So what’s been bubbling around in my brain lately has been all the game campaigns I wish I could be running.  It’s been a very long time since I had any sort of access to a regular gaming group (pushing a decade on this), and while I’ve been able to scratch my itch in the past by doing play-by-post games, the place I had been doing this had been slowly dying for the past few years, and last year was so dead I eventually abandoned it too.  So I find myself now with so many games, and no way to let them out.

Now, a normal person might take those games, make them into a story, write that story, and create a novel (or novella, or series of short stories, or a screenplay, or otherwise channel them into some other creative outlet).  The problem for me is that I am largely an improvisational GM, not a “storyteller” per se.  While some of the stories have firmer frameworks than others (some are little more than a playground), all of them have an innate flexibility intended to allow players room to exercise their own will.  Without players, there is no story to tell: they are co-creators, not subordinates.

This makes these tales very hard to serialise alone.

Since I have no outlet for them at the moment, I’ve decided that I’d just outline a few of them here, and open the floor up for discussion.  It’s highly likely, should Shamus actually decide to launch some forums, I would run some or all of these as play-by-post games there.  Until then, however, this will have to do.

Cortex

Cortex – or sometimes Core Techs – is the international leader in high technology.  While few around the world know the company by its name, the subsidiaries that it works through are household names.  Capital Labs, Carrot, and many other companies who produce the modern marvels of everyday life are all owned by Cortex, who are constantly pushing the boundaries of science and technology.

But virtually no one knows just how far those boundaries have been pushed.  Cortex research laboratories routinely employ near-fantastical technology in their day-to-day activities; optical computers are common, quantum tunnelling is employed for quick travel (and security), and their biometric scanners operate flawlessly.  Deep within these labs, Cortex creates vat-grown humans, indistinguishable from the womb-born with many capabilities far beyond those understood by conventional science.  Cybernetics are not uncommon among the executives and managers of the company, and many of their field operatives enjoy the benefits as well.

Most fantastical of all, however, are the Cortex Deep Space facilities.  The ISS is like a child’s toy compared to the wonders of Cortex’s Enlightened Science, which include fully functional colonies on the dark side of the moon and the surface of Mars, as well as orbital stations around the Galilean moons of Jupiter and trans-Neptunian observation platforms.  Deep Space operates fully functional battle cruisers, which are often deployed to protect humanity from extrasolar threats – which are all too real.

The players in the Cortex campaign operate under Directive Six: Shepherd the Masses. Protect them from themselves and others.  While not officially sanctioned by any world government, the power that Cortex wields allows their agents a great deal of latitude when operating on Earth – and obviously, no other organisation exists to police the depths of space.  Directive Six is a covert operation; the less people know of the supernatural, the less power the supernatural possesses, and the easier things go for Cortex.

Essentially, Cortex is a Technocracy campaign in the Mage: the Ascension setting.  In presentation, it is a bit different from other campaigns, in that it has a fairly firm framework; I have written it as a television series, with “episodes” strung together into “seasons” – 20 episodes in total, divided into 4 5-episode seasons.  Each episode itself is only a rough outline of a plot, however, allowing players a lot of latitude, especially in terms of character development.  Some episodes are “metaplot” episodes, tying into the arc of the season and series whole, while other are “filler” episodes, basically just monster-of-the-week affairs.  Hopefully, I’d be able to mix-and-match the metaplot and filler episodes to create a good ebb and flow of rising action and downtime.

As Cortex itself has five major Divisions, the ideal group would probably be five (possibly six) players representing each Division. However, there’s no hard-and-fast rule on this; excluding one or more Divisions wouldn’t ruin the story in any way (and could even lead to interesting tension within Cortex itself.)

At the moment, Cortex is probably the game I most want to run.

Ashes of the Angels

2004 was a year of turmoil.  Rumours abounded of the rising of the ancients, of unrest across the world, of doom and destruction in areas both remote and urbane.  Los Angeles became the focal point for much of this, ending in a dramatic Night of Fire, whose capstone was the second terrorist attack upon the Venture tower downtown, which resulted in the complete destruction of much of the building, including the offices of the LaCroix foundation, which had funded the building’s construction less than a decade before.

Whispers abound of what caused these attacks, but the city’s vampires know the truth: it was the result of a building war between the city’s sects, a slow-boiling that exploded when the catalyst of a single powerful vampire was added to the mix.  Instead of destroying the errant Childe, she was spared, and set off the powder-keg that was Los Angeles.

The Sabbat have been destroyed utterly, while both Camarilla and Kuei-Jin have been left reeling from the death of their leaders.  While the Anarchs still enjoy what small semblance of leadership they once held, their position is just as tenuous as it was during the truce; already nursing near-mortal wounds from wars against the Camarilla and Kuei-Jin, the Night of Fire re-opened that wound, with many an Anarch counted among the night’s casualties.   Though nominally once again an Anarch Free-State, Los Angeles’s position is no stronger than it was, and many new vampires have come to the city – or been Embraced – seeking to fill the power vacuum left in the errant Childe’s wake.

If you hadn’t already figured it out, Ashes of the Angels is a campaign about the aftermath of the Bloodlines video game I’ve been Let’s Playing.  It has no real story; the point of the campaign is to explore the world left behind the story of Bloodlines, allowing players to plot and scheme as they will (as befits the vampires they would be playing!)

The game follows the Inconnu (“Wild Card”) ending of Bloodlines, with the role of the player character being taken by a Malkavian named Frenchie.  Frenchie remains in Los Angeles, with her own powerbase, but plays no part in the ongoing politics of the city – she supports neither Camarilla nor Anarch, and in general exists as naught but a mysterious boogeyman for both sides.

Ashes of the Angels is an example of an RPG without a story – just a series of vignettes to be experienced (or created) – which is something I’m sure can truly thrive but requires especially involved players who have their own goals and desires; there will be no central plotline to drag reticent players forward.

The Mandalorian Wars

The name pretty much gives this one away.  The Mandalorian Wars is my prequel to Knights of the Old Republic, detailing the rise of Revan and the untold story of the wars that divided the Jedi Order and broke the Republic.  Players would be Jedi, soldiers and civilians who got drawn into the Wars, either swayed by the words of Revan, hired by Malak, or drafted by the General (who would later be known as the Exile).

I ran this game once before, but didn’t have enough players truly interested in it to stick to it.  It should be noted that Revan would exist largely in the background, for her tale is truly told by KotOR; Malak and the General are the key figures from the PC’s point of view, and their story (and the war itself) would be the driving plots of the game.

This one I could probably do without players if need be, but it’s nice to have players sticking their fingers in your tale, forcing you to think on the fly.

Fallout: New Mexico

Personal Holorecord of Elder Ron Maxson,
Holloman Brotherhood; April 19, 2281

War. War never changes.

It only took two hours for the world to end.

New Mexico was especially hard hit; the oil fields of Farmington, the underground stockpiles in the Sandias, not even the research lab at Los Alamos that was the birthplace of nuclear power was spared the cleansing flash of nuclear fire.

Humanity survived by taking refuge in underground vaults. One vault – Vault 66 – grew to establish a flourishing community built upon the ruins of the old world. They ventured forth from their underground shelter, a century after the world ended, and rebuilt it anew.

The holorecord shows scenes of the Dwellers emerging from their Vault, establishing the first outskirts of Sandia City, meeting with the gangs of Albuquerque and, finally, a long shot of the Sandias, dusk drowned out by the blazing lights of the sprawling city of the vault.

There were other vaults, of course. Vaults that brought forth the Kooks – Hubologists, with their strange religion and beliefs, Vaults that opened too early, or fell awry due unethical social experiments, loosing Ghouls, raiders, and other horrors upon the world.

The holorecord flashes slides, changing as they are named: Hubologists, in their purple robes, marching across the wasteland; Vault doors, successively opened, scorched, rent inwards, and completely missing; irradiated Ghouls, picking through fallout craters; raiders, screaming and guns blazing towards the viewer; and a massive claw belonging to an unidentified creature slamming down against the view, leaving it black.

One such vault, far west of here, gave birth to our order, the Brotherhood of Steel, built upon the remnants of a military research outpost at Mariposa. The Brotherhood guards and protects the technology and learning of the old world, so that we can ensure it never threatens the world again.

The holorecord shows an image of a Brotherhood Paladin, in full Power Armour, picking through the ruins of a settlement, then switches to an image of Paladins and Knights standing shoulder to shoulder, battling a foe not shown.

Our Chapter came to New Mexico about the same time the Sandias opened to release their prize. We pursued the Super Mutant remnants of the Master’s Army here, but when we discovered White Sands, we stopped. This was the first place ever touched by nuclear fire, the site of the Trinity tests that changed the world – and ultimately ended it. Here was the surest symbol of the old world, one that must forever remain buried. So we buried it.

The holorecord shows an image of a Brotherhood Elder, clad in the typical robe of the Elders, removing a signpost declaring the presence of the White Sands Missile Range, weathered by time and scorched by fire, but still legible.

We would not have survived if not for Keyes. He was the first to suggest we allow our Chapter to grow beyond the traditions. He was the one that discovered Holloman and the intact arsenal it contained. The Keyes have formed the backbone of our Chapter, and yet Julian was denied the mantle of Elder, simply because he was not a Maxson.

The holorecord shows an image of Julian Keyes, wearing the Power Armour of a Paladin with his helmet tucked under an arm.

The Keyes have kept us strong. They embrace the outsiders who pass the tests to join the Brotherhood, accepting them in ways other Brothers will not. They challenge us, testing the Codex, tempering the steel that make it strong, and shattering the dross that make it weak. But this comes not without sacrifice. The Keyes make us strong, yet they remain apart, distrusted by the rest of the Brotherhood for their unorthodox ways.

The holorecord shows an image of Julian Keyes, apart and separate from a crowd of Paladins with their backs to him (and the viewer), but Julian doesn’t seem to care; his interest is fixed upon a pre-War device in his hands.

They are our Keyestone Squad, equal – better, perhaps – to any of the Brotherhood, but apart, taking only Keyes, for only the Keyestone shall accept a Keyes.

The holorecord breaks into a live recording, broken images interspersed with radio chatter.

It starts with a Brotherhood Knight, bleeding from a gash on his forehead, rendered in the blue-and-black of low-fidelity holoimaging.

“- repeat, this is Knight Brother John Shepard, requesting backup! Operator number Alpha-Bravo-Niner-Delta-Three! Hot Springs Outpost is under attack, requesting -”

The image cuts off as the sound breaks into static.

A high-fidelity colour rendering plays next, sweeping over a hand-painted sign declaring it “Hot Springs Outpost”. Several Brotherhood Knights can be seen running about, dodging explosions and exchanging fire with a group unseen off-camera. A young man, clad not in Brotherhood armour but the loose and many-pocketed clothing of a vault city trader, is urged into cover by a larger, older man, clad in wasteland leathers studded in metal, while a Knight wearing glasses provides cover fire with a malfunctioning plasma rifle.

The scene shifts again, this time showing a Brotherhood squad – a Paladin, several Knights, and a trio of Scribes – loading into a Vertibird. The Scribes cluster in the cockpit, the oldest taking the controls, the youngest slipping on a headset beside him in the co-pilot’s seat, and the last taking controls at the helmsman’s conn. The Paladin waves the Knights into the passenger bay before locking on her helmet and taking the door, swinging her gatling laser into its brace on the edge. An older Knight, a few years older than the pilot, stays behind, watching the crew depart. As the Vertibird vanishes out of sight, she turns to collect the gear left behind.

The image cuts back to Elder Maxson, who lowers his head.

The young go off to die, because of decisions made by old men. Because war? War never changes.

That’s how I started out this campaign last time I ran it, though the focus on the Brotherhood was not a requirement – the players themselves chose to play as mostly Brothers (with some playing traders and Vaulties from Sandia City), and in fact it was they that created the Keyestone Squad.

The central idea is to explore the Fallout world in a place not yet explored.  As the map shows, I outlined several factions, as well as their conflicts and alliances – each faction was primarily opposed to two other factions, and had loose ties to the remaining two.  I allowed players to choose where they wanted the focus, from among the following options:

Legion, Vaulties, Brotherhood – Tension: Brotherhood/Legion – Focus: Vaulties
Vaulties, Brotherhood, Ghouls – Tension: Ghouls/Vaulties – Focus: Brotherhood
Brotherhood, Ghouls, Kooks – Tension: Brotherhood/Kooks – Focus: Ghouls
Ghouls, Kooks, Legion – Tension: Ghouls/Legion – Focus: Kooks
Kooks, Legion, Vaulties – Tension: Kooks/Vaulties – Focus: Legion

The three listed factions would be the ones available as PCs; the Focus would be the central faction that tied the PCs together and the Tension would be potential intraparty conflicts that could be worked into the story.  I don’t have a solid set “story” for this game, but rather a series of conflicts outlined that would be explored further depending on which faction the players picked.

So for instance, a Vaultie focused setting would be primarily about the struggles of Sandia City, which openly trades with both the Brotherhood and the Legion (allowing some players to be from those factions if they wished) and is actively opposed by the Ghouls and Kooks (who would be thus major antagonists of the game).  Conflict between Legion-aligned and Brotherhood-aligned players would be the spice in the party makeup (should the players choose to make some).

I’ve always thought it somewhat criminal that New Mexico, birthplace of atomic power, has never featured in anything Fallout-related, so I have this setting as a solution to that.

This game might be the most work for me to run – given that I have to tailor the story to the players’ choice of faction – but I still really want to give it another go, if only to get the chance to write another “War, war never changes” speech.

The End

So that’s what’s bubbling in my mind for now.  Hopefully, there will be some interest in these, some interesting discussion below, and, ideally, some outlet to actually play sometime soon.