Dream Campaigns

We all have them; let's talk about them.

I have heard that every Gamemaster has a list. They may not talk about it, and it may be lurking inside their head, or more likely in a notebook they have lost in a desk drawer, but there is a list of dream adventures that they would like to run. Whether too long, too complicated, written for a system that they do not know any players of, or written for a system that does ot suit their gamemastering style.

I have one of those lists, and I think it is time to start treating it as a plan rather than a pie-in-the-sky list.

Not all of these games fit directly into my natural gamemastering style; in fact, most probably do not. Essentially, this is due to the playstyle. I prefer large, open worlds with a sandboxy feel and play-to-find-out games, but many published campaigns are more linear, with set-piece milestones and events that must occur to trigger the next section.

That said, I would still like to run these campaigns, preferably on the system they were originally written for, as I have had issues porting campaigns from system to system, even if the campaign's creators did the ports.

For the next couple of months, I will be writing mini-reviews of these campaigns and thinking about how I would like to make them my own. I hope to get one or two of these campaigns started in the fall.

Here is the list as it currently stands, in no particular order.

• The Great Pendragon Campaign (Pendragon)
• Pirates of Drinax (Traveller)
• Masks of Nyarlathotep (Call of Cthulhu)
• The Enemy Within (Warhammer Fantasy)
• Shadows of Atlantis (Achtung! Cthulhu*)
• Realm of Shadows (Call of Cthulhu)
• Strange Aeons (Pathfinder)
• Tales of the Two-Headed Serpent (Pulp Call of Cthulhu)
• War for the Crown (Pathfinder)
• The Crimson Throne (Pathfinder)
• Council of Thieves (Pathfinder)
• Carrion Crown (Pathfinder)
• Blood Lords (Pathfinder, Second Edition)
• Horror on the Orient Express (Call of Cthulhu)

Note: The lack of Dungeons and Dragons campaigns may be due to burnout (in the last five years, I have run most of the WoTC campaigns and several third-party campaigns, including ones by AAW, Goodman Games, Kobold Press, and Modiphius). Or it may be because those games are pretty easy to fill.