Campaigns I want to run

My idea is to link prospective players to this page so we can agree on what kind of campaign we all want to play. Setting expectations is important.

Something to Burn

“He turns off the techno-shit in his goggles. All it does is confuse him; he stands there reading statistics about his own death even as it's happening to him. Very post-modern.”

—Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

It is the 22nd century, and the singularity has failed. Millions of deactivated nanobots float dead in the air, and humanity has spread across the solar system, much of the Earth uninhabitable. Since the Franchise Wars ended eight years ago, the system has become dominated by zaibatsu, immense megacorporations in an uneasy peace. Androids, required by law not to have an inner monologue, have begun to integrate into human society—despite rumours they can “trip the wire” and become conscious. And now comes something nobody expected: the return of the Warminds, superintelligent AI whose self-improvement was mysteriously interrupted. They are powerful; they are strange. Most people live slowly suffocating lives in franchised territory. But some make a living on the margins, doing the dirty work: bounty hunting, space-hulk salvage, search-and-rescue, search-and-destroy. That’s where you come in. See you, space cowboy…

System: Mothership

Influences: Cowboy Bebop, Alien, Snow Crash, Blade Runner, Neuromancer, Prey, The Thing

Player buy-in: You're drifters who live under constant and crushing pressure, always half-a-step away from disaster. That's the trade-off you made for freedom. You lead dangerous, violent, and unstable lives under the shadows of crushing monoliths of power. You want to get rich; you'll probably die trying. But, hey, being a space cowboy beats corporate dronehood any day.

Midnight Sun

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun / By the men who moil for gold; / The Arctic trails have their secret tales / That would make your blood run cold...”

—Robert W. Service, The Cremation of Sam McGee

It is 1898, and gold has been discovered in the Yukon. Thousands of prospectors are making their way northwards to make their fortunes. They don't know what they're in for. The terrible things which spill out from the World Below have left dozens of mines abandoned and boarded shut. But there's something about the thought of all that gold which plays on a man's mind. There are those desperate enough, mad enough, to venture deep underground in search of abandoned gold. The miners have a word for you: CANARIES. Get rich or die trying.

System: Hacked Knave

Influences: Jack London's stories, especially The Call of the Wild and To Build a Fire (and the short film); Dominion Creek; Songs of a Sourdough by Robert W. Service

Player buy-in: You get to play as Snow Cowboys! This is my attempt to put a dungeon crawl/underdark/Veins of the Earth campaign in a more modern setting.