Upcoming long games
From Milton Keynes RPG Club
This page is for games that will be on offer for some upcoming long block, though not the next one. Firm proposals for the next long block are on the Proposed games page. Create sub-pages where necessary, or this might become a big list! If ideas in here sound interesting to you, please leave a comment, or contact the GM in question.
Contents |
Polaris
Once upon a time, as far north as north can go, there lived the greatest people that this world will ever see. They are gone now, destroyed just as the world destroys all beautiful things. All that remains are these moments we call memories, moments frozen from the flow of time.
- Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at Utmost North is a game for three to five players (preferably exactly four) set during the final years of the Northernmost People, just before the remnants of their civilization were swallowed up by their own Mistake.
Once, there would have been no need for Knights. Once, when the sky was dark and perfect, the starlight pure and cold, and the people without fear or flaw, there would have been no need for war. But that time has passed now, gone like a long winter dream, and so you are called to battle demons beneath the burning sun and its alien blue sky.
- The protagonists of the story are Knights of the Order of the Stars, beholden by ancient oaths to serve the stars and protect their people. The antagonists facing the knights are multitudinous -- demons from the mistake, doubters from the people, and even betrayers within the brotherhood of Knights.
This is no longer a history; this is not yet a story. This is all that remains. Whatever else is what you make of it.
- Polaris is a GM-less game. Each player has a character and is the centre of one scene. The other players are co-GMs for that scene. In the next scene, the next player round is the centre. Resolution is generally diceless and handled by certain Key Phrases. The game itself is a tragedy, ending with the Knights either dead or corrupted. The fun comes from deciding how that comes about.
- Proposed by Neil Smith.
The Eastward Mining Company
For Blue Planet: A group of simple prospectors get involved in the machinations of organized crime, eco-terrorism, and the free market, all red in tooth and claw. It will have a political and ethical bent, and I'll try to 'do a Tolkein' and make the vast oceans of Poseidon a constant presence.
- Proposed by Neil Smith
Twilight of the Gods
To the casual observer there is nothing unusual about the Western Lands nursing home. The dedicated staff look after the needs of their geriatric patients and make sure their final years pass in comfort and dignity.
All of this is an illusion, though. The residents are all gods from a spread of the world's cultures, aged and weak now that almost no one believes in them any more. Their immortality means they will never die of old age, but they can still slip into senescence and irrelevance.
Will the gods stay safe within the confines of their home or will they find a place for themselves in the outside world? Will they try to remind the world of the wonders that have fallen from memory? Will they be able to find anyone who still believes in them? Why does the home exist at all, and who is in charge of it?
Twilight of the Gods is a campaign for Mortal Coil, very loosely inspired by Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods. Mortal Coil is a diceless roleplaying game of magic and passion, sharing elements with Amber, Nobilis, Primetime Adventures and Universalis, but still something quite unique. In the first session the players will set the tone and themes of the game, as well as establishing how magic will work and creating the major antagonists.
- Proposed by Scott Dorward
Bliss Stage
A not-quite-recently-released game of tragedy, teenagers, giant robots, and sex. Looks like fun, from the game author that brought us Polaris.
- Proposed by Neil Smith (unless Scott Dorward beats me to it).
Sorcerer and Sword
A game in the style of Conan, Kane, and other heroes of sword-and-sorcery pulp adventure. See the separate Sorcerer and Sword page for more information
- Proposed by Scott Dorward
Mythic Russia
Details are hazy at the moment, but it'll be nice to run a Mythic Russia game that actually involves Russians in Russia. The PCs will be boyars or princes of Tver, a smaller city-state, getting involved in high adventure. The thing that kicks this off is the fire that kills the ruling prince and most of his family, and the struggles in the power vacuum that follows.
- Proposed by Neil Smith
Over the Edge: Pop Art
It's Al Amarja in the 1960s! No Terminal, no Kergillians (don't worry if you don't know what they are), no Throckmortons (ditto) but with added CIA, LSD and Kennedy assassination theories! This would be an entirely character driven game about exploring the setting of 'Over the Edge' at an earlier time in its history. Cariacatures and stereotypes warmly welcomed!
Players are encouraged to take on the roles of secret agents of any nationality, representing any organisation, or counter-culturals looking to fight the machinations of the world government. There will be lots of paranoid conspiracy theories, hippie mysticism and the kind of fringe technology & spy gadgets you'd expect in the 1960s. There may even be an answer to the biggest question on Al Amarja: why is this place so weird?
- Proposed by James Mullen
Magical Mystery Tour
A Virtual Musical for Primetime Adventures
That is the pitch: here are the ideas...
- Decide what kind of band you want to portray: what sort of music do they play, who are the band members, etc.
- Decide what form the 'magical mystery tour' takes, e.g. is it more 'This is Spinal Tap!' or 'Yellow Submarine'?
- Choose series title, traits, connections, issues, story arcs and nemeses as normal for PTA.
- The 'Personal Set' mechanic becomes the 'Musical Number' mechanic: when you want to refresh your traits, you must incorporate a song from the band's repertoire into the scene. In other words,that scene becomes an actual musical number in the episode, with singing, dancing, special effects, montages, cut aways, etc.
- Just to be clear, all of the above is made up by the players: no actual musical knowledge is required other than a genereal awareness of what you like. You don't actually have to sing or have a thorough knowledge of songs & musicians.
I'd be most comfortable with 4 players but I could go up to 5; I'd really like people who haven't had a chance to play PTA before and would like to try it to get first choice.
- Proposed by James Mullen (who else?)
On the Seventh Day....
In six days, they say, the world was created.... In three days it died. One day for society to crumble Two days for TV, Radio and government to fall silent. Three days for everyone you know to die.
And on the fourth morning the birds were singing but the roads were silent; their only occupants wrecked cars and decaying bodies. The cities vast charnel houses; their houses tombs...
Except for you. For you, no coughing; no paralysing weakness; no delirium; no death. For you the infinitely harder course to live on, and, perchance, to found a new age of Humanity.
- The moving finger writes; and having writ,
- Moves on; nor all thy Piety nor Wit
- Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
- Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
- And in that inverted Bowl we call the Sky,
- Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
- Lift not thy hands to It for help - for It
- Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
- Earth could not answer, nor the Seas that mourn
- In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn.
- Nor Heaven with those Eternal Signs revealed
- And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.
- While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
- With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink;
- And when the Angel with his darker Draught
- Draws up to Thee - take that, and do not shrink.
- -- Omar Khayyam
On the first day you go into work only to find it closed. Only half the shops are open, and most of those close before the evening. By mid-afternoon there is continuous news coverage of the epidemic that is sweeping the globe. The hospitals are already hopelessly overwhelmed; official advice is to stay at home and limit your exposure to other people. By evening martial law is declared with a twenty-four hour curfew.
On the second morning the mass media is obviously working a bare skeleton staff. A few interviews show that nobody understands how this disease spread so fast; it goes against everything known about contagion. The only fact known for certain is that it has a 100% death rate, usually within twelve hours of the first symptoms appearing. Somewhat surprisingly this news does not seem to trigger riots. That evening the TV and Radio stations start to go off the air.
On the morning of the third day there are still a last few radio stations and a few emergency vehicles on the roads. Now and again you see someone on the street, but by evening all that has ceased.
Of course if you have any family (or friends) they all die over those three days. So... Where are you, and what are you doing?
- Wiki Pages: Design For Living
- System: Amber Diceless RPG
- GM: Kevin Dennis
- Players: ??
M Branch
I roll it around in my head, sometimes, wonder what it must be like. Packed onto the rail every morning, slogging it out in an office, nine to five. Each day identical to the one before , work, eat, sleep and eventually die. No voices from beyond the grave, no ghosts of long dead friends and enemies popping in like they’ve arrived for tea and biscuits. Showering off London grime and soot each night rather than the dried blood of some bastard that had it coming. What is it like, the bullshit romanticism of having someone to grow old with or even lie down and die beside? Just one night’s sleep without being haunted would be nice. But then I knew the rules going in. (Taken from Gravel, written by Warren Ellis).
Welcome to M Branch home of the screwed up and disillusioned. All members have survived an encounter with the supernatural and now help (not always voluntarily) to protect Britain’s shores from the paranormal. Your new role in life is to police and stabilise the consensus public reality from radical elements who desire a less ‘static’ form of reality. Game will be investigative in nature and the first episode is call “Deicide”. The game will be played using Spycraft 2.0 rules. Inspiration for this game comes from the TV series Ultraviolet, manga film Wicked City and the comic series The Invisibles and The Occult Crimes Taskforce.
- Proposed by James Hollywood
The Streets Of London
Have you seen the old man
In the closed-down market
Kicking up the paper
with his worn out shoes?
In his eyes you see no pride
And held loosely at his side
Yesterday's paper telling yesterday's news
So how can you tell me you're lonely
And say for you that the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind
The dead are restless in the cemeteries of London. Someone - or something - is stalking the streets at night. The Vampires of London are preparing for something big. Something momentous. Something ... involving an old man with worn out shoes.
In Highgate School a small group of friends are blissfully unaware that they are a week (give or take) away from the end of the world. Only one man knows the truth ... but who ever listens to the caretaker?
A game for 3-5 players guest-starring a 1974 Number 2 hit single and set in contemporary London, season one of The Streets Of London is loosely structured into three episodes:
- Episode 1 - Yesterday's News
- Episode 2 - She's No Time For Talking
- Episode 3 - A World That Doesn't Care
Naturally the season also features an over-arching, and thoroughly slayable, 'Big Bad'.
- Proposed by Martin Goodson
