With my BattleTech campaign winding down, I've started to think about what I'd like to run next. Although it is a bit presumptuous of me to assume that my campaign was a success, I think it has gone well so far. It's a lot of work, and I don't even know if I'll have the energy to start another campaign, especially considering that I've been putting some things off until this campaign finished.

Still, if for some reason I do run again, I want to run a Star Trek campaign. I've started buying the Star Trek RPGs published by Last Unicorn Games. They seem well written and there is a good amount of support for them, from my glance at the materials. Science fiction is one of my favorite genres and one that I think people would actually play (the super-hero genre is another favorite but of little interest in our group).

First, what are the realities of running a Friday night game? One is limited hours, usually about four a session compared with about five for the Saturday games. The second factor is the lack of Friday players. We're down to two people, and I don't see being able to get more than 3 or 4 playing on Fridays. We all have lives now and time is starting to become a commodity.

So I'm thinking of running a Saturday game, more players, more time. We can let Friday night die for now and I could use the extra time. I was thinking of running a Saturday game as an alternative to the regular games. If the GM doesn't show up for both games then I could run a day-long adventure. Although an interesting idea to me, once again that's a campaign mode that's different than what we're used to so it won't be popular.

The more standard thing is to run on Saturday nights when Ars Magica ends in the next few months. This does not necessarily mean I have to run every week (since many a time the day is cancelled due to player/gm flakiness), but I have to be ready to run every week. This is ok if I can use prepublished campaigns and cut down the amount of work I do.

Running a prepublished campaign is something I've wanted to do. BattleTech is quite time-draining because I make up something new each week. A slower paced campaign, from a book, would mean that I have a lot less work to do. Also, this would give me a chance to write.

One thing I do want to do is "novelize" the adventures. Write a story based on the adventure, not necessarily true to the adventure since RPG sessions rarely make for good reading. Unlike Shannon's Ars Magica Logs, I want my stories to be more normal, third person perspective so I can switch scenes easily.

That would be a lot of work, but it is one reason that I want to run again. I suppose I'll have to suggest it in the next few weeks and then I'll have to start reading the material if people want to play. And here I thought I'd be able to relax come the new year...