It has been a while since my last post. I was quite busy with a huge hobby project, which I would like to announce today. I will make a fantasy campaign for Pulp Alley. In the past, I played a lot of Frostgrave and Pulp Alley. While we were playing, the idea came up to make a Pulp Alley campaign in a fantasy setting. I did some research on the internet, but to my surprise, I wasn’t able to find anything. Of course, there are some guys playing fantasy games, but it seems that no one ever made a fully playable campaign. So, I had to do it by myself.
After some serious brainstorming and even more intense planning, I started my journey for my very first campaign book. There is a lot of work to do, but I will post regularly on the blog about my progress. At the end of this posting, there is a rough timeline for the project.
What is it all about?
The campaign will take places in Eskana, my own high fantasy world. So you can expect heroes, quests, monsters and of course magic. The first act of the campaign will take place on the continent Thelloras. Each act will consist of at least 5 main quests. They will drive the story forward and every main quest will take place in a unique location. My goal is to build a campaign with really compelling scenarios to keep the players motivated.
How to do it?
Obviously, I need a set of rules for the campaign. I am a big fan of Pulp Alley, but for a fantasy setting there are some things to consider:
- You need magic. Of course, you can use the standard shooting skill, but I prefer to go more into the details. It simply adds a lot of flavor to the game, when you have different spells to choose from. But it should be still easy enough so that new players can join the campaign. I am still fiddling about this issue.
- I want some serious character development like in pen & paper games (think Dungeons & Dragons and alike). But it should also be still manageable. You want to be a hero mastering daring adventures, not a bookkeeper filling in spreadsheets.
- High fantasy is all about adventure. So I need some really exciting quests and locations. Besides the process of writings thrilling scenarios, building terrain and painting miniatures will be a huge task.
- You need a story. Playing one scenario after another can be fun. But without any connections, basically, it is just a couple of random games. Of course, the player will want to win the game, but that’s it.Why should he care about the world? Well, that’s why you need some kind of story. In my case, this will be the world of Eskana. Actually, I already did some serious world building to gather ideas for factions, locations, landscape and stuff like that. I will give my best but don’t expect too much. I am not Tolkien. 😉
- As wargamers most times we tend to play against each other in some kind of conflicting setup. But everyone knows that the players in an RPG form a party. So the campaign will also be cooperative. Well, I guess, after reading almost the whole post, you will already come to the conclusion, that the campaign won’t be suitable for a tournament likewise. This whole project will be for the more relaxed kind of gamer, who enjoys rolling dice and having fun with his mates.
Timeline
Obviously, this will be the biggest project on GlueandDice so far. There is a lot of work to do. But I am very keen on making it happen. Some miniatures are already painted and even some terrain ist built. So make sure to check out the blog for regular updates about the progress.
I would love to hear what you think about the whole topic. Let me know in the comments.
Cool looking project. You might want to consider posting this to LAF for more exposure and comments. Their Pulp forum has a lot of PA material.
I’ll do that, thanks Tom.