Smack VII - Empire of the Setting Sun

After a break from gaming and blogging, mostly due to moving back to Australia from Japan and getting married, I am starting a new game. I recommend writing two documents for anyone running a new game, a campaign setting brief and a character creation brief.

Campaign Setting Brief
Overview - Empire of the Setting Sun is set close to the 500th year of the reign of God Emperor Apollo.  Apollo has returned the Empire to its glory days before the rebellion of the colonies on the western continent and has crushed the Church of St Vincent that united them, declaring all faiths other than his heresy and punishable by death.

Geography and Climate- The Empire covers two continents and the few island chains between them. It encompasses climates from sub artic in the north to tropical at the southern fringes and everything in between.  Majority of the Imperial heartland around the capital is vast expanses of tundra and temperate forests.

People and Culture - The Empire is modelled after a psuedo Greco-Roman culture on the eastern continent with many subcultures including some somewhat inspired by Persian in Indian influences. The western continent is mostly  pseudo northern and western European influences with the island chains in between the continents having a very Caribbean feel.  The Empire consists of many millions of citizens and slaves with official censuses being wildly inaccurate.

Government -  While the Empire is separated into provinces and city states each ruled by governors, satraps and councils, each with their own local laws and customs, the Empire is held together by Apollo's Solari, the Ministry of his Religion.   The Solari are considered above the law and enforce Apollo's decrees upon the the people of the Empire but interfere little in the day to day governance of the realm.  Law and order is enforced within towns and cities by local gangs, many working very much like protection rackets.  Murder is still uncommon and a capital offence however, however beatings ad theft is common.  Arson is also punishable by death due to the risk of fire spreading and consuming surrounding homes.

Religion and Priesthood  - The only religion allowed within the confines of the Empire is that of the worship of the God Emperor, all other faiths and cults are outlawed.  The Solari are charged with enforcing Apollo's laws across the Empire and as such are considered 'above the law' with regards to local laws. There is rarely a conflict between Apollo's divine laws and local laws. The Solari are supported by the Praetorian Guard, an elite fighting force recruited from the best of the legions or raised and trained from childhood.

Cults to forbidden outlawed gods or the old religion of the pre Apollonian Empire do surface from time to time, hidden from the priesthood as even after 500 years some traditions remain.  The priesthood hunts these cults down and make gruesome public examples or those who are caught practicing old ways but still the cults persist.  The problem is worse on the western continent, particularly in the desert that covers the north western portion where the rule of Apollo is too difficult to enforce amongst the sands, or those still faithful to the St Vincent form terrorist cells devoted to destroying Imperial rule and the Solari presence.

Military and War- Each governer, general or noble house is responsible for raising and commanding its own legions.  Border disputes between noble houses are not uncommon no nor against Apollo's laws as long as each house or province can still perform its duties to the Empire.  Legions are not usually allowed within cities and towns except by decree of the Solari, although this rule does not apply to Praetorians guarding temples or acting as escorts to members of the Solari.

The new reclaimed colonies on the western continent see frequent uprisings and terrorist attacks against the Apollonian rule and it is considered by many to either be a great punishment or great opportunity to be posted there depending on the individuals point of view.

Magic - Magic is largely ritual or cultish rites, the former being the province of the Solari or approved soothsayers and the later being deemed infernal witchcraft.  There are no wizards, and those accused or witchcraft are hunted and tried by the Solari and generally suffer slow painful deaths.


Character Creation Brief
Party cohesion is important for this campaign so the characters in the party will share a common background, have grown up in the eastern coastal city of Mikaeles on the eastern continent.  Characters may be common, slave or noble however, for the purposes of the pre game they will all be friends that regularly meet up each Sunday evening to explore the city at night.

The pregame will be set approximately five years before the main campaign starts and all characters should be between 13 and 15 years of age, none of them yet considered an adult by Imperial law. In the pregame the characters will have slightly reduced stats.

The 1.5 version of the new World of Darkness (Godmachine) rules will be adapted to run the game.  Drive will apply to wagons, firearms will become archery.  Keep in mind that medicine and science are limited to what was known during the dark ages.  Computer science does not exist and at some point I might find a skill to replace it with.  Merits will be considered on a case by case basis.  Experience will be based on role-play and how you improve everyone's gaming experience and not on enemies killed.

I would like there to be a clear internal leader for the party, someone who while they may not have the highest social status, or act as the party's 'face' for official meetings is someone the characters have grown used to following as part of growing up.

Players should have a short term goal for where they would like to see there characters going, nothing too long term but a goal such as joining a legion or priesthood, becoming a trader, becoming an enforcer for the local gang.  What is also important is how your character fits in and adds value to the group, be it the groups front person, their sneak, their encyclopaedia etc.  I would like the players to come together with some idea about how they will all work together, at least at first.

Other Notes
Games should be every (or almost every) Friday night starting at 7 and running through to 11pm. Please turn up ready to play and conversation between players should be done in character, we can converse about other stuff before or after the game.  No phones during the game, its distracting for me and unrewarding when someone spends their time on Facebook or messaging others.

Smack Talk - Table Talk

As much as gaming is a great social activity there comes a point where social chatter ruins the flow of the game, the immersion, and ends up with a lot less getting done during a session. In a sense it’s like watching American football where the action seems to stop every two minutes so the players can huddle and chat.  It’s not very exciting to watch, and it is less exciting in a game the action lives in the players’ imaginations.

You see Timmy talking through a movie is not only rude to the people around you but it could in some cases lead to half sucked jaffas being thrown at the back of your head.

While forbidding social talking during games is a tempting idea it often doesn’t work, players either forget, or things become really quiet and to be honest sometimes a little dull.  

In Smack we came up with a simpler solution.  First, we asked the players to keep social talk to a minimum the best way to do this was ask them to only communicate with each other in character.  This turned out to be a really good idea for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, it had the intended effect of reducing out of game chatter interrupting the game.

Secondly, and more importantly players had to learn to work together as characters, not as players. Strategies during fight scenes, tactics for political negotiations had to happen in character.  It really made the characters develop and helped them form in character opinions of each other, rather than just develop player opinions of characters. Suddenly characters had a life of their own outside of just their players.

You see Timmy shows would be incredibly boring if all the dialogue was removed and all we got was endless voice over.

In any serious story driven game, if you want you characters to come alive, you have to make sure your players give a voice to them. If Yeti and I hadn’t implemented and encouraged this rule we would never have had the amazing characters we had, never learned of the love hate relationship between Horus and Kryllin. Kryllin genuinely disliked and envied Horus, it was unfair he lived his life as safely (and as neutrally) as possible yet kept had terrible unspeakable things happen to him.  All he could see was Horus taking stupid risks and walking away with barely a scratch most of the time.  Horus on the other hand genuinely felt for Kryllin and felt a strong brotherly bond to him.  He felt terrible that so many terrible things could happen to someone who was so neutral.

This also encouraged players to talk in character with NPCs and even shop keeps which at time lead to interesting scenes, a chance to disseminate information about the world and bring different towns to life.  It made the world more real, they remembered the tavern with the dodgy bar keep, they felt bad when they heard Sally the barmaid died a horrible death for being caught in the crossfire for a mistake they made.

Talking in character doesn’t happen naturally for many players and GMs, but I highly recommend that rather than forbidding talk during games, get your players to react socially in character. It helps if you allow 20 minutes to half an hour for players to catch up with each other about what they had been up to since last game before the game begins.

You see Timmy characters are much more fun to play than stats on a page, in order for them to come alive you need to give them a voice.

About Smack

The original Smack was a campaign that I started running about 12 years ago. The first and most infamous Smack campaign ran for about 2 and a half years. Smack is a dark low magic fantasy campaign setting in a world plagued by subtle fiendish influences. The setting is predominantly human orientated but little people are known in on one of the continents. All other races if they exist are not common knowledge to most humans. Magic is considered witchcraft or a myth by most.

What’s in a name?
Smack was originally known as ‘To be High on Smack’ after the characters had participated in several crazy events and had a few nasty dreams that no sane sober person should have or be involved in. Smack ended up working as an acronym for Suicidal Maniacs And Cult Killers which aptly described the game and players well. It was always a little awkward when Tyrant Mithras who was only the tender age of 16 was telling his mother he was heading around to my place for some Smack. Still Smack is a name that worked and has moved far beyond the original comic reference we gave it.

Smack World Overview
As hinted in the title I should write a little about the Smack world. I do intend on working on a wiki one of these days which will present the world in much more glorious detail and deal with the different Smack Ages, power organisations, nations, religions, cultures, heroes and villains.

There are two primary contents in Smack, the eastern kingdom which is based off the old Roman and Alexandrian empires. A series of states bound under a single emperor, a myriad of cultures and religions based on ancient Rome, Greece, Macedonia, and some Indian cultural influences. The west continent is closer to dark ages Europe, split into 4 kingdoms along the eastern side of the continent and a large desert with middle-eastern like inhabitants and culture on the west. The Kingdoms are predominantly controlled by a Church inspired by some of the worst aspects of the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages. Kings are little more than powerful figureheads and the Church governs the day to day of the people.

Between the two continents are a string of islands through which most trade between the Empire and Kingdoms is done. These islands are home to freebooters, petty satraps and would be pirate kings. The satraps of these islands strike a delicate balance between allowing piracy unchecked for the incomes it brings and not allowing too much of it lest it direct Kingdom or Empire navies their way.

Hidden amongst the general populace, the political power brokers and the faithful, sinister cults, ancient beings and other entities make thousand year plans and quietly fight for the soul of a world oblivious to their existence. 

Play Style
It was a game where players turned up week to week to see what nasty things there characters might experience, what things they might try to prevent. The world was bleak enough that even the anti-heroes the characters became were a shiny lights in the darkness. The players loved it. They could feel the impact of their actions on the world, they came ready to play in character during game sessions and kept secrets they were privy to themselves. It was a strongly character development driven game, a strong story game. Combat was rarely random, was often deadly or had other consequences. The world reacted to them in real ways. They weren’t heroes known to the populace famed for slaying dragons. They weren’t kings, princes or emperors. They were for the most part three guys caught in bad circumstances trying to stop dark forces most of the world was influenced by but few new about. The game play had strong elements of Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness and Ravenloft. It had themes and ideas from everything from Dune by Frank Herbert, to Diablo 2 to Pirates of the Caribbean. We borrowed what we liked and discarded the rest. There were secrets layered upon secrets and the game kind of wrote itself. Even random choices made by myself and Yeti in the beginning ended up naturally having reasons.

It has been run on D&D 3rd edition and 3.5, GURPS 4th edition, Pathfinder, New World of Darkness and scratch built homebrewed rules. Still trying to find a decent set of rules that are easy enough to manage but allow the flexibility and power limitations I feel the game needs to work.

Afterword and Privilege
There is no greater experience as a GM than having a game that virtually writes itself, where players turn up week after week and participate in the game, not to get the next brass ring but to see where the story goes, how the world will react to their actions and what challenges they will be met with. To Yeti, Tyrant Mithras, His Neutralness, and Cassius the Brave I thank you for making Smack 1 what is it was for me and inspiring the legend that will hopefully make it out of its lunchbox one day for others to enjoy.

To Jo, Namloth, Jonathan, Gaia, Freya, Ruby, and the others who forged dark stories and spent their evenings unravelling dark secrets over a few drinks together, thank you for helping me round out and fill the world with stories and heroes.

Sadly the third and final arch of the campaign never got run. After the second arch finished, players’ lives became busier, some of us got married had kids and moved away. Other Smack campaigns were spawned but sadly the final arch of Smack 1 was never played but the story still lives on in my head with a promise that one day I will find time to run it or write it. In the meantime watch this space for stories, articles and lessons learned advice about gaming I learned from running Smack.

'You see Timmy it’s not fun listening to your friends talk and quote lines from a movie that you have no idea about and haven’t seen.'

The Ghost of Campaigns Yet to Come

This is the third and final post in my a Campaign Carol series of articles focused discussing common mistakes that Game Masters make when trying to run a sequel to their golden campaign.  In this post I discuss the ghosts of campaigns yet to come.

There comes a time in the life of every campaign world or setting to let it go, and not in the Disney princess sort of way but more in the Lego movie kind of way. If you are lucky, it will be because one of the players you have tortured for the last decade has developed Stockholm syndrome and wishes to share the beautiful pain they have endured with others and hopefully not strike down like a sith apprentice does to replace their master in the process.  Letting go of creative control is hard, but it is also very rewarding, particularly when you have an enthusiastic player who has lived and breathed that world with you.

I was very lucky, for me this player was Tyrant Mithras who developed such a love of suffering that he decided he wanted others to experience the fun of turning up to game never knowing whether you were going to get a swift kick to the crotch or another fingernail pulled out.  Tyrant Mithras has the unique distinction of having played in every one of my moderately unhinged Smack campaigns from before he was legally allowed to indulge in the panacea of a good bottle of scotch to wash away the pain.

There is nothing that strokes the narcissistic ego quite like the feeling of having a some poor masochistic player like the stories you told and created together that they want to sit in the GM’s seat and run a few of their own.  This is both flattering and a little terrifying.  I imagine this can be a little like what parents feel the first time they let their kids drive their car unsupervised unsure if the car is going to come back as an oversized paperweight or not.

You see Timmy if you try to control the destiny of your child they will end up a maladjusted poorly socialised basement dwelling gamergate poster boy and no one wants that.

The point is they are going to want to do things in your world that might make you as uncomfortable as a devout priest at a swingers club.  They may change the story, or interpret concepts in ways you didn’t consider and maybe don’t feel like they fit your version of the world.  It will likely happen, but it’s a good thing.  Giving up creative control can be difficult, particularly when you have lost at least a decade of your life designing and thinking about the world; its history; its planned futures; its heroes and villains. But now, that a young hopefully not too damaged protégé has expressed interest in running it, all those thousands of hours might not be wasted. Just like that Minecraft replica of Paris that you built instead of studying for your finals, someone might actually appreciate it enough to use it.

However, much like the lessons taught by the ghost of campaigns present, don’t overburden or constrain their view of the world by imposing your own, let them create their interpretation of it.

You see Timmy sometimes you need to let them slaughter a few of your sacred cows so they can serve up that van-tastic sacrilegious meat.

Let me tell you the story of Smack 4 and how I contributed to its demise much like Brutus on the Ides of March.  Between the echoing deaths of Smack 3 and the moderate success of Smack 5 there was a short lived game run by Tyrant Mithras.  Smack 4 aimed to take one of Tyrant Mithras’ favourite organisations I had created and explore it in depth.  The Unfortunately, like an overly obsessed parent I kept offering unsolicited advice or commenting on concepts based on my view of the organisation and how I envisioned that it should be run which stifled the very cool ideas that he had for it. Concepts which were actually are a lot better than anything I have done with it since and actually tie in a lot better for the future I had envisioned for the organisation.  Instead I struggled to let go, struggled to look at the big picture and embrace the very Smack thematic concepts he was introducing.  My version of the organisation was as sterile as a ball pin eunuch whereas Mithras’ was like that of a serial Power Thirst junkie.

The game probably died for other reasons, crazy ex-girlfriends being one of them but my impact on it feels like I tarnished and maybe hurt what otherwise would have been a very cool campaign and added a lot of depth to the world that I wasn’t ready to explore, or couldn’t have done as well.

It can be hard playing in a world that you created when someone starts changing things to accept the changes and see them for depth they will inevitably bring.  It is hard as a player to let go of ideas that you had as a GM and enjoy what your apprentice has brought to the world.  It can be a little easier as a casual observer, as I will be this time as I am living thousands of kilometres away.  My advice is that whether you get the joy of being a player, or an observer is during game forget what you think you know about the world and enjoy what is presented and between games act as a library or resource for your protégé when they want more information.  Of course never reveal all of your secrets so that you still have things to surprise them with next time you run another campaign.

Like most projects, world building and campaign building generally benefits from collaboration, it adds depth and different perspectives to your campaign world.  Much like studying history, different people and cultures view events and historical figures in different ways, discover new insights and add depth to our understanding of the world.  If nothing else adventuring is much more fun when you have someone to share it with.

At the end of the day the best thing to do is sit back, forget what you thought you knew about the campaign world and have some fun rolling some dice with friends.  

You see Timmy as much fun as digging for cat poo in the sandpit by yourself is sometimes it’s more fun to witness the joys of others discovering a sandy nugget as they build their castles.

This concludes the Campaign Carol articles.  Like the Ghost of Marley don’t let your new campaigns get weighed down by the successes and failures of last campaigns.  Embrace new concepts, don’t create chains to weigh you down and destroy your new campaigns.  Existing material adds depth but quickly gets old and should be a vehicle to help deliver a new campaign and not a noose around its neck.

Next series of articles will be Smack Talk and will discuss other lessons and tips I have learned and share stories of games I have run.

You see Timmy, change is good and healthy. So remember when the a scarred twisted wreck of a minion has survived the horrors and tortures you have inflicted on them enough to earn the rank of apprentice, embrace them with open arms, indulge in their curiosity when they want to exchange the jam for peanut butter even though the ritual dictates it should be strawberry, you never know what greatness might be summoned.

A Campaign Carol - Ghosts of Campaigns Present

Last time, we looked at the Ghosts of Campaigns Past, reminders of your last campaign that can ruin the mood of your new one. It’s like the hangover after a big night out, sure you had fun but it can kill your interest in getting out of bed the next morning. This time I will discuss some of the mistakes I have made that caused some of my sequel campaigns to fail harder than Godfather 3.

High on your success from you last campaign, it can be very tempting to throw your players straight into a fully evolved story even though you have set your new campaign in a new area of your world or with a new set of themes.  It is often very easy based on your previous success and intimate knowledge of the world to set up an amazingly detailed and complex story, with double agents, hints of secrets at every turn and events that have serious impact or world shaking consequences but still don’t do it.  Great stories have simple beginnings, they need room to grow.  Ever see one of those poor cats raised inside a tiny bottle?  Yeah that is the horrible fate you are condemning your campaign to.   It’s like taking a friend to the gym after you have been working out for months and expecting them to lift the same weights as you do, sure they might manage it but the pain they will experience for the next 3 days means they are unlikely to be keen to join you next time.  Like weight training, characters and stories need time to build up a good base before you start targeting areas to tone or load on the big weights.

You see Timmy, as much as you want to get hot and heavy with that cute girl on the first date, you need to let her get to know you and like you before you bring out your sexy clown costume and shiny silver duct tape.

Existing campaign worlds are great but they can come with an over abundance of complex material that can be too much for a new campaign.  It’s hard for a baby to learn to crawl if you are putting bricks on its back.  Its why Wizards of the Coast wrote a campaign to scrub the Greyhawk world clean between the second and third editions of Dungeons & Dragons, there was no room left for new players, no way they could invent and really add to Oerth.  Equally so, even if your world has lots of areas where characters can fill your world with their stories don’t overcomplicate it, start with humble beginnings.  It’s great to have a campaign setting with rich history to use, but it should be a prop not a cage for your players.

Smack 1 started with only 2 keen and slightly deranged Game Masters, a map and 3 warm bodies.  As it was a spur of the moment kind of thing and we hadn’t really done any preparation nor had I played many game session with Yeti, my co-GM.  In fact I had never co-GM’d before but Yeti was keen so I gave it a shot.  I had no idea of the awesomely twisted trip awaited us.  So in the 2 minutes before the game we worked out an incredibly simple plot; give the characters a big heavy box wrapped ostentatiously in yellow silk with instructions no to open it and to deliver it some faraway place for a hefty reward, then try to steal it from them.  We had recently watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean and enjoyed it so piracy was in the mix a little too. It turned out to be the best campaign I had ever run. Even the somewhat random spur of the moment things we did in the beginning ended up having story reasons that appeared as if by magic later on. It flowed because we let the simple premise grow into a mighty story with the help of the players.  It involved a lot of spur of the moment adaption and playing but that can be a lot easier to do with 2 GMs. 

Conversely, Smack 6 was difficult for a player point of view, it was hard to run and burdened with too much pre-existing story infrastructure, too many things I wanted to explore and do.   While there were many other problems with the game, one of the early ones was I introduced too much too soon, too many concepts, too many factions and too much complexity.  I had the characters caught in a large web but hadn’t given them enough time to really get to know their characters, get to love or hate the NPCs they had met, or really get to feel for the world.  It was like teaching someone to play tennis and then hitting 20 balls at them simultaneously and expecting them to suddenly turn into a Wimbledon Pro.  Luckily I had some seasoned players so they did alright and the game didn’t immediately fall apart.  It certainly struggled to breathe though, and character growth was somewhat stunted by the pace the themes, NPC’s and factions were introduced.

You see Timmy, true romance can only be achieved between a torturer and his subjects by starting simple , you have to start with something like thumbscrews before breaking out the boiling water, rats and strawberry jam. 

Another mistake I have made, and have seen in other games is the predetermination problem.  Based on how great your last story went, and how many others it inspired in your mind, you may plan out a full campaign.  Not only does this break the first rule of dungeoncraft but it can be as fun to play as listening to the thrilling account of that time your friend found $10 in the back pocket jeans for the 30^th time.  Basically, no matter how cool the story is for you, no matter how great it sounds in your head, it’s generally not as fun to play for your players.  No one likes being the warm body for someone else’s character to ride around in.  You should at least respect your players enough to grace them with the illusion of choice, chasing down your victims much more fun when they believe there is a chance they might get away. Avoid stories where the characters may as well be NPC’s.  You might have directions you might want their characters to go in or develop character traits that fit your plan for the story, but avoid the temptation to railroad them down it.

You see Timmy it’s much more fun if you let your victims might be able to escape as you chase them through condemned carnival park before they experience the grizzly end that awaits them.  

Smack 3 was a campaign I started with grand ideas and a grand story arch.  The players were going to go back in time to the formation and rebellion of the Imperial colonies and establishment of the main monotheistic religion on the western continent that the players in Smack 1 had spent a lot of time in.  It was going to deal with some of the background of lesser NPC’s from Smack 1 and tell their stories.  Other than the obvious problem of tying in characters from previous Smack campaigns, and a few other minor issues, the story was too predetermined.  I had a plan for what had to happen, what I really wanted the characters to see and get involved in; problem is despite my best efforts the players were playing a game for which I had already completed the story in my head.  There was too little room for them to influence events in their own way.  It wasn’t fun, despite my players trying to make the best of it. They weren’t playing their characters; they were playing mine, and playing my story rather than our story.  Good games and good stories are a collaborative effort between players and GMs.

Now I could just say don’t run campaigns which are set as part of the history of a campaign you have already run.  But that wasn’t the issue, Smack 5 was set in the era just before the Smack 1 was set and was based on the events that lead to the story arch that I told in Smack 1.  It was probably the second most successful Smack game I had run.  Running historical games aren’t the problem.  The problem was that as a game master I had already determined what had to happen and then invited the players to act out parts I had already written rather than let them write their own parts in my story. 

You see Timmy no masterpiece was ever created using a paint by the numbers set.

Up next ‘the Ghost of Campaigns yet to come.’

A Campaign Carol - The Ghost of Campaigns Past

Welcome gamers, dungeon masters, authors, artists and lurkers.

Rather than start my articles with tips and advice about creating worlds, setting up adventures and making awesome NPC's, I am going to start with a series of 'You see Timmy' articles about my failures and the mistakes I made trying to recapture the magic of the my golden campaign, Smack.

Smack was a campaign that had simple beginnings and turned into an epic story of cultists, evil plans that spanned thousands of years and three characters caught up in the middle of it. Smack was a dark almost gothic horror campaign where my masochistic players turned up week after week to see what other nasty yet cool thing I could to their characters or what new secret might get hinted or revealed at. Smack was a campaign where each player added to each other’s others characters and personalities,


The Ghost of Marley

Recently Tyrant Mithras came to me and said he was thinking about running a Smack campaign, I was immediately interested, another chance to resurrect the world I had spent years building. I immediately asked a few questions then thought of all the background information and events that might be applicable to the game he was thinking of running. I started compiling lists of NPCs and organisations, here was another chance to breathe life into something I was still very passionate about. Then I started thinking about all the subsequent campaigns, most short lived that I had attempted to run in the Smack campaign world. Keen to help Tyrant Mithras to learn or at least gain some benefit from my mistakes I decided to write a series of 'You see Timmy...' articles to pass along the lessons I had learnt from previous campaigns.


The Ghost of Campaigns Past

Most long term Game Masters have at one point or another run a golden campaign, a campaign that spanned several years, often run on a weekly basis which players turned up enthusiastically week after week. Laughs are had, legends are made, the story seems to write itself and characters come to life in a way that makes them almost real. The campaign draws to a close and you begin setting up the next one, you plan, furiously scribble notes, draft NPC's and maps. You know this world, you know its history, it is so alive to you that it almost breathes. You talk about your plans with your old players and they are immediately enthusiastic, they talk character ideas with you, keen to play in their old playground but with new characters. Then the time comes when the new game begins. It normally starts well, players get right into it, they know chunks of the world, know a bit about what is going on. Discussions about the previous campaign come up, glorious stories of battles, shrewd negotiations and those times when everyone held their breath waiting on the outcome of that one dice roll. However, a few games later, no one is as keen, the world is there, the story is there but there is something off. Players don’t seem attached to their new characters, the campaign starts to dwindle, it just doesn't have that old magic. Pretty soon you stop feeling like running the game, things feel forced and no one is enthusiastic and other priorities come up.

I could blame it on being older, having more commitments that eat up mine and my players free time, and there is an element of that, kids, families and jobs can take away from available time. It is harder when you have other responsibilities to set a regular time for roleplaying. It does naturally move down the priority scale compared to paying the bills, spending time with the spouse or looking after sick children. But that isn't quite it. Sure having a player not be able to make it in a heavily character and story driven game is inconvenient but that isn't it.

I could blame on the emergence of MMO's. Digital games designed to mimic the power development and non-personality advancement of characters. Designed to be highly addictive and immersive with shiny loot, pretty graphics and an endless treadmill of things to achieve and get. But that game I ran wasn't based on those things. It was based on story, characters and secrets revealed. MMO’s are quite compelling, and running around exploring a new digital world can be fun for a while but their stories get old and stale once you hit endgame. Over all that isn't the problem, though it can certainly impact on the free time a player has left at the end of a week to come to game.

The problem is you aren't feeling engaged or motivated by the new campaign either. It is not the other priorities as easy as they are to use as a scapegoat, they can add an element of difficulty, nor is it the digital distraction of online worlds. I have a theory that people always find the time (baring emergencies) to do the things they really want to. If you are spending your time in a digital world and not something else, It is because that is what you want to do more. That wasn't a problem with the golden campaign.

‘You see Timmy, a baby campaign cannot live and grow while its older sister is smothering it with a pillow.’

In every Smack campaign I have run after the first, the legends of the first Smack campaign have come up. The larger than life heroes, the amusing character rivalries and events and catastrophes that arose as a result of them, those 'that was just so cool' moments. Problem is, there was so much focus on the past, looking for the impact of the previous campaign that there was no room for a new mythology to rise. New characters were always in the shadow of the old ones. New stories were always being compared with old. A certain amount of fan service was put into the games, hints or links to the old campaign so players could see the subtle impact previous characters had on the world. Problem is, no one was working to forge a new legend. You see it a lot in the less successful sequels of movies, there is too much of what was before and not enough of the new. It is hard to for new characters to grow and develop when they in the long shadows of characters that took years to develop.

It is not a fair comparison to expect new characters to immediately have well rounded personalities, despite the best intentions of their players. New campaign events cannot, and probably should not immediately be able to compare to earth shattering events that took years to develop in previous campaigns. Players are going to have a hard time bonding with new characters so long as the ghosts of their old ones are about. Newly introduced players are going to feel like they missed out on the best part of the world story or worse, they could feel like outsider because they don't have a connection to the world’s past. This is especially if there if it seems like no room for new legends.

First Rule; do not discuss old games in or around game sessions for the new campaign. We all loved the old game, we all want the new one to end up like the old one, but it won't be so long as the ghost of the last campaign is still hanging around. Or basically, like in relationships, while you are still hung up on your ex and thinking about them, there will be no room in your heart for a new relationship.

Instead encourage players to talk about the campaign at hand, get them guessing at what they think is going on. Bonus points if you can get them doing it somewhat or mostly in character during the game. Player chatter can be a powerful source of ideas. Some of my best games were run out of ideas I got from players’ theory crafting, and some of my best twists were by using their assumptions against them.

'You see Timmy, talking about how amazing that thing your ex did is always going to be a deal breaker on a first date.'

The Fifth Smack campaign had a rule, mostly instigated by an ex of mine who was playing and not involved in the first Smack campaigns, that previous Smack games could not be brought up during game time. It was a good rule. Smack 5 was the only other Smack game that made it to a successful conclusion. While there were many problems with the game the rule meant that players weren't always living in the past they were able to get into the new story, get into their new characters. It is like trying to start a relationship while your new girl is talking about how great her ex was. It doesn’t matter how hot she is, its gets old fast. No one likes that, don't let it happen in your games.

Second Rule; do not bring anything to do with previous characters or major NPC allies or villains in the new game. In fact, it is best to keep them out of the game until the players have bonded with their new characters and in turn their new characters have developed friendships and rivalries of their own. It is ok to have major NPC's in the background, if you are playing in the same time line. Old NPC's will remind the characters of old events, if you are going to use an old NPC reinvent the kind of relationship they have with the new characters, if there were a rival before, have them as an ally of a valuable source of information. Even then, I don't recommend it if you are running the game with the same players.

Instead of focusing on your old successes, focus instead on new ways to deliver the world you created to your new and old players alike. My suggestion is to pick at least 3 new things when designing your new campaign, new time period, new culture, new continent, new themes, new politics.

'You see Timmy no matter how much you loved Grandma, you shouldn't dig her up and bring her to Sunday dinner.'

The second Smack had a really good start. Admittedly it was at a time when the first Smack Campaign was still running and I had enough time to run a second campaign. While it had a couple of new players, the others were all veterans of the first Smack game. Smack 2 started really well, it was dealing with a part of the world that the Smack 1 players new existed, a part that had in some distant way had an effect on the first Smack game but was different in every other way, different race, culture, politics, themes and goals. The game was very successful and was shaping up to be a really interesting and successful campaign in its own right until I brought in a major NPC in from the first Smack campaign. From that point on the campaign unravelled quickly. Even though the NPC was just a guest appearance, it took the focus off the new story and new characters. Resist the urge to bring your aging rock-stars into new games, Smack 2 had dozen successful games before I brought my rockstar into it and the campaign died a game or two later.

It is like trying to move on when the ex you haven't gotten over turns up and starts flirting with you a couple of weeks after you start seeing someone new. It makes everything awkward and generally just messes with everyone’s heads.


Moral

‘Let your dead remain buried, its ok to take out old photos once in a while, but a corpse no matter how attractive can make the best of dinner parties feel a little awkward. Instead, invite a few new friends to the table, reminiscing is fun once in a while but it’s much healthier to meet new people and invent new fun. Or as the fortune cookie says ‘those that live in the past limit their future.’ The same holds true for running games. Past games provide powerful mythology for campaign creation but be careful not to let them stifle the birth of new legends.

‘You see Timmy, to quote Barney Stinson from How I met your mother, “You know who is hotter than the hottest girl you have ever banged? Her slightly less hot friend who you haven’t had sex with yet.”’

Stay tuned for the next article, the Ghosts of Campaigns Present.

About Me

Lokius is a crazed perhaps slightly deranged individual who is writing his about Me post in the third person, mostly because he dislikes likes writing posts like this.

Lokius has been playing Roleplaying games since 1989 and running them since 1990. Sadly he spends more time running than playing as he would like. He started with AD&D 2nd Ed, and quickly moved on to the first editions of Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Rifts and other Palladium games. He has created homebrew rules, learned from mistakes, had amazing adventures and experienced the pitiful dying breaths of campaigns that never quite took off. He played 3rd ed DnD, and 3.5, flirted with 4th ed before moving to Pathfinder. He has played old and new World of Darkness and even LARP'd as part of Camarilla (now called Beyond the Sunset in Australia).

He has been addicted to World of Warcraft and other MMO's afterwards. Enjoys painting and playing minature wargames, although focuses entirely on Warmachine and Hordes now.

He is currently residing in Japan where he is trying to keep this gaming blog up as a means of staying somewhat sane between long hours at work , long hours of studying Japanese and being away from his fiance, friends, family and beloved victims, ahem he means players.

His blog is to share the benefits of 25 years of gaming experience, mistakes, lessons learned, to collect his thoughts but mostly to appease his vanity.