Actual Test: Campaign Pitch Document

Some friends gave me a hard nudge when Spelljammer Confirmed to run a game for them once it landed. Now that it is out, that time has come and I have confirmed that indeed it was not just chatter. To get the ball rolling I decided to pitch a bunch of variations to see what kind of campaign people wanted.

I sent around a mail with the following pitches and the request to rank them from favourite to least to see what was popular. The pitches format was adapted from Matt Colville's Pitching Your Campaign with some pretty short, sharp overviews to narrow down on what people sought.
- I noted that all of them would have a roughly equal base-level of puzzles and PC-scale combat.
- I added Scale to indicate on-planet (single world), in-system (multi-world), or intersystem (multi-sphere)
- Politics options : how much NPC interaction is there likely to be
- Tactics options: how much ship-to-ship is likely

I particularly liked the 'player buy-in' note; it helps align everyone for character creation and is helpful to have right up front.

"Intersystem whaling" - destination exploration. There is an ocean world, a place known to locals as the Deep - a place where things long dead elsewhere still thrive. It is a long way out but the value of the haul will be worth it! There are some locals to avoid and of course the beasts themselves to be hunted but gold must be bought with sweat after all...
Scale: In-system
Politics: Medium
Tactics: Medium
Player Buy-in: signed up for a long mission for a big payday.

"The Rescue" - longhaul mission. An elven retreat world is cut off and needs a cruiser to go out there, make contact and bring them components they might need. It is probably nothing, a quiet run, easy in, easy out. Captain's going to retire after this one so he wants this done by the numbers.
Scale: Intersphere
Politics: Low
Tactics: High
Player Buy-in: Crew of an Elven Imperial Navy Man-O-War on a detached mission.

"The King Beyond the Clouds" - interplanetary meddling. A system slipped from the grip of the elves and their rumoured return is nigh. Which side will you take? Can the disparate worlds of the systems be marshalled to keep their independence or persuaded to return to the fold?
Scale: In-system
Politics: High
Tactics: Medium
Player Buy-in: Interfering in the groundling and spacer courts to prepare for an intersphere incursion

"Sky-pirates" - sandbox - bringing a flying ship to a groundling campaign. The captain died, you senior officers have borrowed the ship and are off to pursue your own goals.
Scale: On-planet
Politics: Medium
Tactics: Medium
Player Buy-in: Self-directed, you start with a ship and you decide what hooks and actions to follow.

"Splinters of Hope: Homeworld" - search for artefacts in a "dead sphere." An elven world was eaten by Witchlight Marauders during the Unhuman wars but someone has to go there and find any pieces of wood that were taken off world before the disaster.
Scale: In-system
Politics: Low
Tactics: Medium
Player Buy-in: Your ship and crew have agreed to take this raid mission for the elves.

When I got back everyones rankings I stacked the different campaigns, eliminated those with any 'least favourites' and landed on Intersystem Whaling as the favoured pitch.

King Beyond The Clouds had more favourites but also a least-fave.
The Rescue got ok votes from most, lower rated than Whaling
Splinters & Sky-Pirates both 2 least-faves

Going to use the Gygax 75 generated system and put all that world-building to the test.