New Games and Campaigns

Today's post is really just a way for me to get down in writing what I'd like to focus on in gaming for the rest of the year. My regular Basic Fantasy campaign is winding down. We were going to end it last session, but we needed to cut it short due to time, leaving the PCs halfway through Death Frost Doom. We were supposed to finish it off today, but real life got in the way. In any case, we only have one more session left which means I'll more time to try out a lot more games and put energy into other projects.

First up, I'm working on polishing my notes for the city of Slateholm and submitting it to the Basic Fantasy Workshop. These were all the loose pages of scribbled notes and random tables I used for that portion of my campaign. My players only touched a very small part of it for the couple of sessions they were there and I think there's enough good stuff there to be useful to someone running Morgansfort. My intent with this isn't for these notes and tables to become their own module, but more just in the spirit of sharing what I put together.

Next, I've been slowly working on a draft of an adventure for Basic Fantasy. My idea is pretty large, and I'd like to playtest it before submitting it to the Workshop. At the core is a neat little dungeon idea surrounded by a mini-hex crawl. I think there's a lot of potential for it. I don't think I'll have a draft by the end of the year like I'd hoped, but if I can get the central dungeon written and tested along with the nearby town and surrounds, that will be good.

I'm also chipping away at fleshing out the one-page dungeon I submitted to the One-Page Dungeon Contest last year (I was one of the many runner-up winners). I think I tried to pack too much into the one-page concept and there was a lot of vague details left for the GM to fill in. I was initially going to write this for an OD&D-type system, but tonally it doesn't quite fit (perhaps Swords & Wizardry). There's some body-horror elements that are actually more of a fit for a Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure. I'm less comfortable with those systems, however, so we'll see what I think once it's written. I think if I just pitch it to a Basic-style game, I'll be in the ball park, at least.

Speaking of OD&D, I have a hankering for writing a couple of small scenarios for either or both Iron Falcon and Delving Deeper. S&W is pretty well-supported with adventures, but IF and DD each have their own flavor of the early game which I think is worth supporting. All of these adventures will need to be played through too, so I plan my gaming for the next several months to be running various versions of OD&D.

A side benefit to running all this 0e will be that it will help me to really figure out what I like or don't like for my own 0e system I'm putting together. I know that the last thing the RPG community needs is another OD&D clone, but it's really just a way to put my own house rules together in a format to share with players. I'll probably put it up on Lulu for free digitally and a print version at cost, but the main purpose won't be commercially-driven.

I've also, strangely enough, been looking at 5e. One of my players in my local group wants to run a campaign and I'm curious to get a feel for the system that everyone is playing. I've taken a good look at the free Basic Rules, and while I think there is some good things about it, I'm not quite sold on it. There are some things that I still have hard time with. I'd like to give it a fair shake though.

And because I can't leave well enough alone, I've started putting together, not just one, but two different set of hack rules for 5e based on the SRD. In other words, 5e if I had written it. It's a little bit of an experiment. How much can I take out and still stay true to the rules or the spirit of the rules. Can I make a version of the game I'd want to play, but still use the same engine to be 5e-compatible? It's my way of getting under the hood and learning the system as well.

All this for 2019 and I'd still like to play a little Call of Cthulhu and Empire of the Petal Throne as well. I suppose it's better to be busy than bored.