Ok so, I know this like two weeks late but... it's a new year baby! Super hyped to start running a campaign again. Had good couple of weeks off, did some prep, and now the new campaign is set to start. So let us begin.
The System
So I'm running Edge Studio's (formerly Fantasy Flight Games) Genesys Role Playing Game. As far as generic systems go, its pretty good. The first time I used the Narrative Dice mechanic it confused the hell out of me. No numbers, just symbols. Didn't really get to play it until about two years ago when I offered to run for a bit to give our Dungeon Master a break from the campaign he was running. Did a whole post about it here if you want to check it out.
So I've been... well not really working on, mostly just porting stuff from various Genesys campaign settings to stich together a fairly basic Urban Arcana game. Its got Guns! And MAGIC! AND ROVING GANGS OF GRANNYS! I named them calendar girls, mostly cause Hells Grannies was taken.
My Tone as a Game Master
I want to share a bit about myself as a Game Master. This is hard for me to put into words to stay with me. I'm in my late 30s and have been role playing since the late nineties. My earliest games were run by my friends. We were in our early teens so the games were never what you would consider "High Concept". It was mostly "Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamination of the women" kind of games using Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition Advanced. And we had a very limited understanding of the rules. So most of the time it boiled down to the following...
Player: "I want to do something cool!"
DM: "Ok roll and see how cool it is!"
Player: "I got a 17!"
DM: "That pretty good! You do the cool thing!"
So that's a bit where my tone comes from, I want to see my players do cool things. It's also why I don't take it to seriously. My group gets together to laugh and well "Crush their enemies". Hence the roving gang of grannies. I like the silly, the whimsical, the absurd. And I like Genesys because it's flexible and lets me make silly things dangerous, like gazebos. So I hope that explains a bit about the hows and whys of me as a Game Master.
The Party
Here's the party rundown. I have 6 returning players, including @generikat and @jacobtothe. I had a few restrictions for them. First was they had to play one of two archetypes. Either the Kid, or the Universal Human. Archetypes are like species or races in other RPGs but are only for humans. They got to pick careers and occupations from the options I made for the setting. Careers are a set of 8 Skills that count as "career" skills. They cost less XP to rank up and you get a free rank in 4 of them at character creation. Occupations grant 4 skills, and if they are not career skills they become career skills. Occupations also determine your stating Wealth. So lets take a look at the party.
@generikat as Myra Sledgewick; Archetype: Kid, Career: Cunning, Occupation: Blue Collar. Has Nuclear level daddy issues, hates the color green and Italian food. Has a magical talking pipe wrench that's teaching her Primal Magic.
@jacobtothe as Hank Holcomb; Archetype: Universal Human, Career: Strong, Occupation: Athlete. Hank is a college athlete on a scholarship for wrestling and football. Drives a 2006 Toyota Celica with rims, a fancy exhaust tip, and a tuner chip.
The next four didn't let me know how much anonymity they wanted, so I'm just going to use their characters names. I'll update in the future if they ever get back to me about it.
Chuck Woods; Archetype: Universal Human, Career: Tough, Occupation: Rural (Lumberjack).
F'ing huge guy. Twisted steel and sex appeal. Super sweet beard. Smells like pine and effort.
Junior Tuesday; Archetype: Universal Human, Career: Tough, Occupation: Military.
13 year old from Uzbekistan. "Brought to the US by the liberal assholes who thought he needed to be able to play with Legos..." - Direct player quote about the character.
Richard P. Wang; Archetype: "Kid", Career: Smart, Occupation: Dilettante.
6 year old child genius. Has a power suit that control a mecha with magic.
And... lastly... 'heavy sigh'...
Mike Hawk; Archetype: Universal Human, Career: Fast, Occupation: Law Enforcement.
Mike Hawk stands tall and firm, a proud member... of the metro police.
Seriously the first combat with him took twice as long because all of us, including me, are just 12 year olds pretending to be adults. We couldn't stop laughing. It didn't help we used his full name every time he did something. I'm hoping we get it out of our systems in the next few weeks. The game proper hasn't started, I'm still testing a few of the new systems and rules I added to the system.
I hope to do weekly game write ups on Fridays, so we will see how that goes. So how about you? Where does your "Tone" come from? What inspired you to write a campaign and make that ultimate sacrifice to run a game. Let me know down below. Until next time Happy Gaming!.