What was one of your campaign settings and how well did it run?
Just give a general rundown of your setting. General Setting, Magic/FX level, Baddies, unique homebrewed additions, and most importantly, how well did it run?
Mine was a low-magic setting, modern day. The idea was that fantasy creatures and beings lived with us but their true forms were covered by a 'veil'. It was an illusion that made them seem human to most people. The players had the ability to make a wis check to see if they could "pierce the veil". (Yeah I ripped off WoD, sue me. : P) This was kinda cool for Dedicated characters, since I thought they blew anyhow. The characters were a Paranormal Research Team, kinda like that Ghosthunters show. The campaign ran well for a few months on OpenRPG until i had scheduling problems and had to shut it down. : (
Angel Blade
What I can remember right now is this.
Figure that the Elves, Orcs, and Half-Orcs are alien races. Humans would have pretty impressive tech structure and base, and half-elves would be a mixture of both cultures.
Elves would be an ancient race with low level stardrive tech, but their other tech would coexist with nature. Probably will keep the spellcasting abilities for them.
Orcs/Half-orcs would be kinda tribe based with different clans/etc. and more or less attack a world, pillage it and leave. Hence the Half-orcs when the encountered a human world. Still hate elves/etc from the D&D-verse.
Dwarves would be descended from humans on heavy-gravity worlds.
Gnomes and Halflings would probably be a gene modded human subrace for living in space or another two races. Haven't worked it out completely yet.
Angel Blade
DragonStar
Looked the series up on Amazon and found several books mostly the actual RPG Books... Do you have an internet address that has the entire listing of books/etc. Amazon has 9 books listed on their site.
Angel Blade
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/dsproducts.html
Somewhere on their website i saw a link to a DragonStar campaign specific website, DarkStar... i think. Enjoy and let me know if this takes some of the work out of your campaign idea.
PS. Steal some of their ideas but make it your own!!! : )
Angel Blade
The first game I ran started with the PCs as minor gangsters with a connection to the Chinese Triad in Vancouver (my hometown).
The best setting I ran was a Shadow Chasers campaign based heavily on the TV series Supernatural. I'm still re-writing the adventure ideas out into publishable adventure format. They were very low magic, heavy on the RP and investigation side with the occasional combat encounter. Many of the "monsters" were simply uncombatable and had to be dealt with another way.
I also ran an episodic campaign called d20 NYC '85. It was a no-magic alternate reality, including several cameos (TMNT, Spiderman, The Ramones). The PC was a police officer, so a large portion of the campaign was "on-duty assignments".
I had planned to run a few other campaigns, but haven't yet gotten around to them:
- A one-shot Terminator scenario following the basic plot of the original movie, leading in to a d20 Future campaign where the PCs from the one-shot have survived and are members of John Connor's Tec-Com.
- A d20 Apocalypse campaign (Fallout inspired)
- A d20 Doom one-shot (using Star Wars Galaxy Tiles to map out the original game's maps)
- and a d20 Wolfenstein mini-campaign (based on the remake of the game, which in turn is based on the Clint Eastwood movie "Where Eagles Dare")
I think that's it for my d20 Modern campaigns, though I may be forgetting a few...
Its a space opera setting, where human space has discovered advanced technologies that has pulled them out of PL6 and into PL7 and a little into PL8.
The human race begins to colonize the immediate space around their homeworld (earth), and begins their territorial disputes over resources.
Very much unaware of the presence and manipulation of the fraal to discover what exactly is so special about the human race.
The shadow realm is encroaching upon our world and is creating supernatural events that most corporations and goverments want to keep under covers as much as possible and go to great lengths to hide.
Humanity has evolved and a growing majority of children are evolved psychics. They are killed at birth for a fear that they will bring the death of all humanity as millions died by attack of the void creatures in the past.
The nations of humanity, diverse and powerful use their technologies for control and supremacy over each other, knowing and fearing discovery by powers greater than them, and the dimensions that lurk around every corner.
The players, a diverse lot of rebels move between these nations as traitors, rebels and unknowns. They garner what allies they can find, those who know about the shadowrealms and the dangers that lie beyond the stars and help them to protect the human race dispite its ignorance.
d20 Modern & d20 Future
Astrosynthesis 2.0
and allot of my own hard work...
The setting was our real world but a fantastic universe, with a retro look of pulp age (30-50´s years). A universe with some superheroes.. and supernatural creatures (secret mason lodges ruled by vampires and mummies, terrorist werewolfs, plagues of ghouls who are created by a biological weapon, dictatorships by dragons in exotic lands... ).
Due to a covert black ops project being run by a secret organization, unnamed at this time, around several artifacts, two worlds, parallel opposites merge into one bringing the once believed creatures of old myths into the current age(beginning PL7-8).
After a brief war lead by the organization the species come to live in an uneasy balance!
With FXs, D&D races and alien races (if I had d20 future). The progress level was 6 (cyberpunk).
The setting was our real world but a fantastic universe, with a retro look of pulp age (30-50´s years). A universe with some superheroes.. and supernatural creatures (secret mason lodges ruled by vampires and mummies, terrorist werewolfs, plagues of ghouls who are created by a biological weapon, dictatorships by dragons in exotic lands... ).
Good night. Sounds like the whole kitchen sink.
I ran Dark Matter with Spycraft 2.0's combat rules / gun play. PC's were brought together using the intro adventure (Exit 23 from the Dark Matter book). I focused less on the alien influence and much more on occult wackos. Magic was powerful, but more ritualistic in nature. Occultists didn't sling fireballs but sacrificed the first born of a family of divine origin in order to bring forth a demon. They protected their lair with firearms, and financed the operation with a drug ring. I had underlying plots with some of the groups outlined in Dark Matter, like Templars and the Hoffman Institute.
Positives: If your players enjoy combat on the grid (and you have lots of fancy miniatures), then Spycraft is where it's at. If your combat centric PC's like their firearms then Spycraft is where it's at. The PC's were not magically endowed and the fear of the 'bad guys' using magic (voodoo, summoning, mind control) is always there. Feat trees and talents give the PC's something to look forward to. I also blended in the prestige classes from Dark Matter and 2 PCs used those.
Negatives: If your players don't enjoy combat on the grid then Spycraft is overkill. Combat takes a little time. Dark Matter isn't Call of Cthulu and isn't as 'scary', it's more like X-Files. Without psionics and FX it can sometimes degenerate into 'shoot it and ask questions later'.
I'm currently running a Shadow Chasers campaign based heavily on the mythology of the Silent Hill video games, tied in with Dark Matter (no aliens, though), a bit of Cthulu and other horror-themed lore.
Nice. I've had Silent Hill and Resident Evil influences in my game before, but I've always wanted to do a dedicated horror-style game. Sounds cool!
It started as a very basic Shadow Chaser [Angel/Buffy] affair but progressed, as new Modern books came out, into a Future Space Opera Saga.
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I'm flirting with these ideas for my next campaign:
[probably with Modern 2.0 rules]
Logan's Run Redux : After a major ecological catastrophy citizens of an edonistic dome society discover that the surface of Earth is once again livable BUT things are not what they seem at first ! A survival story with a very realistic taste
Mission Impossible : Player run an ultra-modern secret agency. They have access to a wide range of pre-generated characters. They chose which character is best for the mission before going in. [Same idea could also be used for a X-Men style campaign]
Film Noir 1920 : Players are down under dectectives and first WW veterans with few customers until a secret paranormal agency enlists them to battle occult and other forces trying to start a second world war. Chtuluh/Nazi/Rocketeer/HellBoy all rolled into one.
Voilà.
Nice. I've had Silent Hill and Resident Evil influences in my game before, but I've always wanted to do a dedicated horror-style game. Sounds cool!
Yeah, it's cool how it's evolved from the beginning. At first, the party was just a group of friends thrust into the horrors of Silent Hill while on vacation. I realized that as they progressed, I couldn't keep doing the same thing over and over again, so eventually they met up with a small group of other Chasers who they worked with for quite awhile (a breakaway group named Department-7. Eventually, the small group grew recognized enough that they caught the attention of the Hoffman Institute and they ended up being reabsorbed back into it. Now they work together more on a mission-based type of thing, where they get assignments, but they still occasionally find themselves on an adventure without prior knowledge. Despite the more advanced weaponry and the fact that they have a lot more NPCs around them, the horror hasn't lessened for them at all. I actually did an adventure recently where they did a Fatal Frame style, ghost-hunting thing where all they had were cameras to fight with (using their Visual Arts check instead of Attack Rolls, which all weren't that high, heightening the suspense) and they loved every minute of it.
Yeah, it's cool how it's evolved from the beginning...I actually did an adventure recently where they did a Fatal Frame style, ghost-hunting thing where all they had were cameras to fight with (using their Visual Arts check instead of Attack Rolls, which all weren't that high, heightening the suspense) and they loved every minute of it.
That's cool!
I'm impressed, that's an innovative twist on the normal rules.We were wondering over at BG if you were coming over?
Speaking of which, what is BG? Have a link? (And god I have so many private messages I need to reply too...)
Indeed, BG is the new forum where we won't get f*cked over. Hopefully.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?board=30.0 Here's the d20 section.
I've run three or four campaigns in that setting involving smugglers, mind-flyers, renegade psychics, daemons, mutants, mercenaries, yuan-ti and the kitchen sink.
Good times.