My Shadowrun campaign has ended, with the runners completing what started as PR-suppression but turned into a rescue mission of a mutilated elven pop-star trapped on Fersnelt Lunar Station. It was a decent campaign, having last for over two years, but I was starting to run out of ideas for where to take them for the setting on hand, and took the side of caution with not having the game peter out from creative fatigue. As it stands, we're taking a month long break where I will then run a mini-campaign arc in Eclipse Phase for a specific adventure idea I had about a year ago, which should last for about a month. Then we'll take another month off from gaming, the whole thing giving me time to recharge as it where.
The question I'm trying to tell myself, what should I run next? While obviously the group's preferences are influential, they currently are not showing strong preferences one way or the other. I myself do not feel super comfortable running modern/sci-fi genre in the long-term, which is the main reason I ended the Shadowrun game and am not planning on doing Eclipse Phase for very long. Obviously, I have the most experience running d20 systems of various flavours.
Player M - Early 30s. Very mellow and down for anything. Holds a fondness in his heart for Eclipse Phase because of his personal views on transhumanism, and Planescape (we met via mutual nerdgasm on the setting, in fact).
Player D - Mid-30s. Has a play style that errs on the side of navel-gazing at times. Shows a notable interest in oWoD, such as Mage (the Ascension) or Exalted; but obviously fairly flexible since he enjoyed his time in the Shadowrun campaign (played a Chaos Magick magician).
Player S - Mid-40s, roughly. Our loudest player with a habit of talking over the others, and has been telling us at length how 3rd edition Shadowrun handled the rules (liked the Ends of the Matrix the least, but he wasn't a hacker, so I didn't care). Has been semi-regularly looking into GURPS and has a fair bit of experience with Champions. The only real restriction that I've seen with him is that he would not really enjoy the more 'gonzo' settings, such as Rifts or the kinds of Planescape I would typically run unless I make a conscious effort to restrain myself.
Player G - Mid-50s. Fair bit of experience with Champions, D&D back from the early days (stays current, since I've seen a bunch of Pathfinder on his shelves), and a number of others. Doesn't seem to have much experience with the more 'story' style games like WoD. Prefers longer running campaigns, but seems to be willing to try a fair bit.
Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
In your shoes, I would run Champions with a group where half the players already have experience with the rules set. But you say you're not fond of modern settings.....so I dunno.
If it were me, I would first float the idea of an intentionally retro four color 1960s superheto campaign to the group and see if they'f be interested -- or if I was feeling really ambitious I would try a set of split-genre paired Champs campaigns with the same player group. One would be the Kirby / Lee / Ditka early Silver age pastiche set in the late 50s, early 60s, and the other would be the grimderp 20-Minutes-into-the-future sort of superheroes-do-SVU adventures of the grandkids and great-legacies of the earlier group - revisiting concepts and themes from the other campaign in deconstructed and reinterpreted ways.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Tue Apr 19, 2016 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
What about a reflavoured Planescape? Tilt a bit towards the players who are more old-skool inclined but keep enough planescape fantasy transhumanism to titillate yourself and the fellow planescape-lover. Shadowrun effectively does that - transhumanist society but with authoritarian vibes and a sort of old school approach to a sci-fi world. Mixes positive and negative things about the future. Do the same with planescape, so play up the negative parts, play down the positive parts, make it a bit grimmer.
Alternatively, just run a more magicpunk Dark Sun.
If you want something more off the wall, i've had good experiences with both Deniable and Rapture.
