So, how IS your latest RPG campaign progressing?

General GTG Off Topic
1

Funny how we never cover one of the main “topics” of the Off-Topic forum, huh?  I’ll start a thread, and apologize in advance for length.

First, some background (Edit: Way more background than I was expecting):

While I’m an avid boardgame collector, with over 100 different titles (mostly scrounged from flea markets and thrift stores, and thus quite different in composition from a usual collection), I had never done a tabletop RPG before- a buddy tried to rope me into his DnD campaign in high school but nothing came of it.  Around a year later, I discovered this nifty board game app called “Sentinels of the Multiverse.”  I was hooked instantly, impressed at the depth of lore and the fun, unique (especially for a cooperative game, which in my limited experience tend to be fairly predictable) gameplay.  I eventually found my way to the Sentinels Wiki, and through there discovered an expansion known as the Cauldron.  While at first I was skeptical (as I tend to be with homebrew), I eventually decided to give it a whirl, but I needed to download Tabletop Simulator to do so.  Don’t worry, we’re getting to the RPG stuff.

One day, a regular at my virtual table approached me, asking if I wanted to join his buddy’s RPG campaign.  At this point, I had begun to absorb more Sentinels lore through the Letters Page and wiki, and had begun watching the first season of SCRPG Live.  Keep in mind, this, and a few scattered, out-of-context DnD memes, were the length and breadth of my experience.  Weeks pass, and the GM had to drop out due to real life stuff.

Side Note: All my life, I’ve loved superheroes and superhero stories, but I had very little hands-on experience with them until recently.  So I would make my own superheroes.  They weren’t all gems at first, but even by middle school I was making stories that I’m still proud to claim today.  Then came my freshman year of college.  This was the height of creativity for me.  I went from a list of characters to be inserted, silver-age style, into any half-relevant struggle, to crafting massive arcs wholesale.  Around this time, though, I began to experience a certain “itch.”  I had all these stories, but they were just mine.  How would I get them out to other people? I didn’t know, until I discovered how to make custom Sentinels decks and export them to TTS.  This was fine, for a while, but it wasn’t enough.  Just like the superhero-loving designers of the game I decided to wedge my own stories into, I needed a different format that would let me explore the entirety of my little universe, even the parts that couldn’t be stuck into a flavor text.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Background over! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, I offered to GM instead.  Keep in mind that I knew almost nothing about running an RPG campaign, except what I learned from watching Christopher in SCRPG S1.  I was able to rope in a few more people, especially after explaining that I had already sunk my cost and bought the rulebook.  We’re on session- oh, heck, probably 10 by now?- and let me tell you, things are spicy.  3/4 in my group are stuck 70 light years away from earth, battling psychic supersoldiers on the astral plane, while the other (who graciously provided me with a rich backstory) is currently working with the leaders of 3 local gangs to plan an ambush against his archnemesis and prevent her from moving her own criminal organization into town.  One of the 3 who are in the astral plane doesn’t know it yet, but he’s actually a superweapon intended to travel the cosmos, destroying the weak and absorbing their power until he will eventually merge with his creator, the BBEG, allowing her to go from “godlike” to “omnipotent” on the power scale and rule over the entire universe.  But without even realizing it, he’s avoiding his fate by buying away the complications (similar to flaws, maybe?) that secretly represent his underlying programming.

Also, I’m trying to put together a second group if anyone wants to join!  I figure you guys have been dreaming up great characters for the SCRPG, and while this isn’t that (though I can’t wait to see what exciting adventures are coming!), it’s still an opportunity for you to test them out!

2

Actually, a little frustrating.  I do most of my gaming at the university where I work and between spring break, inclement weather, and a head cold/sinus infection, we've missed a number of sessions thusfar.  We're only about 3 sessions in, and it's increasingly looking like we're not going to finish this semester.

The premise of this campaign is something of a cross between "Unbreakable" and "Se7en".  Our players are vigilantes looking into the mysterious disappearance and death of Dr. Liam Anderson, a political science professor at the nearby Adams College.  Several days after Anderson went missing, a steel puzzle box was found in his office.  Three days after that, the puzzle box opened, revealing a scrawled message, while the body of Anderson himself was found back in his office, dead of apparent acute benzyne poisoning.  The message is a bastardization of several quates from the book, The Worm Ouroboros:  "In which star of the unclimbed sky wilt thou begin our search? Abase thee and serve me, worms of the pit. These things Fate hath brought to pass, and we be but Fate's whipping-tops."

Thusfar, our investigators have only started to begin piecing the clues together.  They have discovered that Anderson was intending to launch a political campaign in the upcoming election cycle and may have been holding off-the-books fundraisers (something against both federal and state election law), but their investigations at city hall reached a strange impasse when the group's mentalist accidentally triggered something akin to a psychic land mine, dealing themselves significant mental and physical strain.  That's where we last left our investigators, who had reconvened to heal up and trade notes at a local restaurant.

3

I guess a little gaming backstory would  be nice.

I've been playing table-top rpgs for years, ever since my late highschool career. My first game was(as many peoples was) D&D 3.5 edition, and was played in the garage of a friend of a friend's house. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was apparently fun enough that I've been playing in some way ever since that day. I've tested out a number of differing systems that range from the well-known(D&D, Pathfinder, World of Darkness, Savage Worlds, etc.) to the not so popular(Marvel Universe RPG, Dragon Ball RPG, etc.) to homebrew(A buddy of mine has this one game he made called 'Just roll with it'. We make the best re-tellable 'Insanity happened and it was awesome' stories with it).

The game I(was) currently running, Deadlands Reloaded for Savage Worlds Deluxe, was sort of waylaid. In the middle of our currently running campaign a mutual aquaintance of my gaming group and myself came to us and told us how he really wanted to test out Starfinder. So after talking it over(and against my better judgement) we decided to alternate games at our weekly sessions. All was fine for a while, but then every so often things came up that stopped us from playing his game on his asigned meetings, and he would say "We'll just play my game next week". I would have offered to run my game on those weeks, but to keep un-needed weight off of my already messed up back I removed my Deadlands gear and materials from my bags. So after a few weeks of that and other instances of life happening, my Deadlands Reloaded game is still paused. Our test of Starfinder has ended(It's an okay game), but there's word in the group of wanting to play Shadowrun next. Sigh... Well, at least I can make a cowboy-like character in there. He'll just have to be a cyberized ghoul cowby.

4

It's really not.

My group needs to stop ending our sessions sine die.

 

Edit: spelling.

5

I've been playing in a Star Trek Adventures RPG (the system Modiphius came out with ~2 years ago) roughly weekly for the past 18 months, and it is going really well! We are a crew of 3rd-tier Starfleet officers thrown together on an old refitted Oberth class ship immediately following Wolf 359, and we are making things work and solving problems in our own special way!

I also started running a game about 2 months ago set in the mid-25th century aboard an older but still excellent Soveriegn class ship and with a very professional crew tasked with dealing with a lot of diplomatic complexities throughout the galaxy. It is a ton of fun and I'm excited to run another session this Sunday!

6

The D&D 5e campaign I'm GMing seems to be going well -- at least I haven't had any complaints, recently. ;-) We don't play the same way most D&D games play. The team is at 4th level after 2 years of (mostly) biweekly play and there's no plans to go to 5th any time soon. It's fairly sandbox with a few short arcs the players can choose to take up or ignore, as they wish. The original intent of the group was to play in a "swashbuckly" way, but it's taken some of the gang a bit to get into that mindset. Play frequently focuses on character interactions and their lives in the town in which most of them grew up, dealing with the fiascos their friends and acquaintences get into, etc. Very rarely will there be a "dungeon crawl" (and the recently finished the largest they'll ever deal with), and encounters are played as theater of the mind. The players recently acquired a ship to sail the seas with, although they haven't decided exactly what they want to do with it... :-D 

I'm also playing in a friend's D&D 5e Ravenloft campaign, playing every month or so. Very different from the other game, but it's entertaining. Much more focused on dungeon crawls and such. The GM has two 3D printers and loves making and painting their own components and minis -- and does a great job with them! 

I have some folks requesting a sequel to a previous game (from a decade ago) that I'm trying to work out logistics for. It used a tweaked version of Everway, but I'm considering using the SCRPG for it. We need to run a "test" session with the group to see what they think of it, first, though. 

7

Forgot to mention the current WoD campaign my secondary group is playing.

It's set in Chicago, 1979. Most of the PCs are vampires BUT we have a mage and a wraith and a few demons, myself being one. Because my GM obviously enjoys it, he's aranged things so all the vamps were trying to hunt down my investigative reporter. Last session was filled with the vamps growing more and more frustrated with not being able to find me, when all I did was move into a motel since someone was obviously after me when there was a fire in my office. One got trapped in my wards when he forced his way into my appartment, so at least I got some laughs out of it.

8

Yaknow, I've been reading these replies, but it never quite clicked that I could contribute.

I'm currently playing in a World of Darkness game. (Old-school, first edition everything out of falling-apart, 20-year-old books.) The characters are a wereraven who's based off the Courier from Fallout: New Vegas; a homebrew character who's based off Elisa Maza from that one episode of Gargoyles where she was turned into one; and a vampire (me) who's basically Starlight Glimmer from My Little Pony. And we're investigating strange goings-on in South Park. <.< It's the most inexplicable campaign I have ever been in, though in her defense, it's the GM's first time running ever, so she's sticking with what she knows.

My accomplishments have so far included: making Eric Cartman (who was a werebear) crap himself in fear; nearly getting killed by a wererabbit; and probably fomenting a gang war by turning some elementary school kids into vampires.

This game is weird. XD

9

Let's see...I'm currently running a DnD game on a forum-based RP site called RPOL. That one originally started maybe a decade(!) ago when I was using Skype, and ran it for an online friend (I would copy-paste the game text into a Word doc at the end of each session, and I still have them all :D). We both played two characters but obviously mine were mostly going along with whaetever his wanted to do - they were more there to fill out the group a bit. We ran that for maybe a few months but sort of fizzled after a while as it was difficult for both of us to get time at the same time for several hours at once. But after joining RPOL some years later I decided to continue - my original player was still up for it but I also managed to get two other players as well. I came up with a sort of handwave at the start for why three out of the four original party members weren't there any more (both of my characters and one of the player's basically went off to do stuff while he stuck with playing the other of his characters), and then the one remaining character met the two newcomers. One of the players left the game after a while, having decided DnD wasn't really for him, so I had a reason for his character to decide to leave and then carred on with the other two. I think the game stared on RPOL some time in 2014 and we're still going now :). It's plodding along fairly slowly, I think we've only had about three combats ths whole time, it's mostly RP, character interactions and stuff. As far as I can tell, we're all still enjoying it so that's good :D.

I'm also playing in another DnD game on the same site...well, we've had a bit of a gap the last few months but I think we're starting up again soon. The DM of this campaign is the original player from the game I'm running, and the other player (there's only two of us) is the second player in my game :D. And then all three of us are players in a third game, which isn't DnD, but has been running for several years now and is getting toward the end.

I've also recently started playing in a "live" online game using Discord/Roll20. This one's also not DnD, but Star Trek. We've only had two sessions and it's okay so far. Will have to see how it goes.

Aaand finally, I would like to try and run a tabletop game of DnD as I've not really done so before (tried once briefly and it was rubbish but that was before I spent about two years watching High Rollers :D), but I don't have anyone to run for. Maybe one day, though ;).

Note - all references to DnD in the above post relate to Fourth Edition, my edition of choice :).

10

So, the Cold Steel Wardens game I alluded to earlier has finally resumed, and something of a running joke has taken over the New Corinth setting canon.

Our heroes' chosen spot to meet--where they share information and discuss their investigations--is the restaurant "Umm...Yeah!!", New Corinth's only mac-and-cheese bar, where mac and cheese is served with all manner of toppings and cheese blends, including:  

--The Maui Mac (white cheddar sauce, ham, grilled chicken, and pineapple)

--The Dessert Mac (sweet dough noodles, a cream cheese icing sauce, with chocolate sprinkles)

11

This is the week we should finally be starting up the Shadowrun game I mentioned before. I doubt too much will start in the first session, but if anything noteworthy happens then I'll mention it here.

Hopefully Ol' Deadeye will survive long enough to become a favorite. Almost all of his skill kit went into ranged combat and stealth, so I'm really gonna have to think out my placement when combat situations happen. He has natural claw and bite attacks from being a ghoul along with spurs(Wolverine-like tri-claws) in his cybernetic arm, but other than that he really isn't a dedicated close combat character. His main weapons are his sniper rifle and his hold-out shotgun located in his arm. Not saying that I don't think those wouldn't cover most situations, but I think my first in-game purchase should be some sort if mid-range weapon like a pistol of some kind, or maybe an AK he can mod over time. It always helps to be prepared.

12

Update for my WoD group.

Things have gotten...Lets say "interesting" for our group, especially for my Demon. After asking for advice from my faction on ways to diffuse the situation, I met with the other players. If you remember they were doing their best to hunt me down, the reason being I took a picture of one of them feeding and they were to sloopy to hide it. After some talks and an 'agreement' that they would stop persuing me (and burning down any more offices I would happen to obtain) if I would give the pictures back after giving them a guarantee that I'd give back the pictures that I took(my faction obviously would keep the negatives, but I wasn't going to say anything about it). The one bump in the plan: as a symbol of good faith that they'd get what they want, I would have to stay in the vamp's 'custody' until the pictures were given to them. My faction seeing this as a valuable chance to learn of the normally secretive world of vampires, they advised me to agree to the terms. So now I'm pretty much gonna be the Demonic Jane Goodall of the chimp-like Vampires. Joy...

At the very least I was approved to learn the Lore of Flame from my faction, giving me a way to defend myself easily for when this whole thing goes south.

13

I just started my B Group, which is a campaign of supervillains (again, in the HERO System).  After they bailed on the creepy NPC’s world-conquering thinktank (for very good reasons), they headed to McDonald’s, where they met a robot with a gun who experienced constant pain unless causing mayhem.  It tried to shoot a PC but one of the villains was a Portal Guy who redirected the bullet- which entered the back of the robot’s processor module and scrapped its evolutionary algorithm’s feedback, freeing it.  Also they took over the McDonald’s abd are using it as their villain base while trying to make Portal Guy prime minister.  Not the best idea, since none of them know that he’s a terrible liar (to the point that no one would ever believe his lies).  But I’m curious to see where this goes

14

That sounds amazing. XD

15

Also, one of the party dresses in black and dark blue and wears a plague doctor mask and is also a necromancer.  And he’s the ray of sunshine in the party.  Least edgy of the three by far.  It’s great.

16

This reminds me of a character I’ve only ever gotten to play once–a 13th Age one-shot at Origins a few years back.

Jim Bob, the Lawful Good Necromancer.

He’s just a genuinely nice, kind fellow, who happens to have mastery over the undead.  He travels from village to village, putting undead creatures back to rest and consecrating graveyards.  He also raises and lends out mindless undead–skeletons, mainly–to help with unskilled labor tasks, like hauling wood, plowing fields, digging foundations and the like.  

Jim enjoys a pint at the pub, goes to chapel, and enjoys a good hearty meal like anyone else, and he’ll be the first to put his necromantic minions to good use if someone threatens any innocents.  It just so happens that he consorts with the undead on a daily basis.

17

So Jeff Goldblum is a fae and about a quarter of Cardiff was destroyed when my villains group overloaded the ley lines.

EDIT: This week, the squad successfully avoided a direct confrontation with Jeff Goldblum.  Well, Jeff Goldblum paused time to ask them how they overloaded the ley lines, then ragequit when they kept insisting (convincing absolutely nobody) that no, famous actor and everyone’s uncle Jeff Goldblum was the one responsible for this devastation.  The flying dolphin hero who responded to the scene told them to basically pack their stuff and move to America or they’d have to fight, which they did, almost without hesitation.  In the system we use, teleporting doesn’t scatter at all if you pass a roll.  I said “Nope, you’re teleporting across continents.  You succeeded by 3, so you’ll only be off by 10 miles out of your 10,000 mile range,” and picked a number between 1 and 360 for direction.  And where did they land?  McClusky, North Dakota.  Looked around on Google Street View, and pretty quickly ran into the town’s Confederate bar.  So racist backwoods North Dakota.  This is why scatter.  Anyway, they’ve started a cult, Faith+.