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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

I've Got About 5 Months To Plan an Online Campaign - Open For Suggestions

I figure I'm looking at the end of November, beginning of December for the start of my online game. Which of course means I will have 5 months worth of second guessing, changing, gamer's ADD and all other sorts of distractions between now and then. Why 5 months? Cause I'm getting married in just over 4 months. heh ;)

In any case, I need to decide on a system. While Savage Worlds was lots of fun last weekend, I don't see myself as having enough system knowledge to run it properly. Besides, they just came out with a new edition of the rulebook, just as I started to learn the old.

Tunnels & Trolls is a strong candidate, but with Fantasy Grounds lacking even a community written character sheet, I would probably find myself falling back on GameTable as the VTT. I really would like to get some value out of my Fantasy Grounds Ultimate license at some point.

Swords & Wizardry Complete is also a very strong choice. I could probably run it using the Labyrinth Lord ruleset for FG2. Wouldn't mind seeing the Bard class I wrote in action.

If you had asked me last year, I would have said Castles & Crusades, but the campaign I was playing in shows little sign of being revived. It's been revived once already, at the cost of most of the original players. I don't think Sak will be as successful a second time. C&C is a good system, with lots of support via Fantasy Grounds rules and modules. I just don't see it as my classic "go to" old school game anymore.

I could run LL, but from my perspective, S&W has it beat by a hair when it comes to how I'd want to run an OSR style game. Then again, there is the LL ruleset for FG2 ready and waiting.

As much as I like the FATE system, I've never actually played the FATE system, so what looks good on paper may not play out as well in real time gaming.

I think I'll need to work on some map creation skills on top of all of this. I know CC3 and Dunjinni are a bit beyond my skills (believe me, I've tried). I think I need to visit the Map Links to the left side and start playing with them a bit. That, and I'd like to find one that is OSX friendly. After switching to a Mac Mini for most of my computing last year, I really dread booting up the old Win 7 box.

Any ideas? Thoughts? Systems that I might have missed? I'm open to listening.

7 comments:

  1. You may have already decided against it, but for what it's worth, there's not a lot to learn in Savage Worlds. Also, while there is a new edition out, there are only a few tweaks; most of the new book is examples and bits pulled from the various campaign guides, and any new rules will be put out as a free pdf update.

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  2. If you run Errant, I will draw your maps for you, built to your specs.

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  3. This has a list of all the rulesets for Fantasy Grounds. Might give you some ideas. http://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/Category:Systems

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  4. Would you consider running the game by Skype video calls or similar? My game plays like this and it works.

    As for mapping, I'm thinking the DM draws the sketch of each room or corridor on a 9x12" whiteboard and the PCs record it (or not).

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  5. Of course I recommend running a Savaged Kith'takharos campaign. Never a dull moment.

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  6. The OSRIC ruleset for FGII works pretty well, and best of all it's free.

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  7. @kelvin - I may very well pick up the new rules and give SW a closer look in general

    @greg - apparently you've seen my mapping skill, or lack there of - definitely a possibility

    @joshua - thats the FG2 wiki link or other? i'll have to check

    @spawn - if i was going to do video I'd probably opt for iTabletop, for the dice roller and such

    @andugas - and a good choice it would be ;)

    @dangerous brain - i grew up on AD&D 1e. i think if i went that route this time, it would be LL w/ the AEC or S&W Complete

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