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Open Campaign Concept

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Drez Drez's picture
Open Campaign Concept
Hey everyone, I'm new to EP and I'm LOVING it. The world is absolutely fascinating. I want to run some adventures with this game. Currently, I am designing a campaign designed to be played in an "open" fashion. What I mean is, every adventure will be self-contained (one-shot) and players can drop in and out of each session. I like to play my games in public, and I love having a rotating crowd of players. The concept for this campaign is that the players are conducting missions on Earth. The reasons can be varied, but the players "homebase" is Vu Nguyen and the typical adventure consists of the PCs dropping onto a "safe zone" on Earth, conducting research, salvaging valuables, establishing contact with refugees, recovering cortical stacks, etc. and then returning. Or getting murdered by...whatever's down there. I could also have adventures not involving going to Earth, but the PCs going on "Earth business;" meeting clients in different parts of the system, gathering supplies, selling old Earth stuff, etc. The Vu Nguyen, being a self-sufficient operation, has many duties that require all hands. So when players are not actively playing, their characters can be doing maintenance on the ship, or on a VR vacation, or securing supplies off-ship. This allows players to jump in and out of the games as they see fit. My main question is, how does this work as a concept? I am VERY new to EP, and there's a lot about it that isn't completely clicking yet. Is this campaign concept doable? What issues should I keep in mind about it? Is there any material I should consult for more information? Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture
I'm afraid I don't have much
I'm afraid I don't have much experience with running games, or any pre-planning stuff, so I don't think I can help you there. However, I have read all the books though. The book "Sunward" would have the most information regarding Earth at this time. The section is little over a dozen pages though, so its not whole lot to work with, but it should give you a good idea of what Earth now likes. Things like a city reduce to shining disc of metal, glass, and bone in an instant a nuke was used to neutralize the TITAN presence there, swarms of locust like flesh hungry TITAN machines, a number of self repairing buildings look pristine except for the corpses inside (no one has been around to remove them), a synthetic forest is being grown and the gardener robots are not friendly to visitors (especially organic ones), etc.
nick012000 nick012000's picture
I'd recommend that someone
I'd recommend that someone play a Synthmorph of some sort with Nanoscopic Vision, or at least that everyone have a Guardian Angel or two with the upgrade. Without it, you can walk into a TITAN nanoswarm and infected with the Exsurgent Virus without even realizing it. Guardian Nanoswarms don't actually stop you from being infected, and Nanodectors are basically useless other than as a 'You just got infected, time to hit the self-destruct button' announcement.

+1 r-Rep , +1 @-rep

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
I think the idea of a proper
I think the idea of a proper campaign home is a good one. It allows regular players to build up contacts and a shared setting (that bar they always go to after a mission, the annoying street musician, the boss) and the GM can add detail on top of detail. This makes the setting richer, and makes the players care about it in the inevitable adventure where a threat arrives at home. If new people are joining the game fairly regularly it might be useful not to rely too much on the shared stuff, since it will be unknown, of course. That suggests making a short and clear writeup available for a quick intro. Another good thing about home settings is that you can have more long-running plots. They do not even have to be full story arcs. It could be the career moves of the boss, that recurring nasty AI they always seem to run into on Earth (who later shows up at home!) or the mystery about who leaked the info to the press in the early adventure.
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