This past Saturday - July 6th, 2019 - I went back to my roots so to speak and started a new campaign at my FLGS, The Compleat Strategist.
In the process of doing so a pretty amazing thing happened. I got my groove back. I felt like my old gaming self again. I didn't second guess myself or my players, no one second guessed me, and I didn't pull any punches.
It was pretty damn glorious.
The campaign is titled, simply, FRONTIER.
Based on an idea I've had for over 30 years now but could never quite figure out how to put into motion, I was lucky enough to get a large group of players to buy in on what I described as, "A Science Fiction story about scientists at the very edge of known space trying desperately to save a dying Earth. Our home world needs a miracle. It's up to you to find or make one."
The setting is basically a Hard Science Fiction, Space Exploration universe with a look and feel reminiscent of late 1970s and 1980s Sci-Fi films like Alien, Aliens, Blade Runner, Outland, The Abyss, and The Thing.
The game's setting has more advanced technology than is seen in many of the aforementioned movies, with artificial intelligence, robots, cybernetics, genetic engineering, and laser weapons being a bit more common place. A bit mind you. I wanted to keep things grounded in real and current speculative science with allowances for the game's year of 2212.
What makes the game special and rather unique for me is that it includes elements of dystopian fiction and horror, two things I generally avoid except as a little seasoning here and there. FRONTIER on the other hand truly comes alive by telling the players that the Earth is a hair's breadth from either dystopian ruin or a new utopian age. It's all up to their PCs. At the same time the job is hard, space is dangerous, alien worlds are deadly and unforgiving to those who come from somewhere else. The players need to be smart, they need to be decisive, and they need to deal with bureaucracy, the greed or ego of government officials, and finite time and resources.
Saving the world is not going to be easy.
There is so much more I want to say about the setting and how the first session went but I will save that for another post. Suffice to say I had a fantastic time and the group seemed to really enjoy it as well.
More than anything else, it just feels like this is MY kind of game. I feel in my element. I feel like this is going to be one for the ages. It's been a long time since I felt this way.
This is Frontier Station, SITRI Project HQ, from SA-2, 18 Scorpii system, signing off...
...for now.
AD
Barking Alien
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