Your current RPG campaigns

Role-playing games
101

Wow, you do a lot of RPGing! I try not to do more than one a week at most; I’m currently playing in one and running one. I would add running another if I could arrange face to face here in Lawrence. But four days a week is beyond anything I’ve ever tried.

I ran a variant Laundry some years ago. The setting was Australia (I did some online research and decided that their relevant agency was the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation, motto “See the unseen, know the unknown”); the player characters were a group of agents with extraordinary powers—an amazingly skilled aboriginal soldier with Deep One ancestry, a sorcerer, a genetically enhanced young woman inspired by the title character in Hanna, and a woman sharing her body with a djinn that gave her powers of geas, glamour, oneiromancy, and seeing through glamours. So it was a bit offbeat, but fun.

102

I have a lot of time on my hands just at the moment and am going out about twice a week. I really should get more done than I do.

103

My game is currently deep in the jungles of Chult for Tomb of Annihilation. It is good, but challenging to run a hex crawl and keep it interesting enough. The biggest issue is they are not following the through line of the adventure, but as long as they are enjoying it then I don’t mind. I have not imposed the rigid timeline the text calls for, they would not have done half the interesting stuff they have done!

And as we are likely to be unable to meet up for another 6 months now due to covid, there is plenty of material still to come!

104

At this point I’m awaiting responses from people I’ve invited to play in a new campaign. I’ve heard back from two; three more haven’t yet responded.

As is my custom, I’ve sent out a list of possible campaigns:

_____ Demobbed. Streetlevel supers. GURPS. Source material: Astro City, JSA: The Liberty File, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Planetary, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, Wild Cards , The Defenders (Netflix series).

It’s 1945, and the boys (and girls) with special powers are coming home from the war. How will they fit into civilian life in a world at peace? Player characters will be streetlevel supers—not necessarily “superheroes,” but generally inclined to obey the law, protect the innocent, and help the helpless. The focus of play will be partly on the usual superheroic combat and partly on inventing a role for people with strange powers and abilities. There won’t be a generic category of “superpowers”; rather, many different types of special abilities will be available, from ancient mystical rituals to superscientific inventions. Combat will be realistic and death will be possible, as will legal consequences for going too far with your abilities.

You may enjoy this campaign if you like streetlevel superheroes or pulp adventurers; a post-World War II setting appeals to you.

_____ Dragon Pass. Low fantasy. RuneQuest. Source material: the Odyssey ; Icelandic sagas; The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

In the sparsely populated borderlands between the Lunar Empire and Sartar, opportunities await those with quick wits or strong arms. Young adventurers have the chance to risk their lives seeking lost treasures, defeating enemies, and gaining fame. Any character may learn both combat skills and spells. Characters may have to deal with war parties, monsters, or haunted ruins; combat will be realistic and risky. Play will be episodic, but with an underlying theme of increasing competence.

You may enjoy this campaign if you like adventure and physical danger; you’re comfortable with having your character at risk.

_____ Omicron Polypi. Hard science fiction. Big Eyes Small Mouth. Source material: Space Cadet and The Rolling Stones, by Robert Heinlein; Jupiter Project, by Gregory Benford; Learning the World, by Ken MacLeod; Planetes.

Eighty years ago, a slower-than-light starship brought colonists to a remote solar system. Their descendants have spread out over five planets. On the original ship, now an orbital habitat, young people come together for training as “truck drivers” (operators of space vehicles). Play will focus partly on learning and work experience, with the associated dramatic incidents, and partly on personal relationships among students.

You may enjoy this campaign if you want to play in an invented world; you like classic young adult science fiction.

_____ Shadowlands. Apocalyptic dark fantasy. World of Darkness: Sorcerer.

Technology is failing and the world is going back toward preindustrial conditions, one night at a time. People in a rural town have to find ways to survive with their own resources, dealing both with practical hardships and with mysterious threats. Characters will be ordinary competent people faced with the unknown. Learning and using magic will be an option, but the use of magic will be inherently perilous, and will expose the users to suspicion from the unmagical.

You may enjoy this campaign if you want to prioritize investigation and practical tasks over combat; you like low-key magic without fireballs.

_____ Water Margin . Alternative history. GURPS. Source material: Water Margin , by Shi Nai’an; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and other wuxia films.

Centuries ago, Zheng He’s fleets opened the way to a Chinese Empire spanning much of the world. Now, in the protectorate of Tsinghau (the British Isles), native troops and officials and Imperial advisors work to maintain order in a time of troubles, as Imperial authority weakens. Action will be cinematic, and characters will be larger than life, with access to exotic European martial arts such as capa y espada and bare-knuckle boxing, but not to overt magic or supernatural elements.

You may enjoy this campaign if you enjoy alternate history settings; you can play under exotic cultural assumptions; you like swashbuckling and wuxia; you want combat, danger, and intrigue.

Addendum (11 January): It looks like it’s going to be Demobbed; that’s the offering that no one rates at 0 or 1. Now I have to review the Pyramid article it’s inspired by.

2 Likes
105

At the moment, here’s where I am:

Running: Necropolitans, a Pathfinder campaign where everyone dies in the prologue but that doesn’t stop them. If I’d realised it would run for the current 3 years and counting, I’d have come up with better rules for playing undead. I should really get on with editing the audio so I can put it out. It was pitched as “play one of the prewritten adventures, but as friendly neighbourhood undead”. I threw in improvised nautical shenanigans after Book 1 because I hadn’t read ahead at all, deposited them in the wrong continent, and between character interests and refusal to retcon where they were, it’s now a completely improvised campaign. May have 20,000 years of backstory and inscrutable machinations of gods skirting the boundaries of non-intervention policies.

Playing:
The various offerings at Whartson Hall, most recently Modern Age.

Wizards in Waistcoats, a Victorian Mage: the Ascension campaign themed around King Arthur and a lot of time war. As a Thyrsus (animals and spirits) mage I am primarily sidekick material amongst the metaphysics-twiddling squad, but my current project to breed time-eating worms is raising eyebrows.

Harlem Unbound for Call of Cthulhu. We just finished our first scenario so I’m not sure exactly where we’re going now. Seems good.

Hell’s Rebels, more Pathfinder, this time starting a rebellion against devil-summoning authoritarian government. Doesn’t seem to have put enough thought into opportunities for intrigue in play, as opposed to activities that are intrigue-y but resolved by combat - awkward as I’m basically playing David Copperfield (the Dev Patel one, not the stage magician). Still fun.

Strange Aeons, Pathfinder play-by-post in its very early stages. So far I woke up, saw something scary and died, but it’s probably a dream.

Mercy of the Icons, brand new Coriolis play-by-post; we had character generation on Sunday. I am an enthusiastic, fashion-conscious botanist on the run from bounty hunters. Still need a name…

3 Likes
106

It is with mixed emotions that I read about the various RPGs you are all enjoying. It must be 25-30 years since I last roleplayed, either as player or GM/DM, and I do think about getting back into it somehow. (It would have to be remotely these days, not having such a circle of friends locally.) But then I am reminded that, in normal years, my work load makes it almost impossible to commit to a regular time slot when I definitely would not be interrupted by work errands or tasks. Even in our Great Plague times, my evenings and weekends are rarely my own to a predictable schedule. Boardgames in many ways fill the gap and need to play, but it’s not the same.

6 Likes
107

Currently running:
Tribe 8 once a week (or it will be when everyone is done with post Xmas/New Year work commitments). But we’ve ditched the Tribe 8 system as too crunchy and too broken and are trying out Cortex Prime instead. I’m running the Children of Lilith campaign.

Werewolf the Apocalypse once a month. Re-running a Fianna campaign I’ve done three times before. Trying to run this with New WoD system and Old WoD setting.

Playing:
Firefly (Genesys system) run by Roger once a month. Very entertaining, though once a month is infrequent enough that I forget how the funky dice system works between each session. Also my funky dice hate me and don’t like rolling successes.

Scion (1st ed) once a week. Only done 2 sessions and one of those we were short a player so it felt a bit like “filler” while we were waiting for the combat effective PC to get back so we can get to the fighty bit. I’ve been told that Scion is about dice pools the size of Greenland, but so far my biggest dice pool has been 5d10 which is pretty average for a WoD game.

4 Likes
108

9 months on:

Verdenspire, my 5e campaign is still going strong. Playing the 40th session of it next week. The party have just arrived back from a jaunt around the world where the cleric had an almost-romance with an NPC who turned out to be a god in hiding.

I’m setting up lots of quests at the mo that will tie into the PCs’ backstories and such. Fortunately, they all left plenty of gaps for me to fill in.

The two other 5e games I was playing in had to be put on pause as the DM for one/one of the players for the other had some personal stuff to deal with. Instead, the other DM is now running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.

In that, I’m playing Mimosa Bushcloset, a halfling detective who used to be in the watch until they had a near-death experience which resulted in them being haunted by the spirits of recent murder victims. I was able to persuade the DM to let me have a gun, so that’s a lot of fun :smiley:

That same DM is also working on a Monster of the Week game that we should be starting soon. Wherein I’ll be playing an occultist who accidentally ended up as a cat - basically if Giles from Buffy were played by Sue Perkins, except now in the body of a chubby grey cat.

Finally, another friend (who’s a bard in my campaign) has been running a game of Magical Fury, which is a very rules-light PbtA game about magical girls. I play a girl with a seagull on her head whose magical form is based on the norse goddess Rán and she hits people with a giant anchor.

4 Likes
109

After my DnD campaign ended in a TPK, my sister in law has asked if she can try DMing. So we’ve all created new characters. I think my wife’s is my favourite - a gnome barbarian. It basically seems she’s created a Nac Mac Feegle. Or as she puts it, Reepicheep in gnome form.

4 Likes
110

5 natural 1s in one session of DnD. That has to be a record

2 Likes
111

In total, or you specifically??

1 Like
112

My record was in a HindSight campaign in which my character had a bow that would only malfunction if I rolled “00” on percentile dice on the roll to hit, followed by a “1” on d10, and I managed to have the damned thing malf twice in a row.

2 Likes
113

Quite literally one chance in a million.

114

Me personally. There were a few nore scattered around but i barely rolled above double figures (includong bonuses!) all evening!

115

They weren’t in a row - it would be 1 in 3,200,000 (I think!) if it had been

116

That’d be quite normal for two thirds of the party I DM. The last third always rolls 20s. All on Roll 20 so the randomiser gods favourite!

117

This was using the DNDBeyond Character App’s inbuilt dice rolls. I have +8 to persuasion (basically I created a bard con-artist) and normally talk my way out of most situations but I crit failed soooooo many times that I think I’m going to have to leave town!!

2 Likes
118

I agree with that for yours, but I was going off what Agemegos said, actually. Yours is more complex to estimate, especially since you didn’t say how many rolls you made in that session. But I agree with 32 x 10^5 for doing it five times in a row.

119

We’re coming up on your anniversary. How is it going?

1 Like
120

Been running a shed load of 5e set in Necrotic Gnome’s Dolmenwood. It’s basically a dark Georgian fairy tale setting. As usual I run two different groups in parallel with intertwined storylines. This time I have two players who are in both which is fun for them and me. 5e has proven robust and flexible in play, able to support a wide range of play styles from tactical combat to complex character role-play to sandbox hexploration. On the whole the combat is quite generous to the players but over two years I have wound up the threat with some 13th Age sensibilities to find the sweet spot of real threat.
The game has largely been run using the 8 issues of Wormskin, the core WOTC three rulebooks and the Time of Beasts and Creature Codex from Kobold Press.
The main software tools have been Roll20 and Miro for shared faction/place linkage.
It’s time to reach a climax, and move on. Time to close @RogerBW …

4 Likes