This is a listing of campaigns being pitched on Sunday, 27 September 2020. Evening pitches will take place at 6 pm on the Geas Discord server. These games will take place on Sundays at the same time slot every week.
To sign up to a game, please join the Geas Discord at https://geas.org.uk/discord
The post here is for information only, and sign-ups for games will happen on Discord after the GMs have pitched their games live.
(1) The Good, The Bad, and the Players
System: Deadlands: the Weird West
GM: Craig Barnes
Description: Saddle up cowpokes and get ready for and adventure spanning across the Weird West. There critters that’ll bite your arm off, bandits that’ll rob ya blind and vast stretches of wilderness that don’t take kindly to strangers.
And if that wasn’t enough there’s talk of all sorts of strange happenings that defy science herself. Superstitious folks claim that a dark magic is growing in the frontier. But you don’t believe that. Do you partner?
Deadlands is a game of dark magic and mad steampunk inspired science. You can play poker with demons for magical powers, build shrink rays and cryo bombs, or just get real good with your shooting iron.
This will be a relativity open ended game with lots of action and some light horror themes.
Format: Webcams Aren’t Required
Spaces: 6
Age Rating: 15
Content Advisories: There’s some light horror but any specific fears can be avoided easily if you let me know at the water of the campaign. The setting has a lot of things built in to allow characters of any gender or race to play without discrimination despite the time period.
(2) The Great Beyond
System: Starfinder
GM: James Marsh
Description: You and your party members will venture through the universe of Starfinder, a unique setting which combines fantasy magic with futuristic sci-fi technology.
This adventure will see the players begin in the heart of civilization and, after finding their footing, venture onward in their Starship to the unexplored reaches of the universe. Discover new worlds, make first contact with alien cultures, and expand the borders of the known. Throughout the game there will be a balanced split of roleplay and combat, allowing different types of players and characters to feel accommodated.
Those who enjoy systems like DnD and Pathfinder will find themselves right at home playing Starfinder from a mechanical perspective. The game will be played on ForgeVTT, which has support for features like animated battlemaps and hotbars for attacks and abilities to help players to get fully immersed in the game world whilst playing online.
Format: Voice, with optional video. ForgeVTT for running the game.
Spaces: 5
Age Rating: 15
Content Advisories: Themes of possible concern are: graphic violence, drugs, insanity.
(3) Legacy
System: Exodus
GM: Alexander Kiker
Description: You are members of a small group of adventurers, about a dozen or so companions who have known each other for years and been on many adventures together. A recent mission to an abandoned tower provided you with more questions than answers, so you have decided to pursue the leads discovered in ancient journals in the hopes of finding more knowledge, and perhaps more treasure.
The game will be in a fantasy setting, with themes of exploration and discovery, companionship and family, and a strong focus on collaborative storytelling.
Format: Voice and Video
Spaces: 3
Age Rating: PG
Content Advisories: The game may touch on the meaning of life and inevitability of death, and slavery exists within the fantasy world.
(4) Neon Lords of Rust City
System: Cyberpunk 2020
GM: Milo van Mesdag
Description: As new arrivals in Rust City, you are plunged straight into the heart of a roiling mass of factions, politics and schemes. This will be an open-world game, the story will be completely up to you and how you react to the complex, morally grey streets of Rust City. It will also be a very combat-light game: getting your gun out should always be the last resort (unless you really like making new characters).
Also, while I am using the Cyberpunk 2020 system, I don’t like it (and don’t like rule-heavy systems in general) so I’ll probably end up playing a bit fast and loose with it. I focus on story and character, rather than mechanics.
Format: Video, and I may be using Roll20 occasionally.
Spaces: 7
Age Rating: 18
Content Advisories: This will mostly depend on the players, but classic cyberpunk themes of sex, drugs and body modification will be unavoidable.
(5) Not Far to Bermuda
System: Homebrew (rules light)
GM: Morgan Kane
Description: Welcome to the Wanderlust! This top-of-the-line luxury cruise ship takes passengers on an all-inclusive three-weeks round trip to beautiful Bermuda and back, even passing through the infamous triangle on the way! As members of the Wanderlust’s hospitality staff, it’s up to you to ensure that every passenger stays happy, healthy, and relaxed on their journey.
Captain Ward says you’re only a few hours away from port now. But, then again, he’s been saying that for the past 294 days, and at this point everything, and everyone, is starting to go a little strange. Tensions between the passengers’ cliques are bubbling, food supplies are dwindling, and worst of all, the last bottle of SPF 50 is empty. But if you can hold it together just a little while longer, everything’ll be okay. After all, it’s not far to Bermuda.
Format: Video encouraged, voice-only is also available. Google sheets for character sheets and ship manifest. Discord bot for dice rolls.
Spaces: 3 to 5
Age Rating: 12
Content Advisories: Hopelessness, thalassophobia, isolation, unreality, petty squabbles, cult-adjacent activity, murder, body horror/transformation, drowning, starvation. And whatever else you mad lot want to throw at me. Any types of content can be vetoed (though if you’re afraid of the open water, maybe give this one a pass), just let me know ahead of time so I can work around it.
(6) Star Wars: Rebel Comrades
System: Comrades: a Revolutionary RPG
GM: Vivek Santayana
Description:
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
There is hope in dark times. Even though the EMPIRE reigns supreme, there are pockets or resistance scattered across the GALAXY. Rumours abound of an emerging REBELLION against the tyranny of the regime.
To the surprise of literally nobody, Vivek the GM will be running a Star Wars game using COMRADES, a system about Marxist revolutions. Players will play members of an underground REBEL CELL who start the fight against the Empire, building the Rebellion from the ground up using whatever means necessary. The game will be set long before the events of A NEW HOPE, and presumes no prior knowledge of STAR WARS LORE. It can take between 3 to 5 players.
The tone will be that of the STAR WARS: REBELS TV show. It will contain themes of fascism and discrimination, as well as sci-fi action and violence, although abstracted into the space fantasy of the Star Wars setting. This is a Powered by the Apocalypse game, so it’s rules light and story focussed. Session Zero actually involves writing a manifesto.
Format: Zoom voice and video. Discord to roll dice.
Spaces: 3 to 5
Age Rating: 15
Content Advisories: There will be themes of fascism and discrimination, although abstracted into the space fantasy Star Wars setting. There will also be sci-fi violence.
(7) Stormveil
System: DWN (Homebrewed Narrative Limited Dice)
GM: Matthew Barrowcliffe
Description: The city of Stormveil and its golden spires lies on the edge of the kingdoms against the Storm Veil desert. It guards the high mountains and is accessible only by narrow paths, the great cable cars, or by zeppelins. Here in the shining spires and the built up town around them a cosmopolitan people live, many refugees and many cultures all crammed into the winding streets that surround the spires of Stormveil castle. Beyond the Storm Veil desert lie the ever changing forces of the abyss, the swirling pools of chaos, the secrets of infinite knowledge, and the demonically charged enemies of order. Stormveil holds the line, guarding the kingdoms with its cannons, and wards, and people.
Format: Personal Discord – Backup Webex – Vision and Sound
Spaces: 3 to 5
Age Rating: 15
Content Advisories: Survival, Mystery, Discovery.
(8) A Tale of Heroes
System: Homebrew
GM: Alan Jackson
Description: Once upon a time, it was a fantasy land of storybook grandeur. Ruled by the Good King and the Wise Queen, with heroes like the Old Sage and Bold Knight supporting. Against them stood the Dark Lord, the Sinister Sorceress and so on. Famous roles, of grand stories.
Now, they are gone.
The power of story has shattered, scattered over hundreds of candidates. People with touches of story, possibilities for greatness.
You are some of them. What will you do with this potential?
Your group has chosen to be the heroes of a community. It’s fate is your fate. How will the story of them, and thus you grow.
Format: Zooooooooooooom. Video
Spaces: 3 to 4
Age Rating: 15
Content Advisories: Violence. Consequential Moral choices
(9) Vampire: The Masquerade – Nobody’s Home
System: Vampire: the Masquerade 5e
GM: Craig Oxbrow
Description: Vampire: The Masquerade is a game of modern horror, set in a world that looks like our own but where monsters hide in the shadows. Knowledge of the setting and system is not required, the system is straightforward and the setting is full of secrets.
Your characters are new to the night in a city where a new vampire ‘Prince’ has seized power, leaving the Damned fighting amongst themselves. The oldest cling to their power, the youngest fight for their survival.
Can the prince hold the throne? Or can you tear it down?
Format: Voice or video, with GEAS dice bot or rolling at home
Spaces: 4 to 6
Age Rating: 15
Content Advisories: Blood, violence, horror
(0) Witches
System: Homebrew dice pool (Witches)
GM: Angus Barker
Description: The Marshes are a strange place. Ever shifting and saturated with magic, they are a place where the lines between the living and the dead are blurred; home to all manner of spectres, dark spirits and little nameless gods. And to you, of course.
You are a group of witches, folk magicians and other assorted practitioners of magic who make your homes in the clustered little communities that litter the Marshes. For the past few years you have found yourselves caught up, willingly or otherwise, in an insurgency against the forces that would seek to subjugate this place. The rulers of the City would see the Marshes and its people subdued or simply wiped away. What stands in the way of the end of your way of life are a few scattered and disorganised bands of guerilla fighters of questionable competence. That’s you. Good luck.
Format: Discord video call and online dice roller or rolling at home
Spaces: 5
Age Rating: 15
Content Advisories: Mild horror, violence, some state brutality. Some of the more grizzly aspects of magic such as haruspicy, blood magic, animal sacrifice and necromancy, though I’m happy to be as vague about the details as is necessary for people to feel comfortable.
(A) The Yellow King: Paris
System: Yellow King RPG (Gumshoe)
GM: Angus Balkham
Description: Bohemian art students investigate the absinthe-soaked demimonde of 1890s Paris as the reality-warping effects of a decadent new play spread through the city. Inspired by Chambers’ collection of short stories, this game of reality horror is rules-light and setting-rich, focussing on investigating bizarre and sometimes grizzly matters in the shadows of the city of lights.
Although player characters can succumb to horrific fates, gore and other unpleasantness will generally occur off-screen.
Players new to RPGs are very welcome.
Format: Video, Discord only
Spaces: 5
Age Rating: 18
Content Advisories: Advisories: Horror; occultism; mental disorders; drug use; sex work.