i'm moving some of my favorite #ttrpg posts from twitter over to here. to be clear, this is favorite things i posted over the years, not other folks' work. campaign pitches, worldbuilding, blueskying, whatever. i'll be threading them from here with the hashtag #argentrpgtwitter so you should be able to mute that tag if this isn't your deal!
campaign pitch: Vampire: the Masquerade 1st edition, the classic Forged in Steel chronicle, run troupe-style as a historical rpg set in the late 20th century -- starting in, say, 1982 -- on the edge of Gehenna. everyone creates one Kindred, one mortal companion, and one "grog" to be shared by the group.
campaign pitch: in the 1970s, the city of Cynosure, MI had two things going for it: the General Motors plant, and the pseudonymous fantasy author and game designer A. Spartacus Frunobulax, who created and mostly self-published his "Lands of the Lost & Forgotten" stories and games for forty years. the GM plant closed in 1986. Frunobulax stopped publishing last year. 1/x
after a sudden diagnosis and short illness, your eccentric and beloved uncle (or "uncle"?) Francis Scott Arthur passed away and named you the sole heir to all his property, including his house and everything it contains...like the portal to the Lost Lands in the back forty. for years, Uncle Frank chronicled the exploits of the archmages, rangers, demigods, rogues, and villains of the Lost Lands who crossed over into our world. 2/x
they hung out in Frank's kitchen to tell their stories and drink his beer. Frank also traded Earthly goods for the magic to keep his city alive. now it's your turn. you've got the house and the portal, Cynosure needs clean water, and the imported beer and remaindered VHS tapes aren't cutting it for Frank's pals on the other side of the portal, what with a weak king on the throne and the Crimson Wizards on the move. 3/x
the Lost Lands need heroes. what they're getting are you, your closest friends, and maybe a hired goon or two. you're not without your skills, but are you up to the task of saving a nation? a world? *do* the Lands really need heroes, or is that just what they're used to? and why has Green River, the ubiquitous online retailer, chosen this moment to open both a distribution center *and* a new cloud datacenter in Cynosure? 4/x
Green River vans are everywhere now, and they must be responsible for the near-daily drone flyovers. what are they up to? and the looks you're getting from the shitty goth and metalhead teens downtown...creepy. and they're *everywhere*, it's like they all work every crappy service job and gig economy app there is, and they're all *so* shitty. do they know something, or are they just a bunch of shitty teens being shitty? i bet it's that last one 5/x
Green Ronin Publishing's #Threefold for #ModernAGE presents "a vast Metacosm" of countless worlds and a fistful of organizations to belong to and work for, but there's nothing preventing you from starting with a simple portal fantasy. A. Spartacus Frunobulax/Francis Scott Arthur is a sort of DIY/punk/lefty Gary Gygax/Ed Greenwood hybrid, with the "Lost Lands" as a pretty obvious expy of the Forgotten Realms.
6/x
Cynosure, MI stands in for Flint, and takes its name from the multidimensional city that is home to John Ostrander and Tim Truman's #Grimjack. is there a Munden's Bar in this Cynosure, too, with Gordon behind the bar and one John Gaunt at a corner table? right fucking on there is.
but yeah, in any event: #Threefold gives you a lot to work with and there's nothing wrong with starting small and slow rather than drinking from the firehose. 7/x
campaign pitch from 2011: #cyberpunk mecha vigilantes vs superhuman street gangs, using #BubblegumCrisis & #Champions: New Millennium, which somehow share a set of mechanics.
in 2022 i might not use #Fuzion to do this. or maybe i would, for extra powerful 1990s flavor! also i scored vintage Bubblegum Crisis dvds at the local Goodwill this week for $6.