gbhenderson
July 10th, 2021, 17:08
Just curious as to if other GMs are doing a campaign or just running cinematics?
I love the cinematics, but my players were tired of feeling like they were investing time into characters that they'd never see again after they finished a module. So we started up a campaign, and have been playing it regularly for a few months.
I was really hoping the group would want to play a Marine campaign with the release of CMOM, but they wanted to go with Space Truckers. Creating jobs and whatnot to keep em moving hasn't really been an issue. They all love roleplaying more than rolling dice, so they practically build the adventures for me which lessens my load. They tend to go more towards Firefly than Alien with the roleplaying, which isn't a problem. I just try to keep em busy with the evil megacorps. I've also started introducing other film critters into the campaign...last week it was Yautja (predators).
But, since it is campaign play and I want them to enjoy building their characters, I've had to really control my own bloodlust the cinematics provided. As a GM, nothing is funner for me than to watch the panic rolls cascade and things go south, and that's mainly due to the way my players roleplay the mass panic.
So to satiate my love for the combat/panic aspect, I've started running "cutscenes". The group takes a trucking job and I try to figure out a way to involve the xenos, predators, whatever, into the plot. Then I'll create a short cinematic scene, complete with pregens. It tells the story of "What happened before" instead of writing up a preamble/monologue to read to the players. The cutscenes required more work than the actual campaign play since it wasn't built by the actions of the players, but it was worth it. We quickly learned that the group really enjoyed that approach since it gave them an opportunity to act out the "What's the story, Mother?"
Later on down the road, they will have a chance to meet any pregens that lived in the cutscenes. Those can be added to the ship roster. If at any time one of the players wants a break from their character, they can play the new character. They can even spend xp on those characters if they want. And those pregens aren't assigned to a single person, they're playable by anyone in the group. Helps fill any skill/talent gaps that might be needed for a specific mission.
As for xp, with campaign play we learned early on that if we followed the guidelines in the book, everyone was going to be capped out on skills and talents pretty quick. So we did a little modifying to the rules. At the end of the night, they only get a single point for playing, and they can only choose 1 of the questions to answer for xp. Once they choose that question, they can't choose it again until after they finish their current mission. The group also votes for 2 players that they think did the best job at roleplaying for that session, and those 2 players get an extra point of xp. This cut the xp rate from 6-7 points per session, down to 1-3 points per session. We also don't allow xp hoarding. Once you have 10xp, you can't gain any more xp until you spend some. Some people might think those are a little harsh, but it's honestly helped with the long term playability of the characters.
What kind of homebrew rules are you using?
I love the cinematics, but my players were tired of feeling like they were investing time into characters that they'd never see again after they finished a module. So we started up a campaign, and have been playing it regularly for a few months.
I was really hoping the group would want to play a Marine campaign with the release of CMOM, but they wanted to go with Space Truckers. Creating jobs and whatnot to keep em moving hasn't really been an issue. They all love roleplaying more than rolling dice, so they practically build the adventures for me which lessens my load. They tend to go more towards Firefly than Alien with the roleplaying, which isn't a problem. I just try to keep em busy with the evil megacorps. I've also started introducing other film critters into the campaign...last week it was Yautja (predators).
But, since it is campaign play and I want them to enjoy building their characters, I've had to really control my own bloodlust the cinematics provided. As a GM, nothing is funner for me than to watch the panic rolls cascade and things go south, and that's mainly due to the way my players roleplay the mass panic.
So to satiate my love for the combat/panic aspect, I've started running "cutscenes". The group takes a trucking job and I try to figure out a way to involve the xenos, predators, whatever, into the plot. Then I'll create a short cinematic scene, complete with pregens. It tells the story of "What happened before" instead of writing up a preamble/monologue to read to the players. The cutscenes required more work than the actual campaign play since it wasn't built by the actions of the players, but it was worth it. We quickly learned that the group really enjoyed that approach since it gave them an opportunity to act out the "What's the story, Mother?"
Later on down the road, they will have a chance to meet any pregens that lived in the cutscenes. Those can be added to the ship roster. If at any time one of the players wants a break from their character, they can play the new character. They can even spend xp on those characters if they want. And those pregens aren't assigned to a single person, they're playable by anyone in the group. Helps fill any skill/talent gaps that might be needed for a specific mission.
As for xp, with campaign play we learned early on that if we followed the guidelines in the book, everyone was going to be capped out on skills and talents pretty quick. So we did a little modifying to the rules. At the end of the night, they only get a single point for playing, and they can only choose 1 of the questions to answer for xp. Once they choose that question, they can't choose it again until after they finish their current mission. The group also votes for 2 players that they think did the best job at roleplaying for that session, and those 2 players get an extra point of xp. This cut the xp rate from 6-7 points per session, down to 1-3 points per session. We also don't allow xp hoarding. Once you have 10xp, you can't gain any more xp until you spend some. Some people might think those are a little harsh, but it's honestly helped with the long term playability of the characters.
What kind of homebrew rules are you using?