The Next Game

I’m in the envious position of playing in two games at the moment, something of a strange situation for me. A few months removed from running Stargate, my thoughts have been wandering as to what the next game I run might look like.

Gamers — and moods — are fickle things, so an idea that resonates today might not be so keen next week. But right now I already have a few ideas that are tickling my fancy. After finishing D&D it seems like it’s almost a foregone conclusion that we’ll be ramping up a Vampire/Ghouls campaign. That doesn’t bother me in the slightest. But, if at some point an opportunity were to arise…

Birthright

I nearly ran this three or so years ago, during the famous “Weighted List” session, but Birthright has always had a soft spot for me. I played in two campaigns but never ran it. Birthright is unique in that it is, essentially, two games in one. There is the larger metagame level of Birthright, where players take the roles of Reagents and ruling their Domains and a second more traditional level of adventuring. These adventurers typically serve one (or more) of the player Reagents in some capacity. In a way it’s a bit like Ars Magica and troupe play.

Birthright would have a heavy political element but that’s also the great thing: one session you’re doing Domain actions and resolving wars, the next session the vassals are out tomb plundering for some great treasure. Also, like Pendragon, you can jump the timeline forward in convenient spurts. The world also tends to make a bit more sense than your typical fantasy world, with low-level kingdom rulers who can drop at the fall of the most common sword.

And, as I said before in an earlier blog post, even though it’s D&D I’m probably the guy who should be running it. Since Birthright is an AD&D 2.0 game there would be some conversion work (already done) for 3.0/3.5 and to temper the massive rules bloat I’d be likely to limit the game to only the core books. Part of my philosophy would be to trim the rules down to more manageable to have the players focused on their characters and the setting, rather than the stack of rulebooks in front of them.

Star Trek

At this point I think it’d be more noteworthy if Star Trek didn’t appear on one of my lists. The reality is that I love Trek and the type of gaming that it engenders. It’s not the quest for power or bigger magic items, it’s how you use that power and the morality of being “the only ship in the quadrant.” Ultimately it’s a character drama with the starship serving as another character. Unlike the adventures that I ran with Stargate, I would not run Star Trek using tightly-formatted three act episodes. Instead a more holistic approach, much like a multi threaded movie or several more complex episodes strung together. In the end I want to concentrate more on the story and less on genre emulation like I did with Stargate.

One issue with Star Trek is group buy-in: Trek gaming speaks to a very specific play style. While my group tends to shoot first, ask questions later, that wouldn’t work very well in a Star Trek game. But if they want a character drama that focuses on them and lots of moral quandaries — plus high adventure and ass-kicking — then Star Trek is their thing.

Non-D20/D&D Fantasy

This is something of a catch-all, but a gritty, low- to mid-fantasy game. Something that goes in the opposite direction of D&D. This could be something like Warhammer FRP, Witch Hunter, or the Confrontation RPG as matter of example. I don’t know that I’d go as far as Pendragon — it seems like a poor match for our group — but if the players were interested, I could be talked into it.

The idea is to try something different and more down to earth with less of the fantastic. That’s not to say the game is mundane; far from it.

Shadowrun

I’m kind of stuck in this sci-fi element — no shock there — but picking something up that I’ve never run before and giving it a shot sounds fun. I have played Shadowrun before but not the latest iteration. This enters the realm of a multi-session-one-shot with no emotional strings attached.

We’ll see what happens down the road.