As you know, I'm very interested in the setting!  ...and am really eager to see Desolation brought to life in a text based game.

Thing is, I'm so pumped about it, I've decided to run one as well.  I was very gung ho after GenCon, but a recent project has derailed me for a bit.  (*kicks* Bunty  :D )

If you're also serious about running a game, it might be really cool to do some higher level collaboration.  Perhaps have our groups interact on occasion or some such.  ...or fight to the death, whatever.  (Kidding!)

I haven't totally outlined what I want, but it will likely be small, about 4 or 5 players - so, I wasn't going to pitch it to the Desolation boards.  Cuz I figured there would be enough interest here. And I was going to do some experimenting with perspectives (and flashbacks) and such that might not have a broad appeal.  ...but if we were running two games, from different villages or whatever, we could easily do some recruiting.

I totally don't want to dissuade you from running a campaign, at all.  I just wanted to mention again that I have a project in this arena, as well, so that we can take the utmost advantage from the get go in things like recruitment and planning and such! 

Woot!

Collaboration is definitely in order.  I was throwing this idea out to see who would bite with no real idea about a start date, number of players, etc. etc.  I also need to lay my hands on a copy of Survivors but it hasn't (a) been released as PDF yet and (b) hit the shelves through the usual channels here in the UK.

Part of my inspiration for running more of a city-based Desolation game was the land cards from the Ravnica / Guildpact / Dissension Magic: The Gathering decks.  That and a long-standing fascination with cities beneath cities providing the dungeons...

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?output=spoiler&method=visual&set=[%22Ravnica:%20City%20of%20Guilds%22]&type=+[Land]

So where are you wanting to take Desolation?

Well, the meat and potatoes isn't fleshed out yet.  Matt from the Desolation boards is going to be helping me flesh out an epic level plot.  I want the players to discover something or do something that can be endorsed by the Desolation crew.  Perhaps the true reason for the cataclysm, but I don't know yet what I'll be able to squirrel out of them.

My idea is as much about using NextGen to run a game in the style of a book, as it is about the game itself.  I've always been interested in the way Desolation uses flashbacks, and think it would be very manageable over this text based medium.  ...and with the right set of players and up front planning, I think I can sell writing the story as much like a book (playing with perspectives), as we can.

Right now, what I know, is that I want the submissions to be actual pieces from the Night of Fire.  I want the readers to become invested in the characters early on, see what the characters lose, what they sacrifice, what they take, what morals they break to survive.  I'm hoping to have a full spectrum of personalities from good to morally compromised.  I want the readers to know even though the other characters do not, who falls where on the moral spectrum.

The beginning will be the Night of Fire pieces.  I want the campaign to begin only a few months after the cataclysm.  I'm toying with the idea of a representative from several villages being sent to the capital city for answers and to try to find out the extent of the devastation, as the means to get the group together.  Matt told me my original idea was fine but overdone.  :D  ...so I'm going back to the drawing board, with his help, but he really wants to see characters before marrying us to a plot. (And by 'us', he reminds me frequently, he means 'me'.  *grin*)

Once I have the players together in the same thread, we will be writing from the perception point of one character, and only seeing inside of the head of one character.  UNTIL, the scene or chapter changes, which will almost always begin with a flashback from the next character, and then the perspective will change to the new character.  I want to cycle through all of the characters, taking my time with each, discovering what's motivating them and such.

The campaign itself will be journey, questing, traveling in nature.  They might certainly stop along the way, here and there - to help or pillage, but I hope that the higher plot will keep them on the go.  I'm not looking for a city level campaign.  So it sounds like we have a pretty distinct separation in what kind of campaign we're wanting to run.  :)  Which is cool.

 I Love that idea about diffeent chaptes being fom diffeent points of view. Sounds difficult to do with multi autho input, but if you pull it off just wow.

Thanks.  I'm really excited about it, and if I keep the cast small, and go with writing partners that have a chemistry, I really think that we can pull it off.  I plan on opening the floor to input and suggestions (after casting) before we dive in, and if people know going in what the goal is, they'll be eager to put forth the effort.  ...but if someone has a better idea or heavy input on which tense/style/etc., I'll be completely open to input.  It will be a real exercise in collaboration.

...and if we fail.  :)  No big, so long as we have fun!

And at the end, we can self publish a copy for the collaborators and they can have an actual momento.

I, too, think that idea rocks.  Might have to steal it.  In fact, just consider it *yoinked* for future use.

Y'know, if we're both going to run Desolation we could run an open casting call for the 2 games and then cherry-pick the characters that would best suit the game we're each running...

And I love the idea of the self-published book.  In fact, if everything's statted up and included, it becomes a standalone campaign-sourcebook for Desolation.  That, in itself, would generate a lot of interest as one of the common complaints I've heard raised (by unimaginative GMs) is that there isn't enough detail of the world to go on.  I know that's the point, but still!

I now *need* a copy of Survivors.

Yoink away, it would be interesting to see how two GMs would approach the idea and what they would come up with. My only concern, and the concern I had when I was approaching it, was that I'm afraid it might turn off some potential players. (It might come off as more work than play.) I could be wrong!  ...but that was my number one concern, getting people interested in not only the game and setting, but in the experiment.

As far as casting, I kind of have a confession.  After GenCon this year, I was so insanely excited, that I already blabbered about to some of my buddies. Heck, I couldn't even shut up about it at GenCon.  So, I have my cast ready to go...I'm not ready to go.  I'm at the stage where I'm trying to get the players up to speed on the setting, none of them have played in it before, and figure out what I'm gonna use for the meat.

With that said, though, I still think casting for another game is totally doable, especially if we post on the Hex and Desolation boards. My recruitment was only word of mouth, and posting my initial thread a couple weeks ago about an upcoming project, so even this site, might have some interested people.  (*points at Nestor!*)  I am in absolutely no hurry to start, and yet at the same time excited to start.

It's kind of ironic that I spent a year practically begging people to run a text based  Des game, both on the Desolation boards and among some of my buddies that I knew were into the setting.  Absolutely no luck.  Now, I finally decide to make the leap, and bam - someone else is also interested.  Exciting stuff, that.

I'm not sure if the Desolation crew would be interested in our stuff for source books or not.  I'm sure that they'll appreciate our enthusiasm though, at minimum.  :) 

<sulk mode>You have your cast already.  Well that's just cheating.  Harrumph.

Well.  Maybe I *don't* want to play Desolation after all, then.  Maybe I want to desert over to Darkcast and play Eclipse Phase instead.  Go to a site with a *proper* Drupal dice roller module.  Who wrote that piece of junk we use, anyway?</sulk mode>

But anyway...  That's excellent, already having a cast.  I have the germ of a campaign idea and no cast :-(  Still, something will come of it.

Should that not be:

<Sulk mode>You have your cast already  and I am not included!  Harrumph ... Who wrote that Drupal dice roller module we use, anyway?</sulk mode> ?

Oh shush you!

*pets*

I had no idea in this whole wide world that someone else would be wanting to run a Desolation game.  And it just happened, I told a couple of people, and a couple of more people emailed me and asked to get in...  and next thing I knew, my ideal number of five had been surpassed and I'm at 6.  

...so... IF I put out a casting call...that six could turn into 12 and I'd have another Conquistadors on my hand.  And NOBODY wants that!  Not to mention, going at it from the angle that I want to, writing wise, the fewer people involved the more likely I'll have a chance at success.

Don't be mad misther.  Don't defect!  We need you around these parts.

I'm interested...

...except I'm already in 3 games and a 4th might be too much. Plus I know next to nothing about the Desolation game other than what I've read on their website.

What about morally comprised evil characters? i.e. folk that were evil but now reluctantly work with the 'good' guys in order to survive. For some reason I have a fascination with bad guys turning (sort of) good (Coren kind of fits this description). Does that not mean that one player does most of the writing for a while during which time the others just indicate what their characters will do and read along? Interesting but a little too serial, perhaps?

Absolutely.  I mean, no matter how evil your guy is, a lone wolf isn't going to be able to survive for long.  In order to survive, they will need to align themselves with a group somehow.  The VERY first story in the Desolation book, two pages long, talks of a village of really nice folks and two traders come to the border to exchange goods for food.

You're a little worried about the good villagers, hoping that the traders aren't up to no good.  One trader comes in, while the other stays outside the border to hold the weapons.  Upon seeing the goods that he has to trade, the village wants them very badly.  Very badly, the enchanted plow blade could mean the survival of their village.  But they know that they don't possess enough to trade for them.

So...the villagers kill the unarmed trader, and send thanks to the blessed mother.  I mean, good folks do bad things to survive in this setting.  ...and I think the reverse is also true.  Bad folks will have to do good things in order to survive in this setting.

No, that isn't what I have in my minds eye.  What I envision is that everyone will still post, but when they do so, they will do it from the perspective of the main character (whichever character that is at the moment).  A lot of times this happens naturally as people establish a chemistry, they'll fluidly switch from one perspective to another in a piece.  The perspective usually makes that fluid switch when someone does an internal.

What would need to be eliminated is internals from any characters that aren't the main character for that scene.  Instead, you would write for your character, but only what the main character would see or feel.

Instead of saying; Coren was angry, he couldn't believe the others would just trust the wayward traveler.

You'd write something like: Coren's cheeks were red with anger as he glared at the wayward traveler. or. Coren watched the exchange, unusually quiet.

The first would allow the others to clearly know his state, while maintaining the perspective.  While the latter, would still be enough, and help cloak the intentions, if the character was practiced enough to do so.  If he were to stalk off, that would be the end of him in that act, unless a side piece happened from his perspective, until he reentered the view of the character again.

A LOT of this stuff needs worked out, open for input from the cast members.  Someone else may have a better idea on how to handle it.  Perhaps an omniciet perspective, but for now, this should give you a general idea of how I want everyone to still post for their characters, but limit the perspective.

I know that this will be hard, but I think it can be done.  ...but whether it's more work than fun, will be the question.  It will certainly produce a more readable story, but if it's at the expense of fun, it may not be worth it.

Thought I would add my 2c here by posting a couple of extracts from the posting rules of some email games I play in.  I have to say it takes some getting used to, but combined with a strict 3rd person present tense I have to admit that it works very well.