Trying to Make use of A Long-Running Gripe

Something of a cri de Coeur today. I don't generally mention my own campaign on this blog (currently RMFRP, with a bunch of outright scoundrels working hard against the good and the true!), as it's primary influence comes in the generation of content. However, the campaign - sporadic sessions as we try to coordinate across five cities and two time zones - has been weighing heavily on the mind of late. There are several considerations: with sessions seemingly ever harder to organise (everyone has busy lives, and families - and I have been the chief offender in begging off sessions, due mainly to work issues), the campaign seems to stumble and lag. Storylines are hard to maintain, and come to seem somehow pointless when averaging a few hours every 3-6 weeks. Intensity is hard to generate.

Also, RMFRP is a great system, but clunky when play is so infrequent and playing time at a premium. Consulting charts becomes a grind that distracts from the genuine guts of the story, and if someone dies...the player better have a plausible backup character ready to go...

The problem is mostly that my players are keen Rolemaster players: experimentation in the general direction of other systems, like Labyrinth Lord, Pathfinder (1e) and even the old World of Darkness game Mage seem to strike very few sparks. They also don't want to take the time to learn new systems (which is fair enough: that brings its own time costs).

I've tried to think of various ways around this problem. I probably can't - and shouldn't - expect people to just pick up a new system because I'm bored and frustrated. Even though I'd really like to switch to something quick and clean and OSR-ish, I don't see it taking place. I'm still cobbling together my own ruleset - which probably won't be called Tales of the New Kingdoms, now that Kobold Press have rechristened their 5e-ish project "Tales of the Valiant" (one does wish they'd kept the "Black Flag" moniker). Maybe Heroes of the New Kingdoms ("HoNK" for short...)?

So, system issues notwithstanding, I'm thinking of being more sandboxy - with more use of hexcrawls and possibly a megadungeon, and relying more upon tables to save prep time. Fortunately, there's an absolute galaxy of material out there to do this. I'm just not sure what the best system might be to make things progress quickly. Perhaps Rolemaster Classic? the new RMU? Lightmaster? or maybe Blood & Treasure, the game I'd most like to run. (I keep seeing recommendations for games like Old School Essentials, but, for whatever reason, it just leaves me cold). The other possibility I'm a bit more enthused about is For Gold & Glory (I seem to have knack for liking - and wanting to write content for - systems not many people play, such as B&T, or are well-supported with lots of legacy content, like PF 1e, OSRIC or FG&G, which have the whole body of work made for older editions to draw upon).

The other thing here is that Railroads (big story arcs) are a lot of work - maintaining a railroad is hard, and you're constantly tweaking events to keep things "in-story", and the reward is disproportionate for the work you put in when sessions are so infrequent - revelations lose their impact, suspense drizzles away, and you rush things that ought reasonably require more attention.

Enough gripes! Looking at ideas for a megadungeon, I'm dusting off an old idea about three imprisoned Godlings, buried in the bowels of the earth, bound by the unfathomable power of the Ward Perpetual, a shield of living crystal, fed by divine energy focused through a great crystal 'tree' whose roots sustain the Ward.

The three Bound Ones can not affect the world above, but the sheer force of their horrific natures and their desire for freedom causes a form of eldritch 'seepage' up through the earth, three columns of tainted energy pushing up in search of servants, slaves and proxies. This moral poison has now reached the deepest strata of ancient delvings, beneath the high mountain where the Ward-Tree is found...causing both an expansion and corruption of the subterranean realms found there.

At the higher levels, very little of this is apparent, but in the deeps, it is another matter. Progress is slow, however, for the Ward endures, although slowly decaying due to lack of maintenance from above and the efforts of Bound Ones below.

I envisage this base storyline as a sort of meta-plot or species of background radiation: it is there, and very influential, but at several removes, for the most part. The players could take or leave as much of the base conflict as they wish. Much (most?) of what goes on in the upper levels is not directly related at all: it would be mostly factional strife, leavened with a bit of 'imperialism' from above (servants of the Tree) and below (servants of the Bound Ones).

Comments by readers on this blog are rather infrequent, but any input people would care to give (with regard to systems or the megadungeon idea), would be appreciated.