Gaming Seasons

So here's the plan for the next few months. I like the idea of running campaigns in "seasons", treating each session like an episode. Especially like a BBC or Amazon mini-series with 8-12 episodes. This alternating format allows me enough time to create and run big story arcs, and still lets me switch it up and maintain variety. Just swapping every session breaks momentum and spreads my energy in too many different directions. It is better to run seasons instead. 

Alt-Onin will run for four or five more sessions, playing out the scenarios that I have already written or am currently working on. The group will make it to Kyoto, and get established in the city. That's probably four or five sessions. After that, it will go on hiatus for a while, and I will run the next big arc of Traveller again (I haven't even started writing it yet). After we finish that one, we will start "Season 2" of Alt-Onin. This next Japan story arc will focus on the actual first year of the Onin War (1467-68). I have other, longer-term plans for the campaign (including Mongols, piracy on the Inland Sea, and so on) but nothing fleshed out yet. For the record I'm not tired of Alt-Onin at all, just like I was never tired of Traveller at all. I just had a "yen" to tell a Japan story for a while. Now I'm feeling ready to head back out into space soon. 

When I start planning Traveller Season 2 for real, I will probably hit the group up with long annoying questions about what aspects interest each player the most. I would like very much to explore some PC back-stories. Most of the PC's have interesting entanglements in their past that lend to storytelling, despite the enormous size of the Traveller setting. The most likely starting point for Season 2 will be a few months later, starting at your icy base in the 985-373 system. There are a number of storylines to expand on from Traveller Season 1, and I'll focus my energies on the parts you find most interesting.

That's all for now.