(A) Endings of my Online RPG Campaigns
It took me some time thinking about the topic of current RPG Blog Carnival – Endings – to get an idea where my Endings and my RPGs connect. And when I opened my Discord to check for an update from someone I took a look at a bunch of closed channels of various campaigns and adventures we played online for the last two or so years.
The whole idea for Discord server for online gaming group was from the previous group, where we played Symbaroum. After a little half-assed finish of that I wanted to GM Blades in the Dark. Just after first session and then after a few more we lost players – they were from previous campaign/server, didn’t like the mechanic and system wasn’t immersive enough for them. We recruited new ones and there were another dramas involved. We played twelve sessions total, each around 4 hours. The end came rather abruptly and it was me who made the case for it. Second player who left was the anchor behind choosing Cult playbook for the group and the more time passed the less players were sure of that choice. We ended up with four players – Cutter, Leech, Whisper and Lurk (two Lurks and a Whisper were among those who left). Cult as a whole barely moved to become First Tier with strong Hold.
Right after we finished Blades we haven’t had any ideas how to continue – the group was still in the stabilising phase – and I wanted to continue with the system, as I fell in love with it. (In the meantime we played Alien, I think, I cannot count sessions in which I was a player.) We played Scum and Villainy with a Muscle – clone who deserted special mystic policing force – a Mechanic – whose farming family was screwed over by Hegemony – and a Scoundrel – largely unaffiliated. It ended after just three or four sessions as one of the players got really tired of the mechanic. The end was sudden and I wasn’t satisfied. We didn’t explore any of the themes connected to characters – most of it was foreshadowed for the non-Jedi-clone guy. I certainly didn’t want to end with Forged in the Dark but decided it has to wait for another time. And Band of Blades still sits on my desk, waiting patiently.
Another thing I was running during our system hopping was Warlock! For a long time I wanted to taste Warhammery feel of the game without actually playing the clunky original. Warlock! seemed like a good idea, the problem was we were short on players and after just one session with only two players we bailed on it. From this Ending we learned that playing with two players only was not going to work. Also that I didn’t really like how Warlock! runs and also that I need to really think if I want to use adventure written for another system. Crazy how many thinks can be learned in only one session XD
Second successful (at least to me) online campaign I ran was Cold City. There were Russian soldier, French scientist and American special forces agent possessed partially by eldritch entity. We played three investigations and all of it took 11 or more sessions, I cannot recall. For information – Cold City has somewhat PvP element where agents have conflicting agendas. During the last mission agents came to report on their findings to supervisors and suddenly each nation was really interested in the invisible monster. They gave agents option to call reinforcements but I did a lot of winking when speaking about nature of these reinforcements. Once capturing the thing went sour Russian agent called for help. Suddenly a bunch of armed soldiers came out of hiding. French saw it and started shooting at Russian and they both hid behind obstacles shooting at each other sporadically. Then french reinforcements came and case was closed by a large group of police. After that we couldn’t get ourselves to continue because of huge confict on the line French scientist-Russian soldier. I said I could make one final fatal mission, something catastrophic but we went to play Alien or Delta Green and the idea died. This ending made me realise how too much antagonism can destroy the campaign, even when it is written in the system.
Among various published and homebrew systems we played there was another thing I ran. It was 2400 Project Ikaros. This time we had a firefighter-psychic and two humans – medical student and hacker freak. I think on session three they split – psychic went deep into enemy facility in order to find powerful psychic and humans broke into a ship and fled to Canada. From this ending I learned to work on descriptions of factions because even though it was simple on paper my players got confused.
These are all campaigns and adventures I ran online as a GM for the last two and a half years. Currently I’m running Harts & Minds, we’re two sessions in and my players got really into it – they talk about it in between sessions and send deer-related memes. But it has not ended yet so not on topic for this month.