I'm trying to build this as a quick oneshot to try out DC20. Mostly just looking to test it out but their default campaign is soooo cheesy.

For those unfamiliar, The King Dressed in Yellow is a play, and anyone who reads the script for this play goes mad. So the idea is that people who went mad reading the script are trying to perform the play to summon the King Dressed in Yellow. (which would be bad)

I have a rough outline of

• quick skirmish at the start in the guardhouse (the fantasy equivalent of the DMV)
• leading the adventurers to where the cultists are having tryouts for roles in the play (small "dungeon"), where they find some prisoners being forced to become actors
• leading to a final boss fight that I want to have on stage during the play to a whole audience of enthralled patrons about to be sacrificed to the King Dressed in Yellow

Mostly I'm looking for ideas for theater cultists, and the boss fight. I don't want them to fight the King Dressed in Yellow, (it's a level 1 oneshot) but I was thinking about some ways to make the fight interesting and most importantly stop the play so he isn't summoned.

I was kinda thinking they walk in from stage right and a big fake foyer is on stage while the King Dressed in Yellow is trying to enter the world. I figure there will be some baddies, three of them holding props, and after every round of combat after everybody had their turn. The King Dressed in Yellow knocks on the fake front door from another plane of existence and the right prop holder has to say the right line and then the script continues. Three correct line deliveries and the adventurers lose, The King Dressed in Yellow enters the world and causes havoc. So they have to kill/steal from/silence the correct actors and stall the play while the fight is going on.

any ideas/questions would be welcome.

This is fortuitous, session zero for "my" new campaign is next week, and the format is a bit wonky so any guidance or advice from anyone who's tried to do similar would be helpful.

4-5 person table, we're starting a GURPS 4e magic campaign. Fantasy setting, think like Hogwarts but community college. This isn't super important, but gives some context for the format.

Here's the wonky part:

I want to rotate GM every session. My plan is for each player to build a student who will be their PC, and also create a professor who will be their main "quest giver" when they're the GM. The idea is that each session will be a different class period taught by one of the professors, GMed by that corresponding player.

They give an assignment which is basically a one shot: "Get the imps in the walls out", "Get to the top of that mountain and back in 3 hours", "Find the center of this maze", "Kill this spectral dragon", "Find the herbs to make this potion", that kind of thing. Or they can string all their sessions together into a mini arc, whatever's clever.

The other players will be students in the class for this session; the GM's student character either took this class already, doesn't need it, or can be a TA NPC for that session. We'll cycle through everyone a few times, and maybe collaborate for a "Triwizard Cup" sort of finale.

For several players, this will be their first time GMing. I think this format could prove to be an excellent way to let players dip their toe into the GM space: they get 3 or 4 sessions to plan, they're exposed to multiple other session ideas inside the setting, they still get to play most of the time.

I think the school setting in particular is well suited to this format, though I'm a bit on the fence about TA NPCs; I don't want to encourage bad habits.

What do you think, does it have legs or is this doomed to failure? Is it already a thing, and I'm just not familiar with the term?

So I've just started a game of Wildsea (green apocalypse happens and now everyone lives on top of a sea of trees and sales in chainsaw ships).

I'm running my players through the intro module to search for a library ship then going to let them have at the world.

Probably going to give them a few options for direction: Foxloft - where every ecological niche is filled with foxes. Dragons Reach - as above but with plant dragons and lots of lizards. (Got the field guide to floral dragons and it just fits so well with Wildsea). The Gau (mushroom people) lands.

Wildsea is very player driven so I'm not sure what my players are going to be interested in yet as we're only 1 session into this game, they have picked a ship for exploring though so probably plenty of travel.

Anyone else run Wildsea? Any favourite locations or themes to include in an exploration game?

My ongoing work on this world is basically the reason I created this community. Feel free to give feedback, both positive and negative. I honestly have no clue if this is interesting to anyone but me.

I plan on creating a conlang for this world, following Jesse Peterson's amazing guide but I'm not done by far, so most names in this post are placeholders in either English or the proto-version of the language.

Premise

The Immaruk are river valley civilization similar to real world ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. According to their legends, they descend from two tribes that were both led by their respective deity to the fertile lands along the great river. Shuramud is the god of the sun, daylight, sky and growth but also desert heat, merciless passage of time and eventual death of all living things. Iwaspat is Shuramud's exact opposite, representing the night, darkness, nothingness (this world has no moon) but also soothing coldness, stability and the ground.

The Immaruk's culture is centered around the duality of these two deities. All things in life are attributed to one of the two but there is an understanding that a balance between them is needed for life to prosper: for example, grain needs both Iwaspat's fertile soil and Shuramud's light to grow. Of course, this balance is not always perfect but over time, it evens out. Every morning Shuramud's sun rises and gives life to the world and every evening Iwaspat banishes it behind the horizon, providing much needed refreshment and calming down the bustle of the day.

But now, after centuries of this constant meandering, the world has gotten out of balance. First, there was a long period of constant daylight and after Iwaspat's priests managed to depose the leader Shuramud's followers, it has in turn been cast into a seemingly eternal night. Nobody knows exactly how long it's gone on as timekeeping mainly relies on the passage of the sun but it feels like months or even years now.

More to come

Translating all my notes from German and turning them into a post that makes sense takes a while so I'll probably add comments for individual topics and link them here.

• Campaign outline