Gerrinson's page

I've been reading through the weird campaign ideas you'd like to play thread, and figured we should also see what people have successfully pulled off.

I'll offer a couple of my own to start:

The BBEG had actually split the world into 4 parts, based on the elements - air, earth, fire, and water. There were prophecies of the chosen ones who will one day have the chance to defeat him. The characters (gestalt PCs) all passed through a magical portal, after which they met each other for the first time. Before the game started, I sent each a player a description of the game world for building their character. I sent each of them a totally different description, randomly assigning each one to one of 4 elemental 'pieces' of the original world. The adventure spanned all 4 elemental realms, the Elysian Fields (Halfling Heaven, as it were), a 5th 'hidden' shard that was the last piece of the original world, and several other planes. It was pretty awesome. The air shard was my favorite and was based on The Integral Trees by Larry Niven. On the water shard, all of the land-based species were forced to live on top of the ice in arctic areas. By the end of the campaign, the party were flying on a planes-hopping mithral-hulled airship and wound up befriending Vinnie, the 30-headed tarrasque. Yes, that involved multiple Nat 20 rolls on the part of the party.

The second bizarre one I started, was D&D 3.5 anthropomorphic animal characters w/ BESM d20 traits. I said this was bizarre from the start, right? Raised on what was, to all appearances, a medieval estate. The entire group, were raised as a family unit, despite being different animals. They were all accustomed to medieval style life, manners, etc. The game started with the death of their father, when they were first able to leave the family estate. And that is when they learned they were in a post-apocalyptic Earth. Including a cult that worshipped the ancient god, Michael Jackson. That was a hell of a campaign. Especially after they got their hands on a Doctor Who inspired time machine.

I've seen some really good items, so far.

But I've also seen a lot of items that make me cringe because:

Poor/inconsistent grammar: It makes me cringe, but I'm a frequent reader/writer and married to a woman with an English degree, so I may be more sensitized towards this than other people. The descriptions as written would make me sad to see them in a book at my table.

Lack of proofreading: Some of the items I've seen were clearly edited in their descriptions. Which is great, you should be doing that. But after you make changes, you should read your description to be sure it still makes sense. I've a seen a few sentences that do not make sense as written, and I immediately stop considering that item. If I have to rewrite the item description for it to make sense, I'm certainly won't be allowing the item in use in one of my games.

Mary Sue items: These items are way overpowered. I realize items need to be cool and stand out from the crow, but if I look it from a GM perspective and think 'No way would I ever allow that in any of my games' then you probably went overboard trying to shoehorn extra abilities into your entry. This is probably the one that makes me saddest, as there were a number of items I would have up-voted except the designer decided to tack on just one last ability that either pushed it too far for me or just didn't make sense with the rest of the item's abilities.

That said, there is some really strong competition this year and I've seen a number of items I will probably use in future games even if they don't make the top 32.

In my current game (which is completely OP gestalt Pathfinder/3.5 with sci-fi elements tossed in), the party is working on finding the masterminds behind a revolution. They blasted their way into one of the revolution strongholds that was hidden in the city sewers.

Having done so, they have discovered that several of the revolution leaders are actually demons in disguise. The demons all have special amulets that are identical.

In creating the background of the revolution and their command scheme, I was utilizing the 'cell' structure of real world terrorist groups. To spruce it up in a fantasy type setting, the group calls their individual portions 'hives', i.e. compartmentalized like a honeycomb.

The party captured a NPC that I had put in place to offer them information by way of an inspired rant by a true believer in the cause. They gagged him so they wouldn't have to listen to his exposition. So, I inserted some pamphlets detailing the revolution's cause so they could at least get some idea of what was going on.

At this point, a group of babau demons (still disguised with illusions) attacked them. When I realized the CR of the combat was in TPK territory (1 PC down, 1 hiding, 2 others at less than 1/2 HP and all NPCs still up and in good shape), I had the NPC leader order 2 of the others to 'warn the rest of the hives that we've been found.' This led to those combatants greater teleporting out, TPK averted in a believable maneuver.

The PCs are now convinced that there is a 'hive queen' running the revolution and that wearing one of the NPC amulets will plug them into the shared hive mind, so they are afraid to even put them on.

Which is how a minor word choice on my part has totally messed with the party's heads and sent them off on a wild goose chase for a non-existent demon hive queen in the city sewers while being afraid to use powerful magical amulets that could aid them in their cause.

I count this as a GMing victory. Has anyone else had fun in-game misunderstandings like this?

Southern Berkshire County, to be specific. I've got an open slot in my twice a month Sunday afternoon game. Possibly two, due to a potential player who is a bit wishy-washy about it.

The game borders on the side of ridiculously overpowered PCs. Pathfinder & D&D 3.5 gestalt, using Pathfinder as the base rule set with D&D 3.5 filling specific gaps. Wealth by level table is out the window! And since the game takes place on multiple planets in Golarion's solar system, there are Spelljammer style space ships as well as some highly advanced alien ships & other tech floating about if you are lucky enough to find it.

Being that forewarned is forearmed, I will say that I tend to throw out verbal & visual puns (I once even ran an entire adventure for the sole purpose of creating an in game verbal pun which took place during an in game visual pun where the entire situation was an out of game pun). So, if that's not your thing, I'm sorry.

If there's anyone in the area that is available on Sunday afternoons and would like to play, let me know.

Hey, I'm looking for some more players to join (and also hopefully run!) some games in the southern end of Berkshire County, MA.

I currently have slots open in my Pathfinder Evil campaign as well as my soon to begin Pathfinder in Spa-a-a-a-a-ce! campaign.

The space campaign is designed to pander to my players, so it is gestalt and includes not only Pathfinder but all D&D 3.5 as well as the Veil of Truth 3PP supplement. The space ships will mostly be Spelljammer open deck style (think Treasure Island if you're not familiar with Spelljammer.)

If anyone is in the area and interested, let me know. Or if you're looking for a player in the area to join your campaign, I'd really like to step out from behind the GM screen for a bit.

I'm live and work in southwestern Berkshire County in MA. I run a game once a week that's about an hour from home in the middle of the week, though not quite so far from work.

I'm looking for something closer to home, once a week, but no one in my current group can make the trip. I could definitely host the game. I enjoy GMing as much as playing, so I can do either or operate on a rotating basis.

I would like to see if I can get a group of 3 - 4 regulars going in this corner of the state.

If there's anyone interested, let me know here or at gerrinson@gmail.com