingdoms of Nordland and Hinterland coursed in Ghorn’s veins. He had heard the epics of the legendary Nordlander warriors that had crushed the superior tacticians from Hinterland in battle after battle. He was not going to allow a Hinterlander to take control of the Empire without a fight. Two days after Bartholomew publicly announced he was assuming Lord Protector, Ghorn marched out of the Fortress of the Five Hills taking all the Nordlander soldiers with him.



[to the players]

This is how the world stands now.

Ghorn is influential in his kingdom, so with him leaving in the manner which he did there are now rumors that Ghorn may persuade the King of Nordland to attack the Fortress of Five Hills or raise an army and attempt it himself. Either way, an attacking army would probably pass through Geldland as Geldland and Nordland are closely aligned. If the King of Nordland should openly declare war on Bartholomew, it is likely that Apgar and the Hinterlands would declare war on Nordland. Without assistance, the Royal Guard would easily fall in an invasion.

The circumstances of Ghorn’s leaving are also suspect. The feud between the kingdoms aside, Ghorn fought side-by-side with Bartholomew for fifteen years. Ghorn is an excellent warrior, like most Nordlanders, but he is easily persuaded. If someone started whispering in Ghorn’s ear before Bartholomew enacted the law to make himself Lord Protector, then Ghorn may also be pawn of someone else.

[Kroack]

I love Iron Heroes, it's of my favorite 3.5 variants.

I wonder if 2nd edition is ever going to come out.