Seekerofshadowlight is right, find out either through rethinking previous (successful) games and adjust your Eclipse Phase game accordingly. I have two notoriously challenging PCs in my game who are determined to be loose cannons and I find that equally appealing to that niche whilst making them jump through a few of the hoops I want them to eventually gets them thinking the way that I want them to. Peer pressure doesn't work, relying on your group to moderate the disruptive elements in your gaming group generally causes character dissatisfaction, which is why you have to indulge your rogue elements (i.e the players who are the problem) and gently guide them back toward the style of play you want. So for example; if they want anti-matter despite it's rarity, give them options. Ask them how they would go about obtaining it, who they'd have to source to, engage them and get them asking questions and then start making them jump through hoops. Maybe someone in Starware might sell them some, very off the books if they do a bunch of favours which involve getting rid of competition, or obtaining MacGuffins. Maybe it's a matter of the PC's just gaining the creds to buy enough one shot neutrino c-stacks and the tools to improv their own anti-matter weapon. Bring the game into it, this is going to draw attention from the authorities as they are now terrorists, cue high speed chases, gun fights, death? Eventually the PCs will either get bored of the idea and want to play something with more substance. And once they have this exactly what are they going to do with it after they've spent all this time working toward it. Remember you can pull the plug on them any time, either by terminating the game out of ST-frustration and 'Fuck you guys', or at this moment when they have their shiny toy. Reveal the other side of the double edged sword - the big fuck off anti-terrorism squad that kills them all. No PC lives forever, and maybe that's what your PCs need to get over this style of game play, if not, forget them. TL;DR - Humour your players by challenging them but eventually after much sweat and tears (and game sessions) give them what they want. If they still want it after all of that and haven't learned a thing, moral lesson. Do your best to add a twist or punish them for their in-game hubris of all the horrible deeds they've committed. If that doesn't work. Communicate to them that they either need to adapt to the setting and make you happy for a change (since you've worked your ass off to make them happy), if that doesn't work. Take a break, make them realise a good ST/GM is harder to come by than poor players. Good luck EccentricOwl, and let us know how it goes. You should also try posting notices up in your local gaming store or online to see if can round up new local players who are more in tune with your type of GMing. :)

I find it's harder to run a campaign in full arcs than it is to run it in "seasons", sections of interlaced adventures that build towards a climax within a relatively small frame. There's a reason that the season structure works in television; a plot is easier to handle in chunks. My recommendation is to have a campaign season last anywhere from 3-10 games or sessions, and 10 is my recommended maximum. Do a series that has a conjoined plot, a selection of similar NPCs, and perhaps only a small collection of antagonists. Make everything linked, and make it all conclude at the end. Then, when it's done, let the characters "retire", and figure out how to bring them back for the next season. Each season doesn't necessarily need to be linked outside the player characters, and even then it doesn't even require the PCs. If a player wants to switch to a completely different character, the interrim between plot arcs is the perfect time to do it. Hell, if the entire playgroup wants something completely different, be willing to go with it. Think of it like a movie series, a la Indiana Jones. Okay, terrible analogy, the last one sucked. Let's go with the Zelda videogame series. The characters link them, and certain elements of the game (Master Sword, Triforce, Death Mountain) stick around. But the games are only vaguely linked, and aren't part of some solid continuum. Sometimes they use the same character, but most of the time it's just a "conveniently similar totally different person from a totally different period in history". It works for the setting. Epic campaigns are hard to pull off, especially ones that last a dozen-plus games. Plots get convoluted as they drag on, and your notes are bound to get thicker and thicker. They often become more work than play by the end of it. So don't feel bad you can't pull it off. Most can't. And it's not a problem of skill, most of the time. Epic campaigns often sound better than they end up being, even when they are well done.

Epic campaigns never start out that way. They are also created more by players than gamemasters. If the players care about something they will persue it and most often your vague idea about what's going to happen will crystallize not at home looking at your papers but at the table during play. Everything flows from the gamemaster first - that is true, but epic stories can not be created by him alone. Let the players drive the story and them turn it into epic, it's nothing you can force on them. Also, don't forget sidetracks. Small missions or encounters that has nothing at all to do with the grand story helps make sure you don't reach the end too quickly and gives a broader and more colorful view of the world. Epic campaigns are full of sidetracks.

You can't rule out that your players may be more interested in playing a different game. Some people are happy with simple DnD, while others might prefer the stories that the world of darkness (by White Wolf publishing) can offer. Other players might be unable to play a game the way it was originally designed. Some people can't do comedy, some can't do horror, some can't keep player and character information separate, some players can't take a hint, and some can't help but meta-game. You might also want to have a talk with your players. A good game requires that both the GM and the players to be in agreement as to what they are going to play. If you were a bunch of kids playing a game of cops and robbers, your game might be disrupted by someone trying to be an alien invader from planet x. Or the cops and robbers might be happy to gain up on the aliens. Having the talk will help all of you figure out what you want to do, and what would be considered alright to do.

I have had to go back to fantasy with Pathfinder since they have some full featured, lengthy campaigns called 'Adventure Paths'. Fantasy is easy to create yet they have done an amazing job. Before I will bother trying to run EclipsePhase again, they will need to stop creating vague sourcebooks, roll up their sleeves and create something I can keep my players interest with. We don't need any more 'ideas' or partially fleshed out seeds. We need fully realized adventures and yes a fully realized campaign would make EP more approachable. When I bought the D&D Basic set it had 'Keep on the Borderlands' which we played for days. Shadowrun has several fully realized storylines that have made the genre grow. The little PDF releases are not enough. This genre is amazing but complex and if you want to reach a larger audience, I think you need some fully fleshed out campaign material.

There are 3 or 4 good campaigns out there for free. I know I'm going to hijack another Arenamontanus ideal soon...

Creative Commons or not, that is simply an approach. I am sure Rob and them want to make a living. I'm fine with trying to be open to the community but I think with their current approach they will not likely expand their small, focused fan-base. People like me that have money to spend on fully realized campaigns etc. typically do not have time anymore to write up lots of our own material. Even when I did have time (and no money) I don't think I could do EclipsePhase justice. I would gladly spend $20/booklet (or more) that was heavy with playing material, scenarios etc. all tied together. Think the $5 PDF times 4. Those are little more than teasers. OpsCon, I hope you pay for all your EP stuff and don't take advantage of free PDFs everywhere. Support the developers and hopefully they will be able to create more material and not eat Ramen.

twcrone wrote:

Creative Commons or not, that is simply an approach. I am sure Rob and them want to make a living. I'm fine with trying to be open to the community but I think with their current approach they will not likely expand their small, focused fan-base. People like me that have money to spend on fully realized campaigns etc. typically do not have time anymore to write up lots of our own material. Even when I did have time (and no money) I don't think I could do EclipsePhase justice. I would gladly spend $20/booklet (or more) that was heavy with playing material, scenarios etc. all tied together. Think the $5 PDF times 4. Those are little more than teasers.

The problem with huge campaigns is that they rarely work out in practice. They are hard to run without heavy modification to fit your party and, even then, the players are bound to get off the rails sooner or later, forcing you to improvise. Most of the GMs I knew flat out ignored such modules. I'm not sure if they really would be the as profitable as you seem to think, and some stories and introductory adventures would probably promote the system better. Unrelated to the topic, but it's hard to miss: your last post seems a bit condescending and pretentious. Care to lighten up a bit? The discussion will certainly benefit from it.

I've payed money. I know at least one other fan that has paid money (hardcover). However, my group + my previous group would be 11 members. Another member has considered buying, but the truth is, we're all poor college students.

Yes, EP is a very difficult genre to create scenarios for especially compared to traditional fantasy/D&D. For that matter, I cannot do it justice myself and I'm the only person trying to run it around my area. I'm just saying I would like more 'hand holding' so I can do a better job and I'm willing to pay for it. I'm not convince that with all the posting I've been seeing that even a majority of the EP fanbase is supporting the company as they should.

The building of a long campaign starts before the GM decides anything. While it is easy to set a group of characters to stay together for a mission or two, sometimes it gets strange to see the same faces in an "organization" like Firewall. So the first step comes from the Player Characters: the group needs each character to have a solid reason to stay with the group for long periods of time, and to have enough trust between them for some delicate missions. One option is to make them survivors from a group (a now extinct country, for example), or give them a past history before joining Firewall (like they were Gatecrashing together, or acted as a mercenary group until Gorgon or the Ultimates displaced them). Once the characters have a reason to stay as a group, a reson for undertaking the campaign is needed. The latest game I've been GMing has been Conan d20 (2nd edition), and things went like this: One Cimmerian (celts) barbarian, one Aquilonian (romans) noble with his cohort, and one Corinthian "nun" (something akin to Romeo & Juliet-era Italy) with her half-sister cohort walked into a corinthian city called Nahab, looking for a Count Prócero. The barbarian was hired muscle, the noble wanted some payback from an offence, and the nun was scheming desperately to avoid being married to the count. They got into the city, found the count was back in Aquilonia, and fought off a monstruosity, departing for Tarantia (Aquilonia's capital) after a week if rest. This gave the three strangers time enough to know each other. Once in Tarantia, they got involved in some scheme by the local faith against a foreign one that was being used by yet another one to destabilize the realm (it came back to "Set worshippers messing with Conan", unsurprisingly XD). The players got told to make themselves scarce for some time, and they departed to Asgard (inland vikings, northest of all the map, above Cimmeria) searching for some strange communication between Prócero and somebody there (which in fact was to the east of Asgard, in Hyperborea...). Sadly, behind the scenes they lost money and mounts, and they were recovering in a hideous ale-tent (not even an inn! Oh god... XD) when an old friend of the barbarian convinced them all to join him into the recovering of a family heirloom from a temple. Sadly, it was all the beginning of the coming back of a really nasty necromancer, so they got enrolled into stopping him. Now, we approach the end of the campaign book (Betrayer of Asgard) and I'm using the north connection to tie things together with Prócero and keep the adventure moving. Now, you can see in this case there were almost no reason to keep the group together, but I gave them an NPC (who didn't had a sheet back then) as an antagonist to face. They got some small data about him, and now they might get some more, but in the end I am just following the old motto "use a villain to unite the players". My players are really trying to get to Prócero because I've been so scarce with him till now! So yeah, a villain who is only hinted at the beginning can be really good for a long term campaign. It can begin with a name, specially in EP, where you can find "datapads" and the like, and if the players do not remember the name when it shows again, they have their muses to provide! Then give glimpses of the villain's plan. But as TV series shows us, do not center the game on the villain: make them run some adventures, finding some clues from time to time, until they finally get an "episode" where they twart his plans directly, and from that poing onwards rivalry grows. Until a climax, when the players kill him... But not for real: EP has backups! If they managed to kill him silently, then they migh get some months to find the backup and do something to avoid the resleeve of the villain, because it would be just a matter of time for him to find it was them who killed "him" before after messing around with his project. And of course, do not fear to hit the "fast forward" button! True, it is more in the spirit of the Sword & Sorcery to start in media res, but every now in a while it can be good to handle the players their character sheets and to tell them that they are knee-deep into an infiltration operation trying to get something, instead of getting them at the briefing. After some problem, you can make a "flashback"...