"Never say die!"

Edwin Voskamp and Role Playing Games (RPGs)

Introduction

I rolled into Role Playing Games from the wargaming side. We got into more and more detailed games and games like SSI's Battle for North Africa started to detailedly model the effects of individuals like Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. From there, especially going back through the ages, we got into smaller and smaller units with more pronounced individual effects and finally into a campaign in a fantasy setting where the individuals played individually. This evolved into playing with the Chainmail addenda, then Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), Advanced Dungenons & Dragons (AD&D) and later its second edition (AD&D2).

I currently play only a few Role Playing Game systems, though I play one-offs, usually on one or another Ambercon, but here are my mainstays:

• Amber, a Diceless Role Playing Game, written by Erick Wujcik, based upon the same named series of fantasy books by Roger Zelazny.
• Underworld, a Diceless Role Playing Game, that I helped develop. It's test games have played like a cross between La Femme Nikita, The X-Files and The A-Team. It's hugely fun and a joy to GM.
• Modern d20; I've just gotten started on playing a Modern d20 campaign, run by Ben Ekdahl.

See you in character!

What's New

I am running my new games at some conventions, most notable an Underworld Classic series of games, set in World War II, initially in occupied Europe.

And of course my other grand adventure setting: Grand Design. It even has its own website. The Website is written straight: there is no indication this is a game.

I have been working on a Role Playing Game set on Tekumel for Guardians of Order: it was published a few weeks ago and is out. I worked on game mechanics, especially the combat system, and on vetting the systems statistically and through simulations, designed and wrote the magic system and managed it through completion, illustrations, and author approval, amongst others editing it more times than I will ever admit.

My Serial Campaign Concept

My concept of a serial campaign grew out of my dissatisfaction with how campaigns were run at once-a-year conventions, especially AmberCon US. They typically did not allow new players, or ground to a halt when not sufficient players showed up, or parts of the game disappeared when players with the crucial information or resources did not play that year.

I designed a way of running campaigns that takes the good parts of a campaign (player involvement, longer range planning, and character development), but avoids the problems. In part, it is based on talks by and discussions with J. Michael Stryczinski, the creator of Babylon 5, the TV-series.

In my serial campaigns, the campaign background is written large, and the player characters work for a large organization, and each individual game session is built around a well-defined mission, that the player characters are "selected for" by the organization.

In the background there are ideally reasons for why these player characters were selected, though the player characters and players don't know this. The sessions are combined in mini-arcs, dealing with a major problem, opponent or development, taking anywhere from two to five sessions. These mini-arcs are not necessarily contiguous and each individual session deals with anywhere from two to five mini-arcs. The mini-arcs combine into the overarching campaign arc.

The advantages of this setup are enormous: players can play in individual games, once, non-continuously or continuously: the setting progresses with or without individual player characters, but the actions of player characters are reflected.

So, how well does the Serial Campaign Concept work? In the case of my Underworld "Main Line" Campaign, it has been run for well over 50 sessions, run over the course of 10 1/2 years at six conventions, with over 100 players, playing over 120 characters. Of these, over 40 have played more than once, and as many as 25 sessions, and are active players that play where they can.