Dragonlaird Gaming Studios

Savage Characters project update

Greetings Dragonlaird Gaming Fans!

Just a quick update on the Savage Characters Volume 1 project.  We’ve had to switch layout designers but are pleased to welcome Heather Miller to our team.  We’re already looking at drafts of covers and layouts.  My new target is to have Savage Characters Volume 1 published to DriveThruRPG.com before GenCon in August.

Once this project is up on that site, I can turn my attentions to supporting materials for the settings established in that product.  My primary focus will be Dark Ages and Dragon Gods with the potential to run a series of games in the setting at Origins 2015.

Watch here for sneak peeks of the covers and inside layouts before we unleash these Savage Characters on the world! 🙂

Design Diary: Azell Valley Campaign 1

(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on May 15, 2009)

At the beginning of 2009, my home group has lost momentum with our Serenity campaign due to nearly two months of cancelled sessions, holidays, etc. It seemed like a good time to start a new campaign. Huzzah!

I was ready to get back to helming a fantasy campaign and after consultation with the group, we decided to return to my Esterra Campaign World. This was done because everyone at the table had played in at least some games set in Esterra and they wanted to leverage their familiarity with the world. I chose to set the campaign about 300 years after the last “Big Thing” when the Dragon Throne was resurrected from underneath Ramal and the era of the Dragon Empire began anew. This kept it close to what they expected, eliminated the meddling of other player characters in the world and let me reset a lot of things.

One thing that I’m always working on is keeping the game focused, tight, and moving. Too often, my players will not maintain a good vision of what needs to be done, what the quest is, etc. Certainly you could blame that on our growing collective senility or the fact that gaming night occurs after a hard day’s work for all of us when we aren’t our freshest. We did finally move from a once every three weeks schedule to a once every two weeks schedule which seems to be helping continuity in the game.

The setup began like this. Each player character was a former apprentice of a scholar-wizard named Vells Gilroth in the Azell Valley. The Valley is in the same nation as most of the other games have been set but far away from Ramal, the capital and most visited location. They came from all different classes but seemed to be dwarves and elves. Each had spent some time at Vells’ manor house, learning all sorts of things like philosophy, history, ecology of monsters, etc. They’d each left Vells in the last year or so but now, based on a message from him, they have been summoned back to the valley.

Vells is important as he is the brother of Erik Gilroth, Lord of Azell Valley and resident of the small castle overlooking the town. Erik and Vells do not get along although both speak with their sister, Anna Gilroth, high priestess of the local temple.

Upon arriving in the valley, they run into two sets of monsters attacking travelers and locals, each set burdened with 300 crowns of gold minted in the Dragon Empire. When they reach the one town in the valley, Shammelvot, they find it draped in mourning banners. Vells Gilroth is dead. (FADE TO BLACK)

Further inquiry tells them that Vells was killed only the night before, his headless body appearing out of nowhere to crash down on his brother’s feast table. Vells’ manor is sealed in stone and covered in dangerous runes. His manservant was sent to Shammelvot a few hours before his death but the groundskeeper is missing.

Here I take the time to describe the death rituals of the predominant religion. One of the player characters also died in those early monster melees. He was dwarven, brother to the other dwarf, so we played out the dwarven rituals as well (somewhat modeled on Jewish traditions). The PCs attend the funeral and the wake being held at the town tavern, the Scarlet Fox.

Soon there is a reading of Vells’ will . The manservant also slipped each PC a piece of vellum, torn from the bottom of the will. Each piece is a symbol. A big hint in the will is that Vells lets slip that he has three siblings (Erik, Anna, and ???). His only inheritance to the PCs is the reference to a working song that he taught them back in their apprenticeship day called “The Pieces Will Go”. He ends the phrase with “99 days and not a moment more”.

Design Diary: Azell Valley Campaign 2

(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on June 12, 2009)

Four sessions in, the jury is still out about the 4e rule system, but we haven’t abandoned it yet. I think it will probably work out okay. Time will tell if we convert all future campaigns over to it. Momentum will probably get us there.

So I signed up for Wizards of the Coast’s D&D Insider service. It comes with a nice character creator, online encounter generation tool, all the rules online, and access to the online versions of Dragon and Dungeon magazine. We used the character builder (MUCH better than the 3e piece-o-feces) and I’ve been using the encounter tool. The encounters have ended up being very tough, usually with one PC getting knocked below zero. By the encounter tool, I was making standard encounter strengths, so we’re thinking its just inexperience with the system. We also have a little bit different mix of players so they are sort of going back to basics, tactics-wise. We’ll see how they do going forward.

I decided to weave Keep on the Shadowfell into the game so the players and I would experience a supposedly balanced module. It didn’t take me long to determine that Dar Hvrenna, the groundskeeper who fled Vells’ death, fled to Winterhaven. That’s the hook that will draw them out of Azell Valley.

I encouraged the players to start their “Plot Map”. Since we only game once every two weeks, after we get off work, remembering what is going on can be a challenge. We do have one player keeping a log but that gets kind of thick to review. The Plot Map will let them see at a glance who the key characters are, the possible clues, and their goals. With that consistent reinforcement, I think their game consistency will improve.

I’ve started a Wiki for my Esterra Campaign world (sorry, it’s private hosted so I can’t share the site, at least yet). The site covers details of all the campaigns and Ohio Games I’ve run in Esterra. It’s under construction (duh) but I’m trying to add things about the current campaign first, then relevant world details, then covering past campaigns and campaign world eras. Since we run our game with some laptops around, people can access the wiki in the game and have done so.

I created a secret GM-only page on the wiki to help me organize all my campaign details (always a struggle since I’m never happy with the tool I use). Going through all the information to put it in the main wiki has really helped my thought process, enabling me to develop my plots and adventures more completely. So here’s the breakdown.

Vells was murdered by his brother, Cyrus. Vells has some ability to see the future so he knew it was coming. He set up his own return, setting his manor house to seal after his death, covered in explosive runes but also some clues. He had a will and parts of it were given to the PCs (all former apprentices). The will sends them to five places around Esterra. Each place will help fill in the story and help them assemble the item that will open the manor house once again. If they don’t have it open within 99 days of his death, he’ll be lost forever. Vells hid all the information in cryptic clues and different places to try to prevent his brother from learning that he’ll come back.

Cyrus was one of the Gilroth brothers, sent away after the death of their father under murky circumstances. He has harbored a BIG grudge, plotting and planning for his day of revenge. He became a fearsome warrior and started a knightly order, pledged to honorable works though he uses them for his own schemes from time to time. He paid orc tribes in the region of Azell Valley to invade with 8 raiding parties to keep everyone’s attention misdirected while he killed Vells and learned what he could about the state of the valley.

Our heroes helped drive off or kill the orc raiders and they got a glimpse of Cyrus, hidden inside a suit of silver full plate armor. They have already guessed that the Silver Knight is Cyrus, which means that Cyrus has taken notice of them too.

With the orc threat gone, next they will pursue the missing groundskeeper, Dar Hvrenna, off to Winterhaven and the module will begin.

That’s it for now. I’ve got a Serenity/Horror one-day game I’m prepping for August and we’ll see how the 4e campaign fares in the next installment of the Dragonlaird Gaming Design Diaries.

Design Diary: Reach for the Sky Episode 2

(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on July 29, 2008)

After about 14 months spent in the first episode of my play-by-post game, Reach for the Sky, we’ve almost reached the end of Episode 1. About 42 hours of game time passed. That always amazes me how long things take to resolve in a PbP game, but it’s fairly typical for a high-action/disaster-movie type adventure.

To summarize, Episode 1 is set at the end of the War on a moon orbiting Hera. The major battles which will bring the war to an end are about to ignite. Skirmishes in space have been going on for weeks. In a Independent surprise attack, one of the massive Alliance cruisers gets very badly damaged. Part of the superstructure actually breaks away and plummets to the surface of Howell’s Moon. The impact and resulting disaster form the backdrop of the adventure.

Each character begins at the moment of disaster. Some are Browncoats taking cover in bunkers as they see the disaster coming. Others are prisoners trapped in spacecraft downed on Howell’s Moon before the disaster. Some are crew members of ships sitting on airfields on the moon’s largest town of Ferguson. The idea is that as each character survives, they encounter the others and end up working together to survive. Ideally, bonds form in the cauldron of such dire circumstance.

I won’t get into the details of Episode 1 since I intend to use it as a basis for a module called “Reach for the Sky”, but let’s just say that some survived and made it off the moon in a ship. They are headed out of the war zone with all manner of refugees aboard. This is where I’m starting in my design of Episode 2.

The Approach

Many interesting characters and events were covered in Episode 1. Potential enemies were created as well as potential allies. We cycled through several player characters as players came and went or PCs were killed. My first step to approaching the second episode is to review the first episode and catalogue all the things that I might want to draw in as threads into the new adventure.

I started reading the first episode from the beginning and I really covered a lot of ground in a small sandbox. Being trapped on the moon, they didn’t travel to other locations and until the end didn’t step on to a spaceship. It ran well, but I think my players and I are ready to see some more of the ‘Verse.

We’ve got three players continuing from Episode 1 and 2-4 players joining the group. It is really important to analyze the Traits and background the new characters are bringing to things so they get incorporated quickly. Don’t want a character whose concept is wrapped around running from the Alliance to never have to actually run from the Alliance.

Adding things to the list and shaking it out, I realize that I have a lot of possible non-player characters and some will never see the light of gameplay. Just too many. I’m going to make a limited list of at least one background-based NPC/encounter for each character and try to work them in over the Episode. If they can factor into the real plot, all the better.

Once I get all that squared away, I’ll need to establish some strong quick hooks to bring the action in. I like to start following the general stages of writing a play: Inciting Action, Rising Action (with Exposition, Complications, and Revelations), and the Climax.

The Details

Alright, the Long Reach has become pretty central to the future of the campaign. One of the three characters from Episode 1 was neck-deep with them earlier in life. One of the new characters is a doctor looking for a job. That should be enough to pull them in. Since the rest of the characters are drifters or not picky about what jobs they take, I don’t see anyone competing to take things a different direction.

I really want to keep things simple. Since my players are all over the country (and international) and many have never played together before, they will be creating much of their own turmoil as they stretch their acting legs. I’ll keep the inciting action simple and direct.

A straight job offer to work for the Long Reach could engage the existing LR member and the potential new member (doctor). The others would just be help for hire which is fairly common with the Long Reach. So they need to take medicines to a remote community on Persephone. For some reason the boss of the community ordered his men to shoot at the LR’s hovercraft that they usually use for such jobs ‘on planet’. But the workers still need the medicine if a disaster will be avoided. Basic job with a complication.

That’s enough to oriented the pre-game threads I’ve got going (new PCs meeting each other and striking up connections). But too often, I just GM by the seat of my pants and end up driving the game into doldrums because I’m not focused on where the possible plot paths are going. So I need to know more than that.

Who’s the Boss?

The remote community is a primarily a farming community centered on a town called Hobbville. The lands around Hobbville are fertile but still too broken up to be easily corporate farmed. Give ’em a decade or so of peace and they might be bought out, but for now, they are the backwater of Persephone.

In charge of Hobbville is Cletus Hobb, sixty years old and meaner every year. He claimed about 20,000 acres during the last land rush on Persephone, getting a mixture of rough hills, pasture, and rich till-land. He’s been growing it ever since, slowly bringing in field hands and hired guns until he’s shipping a lot of the produce eaten in Eavesdown each day.

Logical questions abound. That big? How does he ship it to Eavesdown?

The Hobbes Railroad was built twenty years ago. The train takes three hours to steam its way over the 160-odd miles to Eavesdown and unload the produce. It travels to Eavesdown at night and back to Hobbville in the daytime. (For the theft-minded, that means she’s ridin’ light on the return trip but has the money). That gets the produce there in time for the dawn markets and gets the train back in time to be loaded late in the day and evening.

How many field hands and hired guns does he have?

Well, it should be enough guns to make the PCs think twice about just barging in like they own the place. Since the gunhands are more like minons than full NPCs, I’d say a 3-1 ratio would work. We’ve got 7 PCs right now so about 20 gunhands. Normal operations has 6-7 of them asleep, maybe 6-7 riding the fields managing the business, and 6-7 in town protecting Hobb or just enjoying the life of a “lawed man.”

For the field hands, I’m thinking hundreds of indentured workers. There should be evidence of families of workers (workers marry, have kids, kids grow up as workers). That means a lot of barracks, big mess hall, should be a doctor around but let’s say the Hobb skimped on that. For accuracy, I’ll say 800 field hands plus 100 non-working dependents (the aged, young children, injured).

Really, we’re aiming for that Company Town atmosphere where one man’s word is Holy Write and the people are no better off than slaves. Lots of juicy indignation and moral quandries for the PCs that like chewing that sort of scenery.

Why does Hobb not want the free help of Long Reach?

Ah, now here’s the rub. Hobb is a greedy, calculating bastard so there must be something in it for him to give up free medical care for his workforce. Just not wanting the interference, or fearing that his slave plantation will be uncovered isn’t enough in my opinion.

Enter the Right Reverend Hezekiah Lawkins! Holier-than-thou master of Parson City, the Right Reverend might be interested in locking up Hobb’s produce, bringing it into the canneries and processing plants in Parson City, and profiting handsomely for selling nutrient-depleted and chemically-stunned foods to Eavesdown. Yes, it is time to have the hand of the Right Reverend affect play.

So fine, Hobb’s is considering this deal. Maybe he thinks he can get more money out of Lawkins or maybe he thinks he’ll lose out overall if he gives up his own link to Eavesdown. Lawkins should definitely be pressuring him and one of the ways is having his own people, the Sisters of Mercy, there treating the ailing workers. Perhaps Lawkins and the Long Reach have a history of hostility. I should plant a seed about that early on as the characters get to know the Long Reach and get pitched the job.

So you’ve got a hostile plantation owner and outside influencers in the Right Reverend’s Sisters of Mercy. The heroes are being paid to do the right thing in addition to the fact that it is the right thing to do.

We’ve got a minor powder-keg set up. Will the players start shooting? How will they get the medicine to the workers? Do they just have to drop it off and get out alive or do they need to administer it as well? The easier I make it, the less time they will spend here.

Let’s say that Hobbville has a doctor, but he’s a poor excuse for one. Dr. Emmett Lukens is content to sit back and… just being a drunk is too cliche’… sit back and play with hybridizing plants. There we go. He’s got a greenhouse and makes the right noises if any government man comes around asking about the welfare of the workers. He actually doesn’t like people that much and only incidentally has a medical license. He’s actually a doctor of botany.

The key to success in Hobbville will be getting everyone innoculated with the medicine. So what is ailing the good workers of Hobbville? The scourge of the 26th century, polio. (Here is where I do a brief amount of research so the science sounds like it would hang together… Wiki Polio Entry.) Officially Type 5 Polio, the origin of the disease is a mystery, though rumors run rampant that it came from an Alliance experiment or accident. The fact that it is only appearing on Rim and some Border worlds fuels the conspiracy theories.

So the Long Reach is trying to get a vaccine to outbreak zones. (Side note, they will ask all the PCs to be vaccinated for their own protection.) The Polio vaccine is expensive and difficult to come by. The LR will not accept just dumping the vaccine on the edge of Hobbville and hoping someone uses it instead of re-selling it. (Good time to see if any characters are going to go “Jayne” on me and explore how much selling it would be worth… let’s say 4 credits/dose (~$100) but it only takes one dose. To vaccinate all of Hobbville will take 1,000 doses or 4,000 credits worth of medicine.)

So they have to find a way in and a way to get all the workers vaccinated. I’ll rely on my player’s creativity to think of a way: by subterfuge, force, bribery, etc. And it wouldn’t do to get too far ahead of myself. That’s enough for now.

Stay tuned for the next diary after we see how things progress a bit.

Design Diary: Atalban 1

(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on Oct 7, 2007)

So where have I been for months? Well, various projects have kept me away from DLG but here is one of several new postings. I just completed a campaign started two and a half years ago (Jan 2005). It all started with a few particular concepts that I’ll outline, and then my post-campaign thoughts. Perhaps this will be helpful for other gamemasters considering a similar campaign.

The Record

I started creating the campaign by brainstorming ways to make the typical fantasy races a little more interesting. I found real-world inspirations for each race, changed their names, and determined how I would present them. I guessed that at some point in the campaign, the players would figure it out but, in fact, they never really tried to. They just treated the races as I presented them.

The second concept that I folded in was to start the characters in a remote, isolated village, cut off from the rest of the world. To achieve this, I told them that the old human kingdom had been destroyed and that they were the only survivors, the last of humanity. To support this, I decided that I would restrict the opening classes somewhat, since the village only had a representative sample of original races.

The third twist of the campaign (that’s three major twists, remember that) was a change of rules system. I picked up Monte Cooke’s Arcana Unearthed. I’d always chafed a little at d20’s magic system and I liked the things Monte did in that regard. I didn’t use the other races, but took the classes as required to support the system.

The campaign lasted two and half years and 34 individual sessions. The characters began at 1st level and ended the game at 11th (earning enough in the final battle to level to 12th). Feedback on the campaign was rough early, but the players persevered and I think earned one of the best campaign ends I’ve done.

The Analysis

Overall the campaign was a success. The players eventually fell in love with their characters (or at least “in like” with them). We adventured up more levels in a single contiguous campaign than I’ve done in a long time. We got a climactic ending with the option to adventure more with them some day.

I’d say that the number of twists I put in the campaign, made it harder than it needed to be. If I’d dropped the switch to a different version of d20, it would have gone better. I don’t think I’ll be running anything in Arcana Unearthed in the future.

I learned a lot from the experience (or hope I did), and after the campaign wrapped I let someone else take the GM’s chair for awhile. I’m getting a chance to be a player for an extended time, something I’ve not done in a long time, so that’s a nice change of pace. When I start putting together the next campaign, I’ll start a new diary.

Design Diary: Flying Pig Campaign 6

(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on Jan 21, 2007)

Well, we ended the mini-campaign on the 8th of January in pretty good style. The long arc of the opening of a new planet, Columbiana, came to fruition. I’d prepared to use the “El Dorado” from the core rulebook as the place where Bruno Franco had hidden his last bank haul. The idea was that the PCs would wake Bruno up, get him to deal, and they’d all go “liberate” the loot and Vinnie would be off the hook for the promise of C50,000 he made to the others to rescue Bruno.

Yes, I’d actually prepared. I knew the rough stats of the people on the El Dorado, I knew where the loot was hidden, etc. etc. What did they do? They kept Bruno sedated for days to keep him “out of the way” while they picked up the original thread of Columbiana and ran with that. Okay, cool, it wasn’t off in a completely unprepared direction.

Anyway, in the December session they made their way back to Persephone (where criminals were waiting to get revenge on the doctor), cut deals, and looked for another job. Persephone by this point looked like the Oklahoma border right before the Land Rush of 1889. They easily picked up several sets of passengers.

Unbeknowst to them, Adelei Niska was having trouble with the Columbiana data and code key they’d gotten for him. Two of his techs had stolen the code key and some unencrypted mineral surveys of Columbiana and were off to make their own fortune. So when the Flying Pig lifted off to sneak its way to Columbiana, another ship started tailing them.

On to the last session in January. The tailing ship was catching up to them and it turned out to be a gunship for bounty hunters. The hunters demanded that the PCs hand over Niska’s techs and the codekey. At the same time, two criminals after Dr. Jones’ head emerged from the “passengers”. With a masterstroke idea from the PCs, they took the codekey from the techs, and told the hunters they could have it back if the hunters would come on and “take care of” the criminals. Gun stand-offs, gun battles, screaming settlers in the cargo hold, all sorts of fun! In the middle of it, the PCs sniper had a leaky brainpan episode after seeing a spider (major phobia). He decided to depressurize the ship in order to get all the spiders out. Always conservative in his use of energy, Vinnie simply shot the sniper until the sniper was down (instead of wrestling him from the controls or something a little less potentially lethal).

The hunters left with the codekey, the techs were alive hiding in the settlers, the criminals were dead, and the pilot made some great rolls (with PP) to get on to Columbiana before the Alliance declared the planet open. The settlers jumped off at the first possible stop (to get away from these madmen), the techs went to their claim areas, and the PCs made their own quiet claims to three areas they’d ID’d before giving up the Columbiana data.

I wrote an epilogue for them to set the scene for whenever we would revisit the campaign.

Riley opened her eyes and smiled at the tall drink of water standing over her. A 'hard' worker sounded like just the thing!


Design Diary: Flying Pig Campaign 5

(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on 10/1/2006)

Our September 24th session got delayed until tomorrow night (October 2nd) so I’ve got some more time to prep and review what I’ve planned so far. Let’s review my open work items.

Design Diary: Flying Pig Campaign 4

(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on 9/18/2009)

Okay, this time I’m going to be better prepared for my next session of the Flying Pig mini-campaign. Let’s review. Two of six sessions down, they’ve gotten refueled, gotten a job to Verbena, and learned what value their surprise cargo (survey data on Columbiana) has.

But it’s never easy. The player whose character was the plot lynchpin for this mini-campaign is missing the second game in a row. I stalled one game but I can’t drop a third of the campaign waiting for one player. So, time for a refit.

I still want the Columbiana data to be the core of the plot. But I have to break open the Vinnie character so he’s willing to part with the data. Hmmm, that just doesn’t make sense for the character, even player-less. Now I set up some clues that Vinnie’s brother Bruno had some plan for that datacube. Vinnie would do a lot if he thought it was going to save his brother.

Time to bring in the brother.

This should be very Firefly-esque, introducing a quirky character with a scheme to catch the crew. Bruno had a scheme for that datacube but let’s say that he’s been captured or imprisoned some way so he can’t reach Vinnie or do the job. He has to convince his brother to pull the job to save his life. Cool. Let’s look at the clues that I put in Bruno Franco’s box.

Design Diary: Flying Pig Campaign 3

(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on 9/11/2006)

I could say that I did it as an object lesson for my column but its just reality. I’d gotten only so far in my prep (see the column from 9/4/06), ran out of time and just ran the session. We had fun, but I didn’t have the focus I would have if I’d planned it out. The session ran short as several players hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before so perhaps it was just as well.

Session Summary: We ran through the crisis of hauling Beckie back to the ship and having Dr. Jones save her. They then fled the city to hide the ship on the outskirts and avoid the counter attack from the Jaguar Tong. Letting Beckie recover, they mulled over their options. Unfortunately, the player for Vinnie Franco was absent making it difficult to advance the plot without him.

Since the data module squealed twice before they shut it off, the Alliance makes an appearance. An Alliance Patrol Boat comes into orbit and drops both of its ASREVs to hunt for a firefly-class ship. They don’t make a big show of it or put out an official warrant. They don’t want the data getting out of their hands again.

If I recall correctly, they haven’t made it off planet yet (I don’t remember having them escape the Alliance) so we’ll have to pick up there next time.

Back to Planning: So where does that leave us. We’re down to four or five sessions to wrap up this ‘short season’. Knowing my adlibbing style, I could easily run them through all four sessions and not really get anywhere, not reach any cool climax scene, or resolve any plot arc. So planning is required!

Let’s deal with the major plot first, then go back and fill in minor plots based on character history and traits. Recall that the A Plot involves the discovery of secret Alliance data (full planetary survey) on a planet in the system, Columbiana, which hasn’t finished terraforming. The data indicates that the terraforming is done, Columbiana will likely be opened to colonization soon, and with the survey data, someone could get very rich claiming the right land. (My inspiration for this plot was the Oklahoma Land Rush).

So our heroes have possession of the data module and have some idea of how valuable it is. The Alliance is hot on their trail to get the data back. They have to find some way to get rid of the module without getting killed and hopefully by making some decent money off of it. Yet, the module belongs to Vinnie, or Vinnie’s brother, and he may not want to just sell it off.

Where From Here?: I’d like the campaign to end up in orbit around Columbiana, racing against the Alliance blockade to get to the surface of the planet. There should be hundreds of ships flooding the sky trying to get to the surface and stake their claims. There should also be somebody after our heroes and willing to shoot at them, just to liven things up.

To make this happen, they have to let the news leak out (by choice or luck). They have to find a patron willing to pay them a lot to reach the surface and a handful of key sites first. They also have to piss of someone enough to come gunning for them. The first and third parts almost write themselves with my players :). So what do we need to determine.

1. Select a patron, flexible enough to be inserted in several situations depending on where the PCs get themselves to.
2. We need some complications and opportunities to fill in the time until the last two sessions (climax).

But about Vinnie’s brother? Will Beckie’s clan come into play? Or will it be a colleague of Sir Alan? We’ll dig into these in the next posting.

Design Diary: Flying Pig Campaign 2

(Originally posted on www.dragonlairdgaming.com on 9/4/2006)

So my mini-Serenity campaign has begun. After getting set up with the Ohio Game, we’ve begun the gaming table sessions. The first table session was August 14th. The Ohio Game was like a major motion picture and now I’m doing a mini-series continuation of it. If my players enjoy it enough, they may “pick me up” for more episodes.

Campaign Dynamics: Now there are some things I need to keep in mind as I plan out this campaign. My group meets for about 4 hours once every three weeks, not the most desireable schedule for a campaign but we work with what we can get. So each session needs to be well prepared and fast-paced. Most sessions should have a major crisis point, whether it be a gunfight or some sort of showdown.

Also, we usually have one person out of six players miss any single session. So I can’t tie everything to one character as they’ll undoubtedly drop out of the session where they get the spotlight. Murphy’s Laws suck, but we all gotta obey ’em.

Since I’ve only been scheduled to run this campaign until the end of the year, I need to keep an eye on how many sessions that actually is. Starting 8/14, 9/4,… 6 or 7 total ending up on December 18th. One’s already down, so I’ve got five episodes to consider. Sure I could come up with five episodes of Firefly-esque stuff to just have fun with, but Firefly also had longer arcs in it so I want to identify one or two good six episode arcs and see which one the players naturally gravitate toward.

Start By Drawing on the Characters: I set up some stuff in the Ohio Game between PCs and in their backgrounds. Some of those were played out in the Ohio Game and aren’t relevant here, so I want to review what I have to work with. First, I’ll review the characters and their traits.

A lot of those traits aren’t that special. They’ll come into play from time to time, sometimes for flavor or to help with a skill test. Let’s look at the ones that count.

A Plot: Okay, here’s the A Plot in a nutshell. The planet Columbiana has never been opened for colonization. Officially, it is a red-zone planet, interdicted by the Alliance while the Terraforming Consortium continues to work on it. It is one of the last planets in the system that has not been colonized, but after decades of waiting, its become a sort of El Dorado, a fabled place. If someone knew the Alliance was about to open it to settlement, they could get a jump on things and race to claim the best land (grazing, crops, mining, civilization). If they had survey data on the planet and a fast ship, they could become kings of Columbiana.

What Happened Before the Ohio Game: A few weeks ago, Bruno Franco executed a theft from a secure office of the Terraforming Consortium. He had a tip and was able to snag an Alliance Data Module containing a full planetary survey of Columbiana. He packed himself up as a settler and took a long, slow convoy to Persephone where he was hoping to find his brother, Vinnie.

The convoy didn’t make it to Persephone. It was said to have been attacked by Reavers. Captain Marcus Grimm of the Pied Piper did a salvage run on the wrecks and came away with several crates of Alliance ration bars and one with the personal effects of Bruno Falco. Unfortunately, the Reavers came back and mauled his ship heavily before he escaped. Without any engines, they were set to crash into Persephone until a salvage ship from the Julius Fleet rescued them, promptly taking the ship and its cargo as compensation.

What Happened During the Ohio Game: The Ohio Game involved recovering the Pied Piper. Grimm and Riley had once owned the Flying Pig together and they used her to get the cargo and ship back. Vinnie discovered his brother’s effects and took it with him at the end of that game.

What Happened During Session #1: So when the campaign starts, Vinnie discovers the Data Module in his brother’s box while the rest of the crew is just interested in finding a job that pays enough to fuel up the ship. Vinnie is naturally reticent about revealing anything about his past, but the crew does dig into the Data Module. First, they plug it into their ship’s computer. It seems to have some boring data on it, but that is just a cover while it downloads a virus on to the computer. The virus uses the ship’s comm system to send a coded message out to the ‘Verse, telling any Alliance receiver that a high security data module has been accessed without the proper passcodes. This happens twice before they shut down the comm system.

They reach Santo as they purge their computer of the virus. Now here is where I introduce a wrinkle for fun. I’ve decided that the upper layers of Santo’s atmosphere contains rare gases which play havoc with typical reaction drives of space ships. It takes careful skill (a complex skill test) of both the pilot and engineer to get a ship down to the surface or out to the black.

Dr. Jones makes contacts to get a job for the crew carrying “medicines” to Verbena. At the same, Beckie visits “family” and picks up a toolbox she’s being asked to take back to her uncle on Persephone. But as she walks through the streets of Santo toward the ship, she is followed. She stays in public places and calls for help. Riley, Vinnie, and Earl show up and try to discourage the tails, but end up in a gunfight. The tails are members of the Jaguar Tong and they end up dead in the street. Unfortunately, Beckie takes a shotgun blast to the belly and lies close to death in the dirt along with her enemies.