The Butcher's thread got me thinking. Tell me about your campaigns. System (Setting). How did you plan it? What inspired it? How your players reacted to it. The highlights - those moments that really defined it. How it ended.

Regards,
David R

My current campaign is a low level Shadowrun 4 game, in which the players are working for a Vory syndicate associate. The party consists of:

• Buck a UCAS Army veteran who was a party to a war atrocity, and along with the units that partook in this incident has been cursed by a "an old woman" who was a "survivor" of the border skirmish that destroyed an entire village. He lives as a homeless vagrant, who's mentally ill and suffers from PTSD.
• D-Train-a Grifter who's primary goal in life is pleasure. A sometimes dealer, and a full time con artist.
• Spence-a half Japanese bastard child, who doesn't know yet that he's a physical adept. His father was a gambler, who died and his son inherited his debts.
• Rowdy-a happy go lucky rigger, who loves fast cars and drinking.

Also we have a few secondary characters, who rotate in and out:

• Maxsym-a crippled video game aficionado who runs the matrix as a rigger and a hacker. His Uncle is a connected to the Vory, and he's capitalizing on that connection.
• Jamie 6-a A magician with no connection to the Vory, streetwise and frankly a step above the others.

They've performed three jobs so far:

• They hit a Seoulpa Ring safe house, and snagged a large amount of product. (Small arms, drugs and some consumer electronics.) It turned bloody, and they made a permanent enemy of the Ring.
• The second job had them extracting a Japanese doctor who'd been disbarred and was now doing under the table cybernetic work for the Yakuza. This they pulled off with surprising grace.
• The third job was a personal thing: D-Train's ex shows up out of the blue and reveals that she has a daughter by him, and that she's been kidnapped. they eventually track her to a gang of organlegging ghouls and although she doesn't escape unscathed, they do manage to save her.
• The fourth job had them trying to extort a gang of crooked cops. And this turned into a bloodbath. They lived, but they'll need to work out of town for...well a while. Heh

So far they've enjoyed the game, and we've had fun playing characters who actually can't just do everything. Who take damage. The overall arc of this game will reveal that they are working for a splinter Vory cell who's funding an anti Siberian movement. There's also going to be a serious look at the incident that left Buck cursed!

I've got a party of four traipsing about and getting into trouble using D&D-esque rules in my homebrew setting, The World Between:

- Esmerelda - an acrobat and pick-pocket who ran away from the circus
- Grathak - barbarian of the Komodo tribe from the Scavenger Lands
- Melinda - death-obsessed bard who specializes in dirges and curses
- Mathias - templar of the Lady who has an especial hatred of the undead

The campaign began with the party getting hired by the prestigious and wealthy Klempf-Knott family of Parak-Vool in Midian to track down a run-away daughter.  The PCs tracked her down in a ramshackle border-town, but soon realized that the reason the Klempf-Knotts wanted her back was that she was intended as a sacrifice to a demon in return for the town's continued prosperity.  Not wanting to be party to child-murder, the PCs hoofed it after encountering the family's chaos-mutated minions--with the girl in tow.

The girl, it turns out, has prophetic visions.  Following one of many leads they could have chosen, they decided to take the girl to a strange convent in The Iron Principalities run by a group called The Sisterhood of the Voice.  

On the way they've dealt with a cursed forest, a guerrilla war between loggers and a druidic cult, and freed a sanitarium from the gnoll servants of the Pestilance Lord.

Oh, there is also a duelist hell-bent on revenge who is hot on their trail.  They have a knack for making enemies.

Quote from: Serious Paul;488696They've performed three jobs so far:

• They hit a Seoulpa Ring safe house, and snagged a large amount of product. (Small arms, drugs and some consumer electronics.) It turned bloody, and they made a permanent enemy of the Ring.
• The second job had them extracting a Japanese doctor who'd been disbarred and was now doing under the table cybernetic work for the Yakuza. This they pulled off with surprising grace.
• The third job was a personal thing: D-Train's ex shows up out of the blue and reveals that she has a daughter by him, and that she's been kidnapped. they eventually track her to a gang of organlegging ghouls and although she doesn't escape unscathed, they do manage to save her.
• The fourth job had them trying to extort a gang of crooked cops. And this turned into a bloodbath. They lived, but they'll need to work out of town for...well a while. Heh

How did you come up with these esp the third job? To be honest Cyberpunk games have always been a hit or miss thing with me. Are your scenarios inspired by literature, film or other games you've read ?

Quote from: misterguignol;488717On the way they've dealt with a cursed forest, a guerrilla war between loggers and a druidic cult, and freed a sanitarium from the gnoll servants of the Pestilance Lord.
Oh, there is also a duelist hell-bent on revenge who is hot on their trail.  They have a knack for making enemies.

It's slowly dawning on me that you may be the Tarantino of GMing.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;488721It's slowly dawning on me that you may be the Tarantino of GMing.

I'm taking that as a compliment, heh.

Quote from: David R;488721How did you come up with these esp the third job?

We prefer to build our characters as a group. Everyone likes to give out a detailed background-some players actually type out emails, others just sit down with me over drinks and some dinner. While they build their characters I start building the world around them. I usually set up two or three basic ideas up front, and then I let their backgrounds and actions in the games dictate what we do next.

So for instance the third game revolved around the player describing his character as a womanizer. He has an extensive amount of female contacts-mostly women the characters interacted with. I knew I wanted them to have an adventure that pitted them against a Ghoul street gang that was kidnapping people, and processing their bodies for resale. But I wanted to make it so they had a personal stake.

So I decided given his relationship with his female contact at one point had been sexual. And she'd hidden from him that he had a child. At first she didn't reveal this to the group. But since his character is a skilled social manipulator he figured out that something was wrong and some good die rolls later they got the truth from her. I was worried that the group wouldn't warm to the concept but they had fun with it. But we didn't make this weird awkward thing-it was a part of the story.

QuoteTo be honest Cyberpunk games have always been a hit or miss thing with me. Are your scenarios inspired by literature, film or other games you've read ?

All of the above, and then some! We love cyberpunk. And Shadowrun is kind on the fringe of cyberpunk. It has all the advantages of cyberpunk, but also the fun elements of fantasy games. Magic. Creatures. Spells. Exotic races.

Emern, Swords and Wizardry Complete with the Majestic Wilderlands and some house rules.

The PCs are:

Zapruder, fast-talking human wizard.
Drogo, a dependable if ugly hobgoblin soldier who has the worst luck. Drogo is the target whenever there's a critical failure.
McGillicuddy, a dwarf priest of the Hollow (the god of magic) who was killed and resurrected by an alien entity known of the Caquix, which used him to try to prevent Don Marengo from successfully binding it.
Mordechai, an elvish druid who had all of his skin burnt off when a rocketship exploded. Saved by Huizilopotchli, he now has entirely silver skin made of nano-spacesuit, and is the closest thing the group has to a leader. He is known as "the Silver Man of Heshtown".
Boz Natyev, a lawful elf ranger who worships the Severed Head. Loves to drink hallucinogenic potions, and helped start a soup kitchen for young elves and goblins on the streets of Heshtown.
Parvati, an elvish thief who spends her time hanging out with lowlifes, including the other PCs. Known to be an excellent card player (because her player, a dude, is IRL) and very canny.
Shithead, the newest addition to the party, another human wizard. Shithead helped the group catch a card cheat, and now accompanies them.

So far the PCs have explored the lost city of Xapoltecan, banished the Caquix, killed the Blue-Faced God who reigned in Xapoltecan, hiked through miles of jungle back to civilisation, and are now in Heshtown trying to figure out how to kill Don Gilkano before he gets them.

More details here

Quote from: David R;488721To be honest Cyberpunk games have always been a hit or miss thing with me. Are your scenarios inspired by literature, film or other games you've read ?

Two good rules of thumb: in the prose fiction, "cyberpunk" stories are generally crime/heist stories with a high-tech gloss.  Ideally the crime/heist should be dependent on the weird misapplication of a piece of technology that doesn't currently exist.

In film, "cyberpunk" stories are usually action films with a high-tech gloss.  Revenge melodrama figures heavily.  The tech is less important to the plot and more about cool imagery.

If your players haven't already seen them, the Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex series (two that I'm aware of) can be nicely mined for plot hooks.

At the risk of sounding like I take myself too seriously-I think cyberpunk can be more than just heist or revenge flicks with guns. And please, please folks anime isn't cool to all of us who play cyberpunk.

That said we do have a sense of humor in our games, it's not all super serious, dark and moody. I think in some ways Shadowrun is no different than any other RPG out there. It's what you make of it.

My D&D setting was described in another thread but in that we started with the following group:

• Kaas-a Poison Dusk (A Race of Lizard Men) Dragon Shaman and eventually Barbarian who was CN
• Einar-a human cleric who was NG
• Lucien-a blind dwarven fighter who was NG
• Reginald val'Alamein-a CG human "Paladin" knock off.
• Ripbeak-a Kenku rouge who was CN

They start as residents of a frontier village, a crew of teenagers who were sent up stream to work in the village's food storage site, and granary. It's a days journey up river, and back and they work for a two days before they're supposed to be relieved by other villagers. When no one shows up they return to their village and find it destroyed, and it's inhabitants put to the sword.

They settle on journeying north to report this to the Dwarven authorities, but soon discover as they move northward and see several towns and villages utilizing slavery they decide that they need to free as many slaves as possible. (This was completely not in anything I'd plotted.) They eventually go to a slave market, and buy and free a few thousand slaves, who promptly want to go back to the market because they have no where to go. So the players take it upon themselves to return them to the village with the slaves, and help them establish a new village.

That's where the game fell off, and we're discussing picking back up now and following their quest to find out what happened to their families.

I'm currently running a Majestic Wilderlands/Labyrinth Lord AEC game using the Wilderlands as a setting.  The game is specifically set in the Majestic Mountains with Thunderhold as the main base of operations.  The campaign dungeon is the Majestic Fastness itself, now called the Black Fortress due to the scars of dragon flame.  

The original inspiration for the game came from WoW's Black Rock Mountain.  I've detailed five of the fourteen or so levels and sub-levels planned.  Each level has a rough theme inspired by other modules/adventures.  

My players have enjoyed it so far but after eight months of week to week playing it's growing stale.  In hindsight the levels I've detailed may be too big and it leads to a lot of confusion over which of the many paths to take.

The PCs are:
Agon - Dwarf Berserker of Thor lvl 5, killed a hill giant by himself at level for in order to be inducted into the Cult of Thor
Juniper - Human Druid lvl 6, slowly learning the secret history of the world and poised to become the aging Heirophant's successor
Hilda - Dwarf Cleric lvl 4, hopes to rescue a famous paladin from the clutches of the Red Cult in order to become a paladin herself
Ivo - Elf Ranger lvl 2, not much going on here as the player can only play once per month
Akiro - Human Magic-User lvl 3, basically a glorified henchmen at this point.
Kanon - Human Fighter/Thief lvl 3/5?, in essence he's Conan
Marvin the Halfling Thief - Halfling Thief lvl 4 - retired
Zephiros - Human Monk lvl 2 - retired
Jango - Human Ranger lvl 2, formerly a retainer, currently retired

All those in addition to numerous henchmen and animal companions

Here's some of our heroes' exploits:  Re-discovered the Floating Castle or Atalactys the Lost, Exterminated the Orcs on level one, helped dwarves from Thunderhold establish a colony on the first level, unleashes the demon Abraxis, and found the Tomb of the Builder and the Mimir.  So far they've mapped most of the first level and made forays into the upper two levels and the second and fourth lower levels.

Tonight, my short lived (two months) Pathfinder game may be coming to an end just as the players hit 3rd level.

Three of them have broken with the party Paladin, going full blown n00b chaotic stupid. Teleported by a demon at their request, they now stand, without food, water, or armor, at the base of a volcano inhabited by a dwarf three levels higher and the hundred members of his clan, who they plan to rob of a magical sword. Then, they plan to take it back to a demon to have it purged of goodness, but the party paladin is going to try to kill him.

I'm bringing back the player from another game of the dwarf they are going to rob so he can fight the group. Hopefully he wipes them out.

It is set in pseudo Greece / Persia.