A few undeveloped campaign ideas from previous years, updated with commentary. I like the “In [world] the players are [X] who do [Y]” format for campaign descriptions. I think I stole it from somewhere but I’ve lost the post.
Imperial Patrol
On the frontier of a vast empire, the players are rangers whose responsibilities are split between the local communities and the empire they serve.
Dogs in the Vineyard but fantasy and without the Mormonism. Inspirations include the Malazan and Black Company books.
I’m thinking the rangers themselves would be a Night’s Watch sort of organization. An underfunded mix of criminals and unwanted second sons and antisocial types. There would be a ruined castle the players would inherit to serve as an improvable home base. The initial patrol across their territory would be overseen by the previous generation of rangers, who would not be good people, and their legacy would be passed onto the players.
Structurally the frontier would be a pathcrawl looping through several communities and then back to the main castle. I want the frontier to be a complex place in terms of ecology, politics and culture. The players would effectively be the face of the empire in these communities, responsible for the safety of these settlements but also for the maintenance of their exploitation. I want to tie the ecology to a calendar and the passing of time. This is the time this particular flower blooms, this is the time this animal migrates, this is the time that these stars align and this magic is easier. Ideally the players would be able to watch the game world grow and change on these axes due to their decisions.
I was considering running this a year ago when planning my current campaign, but pulled back as I was feeling iffy about making the player characters cops. On further reflection it’s not a problem as long as the game world responds appropriately to their actions, especially the shitty ones. I like that even in a similar setting to other games, giving the players obligations and an identity changes their relationship to the world so dramatically.
Alchemical Princelings
In a colorful patchwork fantasy world, the players are princelings setting out from a hidden mountain castle where they were raised in their father’s court. Their goal is to win his favor by seizing power in the outside world and restoring their family’s fortunes.
Inspirations include the Umbrella Academy, the Castlevania anime and the boardgame Oath
The starting characters would be the only humans in a setting with lots of different types of non-human folk. The game world would mostly be trucking happily along doing its own thing until the players show up. I’m thinking that each player would have multiple characters, Ars Magica style. Players would have one princeling and several lower status characters. Each session would jump to a different princeling and their party of retainers. The princelings would be competing against each other to become heirs to the throne, while also destabilizing the world around them as they try to grasp for power. The princelings would have access to special training in skills such as dueling and alchemy. Character creation would speedrun through their childhoods, allowing them to pick the skills they are experts in and establish relationships with the other characters. I believe Amber Diceless had a system where each skill can be truly mastered by only one character, which might be something to try here. I think combat should be focused on duels, and I like the idea of stealing the fighting-game style combat from Exalted (and the old En Garde game by TSI before they made Traveller).
Spoiler territory for my players in case I ever want to run this, but my plan was to make the father immortal and tied to a steampunk throne like the God Emperor in 40k. His butler would likewise have some method of immortality, probably vampirism. The scions were born in vats designed by their “mother”, an alchemist involved with their father but who is now long dead. The father has sent several generations of scions out into the world in extremely long cycles which usually end up in tragedy. He might even be the reason there are no more typical humans outside his domain.
Looking back on this I like that this takes the typical OSR quest for power and reframes it. The characters are explicitly privileged, see themselves as more human than those around them, and their quest is self-destructive. At one point I had considered making this as a video game, but how I would accomplish that is a thought for another time.
Mobile Manors
This one is much more half-baked than the other two, more of a vibe than anything else. The big idea is manor houses which move around on giant walker legs. That’s it, that’s the whole idea. Gormenghast meets Mortal Engines. At one stage this was part of the Alchemical Princelings idea, but it was dropped and separated out into its own thing. Considering it again I think the way to go would be a barely-magic human-only world with the nobles in the manor houses coded as English aristocracy. I’m not familiar enough with English history to point to a particular era, but I’m thinking more of Jane Austen and Dr Strange and Mr Norrel than steampunk “Victorian”. Some kind of upstairs/downstairs divide ought to be explored, either via multiple characters again or by having two parties which are divided by class. I’m not sure what the downstairs characters would be getting up to (short of formenting revolt), but the upstairs characters would be involved in some heavy status-intrigue bullshit. Perhaps if the Gormenghast inspiration was leaned on more, the downstairs folk would be focused on their own rituals, hierarchies, and problems. To them the upper class would be like the weather. Something to be endured. There would be multiple such manors, but all the characters ought to be from a single house. I’m less inclined to explore colonialism with this one in favor of class relations but if one wanted to go that way something based on the East India company could be interesting. Perhaps it could be something the nobles are involved in, but from their vantage point it is distant and bureaucratic, more a vehicle for wealth and prestige than a day to day concern. Maybe there would be continental wars for the army of the nation to get up to, once again distant and far-away to the nobility (against a nation pseudo-French revolutionaries?). To say nothing of the potential for the nobles to get involved in Parliament.
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