Egyptian Campaign Plans Part II

 First off, I need to check out Akhamet because it sounds interesting and is for 5E; I had no idea it existed. I will be honest, I only tend to focus on books with POD options at Drivethruprg.com and filter PDF-only products entirely. I suspect that Onebookshelf's clientele fall into two categories, one being the group I am in (likes a print copy) and the other being very adjusted to using PDFs. I use PDFs, but I find them better for utility and look-up, but terrible for reading enjoyment.

Anyway, I have narrowed down the plan a bit: first, I investigated the Cypher System Historical Genre section, all four pages of it, and realized that it might not be bad for a one-off or something that could be fun for a short period, but as my instincts suggested, a long term campaign would be better suited with a system that had more granularity to make ordinary heroes interesting. 

After ruling out Open Quest 3 only because of a lack of Roll20 support, I did notice that BRP itself has options in Roll20. But....knowing my group, the best option here would be to turn on the historical options for Call of Cthulhu 7th edition and go with that. This may still be the best option, but my initial idea of doing GURPS but with an intro campaign using pregens has likely won out. 

The motivation for GURPS Egypt with pregens is pretty basic: it lets me as GM work out a range of likely and interesting characters for the players to choose from, and I could still let them customize within that framework/template if desired. It may help the players if they are unsure of what to make, or how to make it. 

I used to play GURPS near constantly in the 90's. It was, by 3rd edition, the go-to system for all of my non D&D and non Cyberpunk gaming. I ran Call of Cthulhu mostly through 3rd edition, but only ran a few short games of CoC 4th edition....but I ran a ton of Cthulhu Mythos campaigns using GURPS. My time with GURPS was unshaken, even when GURPS 4th Edition came out, which had a more procedural and organized feel to it despite being perhaps less organic and measured in its opening doses. For example, in 3rd edition core it was still feasible to use a random roller option to get a quick character going, but not so with GURPS 4E. Luckily, when the baseline is "realistic historical" I can still hand a new player GURPS Lite and advise them to stick to that until they are ready to graduate to the Characters book. Whether or not GURPS Characters will entice or intimidate depends entirely upon how efficiently the player assimilates the book's organizational structure and how afraid they are of some point buy math. Most players, once they realize how insanely flexible GURPS is by design, and how much it supports design options which have weight that are not all about combat (and also how much it can support combat stuff if you so desire) really dig in to it....it's just that first shocking moment of realizing you need to really think about char gen for a bit first that is tough, followed by the risk of decision paralysis. GURPS Lite is a really efficient tool for overcoming those initial issues.

Once we have had an initial exploratory campaign with pregens (tentatively I have some ideas for a generational campaign that picks up a plot that stretches over multiple dynasties and eras), then we can proceed with more freedom in character design and see how it goes. Or, worst case, the opening test scenario and pregens are as far as we get and then we move on. Who knows!

My plan right now is to start with the 1st Dynasty of an upper and lower Nile united under Narmer, an ancient Khemit in which Khanaan is a client state, and there are the groundwork of tales that will in later centuries be mythologized as the adventures of a man named Menes, who might historically be either Narmer or his son, but who in the fictionalized Egypt could very well be a cipher for the deeds of the PCs themselves. More details to come!