Decline and Fall

Over the course of the more than two years I've been running the Dwimmermount campaign, the number of players involved has fluctuated from month to month, with at least three players becoming irregular in their attendance or dropping out entirely, except for occasional "guest appearances." Now, unfortunately, one of the rocks of the campaign, Dordagdonar's player, has moved out of the city and, while he plans to come back into town as often as possible, it's unlikely to be more than once a month, at least for the foreseeable future.

That rather puts a damper on things. I'd originally conceived of the campaign as one where players could drop in or out without doing too much violence to the flow of things and that worked well enough for a while, but, as the campaign barreled on, Dordagdonar became one of the points around which a lot revolved. No one planned it this way, least of all myself, who did everything I could to keep the campaign as "open" and "loose" as possible. But as anyone who's run a campaign for any length of time knows, it's impossible to prevent the way that some characters (and their players) become essential to its continuance. Dordagdonar and his player are examples of such and so, for now anyway, the campaign will move much more slowly than I'd originally imagined it would.

That leaves me with some players left behind and several weekends free each month, so I find myself contemplating the start of another campaign to fill the void. I generally don't like the idea of "mini-campaigns" or "one shots," since I prefer that campaigns decide for themselves how long they run, not the players. So, if I do start up a new campaign to run in the gaps between now-monthly Dwimmermount sessions, there's always the chance that it could become something long-lasting, perhaps even rivaling Dwimmermount's 60+ sessions.

I'm still not sure that I'm even going to do this. I need to confer with my remaining players and see how things unfold. If it does happen, though, I'm tending toward science fiction this time around, perhaps using my Thousand Suns rules. I've become rather fascinated -- maybe "obsessed" is a better word -- with the fall of the Roman Republic and I've begun to think that a space opera set against a similar backdrop might be a lot of fun. I'm not a big fan of most contemporary SF (shocking, I know!), preferring stuff written in the 50s through 70s, a lot of which are set during the reigns of galactic empires. Now, galactic empires are cool, but I think declining galactic republics/federations are just as cool. Indeed, from a roleplaying perspective, I actually think there's a great deal more scope for adventure during the final days of a democracy gone rotten. That's probably why, for all their manifest faults, I still retain a certain liking for the Star Wars prequels. There's so much wrong with those movies, but the overall setting is not one of them.

Anyway, these are just idle thoughts at the moment. All I know for sure is that I'd very much like to keep up a regular RPG campaign of some sort. Without one, all the blather I engage in here rather loses its point and I'm not yet ready to retire my keyboard, much as I'm sure many wish I would. More on this as it develops.