What's about to happen in your game? What are you excited for? Players, are there any interesting plots about to unfold for you? GMs, is there any deep mystery you're just itching for your PCs to uncover?I'll start: I'm planning on making an encounter in a demiplane themed after a haunted orphanage. At one time, the woman who ran the orphanage was called away to act as a personal babysitter for a noble family, and thinking she could use the money to improve the orphanage services (leaving the other "employees" to take care of things), she agreed. We'll call her Maria because I'm stealing Lady Maria's character design/artwork for her because I think she looks cool.However, one member of this noble family was actually an infiltrator, and ended up murdering the entire family - including the children that were his "siblings" and Maria. Maria was so wracked with guilt for failing to protect the children of the house that her grief manifested a hellish demiplane that serves as a mockery of an "afterlife" for her.She is perpetually moving through an ever-shifting labyrinth that vaguely resembles the orphanage she used to run, continually chasing and hunting monsters within that threaten the children. She tries, yet continually fails, to save any of them.The PCs can stumble into this demiplane through something at the noble family's old manor. If they do, Maria will consider them monsters as well, doubly so if they interact with any of the children (ironically, they need to be "saved" from Maria too, as it's only her subconscious will and grief causing the whole situation), and hunt them just as she would the other monsters.She can be freed from the nightmare and sent to the proper afterlife if the PCs rescue the children, slay the monsters, and reveal the truth of what happened to her, which is another mystery on it's own that I have different plans for, but this is one piece of a huge puzzle that I'm excited for.
>>98256056The new campaign, actually. Just finished yesterday, we'll say what to play, pretty interesting perspectives.
>>98256086Are you the GM? Regardless, what kind of thing are you/the group thinking of doing next?
>>98256056I'm close to ending the introduction box for pf2, and I got my players' curiosity picked with some material of my ownthey're close to the western border of a knightly kingdom, and from the frontier westwards there's only wild country for more than a thousands miles. From talking to NPCs and listening out for rumours they've learnd that, on the next town to the west (and the actual last civilized town before entering in no man's land) there's a suspicious amassing of dwarves on the look out for guards, porters and other support personnelthese dorfs are mounting an expedition to a lost mine/hold deep within a small mountain range about five hundred miles south-west, with the idea of reclaiming it and resume exploiting the mineral wealth hidden below; what they don't know is the hold has been the lair of a bunch of orcish tribes for the last few decades, and they're the ones actually mining the ore, a homebrew metal almost as strong as steel but way heavier.the dwarven leaders of the expedition know about this metal, but nobody else. What they don't know, in turn, is these orcs have an understanding with a demonic cult planning to take the hold for themselves to try and summon a demon prince into the world, using the orcs as a sacrifice. An orcish warlock and main spell caster in the strongest tribe is in cahoots with the cultists, toothe players have already fought against some of the low levels scum working for the cults but the haven't made the connection yetI'm pretty excited, not gonna lie
>>98256096Was the GM, not sure who will do. Last period it was cthulhuoid, next might be pseudohistorical classical period, teenage drama or SS.
>>98256132That does sound interesting. Have you made anything like a custom stat block for the orclock?>>98256203What's SS? Never heard of it before.
>>98256056We're about to go into the third mission of a combat endeavour in >LancerShould be a good time, some of us have managed to save our core bonuses but off the top of my head at least a couple of us didn't have the means to fix all of our Structure damage. I'm kind of the only truly capable combat character who doesn't routinely get focus-fired and lit up to hell and back, so there's a decent chance somebody dies next sessionAside from that, there's a Pathfinder 1e game getting off the ground nebulously in the next month, an Aliens game hopefully starting soon, a Shadowdark game that's probably not happening until fuckin' next year at this rate, and my own Vampire game that's taking forever to start - guilty as charged. Won't say which one I'm most excited for because I'm confident one of my GMs/players browses /tg/ and this outs me big time, but suffice to say it should be a fun summer if any of the stars align at all
>>98256286I've been working on the orc characters but I've done little so far, but the warlock is going to be centered around fire spells and some debuffs. I have to give it some minions for their fight, so I'm thinking of giving him a bunch of cultists
>>98256132>curiosity pickedyou ESL or something??
>TTThe campaign I am now running is #2 (of 6); the plot of all 6 is that the 6 players, each of whom is playing a different orphan from the same orphanage, have been scattered all across the world, separated from one another, each with their own personal quest to complete. When they reunite, the combined result of their efforts will help them save the life of someone important to them. Each of the other 5 players play other characters that the orphan meets on his journey, and help him on his way, in that orphan's spotlight campaign. All the campaigns happen simultaneously, so I can (in theory) jump between campaigns any time I want, if someone plot-centric misses a week.Anyways, the player for orphan #2 is out of town for 2 weeks, so at first I thought we wouldn't be playing, but then I had an idea: run the first couple sessions with out him, to establish a group bond and backstory with the other 5, and then introduce the orphan in a way that makes sense. So, based on the setting and their character builds, this is what I came up with:The 5 players are all members of ARBALEST (Aerial Rapid Breach, Assault, Landing & Extraction Strike Team, aka the "Salvage Team"): aerial drop troops aboard an enchanted flying airship, who are deployed to "salvage whatever is left" when shit hits the fan. Their airship, the RMS Mercator, is assigned to protect a flotilla of merchant vessels that are running a 1000-mile "gauntlet" through a region filled with pirates, monsters, magical anomalies, and worse, to reach their lucrative trading destination. The Mercator provides fire support from above, in case of danger.The orphan player and I have been separately RPing his character's intro, which sees him stranded on a deserted island in the gauntlet. During the first session once he is back in town, the other 5 characters will end up discovering him, but have to drop into to rescue and extract him from the island...and the monstrous creature he awakens that is chasing him.
>>98258868wot
>>98257917>there's a decent chance somebody dies next sessionThat's always fun, a good character death is exciting.>it should be a fun summer if any of the stars alignI hope the best for you Anon.>>98259065That sounds really complex and intensive to run, how long have they been separate for?
>>98259955So far, I have only started two of the six campaigns, plus the five session "Session Zero" prolonged that established their characters, aged them up from 10 to 18, and the events that split them up across the world. I started campaign #1 on Jan. 2, and that splotlight orphan and the other player's characters have been adventuring there for about two in-game months.I started campaign #2 (and the spotlight orphan's play by text sessions) last Friday, and I had to roll back the in-game calendar to the fracture point, branch off the orphan's story, and proceed from there. So far, only a few in-game days have passed thus far.It is complex to run, but it's been a hell of a lot of fun to write. Three of the six campaigns are in regions I have run adventures in before, and the other three are brand new (including campaign #1), so I only have to do about half as much worldbuilding as I could have inflicted upon myself.
>>98260115Reusing old regions in My world is one of My favourite things to do, players old get to see the old consequences of their actions and players new get to see that older players had an impact on the world. I was on a long break from GMing from late 2023 up until February this year, but I've been having fun getting back into it (although finding fitting players online has been a bitch).When do you plan to start the other few games? I assume you're doing various 1-on-1s with the different players?
>>98260430>players old get to see the old consequences of their actions and players new get to see that older players had an impact on the worldfeels good, man
>>98260430>>98260430My favorite consequence of the old players actions (from a campaign 15 years ago) became immediately apparent in Session 1 of the first campaign, in which a volcanic eruption that occurred in one part of the world (that they caused) ended up completely fucking up another kingdom for years, due to the ash blocking out most of the sun for months, and causing the country's economy to crash, crops to fail and people to starve. One laughed so hard he almost fell out of his seat, and the other three were both like, "Oh. Oh shit."I'm not sure exactly when I am going to start the other campaigns. I planned to hop around between them quite a bit, but realized that it would be best to do so at significant plot milestones instead. Starting campaign #2 ended up being a happy marriage of achieving a major in-game victory, and one player needing to be absent immediately after for a few weeks. Originally I was going to pivot to a different campaign, but I capitalized on the player's absence to switch gears to a different one...and now the one I sidelined might get pushed back even further. Because they are all running concurrently, sometimes their actions in one campaign can affect another, and I' always looking for opportunities to make that apparent. The whole one-on-one, play-by-text thing was a spontaneous decision based on circumstances, but I am REALLY happy with the results: it is working really well. When they all finally come together, the orphan and the other PCs will have their own mysteries, as well as some of the answers to each other's questions. Will I do it again with campaigns #3-#6? No plans, but maybe. The intro sessions for each are mostly fleshed out, and it would be impossible to do for some of them, but it might work for a couple.
>>98256056I am about to actually use Cthulhu for the first time in Call of Cthulhu.The party was tricked into a sub-realm of the Dreamlands by an evil sorcerer who has been a recurring antagonist. This sub-realm is basically just the dreamland of a single city, rather than the entire world, and thus only maintained by the residents of this city.The sorcerer is, after having lured the party into the center of this sub-dreamland, is going to wake every resident of the city up at once but leave the party sleeping. Since there is no resident asleep and thus no one sustaining this dream realm, Cthulhu's thoughts and dreams are going to start invading, as he's the most powerful dreamer on the planet and it's only through mankind's collective effort and centuries of momentum that his psychic thoughts are barely kept back.This is going to take the shape of the sub-realm slowly collapsing into sea water, while Deep Ones, Star Spawn and even potentially Dagon and Hydra start rising up into it. The party will have to escape back to the edge of the realm in order to wake up, while the horde of creatures attempts to drag them into the water and expose them to Cthulhu, thus infecting them with his Call.
>>98256286Sword and Sorcery.
>>98260580Hell yeah>>98260583>15 years agoI kneel, and patiently await the day I can be blessed with such a group.So, if I'm following, you have 6 players and have so far only been playing with 2 of them? How will you decide when to get around to the others?>>98260608Goddamn dude. Never played CoC, is there any feasible way they could get out of this situation?>>98260747Ah.
>>98256056Remember to play a sad piano music when the party confronts her.
I wanted to play Genesys for a long time, but finding other players let along a GM was almost impossible. Not to mention the dice being out of "print".But my regular online playgroup will have two players absent and I managed to convince the rest to let me run a one-shot in Genesys for the others instead of calling off the session.
>>98261153I have been fluctuating between using something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rg7YUOrOes (which although I like I fear may be too on the nose since I'm stealing that character art) or using one of the 200+ metal/djent songs I have on an extensive boss fight playlist I've made but never get to use. Specifically leaning towards Trepang2 stuff because I like that it also has some level of "spooky" to it Top contender so far https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1wWGZ1cxRwI love including music, man. It was a bitch to figure out how to get it over discord without the rythm bot, but My friend figured something out.>>98261168Good luck Anon, I'm glad it worked out for you
>>98260996this current pf2 campaign is set in a world I created with my old rpg group back in 2012 or so through a New Gods of Mankind campaign. it's real nice to revisit the world they partially made and expand it further with new adventures and new playersI'd love run this setting with the old guard, but sadly life and circunstance make it really hard to meet even once a year, much less so with enough regularity to play a campaign>>98260608sounds like that campaign has been going on for some time
>>98260996>So, if I'm following, you have 6 players and have so far only been playing with 2 of them? How will you decide when to get around to the others?All six have been playing since the beginning. The campaign breakdown is like this:Prologue Campaign: Each player makes a "blank slate" orphan character. I tell them to choose a race, an *intended* class, and a name...and that's it. The prolonged campaign spanned 5 sessions, in which they progressed through a series of years (each session was 1-2 years) in which they went to school, helped out in the community, made friends (and enemies), went on adventures (camping trips, etc)...all of which were pretenses for the characters to learn the skills and knowledge they wanted their characters to know, and work towards their intended class. At the end of the final session, they were Level 1, and a plot related event scattered them all across the world, seeking the truth about their parents and their lineage.Campaign #1: One of the orphans arrives in a new land. He meets up with some of the locals there (the other 5 players, with new characters specific to that region), who help the orphan on his quest, while also resolving the major conflict/plot of that campaign/region.Campaign #2: Another player's orphan PC appears in a different new land, hooks up with some of the locals (again, the five other players, each with *another* new character, including the player with the orphan in campaign #1, who also has a character from this new region.Campaigns 3-6: Repeat.In all, each player has 6 characters (1 orphan +5 others). I let them make whatever they wanted, and then just slotted them into the campaigns/regions where they fit best.
>>98260996>is there any feasible way they could get out of this situation?Yeah, Call of Cthulhu has rather robust chase rules that are criminally underutilized but that I love. So I'm going to be using them. Obviously there's no way for them to fight back against what's after them, but that's not the point. The point is to get out of there in time.>>98261312It's been going on for about two years now, on an every-other-week basis. I wish I could do it every week, but it's just not feasible with my group.
>>98261168super incredible game, I hope that you all have a blast with it and get to run more narrative dice system
