Saturday, December 18, 2010

Campaign Plans for 2011

It’s getting to be that time of year when I start to look back at what I’ve done over the past year and start to think about plans for the next year. I know I am far more productive when I have a plan – and especially when there is some specific goal worked into that plan.

At the beginning of this past year we were playing a campaign set in Rokugan (The Asian fantasy land that is the setting of the Legends of the Five Rings series of card and role-playing games). That fizzled. I would like to run that campaign again sometime – at the end of 2009 I bought a whole shwack of the RPG setting books and adventure modules and even some of the novels – dirt cheap. On one hand it’s great because there’s all that rich background already fleshed out for you… on the other hand it’s daunting because there’s all that rich background already fleshed out for you… One day I’ll get back to reading through it all and pick it up again. Probably not this coming year.

Then we ran a short far future sci-fi campaign. It fizzled too. I do have a lot of old Traveller stuff that I’d like to make use of some day… again, a lot of work… I’ll get to it some day…

Around April I started TWO simultaneous campaigns! On Wednesday nights I was running a World War Two (occasionally “Weird” War Two) East Front campaign and on Saturdays I started a Realms of Cthulhu campaign. They both started to fizzle in August as I got a bit burned out. I tried to get them BOTH going again in September but after another month burned out again and took another break. Since November I’ve got the WW2 campaign going again and everyone seems to be having fun..

I’m sick right now (bleh!) and so there’s no game tonight, and won’t be one next week as that’s Christmas.

So… Next Year…

I’ll definitely be pressing on with the (Weird) World War Two campaign. Ultimately I’d like to see it through to the end of the war… or until all the characters are killed in some climactic battle against some ultimate German evil nasty….

The Realms of Cthulhu campaign has really just been on the back burner and I’d really like to get playing that again. I’m sure how I’ll be abl to do that…? Alternate between the two…? Or put the WW2 campaign “on the back burner” for a bit…?

One part of the reason for wanting to get back on the Cthulhu campaign is that Dave has cleverly linked his two characters – his character in the Cthulhu campaign is the father of his character in the WW2 campaign!? I’d kind of like to tie those together game-wise, but obviously I can’t drop the elder into the WW2 campaign from time to time if I don’t know how his life plays out through the 20s and 30s – his life could very well end on some uncharted island in the pacific in 1926 or in the Antarctic in 1934 (unless, of course,we assume they are alternate parallel universes). What do I do – put the WW2 campaign on hold until his fate has been determined – either by his demise or that campaign catching up to the WW2 campaigns timeline!?

Whatever I do I’m pretty sure this year will be mostly weird war and cthulhu…

Possible Distractions…

Space:1889

The release of the Savaged version of Space:1889 poses a very real possible distraction. I loved that setting. I have almost all of the original GDW printed modules and source books. I also have a lot of Victorian era miniatures; largely Victorian Horror minis from playing Rippers, but I also have a few “colonials” and even some old Space:1889 Martians. Oh, I also have a lot of “old West” figures, which would be entirely appropriate.

Of course I’ve often thought of running a Space Rippers:1889 campaign too… Werewolves on Mars, Vampires on Venus…

North West Europe 44-45

I’ve finished my Canadians and will be working on some more Germans in the new year. The ultimate goal will be to run a campaign following a platoon of the Regina Rifle Regiment through the campaign in Northwest Europe, startingwith their assault on Courseulles on D-Day. I have a lot yet to do on this… but as I get closer to finishing up the Germans and new terrain…

Other campaigns I’d like to run… someday… that I have some miniature and/or campaign material for... that I occasionally get out and look over and consider… include Twilight:2000, Zombie Run, Traveller/Far future/Sci-fi, Rokugan/L5R, Tour of Darkness, Supers, Pirates, etc…

Hmmmm… Actually I think having typed this out has helped me focus a lot and I’m not feeling so distracted by other things at the moment…

Probably won’t be posting anything else on here for the next two weeks (unless any of my players get a character background to me that I decide to post!) so I hope you all have a happy holiday season and a joyful new year!

2 comments:

ColKillgore said...

For the Cthulhu/WWW2 angle. If the father gets killed in the campaign then the son can remember when his father came back but was different and started going missing for long periods of time. The family worried about him and he seemed to have lost some of his memories but he was still family.

Christian Knudsen said...

Definitely spoiled for choice here!

Again, I'll come and play whatever. But I would lean toward the more skirmish-y stuff that we've been doing with the East Front. Why? I like the more RPG stuff, and the 1889 setting stuff would be cool, but they are WAY more prep for you. You've gotten pretty good at throwing the skirmishes together, but the RPG is much harder to go into blind
(although the Cthulhu campaign turned out pretty ok, but we were useless as investigators). Another factor is the party - you definitely have to put in more work as GM with less experienced RPGers. I wish I could pin down a night where I could run and you could play for once...