Starting a new campaign

[Herobizkit]

I'd say progress the timeline based on what your PC's did in your Deadlands finale.

It's now the Renaissance (Steampunk?) / World Wars / Modern era in the same world. Have your players play (young?) descendants of their original characters.

And I also support the use of Savage Worlds for this endeavour. YOu can easily run a Hunter-style game with it AND be goofy/mad scienc-y.

 

[Umbran]

I'd say progress the timeline based on what your PC's did in your Deadlands finale.

Maybe sometime in the (real-world) future. Especially considering one of the PCs was pregnant at the end of the campaign. But for now, I'd like to break form the current genre and timeline - more work in the same world is not going to lead to me being more engaged or imaginative.

 

[amerigoV]

If you are considering Savage Worlds, look hard at 50 Fathoms. Its their best plot point. Its D&D meets Pirates of the Caribbean. The setting is incredibly flexibly and there are 4 or 5 campaigns worth of material packed in that book:

1. The Main Plot Point
2. The Golden Triangles Plot Point
3. The Trade War (not a plot point per se, but its there)
4. And enough Savage Tales to cobble together a couple of games while weaving in your own material and ideas.

I just finished up the main plot point campaign. We played every other week for two years and there is so much more to do there. Its as combat focused as you want to be.

 

[Umbran]

If you are considering Savage Worlds, look hard at 50 Fathoms. Its their best plot point. Its D&D meets Pirates of the Caribbean.

My group is apt to choose genre/theme, and then I figure out what game will do it well, rather than we pick a game, and then choose what genre/theme to do with it.

But, if they aim for "Pirates!", SW would be my most likely choice, and I'll remember this note for that case.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Haven't played SW myself, but have played about three campaigns of 7th Sea. It has absolutely my favorite mechanics ever in the Roll and Keep system and their pirate action, swordfighting and specialized magic is fantastic. Now granted, the game's out of print, so you'd have to see if you could get the Players and GMs books used from any of the stores in the area (I personally head up to The Comic Shop in Nashua because they have a huge back catalogue gaming section), but if you can pick them up, I've found the game to be wonderful.

If you find the game really intriguing, delving into the Nation books and Secret Society sourcebooks then expand things exponentially (although that would be a larger drain on the wallet).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Have you ever considered a campaign based on shows like Friday the 13th: The Series or Warehouse 13?

You know: party has to find all kinds of McGuffins and get them someplace they can be safely stored.

 

[amerigoV]

Have you ever considered a campaign based on shows like Friday the 13th: The Series or Warehouse 13?

You know: party has to find all kinds of McGuffins and get them someplace they can be safely stored.

And you can make it easy on yourself by getting the Banewarrens by Monte Cook. The module itself, described as a "sadistic inside joke between Monte and the DM*," is the "end result" of such a campaign. If you are not familiar with it, the short of it is the concept of evil cannot be destroyed, only contained. So one man made it a mission to collect up all the tainted magic items (cursed in the sense that they all corrupted the user - the titular "Banes") and lock them away. Otherwise, just destroying the item/creature just freed the evil to manifest somewhere else. Well, all went bad when the head guy got corrupted.

The module itself, even if you run it, has tons of unused material. After the PCs open up a few cells in the Banewarrens, they quickly learn not do open any more unless they absolutely have to. So there is just tons of "how did someone obtain this" ideas right there. And its not just items, its also unique creatures as well.

* that is what one of my players said after I ran it for them

 

[Umbran]

Have you ever considered a campaign based on shows like Friday the 13th: The Series or Warehouse 13?

You know: party has to find all kinds of McGuffins and get them someplace they can be safely stored.

Well, I expect the Atomic Robo arc I'm expecting to do between campaigns will be similar to that. A bit more pulp-action than those, but still.

If I were to run such a thing as a longer campaign, I'd probably look to GUMSHOE as a system, as it is well-formed for investigation.

 

[fuindordm]

How about a Galaxy Quest campaign with a generic ruleset such as SW, Gurps, or HERO?

 

[Umbran]

How about a Galaxy Quest campaign with a generic ruleset such as SW, Gurps, or HERO?

I don't have experience with Hero, but by report is it heavy-handed on the crunch. Probably not appropriate.

GURPS is a bit on the "gritty realism" side of mechanics for me to use it for action-adventure space opera (or comedy version thereof). I can think of sci-fi for which I'd use GURPS (Outland, perhaps) but not Galaxy Quest.

SW might be good for such - I'd have to read it over. I might also consider using a hack of Ashen Stars (GUMSHOE-based), as I've personally experienced GUMSHOE doing pulp-action reasonably well.