Figuring Out the Next game - the Not-Fantasy Options

 

Despite it's length yesterday's post did not cover all of the possible games I might run. Indecision is a harsh mistress. The other leading contenders:

• TORG Eternity - I finally picked this one up and I see a lot of potential. I'll post some kind of review soon but I think my crew could have fun with it. Doing a tryout in July before a big run afterwards makes a lot of sense with a new and different system - it uses even more cards now - so it does fit into the available windows. I need to read more of the supporting material and figure out what kind of campaign I want to run but something in the Nile Empire has always been attractive and some kind of Land of the Lost weirdness in North America looks pretty good too.

• Savage Worlds Rifts - this one is always on the list but I think we're still letting Savage Worlds settle a bit before we dive back into it. Ideas are not a problem it's just committing to what I know will be a long campaign that brings a bit of reluctance. I know my players want to play it but they've also said let's wait a bit on another Savage Worlds game. And no, I'm not dusting off original flavor Rifts. 

• Wrath & Glory the 40K RPG - There is potential but it is a very specific universe and needs a certain mindset to enjoy and I'm not sure my players really want to dive into that. With the new Xenos book in my hands the possibilities are certainly bubbling and I think I would lean towards "Inquisitor's Helpers" as far as structure and just use the published setting of the Gilead system to send them all over it on some kind of Rod of Seven parts type quest to give them a reason to explore and encounter different factions and locations. I have some vague ideas on an RPG campaign set on Armageddon in the aftermath of the first ork invasion but I'd like to get to know the system first.

• Shadowrun - I want to run this for these guys one day but I'm not sure I'm feeling it right now. I spent some time reading through SR4th edition and that is one dense book. I still love the setting and usually like the rules but I would need to make sure my guys are interested as much as I am in working through all that. My comfort zone would be to start back with 2nd or 3rd edition - and probably in 2050 - but that's something I don't need to decide when it's a "maybe". I'd still start it as a pretty typical shadowrunning campaign set in Seattle to get the proper atmosphere established since most of them have never played it but there would be plenty of room to go off track after that. 

• Post-Apocalyptic - There are some games here that I want to run someday but I'm not sure I want to run them now. The most recent Twilight 2000, some version of Gamma World, Crawling Under a Broken Moon's Umerican Survival Guide, Hell on Earth, Mutant Crawl Classics ... I know all of these would be fun but I'm thinking of them as more short term games rather than the big one and I'm probably not going to run them right now.

• The "Without Number" games - I  have all 3 and even though they all cover a different genre they all have a similar approach to those genres as a wide-open sandbox kind of game. I've been sitting on some of them for a long time and this might be a good opportunity to run them. 

So ... yeah ... I have some homework to do and decisions to make. I'll narrow it down to some tryout candidates for July and then settle on something for the rest of the summer & fall. I will do my thinking out loud here though.