Big Bad Evil Guy

The Dungeons and Dragons campaign has come to a halt at long last. The players managed to finish the campaign, albeit with a C- grade in heroism. The BBEG was killed via a single sneak attack coup de grace!

Having played out a full campaign properly for the first time - I've started to think that perhaps I'm better at designing and writing settings, campaigns, adventures, and NPCs than I am at portraying them. I don't feel like there was enough dramatic tension in the game, as if the players had to be reminded every now and then why they were doing what they were doing.

I'd like to play as a PC rather than a GM at some point. To see things from the other perspective. I should think this weekend would be a good time to visit Phantasia in Eastbourne to see if there are any "Players wanted" ads.

I'm also thinking that Dungeons and Dragons might not be the system for me as a DM. Sure it's a system that I almost know backwards but it is broken and there are elements of it which force you to conform to the type of fantasy world in which heroes are everywhere and half of the world's economy depends on the trade of magical items and a constant supply of ancient gold coins dug up from trapped chests in monster-filled dungeons.

I'm planning on doing a very short (i.e. single session) d20 modern bank robbery adventure soon. I just need to map it out and re-familiarise myself with the differences between D&D and d20 modern. Instead of just playing one character, the players will first play as the bank robbers dealing with hostages, cracking the safe, shooting it out with the police, escaping, etc. but if a player's character happens to perish then I'll just put that player in charge of another bank robber (if there are enough NPC bank robbers left) or the law enforcements chasing them. That way the game sort of becomes a players vs. players vs. NPCs chaos. The game will probably end with the bank robbers' escape vehicle careening off a motorway or pier... that or some kind of explosion.

I had the outline of a d20 modern campaign written up but I'm not sure if I want to delve into another campaign quite so soon. And there's always WFRP and Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium, not d20) to try before I want to get back to D&D as a DM. Plus Nick has both a GURPS and a Cyberpunk sourcebook. I might like to try a Star Wars campaign too, but I don't think any of my future campaigns are going to be very long. In other words - as long as my previous campaign. Perhaps it was because we played every fortnight rather than every week, but I think we lost sight of the end goal many times thanks to the length of the game.

Speaking of BBEGs, I'm still playing Overlord. The game is enjoyable so far if not for the lack of a minimap! The environments are huge and twisting but there is no map function that I can find. I read that Overlord: Raising Hell on the PS3 has a minimap function so I was hoping that there was a way to get a minimap for the PC version. No such luck so far. What I think the game could do with right now is a raiding mode of some sort in which the player can set his minions about raiding a village or town (for gold and life force) while the Overlord holds off the settlement's defenders. Perhaps each wave of defenders could be tougher than the last. Alternatively the Overlord could do the pillaging and the minions could do the fighting. Once you've got all the gold/life force that you were after (or once the defenders get too tough to handle) you can skiddaddle back to your tower. Unfortunately going after gold and life force is just a matter of going back to a domain you've already conquered and setting your minions on flocks of sheep for life force, and ransacking barrels and chests in the general area for gold.

Still, the game is enjoyable. The experience is marred only by the absence of a navigation system other than remembering how you got somewhere last time you played. And I know that you have to inject comic relief into this sort of game but sometimes the game can't decide whether it's going to be serious or rediculous.