Baroque, Perhaps Impossibly Complicated Idea

Digging through ancient emails I stumbled across this ancient idea for a forum campaign and since I have not seen anything quite as convoluted around I present it for consideration in case someone can draw inspiration and maybe actually get it or something like it off the ground.

For background, the original pitch:

Imagine, for a moment, we lived in an alternate universe, where I [had not immigrated] and ran a campaign [in 2004].

Now, this imaginary campaign was a lunatic Steampunk Buffy/Stargate crossover campaign set in Alta California (part of Imperial Mexico) circa 1990's where they found a 'stargate' in the Mayan ruins, not Egypt, in a world with a sort of Slayerverse level of background weird using Deadlands as the 'why'. It would have been D20 based using Monte Cookes WOD D20, Stargate D20 and Deadlands D20.

Ok, so my crazy notion is to run a thread on the gamers forum which would be the 'pre game setup' for the sequel campaign, or something like the 'league' threads that pop up now and then; creating the campaign retrospectively by tell the stories of the favourite bits from the first campaign.

The trick would be to pick the 'original' party - essentially an exercise in Fantasy RPG Game - choose your ideal player mix, ignoring geography and who was actually there at the time :) - and then those players would form the core of the thread and *within* the thread would stick to the define alt-reality; the game happened, these are true tales of the past. Outside, whatever, but this sequel campaign start-up thread would be played as a window into the timeline where it really happened.

To frame this:
- the sequel campaign start-up - the actual forum game being played would have been 2009
- the original steampunk Alta-California Buffy/Stargate game should have happened in 2003-2004

The conceit was that it was the best game ever, with a team-of-heroes table, lots of legendary tales, etc.

Other context; this would have been played on a forum where there were a strong contingent of active readers - maybe two dozen - who would read nearly everything. This was the forum for our college games society, now long passed to dust. It had pedigree of numerous successful forum games, including the mighty League and curtailed League II, so we knew a game such as described here would have been 'played' but also 'put on' for the audience of forum readers. This would have been a bit of kayfaybe where everyone pretended to be in the know about this allegedly incredibly complex and awesome game.

D.I.O. Ultimate Steppes Campaign

I have had a thought rolling about in my head for a bit to work up some sort of steppes campaign - built around a moving base that is either a nomadic tribe or a silk road caravan. I think a lot of this could be built off Ultraviolet Grasslands but I want the science-fantasy weirdness dialled more towards sword-and-sorcery weirdness. Throwing it out here on the D.I.O. principle.

An objective would be to bring to the table a bunch of books I have on my shelves - the long list being
Ultraviolet Grasslands
Metis Creative’s catalogue - City of the Crescent and Empires of the Silk Road
Wayfarer's Nomadic Realms
Studio Agates Great Kaan from Eana
Valley of the Five Fires
The Golden Khan of Ethengar (Known World Gazetteer GAZ12)

Another big influence on all this is the Dothraki Horde articles on A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (ACOUP) which is a fascinating series.

Another objective of this would be a chance to visit some of the lesser known areas of famous campaign worlds since most of them do have a steppe location in it - Ethengar for the Known World, the Endless Wastes or the Hordelands for Forgotten Realms, the Dry Steppes for Greyhawk, Great Kaan for Eana, Khanate of Khazzaki for Midgard. Noting the strong similarities between all of these - effectively "if Steppe, therefore Mongol-types" much of what is available should be readily portable side-to-side. The Great Kaan and Nomadic Realms stand out for doing something a bit different. The way the ACOUP blog series looks at the parallels between horse-nomad cultures in North America and Asia provides another source of influences to draw on.

The campaign structure would be the caravan mechanics from UVG, a big theme being the 'moving across the map' huge scale of the thing. Sites would come within reach and be accessible for a period of time, the party roaming out from the mobile home base before moving on. It would prompt some different play styles in that you could play some situations as pure raids - stirring up a hornets nest and escaping into the great grasslands, confident that you are rapidly moving beyond the reach of vengeance.

The combination between 'explorers of the unknown' and 'community base' is the unusual thing to lean into. With a caravan, there are strong similarities to a ship based campaign, but with a nomad community than there are a lot more interesting relationships, a lot more going on but also a block more obligations and potential hooks related to the fact that *everyone* is along on the journey. In both cases there is a slow-moving core that needs to be protected or have enemies diverted away from it - sheep and goat flocks, the young and old of the community, the caravan goods, etc.

Thoughts for hooks would be: 1. Known hazards we need checked out to plan our route - are our sworn foes at their northern or southern camp grounds so we can avoid them, have the seals held on the tomb of great evil 2. Scout the route ahead - should be an easy ride, plenty of time for a side endeavour 3. Some predator is snatching from the flocks/mounts - deal with it 4. Tales tell of a treasure near our next camp ground - we should investigate 5. Ahead is one of the great cities - opportunity for trade and information gathering but all the risks that cities bring 6. Some so-called ruler of the steppe has sent emissaries - go back with them and try to get us in the least trouble

System wise the sources are 50/50 between 5e or BX compatible. I wouldn't mind trying an older edition to give a bit more focus onto solutions not on your character sheet and see people use their mounts more.

The more I think on this, the more it strikes me this is a rolling hex-crawl where there is time pressure to check things out before they fall beyond reach and fun to be had in the constant balance of 'grab what we can and go' versus 'delve deeper, knowing we have to travel ever further to catch up'. Some things will stay constant while others will change frequently.

D.I.O. Abyssal Thunder Run

I mentioned a while back that I think there is a trick missing in approaches to the lower planes and another idea has been scratching at my mind. Following Grumpy Wizards steer - if we want it done, we'll have to do it ourselves.

This is one that builds out from the infernal war-machines of Descent into Avernus, nods to some of the other appearances of huge, awful war-constructs that appear through-out Planescape lore (the Ships of Chaos from "In the Abyss", the many mentions of big ruined war machines through out the Blood War lore, etc.) Our core campaign is going to be hex-crawling the Plane of Infinite Portals, juggling wear-and-tear on the War Engine and picking the battles to fight in the deep Abyss

Excerpt from the poster map in Planes of Chaos, by Robert Lazzaretti

The key concept on this is that the party gets sent on a ground level planar run with an infernal engine out of the Nine Hells and off on some mission. The campaign conceit is that you are starting as weaker characters in a powerful machine, and would expect to get more powerful (levelling up) as your machine is battered to pieces beneath you. The trick will be to keep the thing running long enough to get you far enough back out that you can hike home.

Strictly speaking this would be a 'Planejammer' hybrid rather than true Planescape going by our grid but never mind. Parts of this would be to allow a tour of the truly awful parts of the planes, unsurvivable unless you are buttoned up in a dread engine of the Blood War. Parts of this would be to give a big, charismatic vessel that would not be easily replaceable - they get one and have to manage it.

Slushpile - Evernote spring cleaning edition

Inspired by these meltings of the slush glacier and other similar postings I present some backlog sweepings that perhaps someone may find gold in.

1. More lizardfolk culture - 100 words for heat; the stones conductive properties become emotions - the emotions become attitudes and outlooks
2. Magical back blast (grimdark, radiation equivalent)
3. Sigil character building though location generation
4. d6 pain crazed antagonists
5. The campaign implied from randomly selected house-rules
6. Visual iconography of alien animals, simplified for ritual codes
7. colony of versions who live together: clone, upload, simulacra, etc. are happy to spend their time together but separate (sitting around reading books, playing games, not-interacting in same room). Galaxy of selves. Echo chamber of not dealing with outsiders
8. Character travels galaxy with a pair of data cores worn as earrings or other piece jewelery. This is, as they are aware, "displaying the skulls of my enemies". They are pursued by others for those datacores seeking to ressurect the thing that was killed - a ship / world / whatever.
9. Extraterrestrial animal zodiac - symbols of certain aspects & attributes - introduce wierd, ancient, sometimes extinct animals to earth
10. Daniel Jackson esque Dwarven scholar to be escorted to treasure hall. Lifting the volcanic cores from outlying forge complexes. Volcano cores – superheat – unsafe to move except at certain facilities
11. Ruins visible from working city - light discipline to remain secret - tension point with natives when newcomer spoils it
12. The incrementing engine where a study or a code crack is being done by sheer brute force. A clearing in a jungle where pieces of a summoning grid are being moved around by zombies/drone tractors to gradually work through the possible permutations of the grid to figure out the correct arrangement
13. Transposed Earth finds itself with moons, Mars etc all covered with relics and ruins -  a flosting space hulk, etc - all signs of an ancient dino-type culture that thrived, then was wiped out.
14. Respect the Elders: old means badass; steady accrual of tricks, contacts, assets, wisdom. No such thing as incompetent old folk out here - infirm get shipped home, lazy retire home, idiots & the weak get dead
15. The Antiquarians: "It just takes one bad link to break the chain to eternity" - people who have signed up with aliens forcibly removing Earths heritage as we cannot guarantee to be good stewards 
16. "be scarier than the darkness, strap on fanged mask and jet bike and plunge into the alien swarm catacombs"
17. Aliens treating the swarm worlds where every things is available as living in a lost and found office or living in a supermarket. Tons and tons of things, more than they could ever possibly want and for the most part they ignore it because it is not useful to them day to day.
18. A dead galaxy is no use to anyone. This is why you need boots on the ground. You need true believers. People on the world have to accept that you are the victor, that your paradigm is the true paradigm. If you wipe out the planets and leave nothing between the stars except dust, then there is noone to believe and the dreamland is dead. There is no energy to draw on, there is nothing to do.
19. a place that has descended into a post apocalyptic anarchy where high technology is used without any comprehension. Initial encounter is the new arrivals watching someone using a magic sword or "soul sword" and in fact they are waving around a particulalry sharp chunk of computer memory and the soul encoded on that is the thing that is generating most the effects.
20. Appendix N comparison for different gaming communities - Ireland, Australia any different to whats in the US original?

D.I.O. Cosmic Defense Brigade

Calling back again to the Do It Ourselves prod by the Grumpy Wizard I wanted to sketch out the sci-fi campaign I would love to either play in or run.

High concept for this campaign springs from Iain M. Banks Algebraist - in that there is a thread of interstellar civilization that sees military defense as a thing like the fire brigade. Humans have stumbled to the stars into the midst of this and through the arcana of ancient opaque interstellar governance processes bid for a bunch of star systems. The humans understood they were taking over the systems. The galactics understood they were just taking over responsibility for those systems. The humans won the bids because noone else wanted the hassle. You are some of those humans.

The pitch is "SHIELD or Stargate Command but you are responsible for a sector of inhabited alien worlds". Throw in some Babylon 5 but the aliens are not bothering to come and talk to you.

D.I.O: Alternate Avernus Campaign

tl;dr: sketching out the Blood War centred campaign I wanted Descent into Avernus to be.

Jolted by this Do It Ourselves rallying cry by the Grumpy Wizard I was thinking of something that annoyed me for a bit. Effectively this is the same effect as when you see a trailer and anticipate a certain amazing movie - and then you don't get that (maybe the movie was good or bad, but it wasn't what you envisioned).

I got that same thing with Descent into Avernus. I have been tracking along the Avernus: Remixed series on Alexandrian and I feel entirely justified in my initial 'huh' reaction to DiA. As an old Planescaper I feel the forces of Hell should get more respect. Either they are a creditable threat to the multiverse or they aren't. To me the whole scale of Descent into Avernus felt wrong - that a single city on a single Prime planet could attract notice of the Archduke essentially running the Blood War felt off.

But to follow the Grumpy Wizards direction, enough wailing, time to rub some dirt on it and go get it fixed.