Scarus Burns
Below are a few examples from a nine month science fiction campaign, at an average pace of two four-hour sessions a month. It was a setting entirely created and run by myself, with plans for a 1.5 year long campaign. Organic storytelling was built into the game at a number of junctures, such as the free-selection of planetary information as seen on the top-left overworld image, which allows you to see a popup of the technology level, population, and hexcode, which as shown in that image allows you to see sub-documents for each planet’s features.
Additionally, I would do an in-game monthly newsreel of activities done by all major factions in the sector of space the game took place in, with in-game effects, generated by myself through a detailed faction interaction system I built in google sheets to go along with the Stars Without Number rules on the same.
This map system was of my original design utilizing Roll20’s notes system. Each hex corresponds to a system as shown on the right, each featuring a visually represented green planet that also corresponds to a planet within the system. On clicking one as shown on the left, you are given the tech level, population, and related hexcode. Each note features basic scanner information that a player would be privy to, including private GM notes to drip feed hints to players and inform the sandbox I created.
A large battle I created using light projections for a fight in a dark environment against overwhelming numbers. I used the basics of Dungeon Crawl Classics as a base for this and rebuilt the system to be used in a science fiction setting. to create a character funnel. This and a few further encounters and puzzles were meant to lead the players with a third of their original number and have a good idea of how to convert the remaining characters into archetypes.
Every month of in-game time that progressed in the game featured a monthly newsletter. Players could read these at their leisure. This campaign was largely sandbox with an overarching story within it - this newsletter featured updates that were largely fluff, but contained actual in-game narrative developments if read closely. I developed a faction interaction mechanic and had a series of roll-offs to help fill these points.
