Back in 1998 I was gaming 3 times a week. On Wednesdays I was part of the "Tuesday Role-Playing Group that played on Wednesday" which was a ADND 2nd edition Dragonlance campaign which ran for over 3 glorious years and was very much a high fantasy campaign theme. I also gamed on a Friday and this was a more intimate invitation only group which played a rotating list of games and was decidely low fantasy. And then there was the Sunday group. A group of players who never identified as role-players, but somehow we managed to play some of the most memorable games imaginable. A veritable mix of WHFRP, Shadowrun, In Nomine and...well youll find out.
The Friday group found itself needing a new campaign and I volunteered to run 7th Sea, which you will read about when I get around to posting about the epic campaign on my History notes. 7th Sea was essentially a "road movie" game set on a boat and was progressing nicely in the early sessions. Also at the same time the Sunday group was gearing up for its next campaign Deadlands: Hell on Earth. One of the players in the group really loved the Mad Max post apocalypse setting and we all bought the books and created characters. At the 11th hour the GM pulled out saying he got stage fright. Not wanting to miss the chance I offered to run the game in his stead.
So in a matter of days I found myself running a game on Fridays and a game on Sundays. 2 problems.
- 7th Sea was a hand written/crafted campaign that was written the night before the game was to be run, it was character focused and very dynamic, and I needed to come up with about 3-4 hours of gameplay each session.
- Deadlands: Hell on Earth was also hand crafted and made up as I went along but with notes and ideas. Thankfully Deadlands was also turned into a "road movie" game meaning I did cheat and cross-pollinate ideas as in both groups I was the only common player. This biggest issue was the games lasted much longer 5-6 hours of gameplay each session and with each player and character being difficult to deal with it meant for a really hard session each week.
I decided to can one of the games, and it ended up being Deadlands as there was nothing to replace 7th Sea on Friday as yet.
Abandoning Deadlands was a huge regret and is often mentioned even though it ran for a matter of 5 or 6 sessions.
Well this summer I intend to put things right, regroup as many of the original players as possible and finish what we started in 1998. So the 1st First is finishing a campaign I started 15 years ago and the 2nd First is after thinking I would never role-play again (due to family commitments) I am finally going to get the chance again.
