GURPS Campaigns: Past, Present, and Wishful Thinking
I was thinking for a moment about campaigns I have run in GURPS.
Reaching way back to college to present day (or, really, a few years back, when last I actually ran anything):
Dark Conspiracy – I hated hated hated the Dark Conspiracy game system. It just did not work for me. So my very first campaign, I converted to GURPS. Good move. I also used nearly every rulebook I had. Bad move. Overall, the campaign was a success, but I spent way too much time looking stuff up.
I ran some sort of Generic Fantasy game early in Grad School. Wasn’t terribly memorable, though I remember getting into an argument with one of my roommates about the proper composition and tree density of the forest in which I’d staged a combat. Surprise surprise, it didn’t last.
I also ran a game called, I think, the Earth Federation campaign. A post-apocalyptic game which was my reaction to Babylon 5. Set on a space station where the characters were all members of, um, some sort of FBI-like organizations. That went on several sessions, and was a LOT of fun. Good interconnected plotlines, a few bad guys, some secret science that would lead to warp drive.
Next up was, I think, my Black Ops campaign. I think +Brett Slocum may have played in that one, along with +Gene Ha and a bunch of others, including my wife, her sister, and diverse others. I remember it fairly fondly, and it’s left me with a love for the monster hunting and special ops genre that I have not lost. It was the source of my almost-first project with SJG, an adventure called OMEN TOWER that died a horrible death due to some very unfortunate circumstances at the time.
I also ran a game, another fantasy one, that ported over a lot of the religious background from The Deed of Paksenarrion (it was well thought-out and complete), but with my own map (I was into Campaign Cartographer a bit at the time) and backstory. I actually ran a prequel adventure, deliberately on rails and with my players pre-agreement, giving the backstory by which the Big Bad Evil Guy was returned to the world. The “Blasingdell” campaign was a solid one, which I’d hoped to revisit.
Again reaching to Babylon 5, I brought the Lords of Shadow and Light to earth, where I revisited Dark Conspiracy-like going’s-on with the twist that two forces, one of order and stasis, the other of chaos and mayhem, had gained access to Earth through an accidental wrong place/wrong time dimensional rift. That only lasted a few sessions, but it was going to be a fun ride.
My last campaign was straight-up GURPS Firefly. It rocked, and had a good story behind it. Good times.
What I’d love to play in?
I would really groove on getting into a Monster Hunters game.
I am always happy to revisit the worlds of Dark Conspiracy and Black Ops. I’m enjoying the hell out of my paladin in Dungeon Fantasy, and would love playing in +Peter V. Dell’Orto‘s Felltower campaign, I suspect. +Sean Punch‘s ongoing campaign, which he records on his LiveJournal, seems to rock on toast.
I'm really interested in your notes on porting the Deed of Paksenarrion religious background. Did it include the later books or just the original trilogy? I personally would LOVE to have a companion book on the setting, or even a roleplaying sourcebook for it (that is, a setting companion book+roleplaying stats)
(FYI, there is a prequel duology detailing Gird's life, and a sequel trilogy, set just after the events in the original trilogy. I favor the sequel trilogy, but the prequel duology is quite decent. Both add a lot of information on magic in the setting, specially on the old magery.)
Huh. Posted a reply and Google ate it.
Short version: I'm sure I don't have those notes anymore. I mainly stole Gird, the Marshals and the organization structure. The other gods and knightly orders were really good too, though.
I've read all the Paks stories (eight of 'em?) and they were good but uneven.
Yeah, 8 of them. You're right that the quality is uneven, but the world is really compelling.
Too bad you lost your notes… Then again, for me, the neat thing was not just the girdish followers, but how the different orders and "saints" (because Falk, Gird, etc are more like saints than gods) interplay.
Also, on google eating the post, are you sure you filled the abominable captchas properly? I've lost a few posts because it seems that I had a character wrong or something, didn't realize it, and simply closed the tab…
If we could reasonably telecommute you in, you'd be welcome in my game. I just can't figure out how we'd do it.
Spare laptop, wide-angle webcam, and Google Hangouts or Skype, baby!
I had forgotten the Black Ops game. All I remember now was an alien crash site, where we had to run underground to fight some aliens. Thanks. Any chance of my old character sheet lying around?