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Here are ideas for short campaigns. Please comment in the next few days so we can come to a decision in a week which would give me or someone else a week to prepare.

I've thought of other rules light fantasy games but I'm not sure if it's worth it as we're already use to Basic Fantasy and light games tend to be similar. If you want me to list options, let me know.

Other Best Island Games
These would require no new rules and not much new info to get going.

1. You're all part of the same Newzan noble House. You may or may not be actually related as a house includes everyone employed or owned by the family and can be thousands of people. You're moderately high up in the house: nephews of the head of the House, bodyguards, assassins, wizards, and the like. The house is involved with a shadow war and is about to make a bold maneuver that will win the war if they pull it off.

2. You're mercenaries employed by the adventurer's union. You're racing into The Crack to get an artifact before the Serpent Men can get to it.

Other Basic Fantasy
We can take the same rules and do something totally different.

1. Playthings of the Gods. You are high level adventures in a pocket plane as pawns of gods, playing strange games for unknown stakes.

2. Peculier Cases - low magic historic fantasy. You're agents of the king and archbishop of York in 1190's England solving crimes while half the nobility are away on crusade.


Call of Cthulhu
I have both BRP(original) and D20 rules but the BRP are probably easier to pickup. The ability stats are very similar to D&D with percentile skills. It works best if you don't know too much about the mythos and I don't go much by what's written anyway. Compared to some, I'm rather lenient but the casualty rate is fairly high and there is a good chance that some of you will die.

All you need to as a player are the quickstart rules, which are here: http://www.chaosium.com/article.php?story_id=87 (pages 6-11 is all you need to read).

There is chargen software here that is easy to use and prints out a decent charsheet: http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/ ... akhee.html

The first plot idea I have starts with everyone who happens to be riding on the same bus who become allies of circumstance. IF your character dies, you pick an NPC and they become your character until that plot is over.


Savage Worlds
Imagine the good parts of the D20 system with no classes or levels and with streamlined rules for faster play. The rules are cinematic and work best for pulp style games.

Free version of rules:
http://www.peginc.com/Downloads/SWEX/TD06.pdf

1. Never Trust anyone over 13. You're young gifted delinquents who noticed that all the adults are acting weirder than usual lately. After a couple of sessions, we could switch to veterans in a retirement home that has gone strange. Last couple of sessions, your favorite character from the pair agaisnt the big finale.

2. Shocking Revelations. Late 30s New York with monsters, mad scientists, and spies. An aging Tesla spins a wild tale, is he the hero or the villain?


Star Wars, sort of
I like the Star Wars universe but I cant' run anything in the time and place of the movies as they would be hanging over our heads the whole time. I've used an area of Wild Space before for a game - most of the same species and tech and such, no Empire or Rebellion. Space fleets and populations tend to be smaller so it's easier to conceive of ways that a handful of people could affect events.


I like the Saga rules but I'm not sure if anyone else has seen them. Kevin mentioned that he has pdfs of the D6 rules which I've run with but am rusty on.

1. Trouble at School. You're all young force users at a small new academy. Mysterious forces take interest. (the area has non-jedi force traditions as well as bits of Jedi - similar rules but different flavor text.)

2. Delton's run: There is an annual light freighter race across several star systems. In addition to speed, you get bonuses for cargo and passengers delivered. You pick from a pool of cargos, passengers, and destinations to weigh risks, payoffs. (I can't remember how much ship design there is in D6, this would work best if you guys make decisions on the ship, decidign on engines, maneuverability, weapons, and cargo space.)


I know that's a bunch to think about. Let me know what looks great, ok, and what you just wouldn't want to play. Hopefully, that will narrow the field.

Of these, I'm favoring Call of Cthulhu, especially for a short run. Lots of problem solving, interaction with NPCs, monster hunting and constant fear of instant death and/or insanity! Definitely prefer BRP, most of what you need to know is on the character sheet, and classes don't really make sense in CoC. Too much work for too short a lifespan!

I like Best Island, but I would prefer to experience it through our main characters' point of view, I don't want to learn too much through alternate characters.

Star Wars is always a favorite, and yeah, the vast amount of canonical info makes for a problem, so Wild Space sounds good. The question of system is a good one... d20 is pretty heavy for a cinematic setting like Star Wars. Something faster would be good.

About systems in general:

Did anyone read the Risus rules I passed out last month? If not:

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm

The rules are just six pages long, and are meant for fast, fun play. We could throw together almost anything with these rules, and there's even a Cthulhu Risus version of the rules. Character creation in any case is 30 seconds long, only more if you're having trouble deciding on what you want to play.

Just throwing out opinions and options.

Chris

I agree with Chris on his points about Best Island. I'm not opposed to it, but I think something else would be better.

Star Wars D6 is a good system in my opinion. It isn't optimal for three hour sessions but it could still be a lot of fun. I have some concerns with your proposed plot lines. Force users add a lot of complexity to the game. With the freighter race I will hold off on commenting until we narrow the field of games first. Let's see if Star Wars is still in the running.

I've heard only a little bit about Savage Worlds so I'm not sure what you're talking about there. I played Rippers for a few months. I liked the characters, was so-so about the world, and ended up HATING HATING HATING the game master's style (can I have tea with my straight jacket?). I might end up having a bad knee jerk reaction to Savage worlds.

Call of Cthulhu sounds interesting. I am only very passingly familiar with it. FYI I don't know who Lovecraft was and I've never read any of his stuff. My understanding is that the genre is one part Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one part generic "broken down in the sticks" horror movie, and perhaps two parts Rod Serling's 'The Night Gallery'. Does that sound about right?

Stan, if we do play CoC I might want to discuss the starting point aka "how we all meet" with you. "We all meet on a bus" doesn't work well for some character ideas. That is a small detail and I don't expect it to be a problem (I don't even have a character idea right now).

The other basic fantasy ideas Stan floated out just don't grab me. I think I'd prefer a change of genre from basic fantasy since we are going on a side trek.

To narrow it to two games, I would prefer Cthulhu or Star Wars.

Chris, I've played Risus but it isn't quite my thing. I have a couple of rules light games that I've written that we can try some time. I'll post links in this thread within a couple of days.

Kevin, Rippers is a Savage Worlds setting. In another Savage Worlds game, the rules would be 90% similar but without the werewolves.

I've decided to hold off of Star Wars for a while. Most of my stuff is written for the Saga rules (which are simplified and more cinematic D20). It's been over a decade since I've touched D6 and I wouldn't have time this week to relearn the rules and put something together.

Unless Keith has a strong objection, we'll go with a session of Call of Cthulhu and reevaluate from there. In the next 8 days, try to take a look at the quickstart rules if you're not familiar with CoC. You can make a character based on those, the main books, or the chargen software linked above. I'll also have 5-10 character sheets if you want to choose something premade. The rules are simple enough that I've walked someone through a character sheet in 5 minutes and told them to find what they want to do on their character sheet and roll under and they did fine.

For those of you not familiar with the game, it works best with fairly normal characters thrown into extraordinary situations. Your characters are not going to be ninjas or monster hunters. They are going to be librarians, detectives, and the like. There will be action but there will also be investigation, research, and talking to people. Keep the concepts moderately simple with only a twist or two as there is about a 1 in 4 chance that they will die in any given session.

The bus set up is integral to the first adventure. It sets up the location and the initial conflict. The year is 1936 and you are on a bus that's headed to from Boston to Maine. You got on at Boston or somewhere shortly thereafter. You have your own reasons for going north. Perhaps you are headed for a Works Progress Administration job in Maine. Or, you're running from something. It's up to you.

You can spend your initial money on anything that will fit on your person or can be stowed in the luggage areas of the bus. You don't have to spend all your money. Weapons are allowed (there wouldn't be modern levels of security checks) but nothing that would require a permit or special connections to buy such as explosives or automatic weapons. Rifles would be stowed in the luggage. You're not going to be able to get on the bus with dozens of weapons or huge ammo belts.

Feel free to ask me questions in this thread or via email.

Stan, I've looked over the rules and I wanted to get some guidance on primary stats for the characters. At what point would you consider a character to be a cliff jumper? In a game which normally has a high mortality rate I'm a bit nervous about starting off with a character who already has one foot in the grave.

I understand that stats of the same dice type can be swapped out but consider the following dice rolls:
3d6 rolls 8, 11, 8, 15, 12
2d6+6 rolls 12, 13
Edu 9

3d6 rolls 8, 13, 8, 11, 8
2d6+6 rolls 13, 10
Edu 19

Are these viable characters? If not, what approach do you prefer in addressing that?

Everyone feel free to roll up 4-5 characters to get one you like. But don't worry about stats too much - death is usually a consequence of doing something stupid or being unlucky more than having low stats.

On the whole, skills are more important than abilities. As such, int and edu are fairly important. I don't have the book handy but you can get more skill pts by starting with somone with a decade or three of extra experience beyond the 20 year old character. I'll post the option later tonight.

If you want to do something in melee, it helps if your size + str => 25. Size also affects hp so is more important than con.

Power is important mainly for sanity and the occasional spell resistance as you won't be casting many spells. A common occurance is rolling under your current sanity or losing more sanity. If you start low, you fail more rolls and go down much more quickly. If you don't mind playing a character going over the edge, it's not a problem though.

Whatever you play, it doesn't hurt to add a few points to your dodge skill. It keeps you from getting shot, stabbed, or grabbed by a monster.

The quickstart rules don't have many weapons or equipment. I'll post a list or you can use the chargen software to get a bigger list.

My character concept is a traveling stage magician... mostly a self-taught showman who likes to mystify and amaze. His tricks are all mundane illusions, but he's fascinated by the occult and paranormal. He uses this knowledge in his act, and has attracted some uncomfortable attention in the past.

Right now, he's on the bus to flee one such uncomfortable approach by "nuts" as he'd put it who are a bit more into "the dark stuff" than he cares to delve thus far. He's hoping to pick up work in a burlesque or vaudeville theatre doing his act.

Chris

That will be good. Kevin has a cool character too. Keith can't make it but CoC will work with just a couple of characters as there aren't combat roles.

See you both tomorrow.