Stinkin' out loud

After some free writing last night, I’ve begun to sift through the five settings mentioned in my last post. Here’s where I am with each:

1. American Barbarica 1950AD: Love it. Can’t get enough of it. Any alternate history in which Ronald Reagan stars in a film version of Conan of Cimmeria is a place I want to visit. On the other hand, working in this setting is ultimately playing in someone else’s sandbox. 

Verdict: revisit this one if I ever end up finding players for it.

2. Prisoners of the Red Planet: Still intriguing, though the idea is still very abstract in my head. The thought about a weird western set on Mars seems to be the part I’m most drawn to.

Verdict: keep exploring

3. Evil Creature Double Feature: The gimmick in this one might be enough to run with, but I don’t know how far it can run in the absence of actual play. It does remind me how much I love CoC though.

Verdict: file under “Cold Case”, revisit if opportunity to run CoC presents itself. Add CoC content to the blog.

4. Mystery in Space: Still into it. 

Verdict: move forward 

5. Brain Invaders: Can’t stop thinking about this one, although the idea is still very abstract and anything I did with it would probably look very different than I currently envision. I already know that Brain Invaders is the wrong name for it, and that I’m looking at something much closer to HPL’s Dreamlands. Which excites me. I also see it being able to absorb some of the themes of the other stuff on this list. 

Weirdly, Blair’s post on burnout reminded me of the campaign I ran when 4e came out. It was set in Lemuria, and took a lot of inspiration from (among other things) Clark Ashton Smith’s The Maze of Maal Dweb and the Dreamlands sourcebook for CoC. I went through the campaign notes last night and realized there’s a lot of stuff I like in there. The only reason I abandoned it was that we realized that 4e was the wrong rule set (both for the setting and for our group). 

Verdict: Keep chipping away at it until I at least figure what it looks like and out how to describe it.

Next post will have content, I promise.