Setting the Stage, Campaigns for D&D and Other RPGs

This marks the first of a couple episodes where I got the chance to interview different people/groups nominated for one of the 2024 CRIT Awards.Kevin tells us about his campaign and actual play podcast, Wing Women. The campaign uses the Powered by the Apocalypse Night Witches rules system developed by Jason Morningstar of Bully Pulpit Games. Night Witches is inspired by the WW2 Russian 588th Night Bomber Regiment, a group of bomber pilots made up entirely of women. The bombers earned the nickname, Night Witches, due to the sweeping sound of their planes as they dropped bombs on the Germans at night. Kevin's game follows a fictionalized version of the Night Witches, starting with a crew just out of training and following their exploits at camp and in the sky. The game explores many themes of oppression, sexuality, and gender expression in the totalitarian and hierarchical structure of the wartime Soviet Union.The Wing Women podcast is available on all major podcast apps. You can learn more about the Wing Women at all their links here (especially the Instagram page!): https://linktr.ee/wingwomenpodThe Night Witches game is available from Bully Pulpit Games. The print versions are out of stock at the moment, but the digital version is always in stock: https://bullypulpitgames.com/products/night-witchesOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Jeph started playing D&D in school with a group of friends as most typically do. They played a couple different small campaigns, swapping between different DMs. One constant in their group was "Big Campaign," the world that Jeph ran that everyone always came back. Jeph has run Big Campaign for at least seven major campaigns and now hosts a podcast that covers the continuing adventures within the world. Heroes have defeated liches, dragons, robots, and worse as the campaign's lore continues to increase. Each campaign is separated in time from the others allowing large technological leaps to happen between campaigns. PCs started off with swords and shields but now have access to cybernetics, guns, and a plane of information that stands in for the Internet.The current challenge for Big Campaign is that the Elemental Planes of Fire and Earth are locked away from the rest of the world. Fire and earth magic no longer work and water and air have become too powerful. The world is out of balance and someone must restore it before the world's oceans consume the land. Meanwhile modern corporations, militarized borders, and religious fanatics stand in the way of progress.You can learn more and listen to Big Campaign at https://www.bigcampaign.com/ or you can join Big Campaign's Discord server at https://discord.gg/kn8XbxqQ4nDuring the episode I mentioned a nature "documentary" on dragons. It's titled The Last Dragon or Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real and you can check it out on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYY5ksNCjCYOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Gallo tells us about his D&D campaign that was designed for a girlfriend's teenage daughter. Her one request, "I want Bob Ross to be in it." Gallo ran with the idea and created a world where Bob Ross's evil alter ego, Rob Boss, is the villain. He used his paint brush to create a painted forest full of painted monsters. The physics and tone of the world are heavily inspired by Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Cool World. The monsters are two-dimensional cartoons making battle positioning key to their defeat. Eventually the PCs succeeded and broke the paint brush of Rob Boss, freeing the world from his evil spell.Also a prescient commentary on DnD Beyond Licensing in the later half of the episode. We were discussing the OGL debacle, but Wizards of the Coast recently went for round 2.Today's thumbnail was made by JP Ahonen for his comic, Belzebubs. Check it out at his website: https://jpahonen.com/belzebubsOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Adam is the main DM for the Majestic Goose Network, a collection of actual play podcasts that grew out of Adam's home games with his family. The network started with One Shot Onslaught, a series of one shot D&D adventures from DM's Guild. It grew from there to around a dozen shows on various TTRPG topics. This episode focuses on Adam's homebrew campaign dubbed Halfway to Heroes. The campaign was conceived of as a subversion of the typical "kids in school" story for young adults by instead focusing on the characters' lives after school.Halfway to Heroes takes place in Modras, a world that previously saw many attacks by mindflayers. The PCs start off taking their final practical exam for graduating as the last class from Scrimore Academy, a school dedicated to training mindflayer hunters. The school is closing down as the threat of mindflayer invasion has passed. After the exam the PCs are tasked with recovering four weather controlling orbs that have gone missing from Scrimore's magical item vault. The adventures feature lots of puzzles and comedy banter alongside old-fashioned D&D combat.You can check out all the Majestic Goose podcasts on their website: https://www.majesticgoose.com/And you can talk to Adam and the rest of the cast on the Majestic Goose Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/BQyEbaSAdam talked about a world creating game he'd used for his second Halfway to Heroes campaign called The Quiet Year. You can check it out here: https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-yearI mentioned a similar game called Dawn of Worlds. You can check out the PDF for that game for free from the creator's website here: http://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdfAnd of course a link to Nathan's Kickstarter for The Amethyst Dragon's Hoard of Everything - a 5e Supplement: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theamethystdragon/the-amethyst-dragons-hoard-of-everything-a-5e-supplementOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Edric tells us about his campaign that takes place during the American Revolutionary War where all myths and folktales are real. Magic exists but spellcasters must keep their powers a secret or be burned as a witch. Eldritch horrors and evil spirits threaten North America while historical events proceed along a parallel path to our own reality.Edric modeled the campaign events around the PCs' backstories and goals. They chose to be people of the frontier and American natives, initially fighting for independence from the British and the Colonists. As play proceeded the players caused the Great New Orleans Fire by unleashing the Raven trickster demon, stole treasure from Spanish galleons, and started a slave revolt. Along the way the PCs interact with numerous historical figures including Joseph Brant, Cornplanter, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Handsome Lake, John Sullivan, John Brown, and Bernardo de Gálvez.Our website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Josh tells us about his world, The Collide. Josh is a new DM and player, providing a unique perspective on what D&D is like from that fresh point of view.The Collide is a combination of two worlds that smashed together in a cataclysmic event several hundred years ago. Collide is single continent split in half by a large mountain range. The western half is the original half with green plants. The original eastern half was replaced during the collision event with land from a world with red plants. The western half has been ruled by an immortal king since the cataclysm. The eastern half has a null-magic desert in the south inspired by the Bang! card game. Guns are used as magical weapon replacements and cowboys roam.Outside of the Collide's reality, gods are at war to control the surface of Collide. This conflict is bubbling up into a threat to redo the apocalypse. Alongside the initial phases of this disaster a series of time travelers are wrecking havoc and the PCs of Josh's campaign have to stop it.Josh has also been cataloging his experiences as a newbie DM on his own podcast called Crash Course DM: https://www.anythingyoucando.co/crash-course-dmDuring the interview we also discussed a couple games that you might be interested in.Bang! - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang!_(card_game)Cash And Guns - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/155362/ca-dollar-h-n-guns-second-editionTimeWatch - https://pelgranepress.com/product-category/gumshoe/timewatch/Honor of the Samurai - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/607/honor-of-the-samuraiOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Maura tells us about her campaign, Her Dark Ministrations, which uses the Spire rules and setting made by Rowan, Rook and Decard. Maura's campaign and version of Spire follow the base setting pretty closely. From the game's website, "Spire is a roleplaying game about desperate revolutionary dark elves caught up in a secret war against the high elves, or aelfir, who rule the towering city of Spire. The world of Spire is a brutal one, and players can expect to see their characters suffer at the hands of their oppressors, or their rivals; bodily harm, psychological scarring and reprisals against their allies are commonplace. But for those willing to do what it takes, Spire is on the brink of full-scale rebellion, and you are poised to push it over the edge."Maura provides some important twists to this though. Her campaign has been running much longer than most other campaigns, already being double the length of the expected 12 session maximum. Additionally, Maura has a fascinating conception of the deities and their motivations and interactions with the Spire world and the Spire city itself where the campaign's action takes place.If you'd like to listen to Maura's play campaign you can check out Her Dark Ministrations at https://www.herdarkministrations.com/If you'd like to learn more about Spire and maybe play it for yourself you can check it out here: https://rowanrookanddecard.com/spire-rpg/There's some quick start rules you can get started with and if you like it, buy the whole book for lots more! https://rowanrookanddecard.com/product/spire-quickstart/Our website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

Corey tells us about his campaign called Tales of the Undead which takes place in the island country of Equalia.This episode starts off with a reference to a video about Equalia that Corey uploaded to YouTube. For the full experience you can watch that video at this link: https://youtu.be/qFsqInICbAo?si=Vm9B5UVVjoJJm3gaEqualia was once ruled by an oppressive human regime. In the last few years a civil war placed the benevolent King Sekai on the throne. She has worked tirelessly to mend the discontent brought by the former regime. Sadly the elves of Equalia left during the years of tyranny long ago. It is rare to see one in the country nowadays. Currently King Sekai is contending with bearfolk viking raids into her land.In the Tales of the Undead campaign the PCs wake up dead. They have been brought back to life not by an evil necromancer but rather a kind-hearted one. The dark elf Lord Zeken gives the party the news they died and have been brought back for one year of life. If they work for him for one year, he will restore the rest of their lifespan. Those who take his deal join the Volition of Vivification guild to go on errands for Zeken and his patron, King Sekai.If Corey's world and/or DM style intrigued you, he is a full-time professional DM. You can check out his campaigns at https://startplaying.games/gm/dungeonhusbandOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C

James tells us about Quelmar which is not just a campaign world but also a charity organization! Quelmar was created by James for his D&D games in college. Many more players joined the campaign swelling it in size and complexity as more and more PC backstories populated the lore of the world. James took the idea and ran with it, expanding Quelmar into a West-Marches style game with multiple DMs and campaigns happening simultaneously across the world. Quelmar currently has fourteen active campaigns playing. The in-world history of Quelmar is described with broad strokes from creation, into the high fantasy era, beyond into modern and cyberpunk eras, and even further into the apocalypse and the end of the world.The Quelmar charity organization has conventions every year, lends out books and gaming materials, and hosts outreach events to bring RPGs and a sense of community to various places where Quelmar members are based.James has taken a backseat for the Quelmar organization at this point. He still occasionally DMs within the world. James's current campaign is dubbed "Just the Q of Us" which is an anthology campaign. Each session focuses on two different PCs from different Quelmar campaigns. James reads through past campaigns and identifies two characters that might've crossed paths at one point and then designs a one-shot adventure for those two PCs. The sessions are broadcast on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/thequelmarrealm and the archives are available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmeY9m-DhVYx7dXDtsCQBKpladhB8hADaQuelmar has a few of its own web links you should check outThe Quelmar Wiki: https://quelmarwiki.com/wiki/Quelmar_WikiaThe Quelmar Organization's official webpage: https://quelmar.webflow.io/And Quelmar's Discord server: https://discord.gg/9FZ4EJjOur website: https://gocorral.com/stsWant to be on the show? Fill out this survey: https://forms.gle/U11TbxtAReHFKbiVAJoin our Discord: https://discord.gg/Nngc2pQV6C