Your current RPG campaigns

Role-playing games
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Four of us from my regular board gaming group have started playing some RPGs together. We started a DnD 5e campaign, but are also trying to sprinkle in other systems and rulesets as we find our feet and decide what we like. I’ve the least experience with role playing, I played some MERP and AD&D as a young teenager but just with one or two other friends and it died out after a year or so. I’ve also never GM’d before which I’m trying to work my way up to rectifying soon, as we all give it a go.

The DnD 5e campaign (Dragon of Icespire peak) is about 4 sessions in, we just finished the second virtual session via Zoom tonight. We’re only a party of 3 and with no cleric we have just about scrapped through almost every adventure so far! The DM is using fantasy grounds, and it is working quite well for remote play.

One of the others GM’d a oneshot using Cthulhu Dark’s system, he based it on the Aran Islands off Ireland’s west coast in the late 1940s and wove in lots of Irish folk stuff into the mystery/horror. Really good fun. I hope to start my own GMing with a Mothership one shot, but other’s that I would like to get to over the next year or so include Blades in the Dark and Carbon 2185. Also picked up a pdf of a game called ‘Stay Frosty’ which looks fun in an Aliens/Starship troopers kind of way.

Anyway, this is a bright new dawn for me, and something I wish I’d tried again years ago. However, it seems there’s loads of RPG experience and knowledge here, so I’ll definitely look out for any hints or tips before I finally dip my toe into the GMing waters. :slight_smile:

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22

I am currently DMing two campaigns in a D&D5e based world of my own design, completely homebrew setting that I keep making more complicated than I probably should, but I have fun.

The first Campaign and the longer running of the two has 4 players and involves them on a world spanning quest to save the world. XD!

The second Campaign has 5 players and is centralized to one particular “nation” in the world, a Kingdom of Nobility ruling over Commoners, political intrigue and dastardly deeds done in the shadows, of fey creatures from history creeping out once more to stir trouble and old legends reaching forth to touch the present with cold fingers.

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23

My aspirational one at the moment is Tales from the Loop, I recently bought a copy for myself more because it’s a thing of beauty than because I have a group in mind to play with.

Consider this a not-very-subtle hint that I’m looking for a PBF game to join :smiley:

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I think most of my RPG is going to be aspirational for a while!! I’m hoping my friend will get round to running Blades in the Dark and another friend (from my boardgaming group) has asked if I’ll run the WHFRP Starter Set adventure. So we’ll see!

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25

I haven’t played or DMed in a while I was hoping to get a one-shot / mini campaign of a Schlock Mercenary RPG up and running for a while but now I’ve already forgotten the rules again. When I first got TTS I hoped I might get a Vampire or Exalted game running but turns out we play boardgames on there now :slight_smile:

In the past I played/DMed mostly DSA (Das Schwarze Auge) , Vampire:tM (way back when Revised was the edition of the day), Exalted and the biggest campaign I ever DMed was Unknown Armies (1st edition, just to give an impression of how long ago that was). I’d love to swap war stories about campaigns and characters in some other thread.

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26

I’ve run two Mage campaigns. I tried to get a Wraith campaign going, but my players never liked any of my ideas.

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27

Playing: Irresponsible & Right, and Hurricane Season, both run by Roger. Also playing in Dave Waring’s Avalon OD&D setting, which dates from 1976. Dave founded Stabcon, and is one of the best GMs I’ve ever met.

Running Quick Reaction Alert, a GURPS Transhuman Space campaign about a Royal Navy ship and crew whose brief is “Deal with unexpected problems in the inner Solar System.” There are at least six other navies around, plus the US Aerospace Force. The first session was last night, and seemed to go OK, with characters taking shape as they interacted.

What have I played and run? I’ve run OD&D, Ad&D1e, and various hybrids, several GURPS settings, a fair bit of Paranoia XP, and I think that’s about all. I’ve played those games, plus RuneQuest 2 with bits of 3, Dragonquest, and Champions, but that’s about all that I’ve played at length. In one-offs, I’ve played Bushido, CoC, Cthulhu Hack, Traveller, The Small Folk, Over the Edge, and classic Paranoia (I found a win condition!) More obscure games have included Mirrorshades, PumQuest, FastGen, Skool Rulez, MAD system, and at least four games I can think of that didn’t seem to have names other than “X’s game/system.”

I have not wandered between games looking for a specific experience or style of play. I’ve always been willing to let those things emerge from the personalities of the players and what the game does naturally.

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28

Mmmm…Wraith. Such a good system.

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I totally loved the idea of each player portraying another player’s shadow.

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30

I am dming Icespire as well just now via roll 20 for my normal in person group (our current Traveller campaign on hold during the pandemic for, well, reasons)*.

Been GM ing since 1983 and a fair chunk of systems though not as many as @Agemegos ! My group though have limited tolerance for anything fancy and prefer the old classics/clunkers, with these two, Cthulhu and WFRP (1st though I might try 4th next time)

For a first go at Roll 20 it is working very well, and there are some advantages - including forcing people to actually understand and use character capabilities and limitations more than normal.

  • reasons being - Roll 20 had the rules and explorers kit bundled together, and anything for Traveller would require home brewing on the system which I don’t have time for!
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31

We just changed back to me GMing and we are playing Sagas and Six Guns a mash up of Vikings and Weird West where Nth America is now New Midgard, using Savage Worlds Adventures Edition which seems perfect for such a mash up. The players are do-good heroic types helping frontier farmers deal with monsters.

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32

I have been thinking more about the advantages of Roll 20 for my current/only/pretty much all time gaming group.

We have been playing on and off since the early eighties. We remain pretty casual gamers - we know more than most but little compared to many round here. We encompass board games, computer games, RPGs and war games. Mostly games are an excuse to hang out together, insult each other, and not talk about much. We do it once a week.

We only have ever played in person until the pandemic, but the need to have something different to look forward to was pretty important for me. So I convinced all of them (ok just 3 others!) to try Roll 20.

Of course we had some tech problems. Roll 20 prefers Chrome (and I think Firefox); the vc is janky with our broadband connections so we used a secondary vc - first WhatsApp, then zoom, then teams and have currently settled on Webex. But we persevered.

We played the free Call of Cthulhu scenario that is available on Roll 20, ‘the lightless beacon’. I chose it as we are all familiar with CoC, it was short so if it was terrible we would be able to stop without losing too much etc.

It was great! So much so that I splashed for the bundle of D and D rules and explorers kit with the Icespire Peak adventure.

I chose this as again we are all familiar with the rules and, frankly, the majority of content on Roll 20 is D and D. My job (thankfully) continues in lockdown so I have limited time and headspace to create or adapt, and I like D and D anyway!

This has gone on longer than I thought, but here is the lede (as SUSD might say). The advantages are:

  • we are playing twice a week for about 2 hours each time. That means we are more than doubling play time and racing through things. The faster pace is better.

  • the players are using their characters better as they interact with the character sheets. They better understand their strengths and limitations.

  • I am using rules that I didn’t bother with. The players and the system both force me to confront areas where I had been too lazy or had just brushed over. This is good!

  • we are using maps as an exploratory tool and as tactical battle maps. I have never really done this with D and D before (skipped 4E!). It is good and roots the action, giving players more understanding of options.

There are a lot of advantages here and, while I have not broached this with them, I think I may push to keep a weekly online session part of our rotation going forward. It’s not a substitute for in person, but it does have some advantage that I, certainly, am learning from.

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33

Nothing at the moment, but I’ve finished recently:

Blades in the Dark: probably the best thing I’ve ever played as a player. 14 session, the system got a bit too fiddly toward the end for me, but we had very interesting characters -PCs and otherwise- and personal scenes of memorable intensity .
Monsterhearts: it was supposed to be a four episode miniseries, but we cut it short when the shutdown began, because flirting in character is not the same thing work via webcam. Shame, but loved what I’ve seen, every bit of it.
Mouseguard: another miniseries, five episodes/10 in-game days. Worked as a charm. I’m not the biggest fan of the rules, but the setting is incredibly evocative, and the players were absolutely wonderful. Sword and cape, family drama, plus cute mice is a lovely combination.

Now I’m looking at Primetime Adventures for my next series and the friend who ran Blades in the Dark is thinking of Band of Blades.

Also, I still have my one shot night going strong.

[also, first time posting here, hello everyone!]

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34

Welcome!

I’ve enjoyed PTA, and tried running it here in the old days, but it didn’t quite catch.

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35

Can you say more about this one? I’ve not heard of it, but it sounds like something my San Diego player circle would have loved.

I haven’t bought the game, though I’ve looked at it, but I have the first collected volume and have it in mind to get more now that we’re moved into the new place. If I ran a campaign, though, I might use Big Eyes Small Mouth; there was a supplement, Big Ears Small Mouse, a couple of editions back. . . .

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36

I’m in two videoconferenced campaigns—playing Call of Cthulhu and running GURPS Fantasy—but neither uses any sort of online gaming platform; just pure videoconferencing. My San Diego players and I are heavily into the character interaction and world exploration aspects and not much into tactics, so videoconferencing serves our needs fairly well, though it doesn’t fully reproduce face to face interaction.

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37

This is generally my feeling as well; my games are fairly free-form (yes, though though GURPS is my preferred system) and I don’t think I’ve used a battle map, as opposed to occasional sketches, this century. I do sometimes feel I’m in a weird minority of RPgaming, though.

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38

Monsterhearts is made to create teenage high school romantic drama, with an healthy dose of supernatural and queer themes. Think Buffy the Vampire with less action and less camp, or Twilight, but with the chance of making it good. It’s the kind of game where a player will flirt with another, so that they can blackmail them later, or where a witch might curse someone because they hit on their ex. Dark, sappy, melodramatic, and delicious
It’s a PbtA game, still a somewhat traditional RPG, but with focusing on narrative.

For Mouseguard, I see where it wants to go with the rules, and I understand it’s a fairly old game, but I think it comes from that school of design that needs a skill and a dice roll for every possible thing a character might do in the game, which to me is more of a burden to the story than an help. There are also some lovely mechanical things too, but it left me wondering if anything could be changed to my liking a bit more.

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39

I don’t know what “PbtA” stands for.

I somewhat lean toward dice rolls; I find it easier to waive a dice roll when a player comes up with something brilliant than not to have a dice roll in the first place when I need to decide if what the character is doing succeeds or fails. But I’m pretty well satisfied with GURPS, BESM, FUDGE, or even Basic Roleplaying (though I prefer RuneQuest II to the stripped down version in Call of Cthulhu); glancing at the preview for MG didn’t persuade me that I needed a new mechanic.

I’m really much happier with narrative emerging from play than with the GM focusing on constructing a narrative; I’ve always felt that if you have a story to tell you should write a novel.

In any case, thanks!

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40

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