With the conclusion of our Extinction Curse campaign, we are preparing for the start of our replacement storyline. Originally, the plan was to attempt a Superhero storyline, using the Hero System RPG. That was dropped relatively recently, in favor of a more group-favored Science Fiction campaign. Thus, the Horizon campaign was spawned.
The basic concept is to use the Traveller setting and concepts, and use the Shadowrun game mechanics for the actual details. A bit of a chocolate and peanut butter combination, but I feel strongly it will work well. Shadowrun has a fairly well-developed rule system, which works well from a balance standpoint, though the settings isn’t one that the group is interested in. Traveller on the other hand has a massive collection of setting material, but at least from my experience, a very minimal game system – and one which does not include many fantasy elements.
Of course, we will be recording and sharing our sessions, and continuing to utilize Foundry for the gaming. A big change however will be the level of Foundry – rather than the full experience we use for Pathfinder and Warhammer, this time we will be going much more “theatre of the mind”. That means no combat maps primarily, and character sheets will almost certainly be physical (with actual dice). Foundry’s role is focused more on rules reference for game systems, database information to represent available character knowledge (starships, planetary systems, items, etc), and private/limited communication. I have started to create a series of landing pages with hot links to provide logical access to various parts of the information, but most interaction will be off the computer.
Necessarily, that means combat will be more subjective – instead of a detailed combat map, we are reducing it to a combat “scene” style instead – close, short, medium, and long descriptors, rather than 5, 10, or 15 meters on a map. My hope is that this will speed combat along a bit better helping with the pacing and allow for the various layers of interaction common in Shadowrun and cyberpunk style games.
Our first session is scheduled for November 4 and 5, as a short one-shot adventure with pre-generated characters. This will introduce the group to the mechanics and the world and serve as a tutorial for the system and setting. Then the campaign will kick off tentatively on November 19 with a session 0 for character generation for all players.
