Aslan Route: Retrospective

"The focus of the players is the centre of the campaign, and everything else in it simply exists to give them meaningful choices and interesting things to catch their attention." - Kevin Crawford, Red Tide

So ends The Aslan Route.

How It's Made

After completing The Pirates of Drinax, I found I had a number of scenarios left over that I wanted to play, so picking The Borderland Run as the spine for the campaign, I slotted the rest of them in around that. There are one or two I'd still like to play, although they're not location-specific and can just be slotted into a future campaign; and a number I don't think would be fun for me or the group, so we just won't play them.

I had intended Islands in the Rift to be a future campaign, but on a detailed reading I realised that given the way we play, it would only last a handful of sessions, so I bolted it on by way of Deepnight Endeavour.

By the Numbers

The campaign has been more or less normal for one of my games in terms of party size (4-5), duration (1-2 years), and advancement (a few steps into Legendary Rank).

• The campaign began on 2nd November 2024 and ended on 4th April 2026, so that's 39 sessions over 74 weeks; we tried for weekly sessions, but wound up averaging a little over one session every other week, mostly because of my lengthy summer holidays.
• The PCs acquired 19 Advances, taking them 4 Advances into Legendary; not only is that normal for my games, but it's also what there is room for on the official character sheet, so maybe it's a common duration. Or maybe it's just what they could fit in. Either way, it's a good length.
• The party consisted of four PCs, and usually had 1-2 NPC hangers-on. Towards the end, these were replaced by Sidekicks, and if we had run longer, I think there would have been a group of Followers too.

Unlike D&D, where PCs have a narrow niche and get much better at filling that niche as they level up, Savage Worlds PCs gradually expand beyond their starting niche, so the party relies on NPC support less and less as they advance. You might expect the PCs to start treading on each others' toes as their niches overlap, but I find they use the Support and Test rules to buff each other instead.

Having run both D&D and Savage Worlds over long periods, I'd say that D&D is optimised for a four-person party, while SW is aimed at three. I have four players though, so we have a four-person party. 

I don't see a need to change any of these factors for future games.

• We gain more by deepening our understanding of one game system than we do by switching to one which is theoretically "better" for a given campaign, so we'll stick with SWADE.
• We've got four players, so we have four PCs.
• Running a few Advances into Legendary Rank lets the PCs play with the cool toys on top of the mountain without turning into gods.
• Aiming for one session per week averages out at half that, which is fine for aging grognards such as ourselves.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The good (what worked):

• Session zero. The PCs were designed as a team with a specific goal in mind, so they meshed together well from the outset.
• Grown-up conversations about undesirable behaviour, resolving it amicably.
• Aligning the PCs with a faction early on, which could then act as a source of missions; giving the PCs an external reason to stick with that faction.

The bad (what didn't):

• PCs taking Hindrances the player didn't want to play (Enemy) or I didn't want to engage with (Cautious, Greedy). There have been so many Cautious Greedy PCs these last few years that I'm seriously considering banning those Hindrances.
• Trying to extend the rules set beyond the core SWADE rules. Except for The Scheme Pyramid, nothing else I tried to add was worth the effort of doing so. Half a century into the hobby, the core rules for RPGs are pretty solid, and cover what comes up in play without needing much else.

The ugly (challenges for me as a GM):

• Balancing Rex's desire for bloodshed with everyone else's desire to avoid it.
• Generating story arcs that the players were interested in following.
• Generating or selecting aslan names which looked credible, but which could also be remembered and pronounced by all of us.

Coda

There were more stories to be told on Tyokh about the Psionics Institute and the aslan crime syndicate, and I could have spun off a number of adventures using the adventure seeds and world tags in Stars Without Number (I'd say Tyokh has the tags Trade Hub and Ritual Combat); but I'm starting to feel tired and burned out on the campaign, so I quit while I was ahead. Leave 'em wanting more, as they say.

I think I've exhausted the possibilities of the Trojan Reach now. There are two more campaigns which could be run there using elements from The Pirates of Drinax, one venturing deep into the Hierate, and one about pirate-hunting naval officers, but I don't think I or the group would enjoy either, so let's not.

I can see myself returning to Charted Space eventually, but for now I shall let it lie fallow while we turn our attention elsewhere.