Yesterday, Shamus Young posted about concluding his D&D campaign and starting a new one.
One of his key challenges was that everybody in his large group (8 players) wanted to play a different style/theme than the rest.
D&D was chosen last time because it’s the default game that his group seems to have agreed to. And it that’s what he might go for again.
Now I don’t want to dwell on his list of player specs for rules of the perfect RPG, that’s his personal Player’s Creed and I’m cool with that even if I don’t share his views.
I also don’t want to suggest he takes on a new game system as many on his site proposed. I believe this would send his group into unneeded storming again and I don’t think that’s what he wants.
But since he has limited RPG resources and the whole group knows D&D 3,5 here’s a few tips I suggest for his next game:
First, go with D&D 3.5 but open it up to allow the other players a bit of what they want:
Mech Warrior guy seems to be a Brilliant Tactician, so play with a battlemap and figurines (or stand-ins) at least once in a while.
To truly make his day, make one adventure arc about ‘giant steampunk mechas’ by making some D&D monsters into drivable constructs (The Bulette is my favorite) and using D20 Vehicle rules. Have at least one adventure where a battle is fought with them.
Let the other players who don’t care about this stuff play the battle by jumping from Mecha to Gigantic monster.
Rules Aside: Yes I read the strip where Legolas wants to do things the rule disallow, but I suggest you have your own version of the Rule of Cool handy and allow jumping around, ignoring failure so the non-mecha players can have fun focusing on getting the bad guy sitting on the Dinosaurs!
Allow players to play Vampires and Werewolf PCs (for 5 bucks I suggest Sean K. Reynolds’ Curse of the Moon as an alternate) . Depending on starting level, you can even disregard ECLs.
Set the game on an ocean world where an evil Island-spanning Empire fights against rebel Pirates! Set ocean-gates that allow faster travel from island to island.
Star Destroyers become Behemoth Floating Dungeons with Magic Siege Engines! The Death Star is a Flying Aircraft-Carrier!
And use all those Steampunk StarWars pictures on the web as props for fluff.
All this can be done with core books and stuff borrowed legally from the net.
Damn, I want to play that game now! 🙂
What about you, dear readers, do you have any other hints that don’t entail buying a new game?
Fixed the Vehicle Rules link for you.
You’re welcome. 😛
Why thank you!! 🙂
Technically not buying a new game, but the Iron Kingdoms campaign sourcebooks are quite good and have some nice techy stuff and the background info is full of fluffy goodness.
“Damn, I want to play that game now! :)”
I don’t remember where I heard it said, but often the only way we get the games we want is to run them ourselves :).
I love concepts that take fantasy themes and catapult them into high tech scenarios. What you are describing seems to do that, which would make for a really nifty game.
The thing is that I have more game ideas than possible days to game them….
I’m grateful that the blog allows me to vent some of it out of my brain…
But sometimes I let one out that makes me think ‘Damn, I’d love to play that’ but can’t possibly fit in my short term plans.
🙂
Ocean-gates of course allow for Faster Than Wind (FTW) travel.
Ha ha! 😀
Can you Imagine Solo and his Werewolf pal boasting about his clipper ship in a port town?