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Hello, fellow Dakka Dakkaites I've just been asking people I know what their favourite campaigns are as either a GM or a player and wondering if you guys have one and why that is and what it was you learned from these experiences.

I'll go first. I have a couple but first would be my Dark Heresy (or my Rogue Trader campaign I'm running now which is a continuation) campaign I ran years ago, it was my longest run so far (But my RT campaign will overtake it soon) I suppose I enjoyed having the intrigue, the twists and through it and it being a part of my Secret War fanfic continuity. I especially enjoyed running the Tattered Fates and Illumination modules and just the Callixis Sector setting in general. As well as creating cool set pieces for the players to experience and RPing an autistic as hell SM the PCs encountered was so damn fun. One of my players had a great character named Eisen Venris who was an insane as frig noble born of Malfi and a powerful psyker who was being kept under control mostly by a Blank Assassin GMPC Eli Thaddeus. What I learned was how to run a GMPC (gasp!) Without them being a Mary Sue hated by the PCs, also a crap ton of other things I can't think of right now.

Another would be a very brief Call of Cthulhu campaign, which I ran. I made it based in New Zealand which wasn't that hard actually, in the late 2000s as that was when I GM'd it. MY first session I ran the scenario 'Dead Man Stomp' making it begin in a bar in my home town of Wellington in the main street of Courtney Place. I had two players and they went to the concert separately (neither knew each other) and when the note was dropped only one of them picked it up, what happened next was one of my proudest GMing I've ever done, had to improvise it and 'split the party' so to speak, but eventually, they managed to meet up and join forces and it felt so much more natural than if they just so happened to start to work together for no reason in the bar.

For the favourite campaigns, I've played in? One would be my friend's Anima campaign, despite a homebrew setting which was basically a combination of Berserk and Game of Thrones and some, pretty bad moments especially with a GMPC it was a well run 'sandbox' campaign and had some great moments (such as me assassinating the GM's Mary Sue 'discount-store' Griffith, then wiping out his 'best army in the world' to a man with a badly trained and armed militia) My PC was one of my favourite I've ever played Adrassil was like MCUs Loki but way more effective and a melee fighter and a womaniser.

Another would be my friend's Traveller campaign which was so damn fun, I made a Gunslinger/martial artist/pilot Han Solo-like character who had some great one-liners which I can't for the life of me remember, but there was this one great scene when I was being chased after by a steel golem of sorts through an ancient, abandoned ship's huge engine room., leaping over holes on the walkway, was so epic and so damn fun.

What are your guys?

Aww, no takers? I feel this forum seems a bit dead nowadays :/

I've had a blast with Black Crusade, more than I thought I would. Honestly, it feels a bit more 'free' than the other games.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
I've had a blast with Black Crusade, more than I thought I would. Honestly, it feels a bit more 'free' than the other games.

Kewl! You GM it or play in it? How'd the campaign go? Is it still ongoing? Never played Black Crusade myself, heard good things about it, would like to RP an unaligned Alpha Legionnaire if I did.

I have been RPGing so long, that I can't even recall all the campaigns I have been in.

Some of my favorites involved villain NPCs that I was reluctant to take out because I had some sympathy with them, their goals, or we had too much of a backstory. I enjoyed keeping challenging NPCs alive instead of killing them off.

One campaign that sticks out was the one for Shadowrun where we were the Company Men. The company politics and idea that we were not SINless made it a bit more interesting.

I also recall a campaign where my character was a death priestess, but that meant she had strict rules about no looting bodies, properly preparing the dead for burial, etc. It was a major change to how the party played things since we couldn't just be murder hobos, since everyone we killed required proper post-death rituals, body disposal, and no looting their stuff.

Finally, there was an adventure where one of my rival spell casters in a non-D&D system got poisoned or cursed. The party was racing to break/cure them except my character. I didn't actively stop the party, but I was dragging my feet to build the tension. That was a fun balancing act to not stop the party from achieving their goal, but also not helping too much in character.

 Easy E wrote:
I have been RPGing so long, that I can't even recall all the campaigns I have been in.

Some of my favorites involved villain NPCs that I was reluctant to take out because I had some sympathy with them, their goals, or we had too much of a backstory. I enjoyed keeping challenging NPCs alive instead of killing them off.

Cool, how'd the GM pull that off? I enjoy making villains who have understandable motives and methods, but the PCs 'love to hate' it can be such fun.

 Easy E wrote:
One campaign that sticks out was the one for Shadowrun where we were the Company Men. The company politics and idea that we were not SINless made it a bit more interesting.

Shadowrun is so damn cool. My friend who GM'd the Traveller campaign has run a couple of Shadowrun campaigns and each one was a blast. The world-building is very well done in my eyes.

Two separate year long Shadowrun campaigns (3rd and 4th ed), both GM'd by a really great guy who ended up freelancing for Catalyst for a bit. I still have a signed copy of one of the books he contributed to.

Shadowrun can be intimidating because of how freeform it is, but our GM took everything in stride. He hit that perfect spot between giving the PCs too much freedom and railroading. And as players we really responded well to it and the interplay of characters just ended up feeling very natural.

A tiny personal accomplishment - through a combination of drugs, magic and cybernetics my street samurai hit a land speed record of approx. 86 mph on foot.

Mine was a 3.5 D&D campaign. While I liked the rules at the time, it was more due to the party that made it my best ever. We were a cohesive group of players who genuinely tried to get together every two weeks to play consistently. It was definitely a fun communal experience beyond just the game session itself as I asked (I was GM'ing and it was at my house) everyone to bring one food and one drink item (so a big bag of chips and a 2 liter of soda for example) to share with everyone. Some of us were students on a limited budget so generic $1 chips/soda were completely fine whereas others were adults with careers who preferred to bring bottles of wine and homecooked items like baked goods and dips/cheese spreads. We had a pretty good sized party (7 players plus me as GM) so even with the inevitable life gets in the way player or two missing we still had the critical mass of players to continue and almost never missed a session as I made sure with my work/school schedule to always have that day of the week reserved off except in rare circumstances. It was truly the ideal combination of a fun group of players dedicated to playing the game with each other in a social setting. I miss it and especially miss the friend whose untimely and sudden passing made it too difficult to continue.

I GM'd Black Crusade, with the players all as members of a Night Lord warband. It was really good fun, the gameline isn't without fault (the pre-pubished adventures are pretty poor), but we were all very enthused having read the ADB series.

I've also recently GM'd Modiphius' Conan RPG, which I would very much recommend. It captures the sword and sorcery vibe really well, and the production quality, and adventures are excellent.

Loads of TTRPGs really:

Vampire: The Masquerade (our favourite)
Warhammer FRP 4e (new for us, but really fun)
Fading Suns (incredible world, so-so rules)
Shadowrun (a little complex, rules-wise, but great fun once grokked)
Alien (great for one-shots where everyone dies)

We've also played plenty of Eberron (D&D3.5) and a little D&D5e.

 Adrassil wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I have been RPGing so long, that I can't even recall all the campaigns I have been in.

Some of my favorites involved villain NPCs that I was reluctant to take out because I had some sympathy with them, their goals, or we had too much of a backstory. I enjoyed keeping challenging NPCs alive instead of killing them off.

Cool, how'd the GM pull that off? I enjoy making villains who have understandable motives and methods, but the PCs 'love to hate' it can be such fun.

You have to give them rooting interest, non-insane goals, and QEH. (Quirks, Eccentricities, and Habits) Also, you have to know what pushes your PC buttons. My group tended to be a sucker for "blue-collar" type villains. You know,the professionals that are just trying to get the job done, get paid, and go home to their families.

For example, their was one villain who they constantly faced off with who was always just a wee bit quicker then them on the draw, but purposely wouldn't shoot them, just keep them covered and chat with them until the other guys on his team had done what they needed to do. Therefore, the PCs respected this guy as a "professional" and fellow traveller. Therefore, when eventually the tables turned, they returned the favor and didn't fill the NPC full of lead, and instead just covered him until they got what they wanted. Everyone walked away alive at the end. Eventually, the PCs got this guy to help them out later in the campaign against a different foe who was a much more homicidal.

Black Crusade - which is so much fun - following the pre-written missions was probably my previous favourite, and may have resulted in a sizeable proportion of FFGs "You know you're playing black crusade when..." thread for sheer ridiculous comedy.


Dark Heresy Ascension comes close, too.

What we're really enjoying at the moment is the new L5R. We've been playing a narrative-heavy game for about a year, and they've just had an invitation to Imperial Winter Court. Amusingly, they're finding the experience significantly scarier than a previous mission featuring a battlefield full of undead.

My favorite RPG experience was an amazing one-shot game I played at a convention with a guy whose day job is a special effects professional, and he had lights, he had sounds, he had voices, he had props, it was incredible. He ran a call of cthulhu detective campaign set in that classic cthulhu roaring 20s setting, and the final twist was that only one character in the party was actually alive, and he'd been imagining the other characters as them, drawing on their strength to accomplish what he couldn't alone.

Really, really great. Great enough that it brought me back time and time again to that guy's table, which sadly was pretty miserable most of the time. He'd get so invested in wanting to use a cool effect/sound/prop or whatever so his games were crazy heavily railroaded, and he had a couple of truly awful, miserable to be around players who obsessively sign up to every single one of his games. One lady in particular was playing a spoiled rich brat in the original CoC game, and that was very fun and amusing, and then after playing 2 more games with her I realized...that's just her, she's not roleplaying, she's just a miserable, miserable brat who behaves like a petulant 5 year old despite being in her 40s.

the_scotsman wrote:
My favorite RPG experience was an amazing one-shot game I played at a convention with a guy whose day job is a special effects professional, and he had lights, he had sounds, he had voices, he had props, it was incredible. He ran a call of cthulhu detective campaign set in that classic cthulhu roaring 20s setting, and the final twist was that only one character in the party was actually alive, and he'd been imagining the other characters as them, drawing on their strength to accomplish what he couldn't alone.

Really, really great. Great enough that it brought me back time and time again to that guy's table, which sadly was pretty miserable most of the time. He'd get so invested in wanting to use a cool effect/sound/prop or whatever so his games were crazy heavily railroaded, and he had a couple of truly awful, miserable to be around players who obsessively sign up to every single one of his games. One lady in particular was playing a spoiled rich brat in the original CoC game, and that was very fun and amusing, and then after playing 2 more games with her I realized...that's just her, she's not roleplaying, she's just a miserable, miserable brat who behaves like a petulant 5 year old despite being in her 40s.

That sounds like an amazing game, mate. Too bad it went down hill so hard and fast :/

 Adrassil wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
My favorite RPG experience was an amazing one-shot game I played at a convention with a guy whose day job is a special effects professional, and he had lights, he had sounds, he had voices, he had props, it was incredible. He ran a call of cthulhu detective campaign set in that classic cthulhu roaring 20s setting, and the final twist was that only one character in the party was actually alive, and he'd been imagining the other characters as them, drawing on their strength to accomplish what he couldn't alone.

Really, really great. Great enough that it brought me back time and time again to that guy's table, which sadly was pretty miserable most of the time. He'd get so invested in wanting to use a cool effect/sound/prop or whatever so his games were crazy heavily railroaded, and he had a couple of truly awful, miserable to be around players who obsessively sign up to every single one of his games. One lady in particular was playing a spoiled rich brat in the original CoC game, and that was very fun and amusing, and then after playing 2 more games with her I realized...that's just her, she's not roleplaying, she's just a miserable, miserable brat who behaves like a petulant 5 year old despite being in her 40s.

That sounds like an amazing game, mate. Too bad it went down hill so hard and fast :/

Luckily, I found out that the CoC campaign he ran is actually available for free online, so I ran it with some friends of mine and got to enjoy that sweet nostalgia.

the_scotsman wrote:
Luckily, I found out that the CoC campaign he ran is actually available for free online, so I ran it with some friends of mine and got to enjoy that sweet nostalgia.

Oh? Cool! What's the name of that scenario? I just got the box set of Call of Cthulhu 7th edition and Pulp Cthulhu so would like to run a one shot or two sooner or later.

 Adrassil wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Luckily, I found out that the CoC campaign he ran is actually available for free online, so I ran it with some friends of mine and got to enjoy that sweet nostalgia.

Oh? Cool! What's the name of that scenario? I just got the box set of Call of Cthulhu 7th edition and Pulp Cthulhu so would like to run a one shot or two sooner or later.

It's called Burning Stars. I'm sure it's for an outdated edition of CoC at this point. I ran it using the Fates system, personally.

I've been running an open table sandbox campaign of homebrewed OSR D&D weekly for the last 7-8 years or so among other things at a club. There's about 5-6 core players who've been there for years but occasionally sessions could have like 12 or so people at the table when newcomers drop by. It's a player driven, challenge oriented game full of uncertainties and fog of war, where making characters takes about a minute or two and losing one might not take too much longer until you grog how to venture forth with a mix of paranoia and daring-do. It's not the dice that kill you, it was your decisions on approaching the problem. Getting to a second level is an achievement earned through mud, sweat and (often your own) blood as no punches are pulled by the neutral referee. If you go mountaineering without winter gear, you'll die. If your plan to reroute the river manages to drown the monster in its cave without a "fair fight", that's what happens. The gameplay is full of interesting negotiations and clever maneuvers of lateral thinking, since the general stance of the campaign is more "combat as war" and less "combat as sport" as is often seen in many games. Best thing about having a living ruleset is of course changing any rulings that on the long run seem to produce unintuitive results and players get to continuously contribute in that discussion, which has encouraged others in the group to think about game design and try running games themselves more openly too

The campaign itself is set in a pseudohistorical version of Europe, about early 1400's or so plus minus a hundred years for cool events and personas, generally very low fantasy where 99% of things are as you'd expect them to be. Naturally, adventurers tend to belong in the other 1% that runs face first into places where the familiar laws of nature can get bent.

We've seen machinations that have unfolded over years of real life time, sieges that have changed the lives of nations, most pathetic of deaths galore (like lighting your comrades on fire with molotov cocktails or slipping on wet rocks in a rush), great triumphs of dastardly thieves slipping shinies off of ancient tombs, backfiring witchcraft, rousing speeches in the rain as you rise to defend your home village from raiders, impressive feats of mercenary company logistics and monster wrestles Conan would be proud of. Only time I've seen drug addicts try to convince a prison cage to attempt suicide and actually succeed, too (the cage itself, not the inhabitants)

As a player I think I've most enjoyed the original "Enemy Within" campaign for WFRP 1st edition.

Took us a good while to complete -- not least as at times we had to wait for the books to be released -- but it's one of the few prepublished campaigns I've been able to play in to completion.

I normally GM the games -- generally only get to be a player for a short time each year or so, although for the past XX months we've been playing a Starfinder Campaign which is the longest period I've had as a player for years IIRC.

From the games I've ran :

Did a really cool -- according to my players Star Wars D20 campaigns :

Started off as some trainee jedis and associated hangers on in New Republic/prequels era time, that that ended with the PCs dying -- heroically -- as/when Order 66 was given.

This was then followed up by a campaign in which they played as a clone trooper commado/special ops unit -- who discovered clues/facts/similar from the previous campaign and became disenchanted with the Republic/Empire, and they then split from said faction and became some of the founders of the Rebel Alliance .

The campaign trilogy then ended in the rebellion era with them as various ne'erdowells who wound up joining the Rebel Alliance -- shock ! -- and eventually ending the threat initially encountered in the 1st arc/story, the now horrendously insane ex-clone troopers and generally saving the day.

One of the key connecting characters throughout was a Twi-lek jedi who was initially the apprentice of one of the PCs in the 1st arc, who was then partially responsible for redeeming/saving the clone troopers in the 2nd arc and who then was the kind of yoda/wise old retired/hidden mystic figure in the 3rd arc.

Aside from that for the past best of 15-20 years there was a continuing plot line that ran across all my games -- even across different systems -- to do with THE BIG BAD FROM BEYOND -
- that was moving across dimensions , the ripples of which caused X/Y/Z etc etc etc to happen in various campaigns.

This sort of intensified in various games in the last 5 years or so as the threat of "MAH-GEDD-OHN " finally reached its climax, and accordingly my players -- and credit to them -- managed to co-operate across multi dimensional planes of existence to help bring about the final confrontation to the one place where he could be fount and defeated.

-- a lot of this was inspired/ripped off from Morrisons JLA run but it did all start well before his run was even a twinkle in his eye and, creatively -- grandiose as that sounds -- is the most satisfying adventure I've done.