I have a Pendragon actual play post that's due up soon, but the GPC campaign is now on break while Des is running the Pendragon group game. We decided we didn't want to burn out on the game and jeopardize either campaign. So in addition to making plans for what I'll be running for the group once Des wraps up her Pendragon campaign, I started cooking up a little mini-campaign to run solo with Des. Since it's just the two of us, I get to be a little experimental with both rules and concept.
A couple months ago, after seeing some interesting GURPS-related blog posts and Christian's excellent GURPS write-ups in his Loviator zine, I started thinking about the system again. Longtime readers may recall that GURPS and I parted ways a while back, but I never completely swore off the system and I think I'm ready to approach it from a fresh angle and see how things go. We'll be using GURPS Lite on the player's side, GURPS Ultra-Lite on the GM's side, adding rules and such on an as-needed basis. In terms of scope, I'm following my own advice and starting very small in terms of both setting and power scale, then moving out in ever-expanding circles. The campaign concept is a sort of Supers-Illuminati mishmash. My "elevator pitch" conceptualization is, "What if X-Men: First Class had been written by David Cronenberg and directed by John Waters?" Needless to say, I'm very much looking forward to finding out.
(Oh, and as long as I'm talking GURPS, Peter Dell'Orto [of GURPS Martial Arts fame] has started up an excellent blog that looks at running classic D&D-inspired fantasy with GURPS. Check it out!)
I'm really liking the 'paring down' campaign the more that I think about it. Sci-Fi with a single planet, fantasy with a single region, that kind of stuff. Still not sure if I'd want to do it with Western stuff, as one of the things I like about Wild West gaming is the moving around.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I really like about keeping the scope limited up front is that it still allows you to expand out from there. For a Western, for example, I could see setting the initial campaign in a boomtown like Deadwood or Tombstone or at, say, a frontier fort and keeping it there for as long as you like (or until the players make things too hot to stick around). Actually, a Wild West game could quite easily be set up in the exact same manner as a classic D&D sandbox: start with a "home town" settlement with a few interesting sites in the immediate vicinity and a population of various and sundry NPCs (The Village of Hommlet, New Mexico Terriorty?), then, after the group's "leveled up" create "encounters" (both site-based and random) once the party is ready to move out into the wilderness.
ReplyDelete"I've also been doing a bit of minis painting"
ReplyDelete-- Excellent! Can't wait to see what you've done.
"What if X-Men: First Class had been written by David Cronenberg and directed by John Waters?"
ReplyDeleteThat makes so much intuitive sense to me that my first response is "Why wasn't X-Men: First Class written by David Cronenberg and directed by John Waters?" It seems like the obvious way to go when you lay it out like that (especially with an earlyish Cronenberg.)
I look forward to hearing how that works out. Good to hear from you, I'm glad that your hiatus was a fun one. Rock it.
So... will we see any more posts in your F.R. series?
ReplyDeleteSpawn: That makes so much intuitive sense to me that my first response is "Why wasn't X-Men: First Class written by David Cronenberg and directed by John Waters?"
ReplyDeleteI believe the answer to that is, "That would be because Hollywood is currently experiencing a creatively bankrupt nadir, a cesspool of rehashes, reboots, and sequels." ;)
But yeah, I'm thinking of both early Waters and early Cronenberg, so we'd need a time machine to make that a reality anyway.
We ran a little hour-long prelude/introductory scenario session on Monday and it went really well. Woot!
Grumpy: I'd say it's likely I'll get back to the FR series, but I don't know when that will be. Since it's pure theory for me right now I'm prioritizing projects that will actually have some application at the table. But I'm definitely still interested in the project and haven't given up on it!
I'd like to hear about Des' game, if she or you care to share. I have a high Greedy trait and also love to steal your ideas.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of ideas, here's a challenge: 15-Minute Encounter. Set aside 15 minutes to dream, write and stat-up an encounter. Then post. Here's my initial effort posted, though I find the basic idea of very short bursts of game prep time provide the perfect amount of depth for an encounter to be ad libbed.
I imagine I'll be posting a summary at some point of the goings-on in Des's game. Certainly worth highlighting is my character's disastrous first marriage to a lady were-bear...
ReplyDeleteI like the 15 Minute Encounter idea! Maybe I'll set a schedule and do one a week or something. Thanks for the inspiration!
Were-bear. Nice!
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about posting a couple of the encounters we've run over the years for Pendragon. I'm writing up a recurring villain (504-510 and still kicking around) next.