From time to time, even when already involved in several games, the urge to start a new campaign hits. With the advent of digital tool and growth of online RPG communities it is easier than ever for many people (including our group) to play multiple games in a week. Without the need to drive to a location, drive home afterward etc. hosting a 3 hour game mid-week is quite easy for us. We’re actually more likely to play during a weeknight than on a weekend.

Which means that when the urge hits to start a new campaign the odds of it actually hitting the table are high which is both motivating and intimidating. In roughly equal amounts.

What do I want to run?

This first thing I need to do is to look at what I actually want to run. I have a large selection to choose from in terms of genre, systems, styles and even age. Age isn’t going to enter in this necessarily, though since we play remotely how easy I can run it via Foundry is a consideration.

Genre

The first thing I need to consider is what genre and to be honest I’ve come to know that I overall I prefer fantasy as a genre. I’ll certainly play and run games in other genres but when I start thinking of campaigns this is where the needle rests by default.

That’s not to say all fantasy is the same but I’m already running Pathfinder 2e and playing in another PF2e game as well as two different 5th Edition D&D games. I’m covered on the heroic fantasy side. So something closer to sword and sorcery (I view Heroic Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery as the two poles for most fantasy RPG games with everything falling somewhere between them) which will factor in when I’m looking at system and style.

Style

I’m full up on heroic fantasy and still noodling away on a Sword and Sorcery style fantasy game using the 2d20 SRD from Modiphius so I need to consider what style of game I want. Since our Forbidden Lands game is 100 sessions in, I know that’s going to be coming to a close sooner rather than later and it hits a lot of what I want but also some things I wish I had done better or different. I also am kind of over the Year Zero system for the time being. My dice luck does me zero favours in a dice pool based system.

With that in mind I want

• Lower power characters
• Exploration/hexploration
• A central hub village the characters can return to in order to rest and recover
• Combat that is dangerous, perhaps even deadly compared to 5e or Pathfinder 2e.
• Tools for emergent storytelling
• Something relatively rules light, that makes it easy to use the idea of rulings not rules.

System

All of that points me to something in the OSR sphere and I gravitate towards three main options – BECMI Dungeons and Dragons, Worlds Without Number and Old School Essentials. There’s a few other games that I’ve familiar with in passing but none of them feel right for this and that’s important.

I’ve got physical copies (sans boxes) of BECMI and pdfs of WWN and OSE but since I’ll be running (eventually) virtually having the physical books isn’t strictly necessary. So next time I’ll be going through the three systems and decide which one to actually use (though honestly it’s probably going to be one main system with bits and pieces from the others).