Pitching Games
After my in-person game group's inaugural campaign, ESCHATON, went the way of the dinosaur, I decided to throw together a pitch document with 7 possible games we could do next. At least for now, I'm still GMing for everyone. The players have already made their choice, but I'm curious, internet: what would you pick?
Note: I've boldly copy-pasted this from the initial loose pitch doc I sent the players, and I have made little effort to clean things up. Enjoy!
The Dawn War
THE DAWN WAR is a game about mortal heroes and powerful gods fighting and working together to shape the freshly-forged world. Think of your favorite fantasy setting, then rewind the timeline to the very beginning - usually, there’s some kind of epic mythical conflict that defines the world to come. THE DAWN WAR is about this conflict. I don’t know what rules we’d use yet, but you’d effectively be at the scale of “very high level DnD heroes”. This campaign would feature sweeping magic, lots of creative freedom, war drama stakes, heroism from all quarters, and probably more than a few giant boss fights.
Note to internet readers: This pitch was inspired by the inimitable How to Win the Dawn War post, which lives on my blog's "Posts I Love" page.
Stonetop
STONETOP is a game (and a whole campaign world) that comes to us in two giant books [player] got me from a convention. It’s well regarded as a really fun game of a genre I’d call “rustic fantasy”. You all play as villagers from the isolated Iron Age village of Stonetop, in a remote fantasy wilderness full of mysteries and adventures. The focus is on adventuring FOR home, i.e. every action on an adventure bounces back to the village in some way, and dealing with the lives of the villagers is just as important as slaying dragons etc. For those in the know, a Powered by the Apocalypse game. It is an extensive, well-crafted game/world that we can explore together. I can’t say for certain, but STONETOP is probably a slower-paced game than the other menu options.
Of all the campaigns presented here, STONETOP is the most likely to require long term investment to get the most out of it. The book itself, and all the reviews, say “dozens of sessions” are best. Maybe that’s a plus for you, maybe that’s a minus - discuss!
Note to internet readers: I really want to use the beautiful physical copies, but alas, they did not pick this one!
Soul Suckers
SOUL SUCKERS is a dark urban fantasy hidden world thing. This is a very loose idea right now. Be magical scumbags in a city where it’s always either raining or night, where the occult underground is like a thriving writhing club full of monsters, where the stakes of magic are personal, ritual, and sacrificial. A weird game more focused on the intrigues of monstrous beings hiding in plain sight than on action.
Note to internet readers: This would be a little bit like my pet occult horror setting they do not exist mixed with my previous Night Freaks campaign which floundered and died after 20+ sessions.
Time of the Orc
This is one I’ve sat on for a while. TIME OF THE ORC casts you in the role of monster commandos fighting a war behind enemy lines for the liberation of all monsterkind. This is set in a pretty generic fantasy dungeonland, with the catch that you play “the baddies”. You’re not evil, you’re not murderhobos, as the goals of the war for you are more about beating the evil human/elvish/etc institutions that keep your people down. Not a very serious game, but as always we might get very invested and attached! This would feature lots of brief brutal fights, lots of wandering around forests looking for monstrous allies, lots of sneaking around and scheming. TIME OF THE ORC would probably use an OSR-adjacent ruleset. This could be a short campaign before we move on to another game, or if you like it we could truck through the whole war!
Note to internet readers: A campaign premise I keep coming back to, this time re-inspired by recent discussion on the super-secret ultra-wafer-deluxe GLOG server.
Laserburn
Another very loose pitch! LASERBURN is a space opera/science fiction game set in a galaxy of action and adventure. This is a setting I made a while back that is seeking fun characters. Would be somewhat pulpy, with players traveling the galaxy far and wide. Themes of found family? You’d all be working together on a little privately-owned spaceship, taking odd jobs, getting involved in higher stakes happenings as play continues! This would probably use rules like Savage Worlds, which ESCHATON was based on. Most likely a shorter, fast-paced campaign.
Broken Lances
BROKEN LANCES is about nobles and knights in a low fantasy medieval setting (i.e. few monsters, no elves or dwarves, very little magic) trying to win the throne of a kingdom without a king. Would feature intrigues, tournaments, assassinations, power politics, marriages, deaths by poison or illness, and some proper battles. Some Arthuriana mixed with some Game of Thrones. Probably we’d want this to be a longer game, as far as session count.
Revolver Requiem
REVOLVER REQUIEM is another old idea, one inspired by Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence. In a world not unlike a haunted Wild West, we fought the gods and won. Now what’s left swarms with zombies, fallen angels, upstart demons, and the shards of dead gods that power city lights. Revolver Requiem would be a gunslinging adventurer’s game about vengeance, greed, and redemption won with dark magic and six-shooters. This would be a shorter game, probably with a limited scope - think one big adventure. Ghost trains, haunted factories, a scarred earth.
Note to internet readers: Heavily inspired by/cribbing from Sage's Sanctum Revolver and all its attendant posts and goodies.