Tell your players to make compelling characters for once in their lives and then have those characters interact. Give them some real life troubles. They don't HAVE to be attacked by a dragon on the way to the store they could simply not have enough change to buy eggs, which fuels an old animosity with the wife who then yells at the player and goes to spend the night at her sisters.

Tired and lonely the character goes to a bar to drown his sorrows. He gets too drunk, crashes his car and wakes up in the police drunk tank.

THEN he gets attacked by a dragon.

I assume OP wants non-adventuring modern campaign without fictional aspects. Try to avoid making it a dramafest, but you could always throw in a bit in their workplace/school

>>9352148

I lol'd

Maybe have some arch-rival who Gary Oaks them at everything they try to do? And then they murder the rival, and have to dispose of the body and hide from the law.

rolled 23 = 23

>>9352105
By 'normal' do you mean you want them to rp day-to-day life? Like tell you how their day was?

>>9352105
>how do you make interesting modern campaigns?
The secret to modern mortal campaigns is to make a party of well thought out dregs of society. Failures and shmucks with only a few redeeming qualities and nowhere to go but further down.

Then sit back and watch their lives fall apart in tragicomic ways.

Not every gaming group likes doing character portraits though so you may have to throw in a few dragons or wars or a dragon war.

>>9352308
Maybe, but I'm hoping to avoid the cliche where campaigns in a modern setting are either:
1. soldiers/cops
2. outcasts of society w/who live off the grid and go about adventuring around the world.

>>9352353

HILLBILLY: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME

Once your gaming group is able to seriously create a party of anti-social overweight nerds who play Black Dog games in their mom's basement your gaming group is ready to play an actual mortal game.

I doubt many have tried it, or theres any supplements/systems for it.

>>9352454

Be some extreme environmentalists or fundie christians. Now THAT would be a good campaign.

It has always been my wish to run a modern campaign that has several sessions in the beginning of typical slice-of-life drama-comedy. Then, things start getting weird.

Welcome to the World of Darkness.


I really love the idea of getting really into the mood of an average life, both out of game and in. Then, turn it all around. With all the experience with their characters, the players can realistically play out how their characters would react.

I assume the insanity rate would be high.

>>9352561

I like this idea.

>>9352408
Expand plz.

I can imagine a few things:
1. factory union members protesting for better conditions/against outsourcing
2. hunting
3. dealing with bikers. or if they're on the border, possible cartels

>>9352589

Well, you could focus on all aspects of country life. Farming (livestock or crops), shooting (targets, hunting, trespassers etc), crafts (whittlin', metalworkin', carpentry, moonshine etc) and more. Stay tuned for info on classes/archetypes (will probably be point-build).

>>9352561
I've always thought that would be a good way to go.

>>9352652

You would have all types of country folk: South, Midwest, Alaska, other countries (Aus, NZ, Scandinavia) who would each have various archetypes. Rugged frontier men who ran away from their troubles to start a new life killin' burs and starring on Deadliest Catch, paranoid Dixie-Flag-waving confederates who fear the encroaching powers of big gummint, Mormons with sixteen underage wives living in a bunch of trailers in the ass-end of Utah, Kansas farmers who make moonshine and crash their cars just to shake off the boredom, fundamentalist Christians in the Midwest stockpiling supplies for the end times, and many more.

The Office RPG?

So what kind of world do we live in; one where rival corporations and economic blocks compete over assets.

One where intelligence gathering is as vital as hard action.

I'm thinking corporate espionage, spy games, deniable opps (a bit more of a military bend), corporate/governmental soap opera.

Also remember Africa; you could do oil prospecting, wild west styled lawman, fixer for one asset or another.

Move it specifically to somewhere like the Congo and you're in a proper anarchist state.

Personally I'd go for a deniable opps team (basically shadopwrunners) operating out of a 2010 city of London.

>>9353028
By modern, I think OP also meant "in developed country, not shitty third world" or you'd get a post-apoc/adventuring feel

Make them part of a company?

>>9352105
Normal? Dude, if I want to pay taxes, shop for groceries and shit, I do that in my real life.

Just take any interesting parts of your life and put them in? Giving them a family could help. To allow some sandbox, they can be either in a small secluded town or a big city like NYC.

Play a prison drama. It'd be like Paranoia, but depressing instead of hilarious.

you can never go wrong with the procedual cop game. also the conseracy game is good for modern. you uncover somthing that needs to come out. hilarity ensues. also the game is a good idea for a campiegn. you have been selected for the game it will start in 24 hours. here is your objective

>>9357597
Nah doing your taxes isn't the point. It's creating an in game character profile: Exploration of a normal human's psyche during an important part of his life.

That may or may not involve doing his taxes but more likely it involves a divorce, his daughter hating him, drinking his problems away and getting fired for showing up to work drunk.

>>9358406
granted though half the fun of roleplaying is escapism and high fantasy so this approach certainly isn't for everyone.

My group is doing a small town mortal game right now and we're all dregs and failures and it's a hell of a lot of fun.

here's one for you. try the 24 method. they are in a small town on the coast and the mother of all storms hit wipping out all infrastucture. it will be 53 weeks till help comes but they don't know that. you hjave resource management. injury. polotics. and fag from other towns coming to steel what is yours. fun game

If you don't want to make it too unusual, fantastical and more mundane, maybe go with the setting alignments as a template.

You can have alot of small conflicts or an overarching plot. Maybe in the neutral dark world, things are somewhat okay. NPCs will try to screw you over if they can, public leaders can be corrupt(ed) etc.

Make it political, or noticeable enough. It could be like GTA, but more realistic, mostly in terms of consequences and all.

It could be from regionalism, to immigration/clashing cultures etc.

Example: Forgot the name of the movie but...It's the 1960s, maybe even today. PCs are hippies/stoners on their way to the concert. They come across disillusioned hippies seeing their communes fail. They see small town folk. Some haven't changed. Others are reacting harshly, while others are taking it in a more melancholy outlook on the changing world, and how their views are being less and less represented/predominant.

Town starts to have a gang/biker/beatnik problem.

i'm gonna make a modern campaign where the PC's are in a band driving around in the desert. At some point they'll die and come back as zombies. Dunno what im gonna do then though

or you can have the PC's starting their own biker gang. Good times

Have them do some hunting?