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I've been GMing for the better part of a decade off and on through High School and college. In the past couple of years, I've only run my own homebrew d6 system and am looking to run a new game. If anyone here is an avid fan of Fear the Boot (as most of my players are), you may have heard of this ridiculous setting.

Essentially, the Confederacy won the civil war, strapped rockets to pickup trucks, and crash landed on a planet where they now ride dinosaurs.

I've had campaigns that ended up as ridiculous as that, but never one that started like that. When a game starts in a setting as absurd as this, where do you go from there?

I think it'd be really cool to use this for more than just a one-shot, but I have no idea what I would do story wise. If anyone's used it, what was your game like?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I've seen a copy of the game. The focus appears to be on the continued war. You can get a lot of campaign out of a war, either as backdrop or as the focus of the PCs' command structure in a military campaign. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 4, 2013 at 15:08
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    \$\begingroup\$ Hrm... That's a good idea. I've always personally really liked politics and war, but my players... Well, in the first campaign I ever ran, they were ensigns in Star Fleet. In the first session, they murdered the crew, took the ship, and became space pirates... \$\endgroup\$
    – Drew
    Jun 4, 2013 at 15:48
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    \$\begingroup\$ Playing murderous deserters always on the run from both sides, with rockets and dinos, sounds like a good game too. :) \$\endgroup\$ Jun 4, 2013 at 16:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ Good questions here on military campaigns: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/25092/… & rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7414/… \$\endgroup\$ Jun 4, 2013 at 16:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ I was actually trying to figure out what to search for to find exactly that. Thank you so much! \$\endgroup\$
    – Drew
    Jun 4, 2013 at 16:39

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I've only briefly seen a copy of the game at a con, and though I had the chance to flip through it I don't remember too much about its metaplot. From what I do remember, the focus of the game's situation appears to be on the continued Union-Confederate war on Dino Planet. Even if the only things you know about the setting are American Civil War + dinosaur planet + rockets on pickups, that looks like plenty of inspiring ingredients to build a campaign on. If you have access to the book, even better, but you'd be making much of it up yourself anyway to make it your own world and fill in the blanks that the (thin) main book doesn't cover. Making it all up isn't that much more bother!

You can get a lot of campaign out of a war, either as backdrop or as the focus of the PCs' command structure in a military campaign. Even if the players don't stick with the war focus, it gives a context for their actions and a source of complications and NPCs for you as GM.

A military campaign has a few things that can be stumbling blocks for players used to being sovereign forces of nature, but we have a couple of good questions here about structuring and running military campaigns.

  • Players might find that military command structure they're supposed to obey chafes; How to maximize the opportunities of roleplaying military rank in a PC group, while minimizing the limitations on the players? addresses solutions to this problem, as well as opportunities that holding a rank inside a military structure can offer as a source of challenges for a PC. Even if your players are totally on-board with taking and giving orders, it has some great advice for how to think of military structure in a way that is gameable at the table.

  • Structuring a military campaign has different challenges for the GM than a more quest-oriented or free-roaming campaign. How to handle the PCs within a large military? asks how to build a such a campaign, and the answers cover great things like how to manage large military action, how to build around a mission structure, and what parts of play are profitably abstracted away.

Even if your players decide that the military isn't for them and they desert/go rogue/frag their superiors (as you note in comments your players are wont to do), that's an interesting game right there. Playing murderous deserters always on the run from both sides, with rockets and dinos, sounds like fun and you still have all the benefits of the war in the background as a source of plot ideas, NPCs, and challenges for the PCs to deal with.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I actually /do/ have a copy of the book. I've had it for almost two years, but couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it. Thanks so much for putting this into a more comprehensive post! And you make a really good point. Having them aligned with neither side would probably make for a richer story more in line with what they're likely to want. I think I've got a game to draw up. \$\endgroup\$
    – Drew
    Jun 4, 2013 at 20:30

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