Campaign Concepts 1
by Jim Toledo
I have this habit, it's called daydreaming. I do it a lot, and sometimes not in exactly the safest of places, those who have driven with me the ones with perhaps the most to complain about this not so unique passtime. It is this daydreaming though that often leads me to create campaign ideas. More often than not these ideas are just seeds planted in my brain. Sometimes they are based around a movie or a specific genre, like westerns or pirates, othertimes they are inspired by unique ideas others have made. I find pleasure in trying to put my own unique spin on what others have created. I'm not trying to make it better, many of these people are extremely successful and their creations very popular. No, my goal is just to see what I can do with an idea, and more importantly, how I can turn it into a story that my friends and I can enjoy discovering and creating together.
The following is a series of campaign ideas I have come up with. Many of them you'll see are heavily inspired by other medias, but I would like to think a few are unique creations... well as unique as I can get. I've run some of these games with various levels of success, I have a bad luck streak with futuristic games. Some have never seen a session played, others have been full blown campaigns, and some have even had the chance to be run a few times. I can say all of them I would gladly run again and again.
In the end, that's probably why I love D&D, table top RPGs, and campaign ideas so much. While the base idea may be the same, each time you run it, it's something new and unique and fun. So here they are, a few of the current campaign ideas I have fleshed out.
Sidewinder
Sidewinder is a great campaign setting, I've run it once now to almost the last session and it has been the source of some of my favorite memories and clichés of my gaming style ever.
Sidewinder is at it's core, a western style game, though usually with a twist. The original form of the game was heavily influenced by three distinct sources. Trigun, an anime, was the source for the basics of the setting. I loved the idea of humanity trying to survive in what is basically a planet wide desert. This allowed for the essence of what humans are to come out, and a western style allowed it to be played out in a melodramatic style.
Wild Arms, a video game series very similar to Trigun, added more detail to the world, including giving me a way to meld the supernatural with the technology. It also gave me an idea on how to do the bad guys better than Trigun did as it had to have more of them. Finally Wild Arms was how I wanted the party to interact, it helped me see how a group of people would survive together.
The final influence is one of my favorite movies, Maverick. This was the final piece in creating the culture, the people and more importantly, the humor of the game. The tongue in cheek approach to situations throughout the movie was instrumental in adding a fun and funny factor to what could have easily been an overly somber game.
Sidewinder has a total of two possible incarnations. The original incarnation was how it was run the first time I played the game and is perhaps the truest form of the game. I created a variant that was more out of a need to have it playable with a system that had magic instead of technology. Here is the actual synposis of the game as I have introduced players to it.
Sidewinder Synopsis
Sidewinder was once a living and verdant world. Ages ago, a great civilation pushed the boundaries of technology and tested the limits of science. No one knows how or why, but a Great Cataclysm befell the world. Summers grew longer and longer, and the world slowly died under the heat. Summer is now eternal, and the planet is a near dead thing, covered in seas of sand and endless wastes. Despite this, humanity refuses to give up and civilization, a pale shadow of itself, still continues on.
Players are orphans, sons and daughters now adults, looking to make it in a world where survival is more and more becoming priorty number one. Will they become shopowners, clerks, lawmen or criminals? Will they follow the life a bounty hunter, a Drifter, as they are called, and take on the wilds of civilization and of the wastes. Will they do it for good, for themselves, or for money? And what will they do, when the terrors of old come back, and the Great Cataclysm returns to finish the job.
Souls
Souls is a great game and perhaps one of my top favorite games ideas I ever came up with. I've tried to run this game 3 or 4 times now, and while they never last long, each one has been great loads of fun and I just love it.
I don't quite remember where I was inspired with the idea for the Souls campaign. I think this was one of those ideas that was spawned out of just random thoughts that congealed and fused together and birthed this campaign. I think this may be part of my attempt to reconcile my ideas on life, faith, death, and God with the interpretation of these things that I was raised with in my Catholic upbringing. Maybe it's just my way of having a little fun and messing with the whole thing and putting it on it's head.
I will admit, I have seen some aspects of my game in movies and modern media, but I like to think that this one is more me than anyone else.
Like Sidewinder, I tried running this game, many times, and unlike Sidewinder, I was rarely successful for long. This was not the fault of the concept though, more like a series of refining processes that the game had to go through. Throughout all of the games, the core concept stayed the same, but the genre or feel of the game changed. I had high magic, high psionics, no magic, and even a touch of the horror aspect. I think horror and suspense work best for this game, it allows the themes to come through clearer and not get lost in the special effects of the other genres.
A side note, there is a major plot point that I have never gotten to and have never revealed to anyone, I still can't given that I plan to one day run this game and I don't want to ruin it for people, so there is a lot more to the game than just what the synposis shows.
Souls Synopsis
There is a time limit to man's existence on this earth. When God created our world, God set out for there to be only a certain number of souls to be born unto this world before the end of days. Things however have not synched up quite right. The recent ages of men have brought wars, disease, famine and countless horrors perpetuated by man itself. We breed in greater and greater numbers and die in even more numbers.
Creativity, care, compassion, heroism, the very essence, the greatness of humanity is fading. More and more, the world becomes a place of dull greys and listless people. This is a world mostly devoid of souls.
The Cup of Souls has gone empty, the last soul now walks the earth. Even before this though, there have been more people than souls upon this earth. We see the results, more and more the people around us are drones, copies, mere biology and no substance. Great and unique people, souled people are rapidly dwindling, and when the last soul dies, the end of days comes.
Players are one of the last souled humans on earth. They must find each other, and other souled people and protect them, for the apocalypse of man has been rushed ahead of schedule. Forces long forgotten make their bid for the world and for humanity's fate, they seek to force humanity's end before it is ready.
Player's must save themselves, and other souled humans, both good and bad, for there is a way to refill the Cup of Souls, a way to give humanity a second chance at redemption. They must find this solution quickly, for the end rushes at them at unimagineable speed.
Misfits
If Souls is my favorite 'serious' game, then Misfits is my favorite fun or funny game. Misfits is my way of bringing the buddy film, or team comedy into an RPG setting.
Misfits can be summed up in one phrase, it is "Murphy's Law on crack." Anything that can happen, will happen, and more often than not, happen over and over again. Always meant to be a game for a small group, 2-3 players at most, Misfits puts childhood friends on the path to make their dream come true, if they can survive all the mishaps that happen along the way.
Originally born out of my want to run a small futuristic space game, the idea of misfits came to be during the running of that game. My two players at the time created a great buddy-buddy team, and had wonderful and unique ways to survive harrowing experiences. This would lead to me making it my mission to see how creative they could get in the face of adversity. And while the game didn't last long, it was perhaps the most fun I had in a while, and spawned this idea of a fun, wacky game.
The game is set in space because I felt the containment and environment of a mobile "home base", in other words the spaceship, would not only help foster the friendships, but also allow for a sense of continuity.
I should note that I have never had any real success with any of my space games, and I have no idea why. Still, the synopsis you are about to read is my favorite and I look forward to the day I get to try this bad boy out again.
Misfits Synposis
Far, far in the future, in the great expanse of space, mysticism, psionics, and technology vie to coexist together in a chaotic universe. Filled with evil and corrupt governments, massive nation like corporations, dangerous ancient technology, gangs, pirates, monsters, mobsters and even persistent creditors, the universe is a less than hospitable place.
The players are friends, misfits in their youth, scoundrels, rogues, and maybe even occasionally criminals, they have banded together again as adults in hopes of pursuing their youthful ambition of wealth and prosperity. An old friend and would be patron has appeared and they are closer to their goal than ever before. One seemingly simple job is all that seperates them from easy street.
Like all things, however, something inevitable goes wrong, and players must face all the horrors of space, and dodge their own bad luck as they try to fufill their dreams.
There you have it, three of my favorite campaign concepts. While they may have been born out of certain systems, I think that they can transcend any system if a DM is willing to try. There are a lot more ideas out there both in my head, on paper, or soon to be in my head. As I flesh them out a bit I'll share them with everyone. Maybe you'll be able to play them out and tell me about it!
Happy Gaming.
