Campaign Creation

[chariot]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

Ok... so this has been good. I've got some ides, and started filling out some Word docs.

 

Here's an associated question: fleshing out those ideas into adventures?

 

My older gaming groups were pretty short on the roleplaying, very long on intricate, hours-long combats. My new players want more than combat, and I'm a little weak on the other areas of an adventure.

 

People's processes for going from germ to full fledged viral outbreak?

[schir1964]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

What is a "genesis setting"? First appearance of supers?

No, although it could be applied to that easily.

 

A Genesis Setting is the event or story of when the character obtained his powers.

 

Spiderman: The story of being bitten by the radioactive spider and his process of learning his powers and how to use them.

 

Darkhawk: The story of how he found the crystal that gave him his powers.

 

It doesn't even have to be about Powers per se, but any story that explains how an event influenced the character to become what he is. Such as Batman.

 

I simply created a Setting that can be used to give the character's thier powers and made it somewhat consistent for a common background, but with enough flexibility to allow for unique character builds.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[MitchellS]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

Start with a plot seed. The entire Shades of Black adventure was based off of a single plot seed. My plot seed: James Harmon III, CEO of Harmon Industries, is coming to the city to sign a deal with Newton McCarthy, CEO of Omni-Tech Labs.

 

That's your foreshadowed newspaper article. Perhaps the article will talk a littl about what the deal will be [new computers, satellite, etc.].

 

From there you develop the idea. Rich people like to have parties, so there will be a party honoring the visit. This is a chance for wealty pcs to be invited. A poor pc might be working the party as a waiter. Maybe the pcs are invited because it's trendy to have superheroes at major social events. However you want to handle it, there's role-playing there as far as getting the pcs involved. That part of the role-playing might take place 1 or 2 sessions prior to the event.

 

Maybe prior to the party one of the pcs learn from an informant that there's a big tech deal going down. That's your chance to foreshadow more. The snitch might say he only knows it involves a big money corporation. Now the PCs

 

Now you decide what's going to happen. Something is. Kidnapping of Harmon? Assassination attempt? Something is going to happen at that party. I would go with something like James' assistant, Matthew, is there to secretly sell OTL a copy of, and the plans to, the defender armor. Why OTL wants it is up to you. It might be them wanting the technology, might just be the CEO of OTL is a collector, might be OTL wants to use it for some evil purpose to against Defender.

 

The pcs get to role-play at the party. Maybe from there a drunk girlfriend lets something slip, or the pcs notice a lot of added security. Maybe they see Matthew is acting nervous and strange. This is the chance for them to gather more clues, and also to make some connections which will lead into future plots and adventures.

 

Now the deal goes down but Matthew feels cheated. He tells the CEO of OTL to kiss off and leaves. A few minutes later "Defender" shows up and starts attacking guards while trying to get to the CEO of OTL for revenge. He spews out rhetoric about how the CEO is really some evil villain, bla, bla, bla and tried to get the pcs to help him. With this you get role-playing with James Harmon, trying to figure out what's going one, with "Defender", and with the CEO of OTL.

 

The pcs catch on and start to attack "Defender." Matthew is not a trained combattant and so he decides to try and capture James and fly off with him. His career is over so now he's resorting to kidnapping and extortion. He gets away somehow and now the pcs are left with a kidnapping to solve.

 

Second session has the real Defender showing up. Maybe even with the Champions. He wants to know where his father is, why the pcs let him get kidnapped, and what they have been doing to find him. Now you have a chance for some role-playing and conflict with the Champions. And the plot moves on...

[chariot]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

ummm.. are you saying you are the author of Shades of Black? Pardon my ignorance if you are. But, good show. I love that adventure, though I'll admit I have not really read through all of it.

 

And a wonderful example you gave, too.

[MitchellS]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

ummm.. are you saying you are the author of Shades of Black? Pardon my ignorance if you are. But, good show. I love that adventure, though I'll admit I have not really read through all of it.

 

And a wonderful example you gave, too.

No, not at all. I wish I were Allen.

 

I'm just saying the entire Shades adventure was based off of one of the character's plot seeds. Check it out in CKC.

[chariot]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

ah well, my mistake. But I see now, what you are saying.

[chariot]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

Ok, I feel dense for not realizing this before, but over at The Harrow (online mag of horror and dark fantast), there is a wonderful collection of RPG articles penned by our managing editor/publisher/creator.

 

http://www.theharrow.com/rpg/index.html

 

Really, really good stuff. It comes from a D&D slant, but that it, of course, irrelevant.

[Rapier]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

It all depends on how the game develops. I've created campaigns from the in out (start with the base, then neighbourhood, then city, then state etc). This is nice because you can get started almost immediately with little effort. The bad part is that you have to think on your feet and the players can't mind (too much) the occassional retconn (eg those were not the droids you are looking for...I don't care if they were last week, they're not now) etc.

 

I've also created them from the out in. I've been putting a significant amount of time (especially since we are on hiatus, one of our players is terminally ill and we can't decide if we are going to hang things up or not) into developing my fantasy campaign from the ground up (actually creating an entire world in which to drop PCs).

 

Either method works. It all depends on your resources, time and the amount of effort you want to invest before you begin playing.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

Anyone have any good tools for Campaign Creation? Or just methods that they use to keep it all together?

 

We use MediaWiki <http://www.westguard.org/> . Unfortunately, we're all either lazy or busy, and I'm the one who usually gets tasked with doing the actual updating (and I'm both lazy and busy), so the wiki probably only includes ten percent of the actual campaign background. Still, it's better than nothing, and we add things slowly but surely.

[sinanju]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

Yep' date=' very true. Sometimes you just need to run with things and see where they go. More than once I've had adventure A waiting to be run for the night, with B and C being set up, only to find when the game starts that the players want to escort Grond from the PRIMUS base all the way to Stronghold because they're afraid he might break loose... [/quote']

 

Yeah, I played in a fantasy campaign once in which we got together for the next session after an adventure in which the Big Bad Guy had gotten away (again). He'd _killed_ my character and turned me into a zombie and sent me off to kill the other PCs! (I got better, eventually, but it was very aggravating.)

 

So my roommate and I were driving over to the GM's house for the session and we got to talking and decided that, "No, not this time--he's not getting away with it again."

 

When we started up the session, we announced to the GM that we had no need of an adventure hook--we HAD an adventure planned. We spent a couple of sessions tracking down and fighting (and eventually killing) the bad guy in question. It was very satisfying, and not at all what the GM had had planned for us--but he was wise enough to roll with the punches.

[Kirby]

Re: Campaign Creation

 

Anyone have any good tools for Campaign Creation? Or just methods that they use to keep it all together?

...

Thoughts, tips, hints, advice and other bon mots appreciated (ok, the occaisional bit of derision will be accepted with good humor, too).

Things that I enjoy and use in my campaign(s) is to have plots & subplots that not only involve the superhero aspect, but the normal/secret ID aspect as well. If someone has a DNPC, I try to include them every session where plausible. I also like to include the PC's work setting. I've started a relatively new group and they original two players aren't strong in roleplaying, so it's been like pulling teeth; however, the previous group I gamed with verily enjoyed this.

 

Something else we (as in previous group) would do was have a "team night out" where our secret ID selves would go out dancing or dining together. Not for combat. Not for a stakeout. Just for fun. If the players or PCs were getting very stressed over several adventures and the GM spotted this, he'd have someone throw a party at their place once the current adventure was over.

 

I try to get the players to have their PCs pay attention to the tv, radio & newspapers to let them know what all else is going on. Sometimes there's plot or subplot information going on, and sometimes it's just 'stuff.'