This is the thread in which you throw out short blurbs of games you'd like to run (or play in). Other people can mine them for ideas, so it's not all just mental masturbation. No need for 10,000 word epics, keep 'em short and inspiring.

The Last Citadel: Burning Wheel, 2-4 players, 6-8 sessions.
The seaside valley and it's 2,000 acres that your extended family calls home is all that is left of the once-great coastal redwood forest that housed the ancient elven kingdom. Your brethren have long ago sailed for the west. Your family remains only because long ago the patriarchs of your family, your father and uncle, made a choice to stay and live IN the world. To deal with the coming age.

They made a bad decision.

The rapine and destruction of the so-called human High-King knows no bounds. Mankind's hatred of beauty and blindness to the quality of life is an unfathomable alien philosophy. Man sweeps over this diseased and battered continent like a plague of locusts.

This morning you and your brothers and sisters found the first human family on the fringes of your forest. They were moving IN. How they screamed and begged for mercy amongst their wagons and axes and plodding oxen! How their fat pink babies cried in the morning mists! How the forest floor thirstily drank up their spilling blood! Oh, how this thing that's awakened inside of you grows to fill you!! You are in decline, no more! Now you are truly alive!!!

This would be a short campaign of a family of elves at their nadir and newly twisted by Spite (at least some of them). It's heavily inspired by Elric of Melnibone and the John Muir Woods. And this awesome thread of Paka's. It's a bit dark.[/list]

GAME STYLE
Cinematic (1 part) vs Realistic (3 parts). The idea is to have a bit of a "gritty" feel to it... it's after an apocalypse, after all.
Hack (2 parts) vs Thesp (2 parts). This really depends on the approach of the players. There'll be some fighting (every few sessions) no matter what you do, but of course PCs can be good at starting more But in general it's expected that who you are's more important than the size of your gun.
Schtick (1 part) vs Drama (3 parts). The game'd have a more or less serious tone, but we are Aussies, so we'll take the piss a bit.


WHAT HAPPENS
Action & Fights (2) - frequency depends on player choices
Building (2) - the overall themes are "what kind of world do you rebuild?" Your actions will influence that even if you're not aiming that way.
Character (4)
Character Power (1) - there'd be not much character advancement. Of course you can kill things and take their stuff, but you'll only slowly get better at killing things and taking their stuff.
Destroying (2) - you may just bring down a whole country, or what passes for a country in the postapocalyptic world.
Exploration (3) - much of the world will be a mystery to you.


HOW IT'S DONE
Athletics, Combat, Communication, Intrusion, Persuading, Wilderness


Detailed description
The Sun, apparently middle-aged, suffered a hot flash. Cities and nations burned, crops failed in drought, and soot blackened the sky. First fire, then darkness, and in the darkness humanity perished. The sea levels rose, and cities were flooded. Disease stalked the land. All electronics were lost to the Flare. Twelve years have passed, and humanity is slowly building new civilisations, but each group has its own way of organising itself, and not all of them look well on us.

The heroes of the story will be ordinary people, frozen in a hyposleep experiment about the turn of the century, and revived to venture forth into the world beyond the bunker and retrieve equipment for it. What sort of societies will they find? What sort of societies will they make? One world is dead, and another is unable to be born.
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Yes, I want to both play and run this game. I don't offer to run games unless I'd enjoy playing them, too!

Cool: I like the explanation for the apocalypse. What do the numbers in the "What Happens" section mean?

Tim

Quote from: TimWhat do the numbers in the "What Happens" section mean?

How much each happens. That's usually clearer when you see a whole lot of pitches from me. What I do is to write them all up like that, then from among all the gamers I know, people who might like to play can pick and choose. "Hmmm, looks good but not much action and fights, this other one the setting's not so exciting, but action and fights are more important to me, so I'll pick that."

Also, players can describe their preferences in the same way. Then I can either match them straight up with campaigns, or I can design a campaign which matches the main trends of the people in my group.

You could describe things in other ways, even with a Chinese zodiac, the point is to have some more or less consistent (between your own pitches) way to describe it, to answer the sorts of questions players are likely to have, like, "will there be more action, or more exploring of stuff?" Sometimes, brief blurbs leave a lot of stuff unspecified.

Quote from: JimBobOzHow much each happens. That's usually clearer when you see a whole lot of pitches from me. What I do is to write them all up like that, then from among all the gamers I know, people who might like to play can pick and choose. "Hmmm, looks good but not much action and fights, this other one the setting's not so exciting, but action and fights are more important to me, so I'll pick that."

Oh, okay, I see. That's some pretty impressive and clear planning!

To juxtapose, I would take that pitch that I did, post it on the local club forum, get interested people and go to the first session armed with nothing more than those three paragraphs. We'd then figure out the particulars of playing the game, together. We'd also make up characters during that first session.

You run the risk of having your original concept drifted significantly this way (in my experience the 'drift' is generally really cool), but you end up with players who are really on board with the game.

Tim

I posted this on tBP.

Title : Goodnight Where Ever You Are

System : White Wolf Mortals or Unknown Armies or CoC

I got slammed with this idea when I saw the movie Fallen, where Denzel Washington's character says, that "Cops are the Chosen people".

Somewhere along the line, Harlan Ellison creeped into the picture - as he normally does - and it got mixed up with that old TV show, The MidNight Caller with Gary Cole.

The idea is called, Good Night Where Ever You Are. All the pcs are cops who wake up one morning, and find themselves the only souls left on the face of the earth. Everyone else has just dissapeared (except animals -think of the scene in 12 Monkeys with the lion). Everything still works - utilities, transport etc - but there is not another person in sight. It's as though they just dissapeared. Think of the opening credits of the 4400.

There is only a radio show. A call in radio show. They can't seem to figure out where the broadcast is coming from. The DJ interacts with them. Sometimes he tells them to go to some place usefull. Sometimes he leads them into danger.Always with the hint, that they may find out what the hell is going on.

With his help they may find other survivors or they may not...I'm thinking that this should be a long term campaign, so, they should be other npcs (good or evil), in the long run.

But at it's core, it's just a conversation between them and this strange fellow on the radio -who may be their salvation or doom.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: TimI would take that pitch that I did, post it on the local club forum, get interested people and go to the first session armed with nothing more than those three paragraphs. We'd then figure out the particulars of playing the game, together. We'd also make up characters during that first session

That works, too.

The basic split is,

• choose players for group, and find campaign that matches their wishes, vs
  
• choose campaign, and find players that match the campaign

When people don't know a lot of players, or have the same group for years on end, they'll choose the first method. When they know a lot of players, and/or are very keen on a particular game and setting, they'll try the second method.

Of course most people are somewhere in the middle, as you've described. There's a person who wants to GM, they have an idea or two, but only one or two players, pitch their idea in the hopes of getting more players, and then adjust and flesh out the idea on the basis of the ideas and wishes of the new players.

But really this is not the thing of the thread, which should be more pitches. I'd say two things - first, do a search on this forum, there's a thread of pitches; second, check the gamecircle.org link in my sig, based on what you've said you may be interested in a couple of articles there, what they say seems to agree with what you're saying, and everyone likes to read stuff that agrees with them

More pitches!

David,

That sounds like an awesome premise for a book or short story!

I guess every character's motivation would, at least at first, be to find other people? Simply to survive? Ultimately find what was responsible for the disappearences? Find the radio guy?

I could also see some cool character motivations like 'My wife was on a filght to Chicago today! I've got to see if she's still here!' Then your guy's on a journey across the country, dealking with wreck-choked interstates, wild animals, and whatever weirdness the GM throws at him.

Tim

Quote from: JimBobOzBut really this is not the thing of the thread, which should be more pitches. I'd say two things - first, do a search on this forum, there's a thread of pitches; second, check the gamecircle.org link in my sig, based on what you've said you may be interested in a couple of articles there, what they say seems to agree with what you're saying, and everyone likes to read stuff that agrees with them

Well, as the OP of this thread, I don't see anything wrong with discussing the pitches' contents and/or methods. But I agree:

QuoteMore pitches!

Quote from: TimDavid,

I could also see some cool character motivations like 'My wife was on a filght to Chicago today! I've got to see if she's still here!' Then your guy's on a journey across the country, dealking with wreck-choked interstates, wild animals, and whatever weirdness the GM throws at him.

Tim

(Slight derail) You know, I've pitched this idea to my gamer and non-gamer friends, and always I get responses like :

"Imagine if you've got a sick child in the hospital and you dozed off on a chair, and suddenly woke up..."

"You're going to propose to your fiance, the next day..."

"You've got enough evidence for a search warrant for someone you've been investigating for a long time and the next day, you're going to get the warrant.."

'You have to arrest someone you love the next day..."

"You want to confess something to Internal Affairs...the guilt is killing you...the next day..."

Maybe I'm getting sentimental in my old age, but it's good to know that the folks I know relate to the concept in such a humanistic way

MORE PITCHES

Regards,
David R

Trim Your Bush - @ctiv8
Impeachment isn't going to happen, things are still heading to hell in a handbasket in the Middle East and the environment still isn't being taken seriously. Despite both houses falling to the Democrats they're far too ineffectual for anything to get done in time to avert possible global catastrophe.

On the hidden network someone finally proposes the unthinkable, kill Bush. Even now, even this late in his running of the country, provided you can claim responsibility and not let them scapegoat a muslim maybe you can send a warning and buy time for disaster to be averted.

The game would be divided into three 'episodes' with, mostly, different characters in each episode.

1. The decision/scouting
The consequences of this decision, dealing with a possible leak, gathering information and finding suitable people. The debate over whether to do it or not could also be RPed out.

2. Preparation.
Getting hold of the necessary data, finding the opportunity, keeping security on the plan, bending one or two people to the conspiracy.

3. Doing it.
The assasination and its aftermath, getting the word out, warning the VP etc.

A Distant Mirror

It's New Years Day, April 1st 1301. England is at peace, Good King Alfred IV is secure on the throne, and life in general is good.

But in the world outside the Hunnish kingdoms of North America are coming together under a new warlord, their Mohawk allies are crushing resistence in the eastern woodlands, and war sparks along the Mohawk-Massachusetts border.

Elsewhere the orcs are beginning to migrate out of Siberia, France is under pressure from the Dukes of Burgundy, and the Bandit Dukes of Normandy plot and scheme while paying lip service to their peace treaty with England.

Meanwhile, on a small ship in the Black Sea, a cargo is heading west to the Italian city of Genoa. Not any thing carried on the manifest. A cargo borne in the bodies of the crew. A cargo that will change the world.

Multiple players, multiple groups if necessary. Long term with provisions for adding and replacing players as needed. Focus on travel, intrique, conspiracy, and action-adventure. Gritty. A variant d20 system.

"London's riverside fog lays heavy this night. Thick, clotting. Obscuring vision for more than a few feet. Eyes are wary, feet move cautiously in this cloud. But in this dense mist there is another fog; a thicker fog, a dark fog. A fog that moves on padded feet and bares jagged fangs. A fog of loneliness and despair, of isolation and insanity. It is a fog of distant snow bound plains, of howls and and the crunch of innocent bones. The fog has a name. It is Wendigo, and it hunts the King of England."

Aeons ago, the Craftsman created the world and all the things that live upon it. No one knows why he left before it was finished, but he did. His forge, imbued with intelligence from the cosmic spark he used to create life, has created you, the first humans, to finish the Craftsman's work and to find him. Justice, science and art - these you alone possess amongst the barbarous races. You must civilise them and gain their help in your quest to find God.

4-6 players
About 1 yr.
D&D / d20 / FATE

Nothing Civil About Civil War

You always knew there was something wrong with him.  Growing up with the royal family, something always seemed peculiar about Domash.  It wasn't just his golden blonde hair or his bastard lineage.  It was something more sinister.  Like a mountain cat waiting to pounce on unsuspecting prey.  And now you know what it was.  

The king is dead, his son a young boy put on the throne by your father, the Hetman and his mother, Queen Zyta.  But they are not strong enough to secure the country and Domash Tverska, the Golden Prince, has declared himself king.  And between them both the churches and nobles jockey for position.  Yet amid this mess of back room deals and roaming bands of warriors you see the hand of something worse.  Something pulling the strings of everyone, and for what purpose you can only guess.

Civil war has come to Bravich once again and you must fight blindly against something you barely understand but know is out to destroy all you hold dear...

-----

This is the Conspiracy of Shadows game I always wanted to run.  The characters would be the children of the Hetman of Bravich working to keep their country together against a conspiracy that wants it in chaos.  I love the idea so much I am writing a campaign book for it with a simple mechanic for the GM to gauge the tensions of the country.  As the characters do shit, the tension scale moves triggering different events and opening new adventure/episodes up to them.

Quote from: GRIMOn the hidden network someone finally proposes the unthinkable, kill Bush. Even now, even this late in his running of the country, provided you can claim responsibility and not let them scapegoat a muslim maybe you can send a warning and buy time for disaster to be averted.

The Department of Homeland Security is looking at this thread RIGHT NOW.