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| Sidney Sime |
RPG GOALS for 2020
RUN ALL THE 2019 'ZINES- I whipped up a quick hex map that incorporated Temple of the Blood Moth and the Demon Collective Vol. 1 and a few others all in the horror setting of Jack Shear's Urazya. I think the sum of the parts comes out better than Ravenloft and as gruesome of LotFP without either.
MOTHERSHIP- Thankfully this is already happening. My players will shortly complete their 4th session of Dead Planet. I am really enjoying the system. Feels like a BX body with a d100 engine and its been good to learn a very new system. MOTHERSHIP is also quite versatile with a setting that feels like drifting from Aliens to Event Horizon to Ghost in the Shell to Bladerunner and back again.
I am most excited to build a world while at the same time the game itself is being built. Maybe capture some of that early D&D experience. Hex 001 is the DEAD PLANET the rest is blank out there on the Rim.
THE BARRENS of CARCOSA- Speaking of space, I am still drawn to this setting because it, to me, represents a more interesting wilderness/hexcrawl campaign. The interactions between peoples, giant space brains, rayguns, weird buzzing monoliths warning everyone of a meteorite about to crash, and shoggoths all are ripe for gonzo hijinks. Reading through Geoffrey McKinney's Barrens always makes me curious about what the player will do. And surprise is part of the fun of DMing. Additionally, I think Carcosa as a setting challenges the players to make their own goals and put their own plans into motion.
I also had the good fortune to get a copy of the player's guild from someone else's campaign with a lot of custom BX homebrew like an Astronaut class, a neat rule that for every negative stat bonus you roll on a "helpful mutation" table, and a cleric that can turn deep-ones. Carcosa is a great basic twist on early D&D.
THROUGH ULTAN'S DOOR- I've run Through Ultan's Door Vol. 1 a couple of times and really had a good time. I think it scratches a Planescape itch for me, but might be superior in that the concept is more accessible. Because everybody dreams, they at least have a concept when you say "adventure in the Dreamlands". That word "dreamlands" conjures something in the same way as the equaly generic "dungeons and dragons".
The set-up I have used is that the players are part of a cult, recently smash by the censors, who escape to the dreamlands to ensure their new "chosen one" receives the mark of their god. The long term goal is to restart the cult- however the players believe that should be done.
B4 THE LOST CITY- One of my favorite modules and one I am currently re-writing to practice layout. I recently had the idea of turning this into a Carcosa module. Maybe the three factions are actually an experiment by a giant brain overmind. Zargon is a previous experiment gone bad. But the city itself represents huge potential for humans to retake as its filled with old technology.
DOLEM WOOD- This follow up to Old School Essentials is going to be beautiful and I think really nail the fairytale vibe that is blessedly not Tolkein, but still what we draw on when we think of D&D.
ULTRABLUE- I keep having the bubblings of my own heartbreaker. I guess I really want to infuse a game of D&D with some of the same energy that was at the Blackmoor table. The way I feel like that needs to happen is have various aspects of play have distilled to meaningful options. And despite being a fan of BX, Holmes Basic feels more like that to me.