Some Things You Can Only Do Once
A couple of weeks ago, while working on my contribution to a Vampire: the Requiem book that I haven't got the foggiest idea if I can mention by name much less talk about content-wise, I had an interesting idea about a way you could structure an RPG campaign. (Or, "series," if you prefer.) Is it a good idea? I have no idea. You be the judge:
The idea is for a solo, traveling campaign. "Solo," in this case, means one player and one game master. (Or, "game moderator.") "Traveling," however, refers not to the style of story inside the game — it's not (necessarily) a game about how a character goes from place to place — but to a steady march of role-switching outside the game.
After each adventure, each of which would ideally take only a single session of play, the game master retires from the campaign forever, perhaps writing up a summary of the adventure he ran on a forum or shared blog. Then the player becomes the game master, writes a new adventure featuring story continuity and the same character, and finds a new player to take on the protagonist's role — everyone plays the same character, in turn — for a session. Step and repeat. The campaign moves from player to player to player, across cities and states, connecting disparate gaming groups through convention buddies who live hundreds of miles from each other.
This idea would probably be best suited for a highly serial campaign style; think The A Team instead of Six Feet Under. One imagines a widely known and/or simple rule system would be best, and a protagonist character who's not too far out there in any particular direction, either in terms of abilities or personality.
Would it work? Be fun? I have no idea. When my delivery of free time finally arrives perhaps I'll start up a campaign like this. Or, better yet, why don't you go ahead and get it going now. Because I'll be honest, I don't think my free time's even been shipped yet. At the very least, I haven't received a tracking number.
Comments
Dude.
You're having a baby. Your free time has been back-ordered for about 18 years.
On the other hand, the Six Feet Under RPG sounds awesome.