The Throne of Sardior

An ancient AD&D campaign predicated on the concept that the mysterious Throne was a tower of basalt deep in the wasteland of the Greenplace. The Throne was the stronghold of the witch-queen Valeria (the central character) and her consort, the dragon-lord Sardior (to the right). The players were an assembly of heroes and demi-gods of legend sent to destroy Valeria and Sardior and restore the balance between Law and Chaos. Ok, so it wasn't the most original plot... Best noted for the huge number of characters the Throne chewed up, including most of the Dieties and Demi-Gods sourcebook.

New Hero

The one campaign that I've been asked to start up again and again... a very high energy super-hero campaign I ran in high school. Featured no discernible rules and the super-team The Unknowns. From left to right (top row): Dark Angel, The Pacheco Force, Seeker, (bottom row) Prometheus,Captain Cliche and Spunky the Boy Wonder.

I can barely remember what the heck the plot was of this game, save that we usually afflicted the Unknowns with whatever the X-Men were suffering from that month.

Started the continuing tradition that the players had to immediately destroy their means of transportation upon arriving at "the adventure".

Epic (or Monster Slugathon)

This campaign was designed to leverage the GURPS system to its utmost. Each player chose whatever character they wanted, from books, movies, TV, etc. Then I dropped the universe on top of them and saw who was left standing.

From left to right (top row): Han Solo, Kimball Kinnison, the Predator. (Bottom Row) Lengian Fleet Captain Karik, Otto Skorzeny and Aiken Drum.

It quickly turned out that if your character did not have serious psychic powers, you were hosed, so things wound up being very Lensman-like.

Another high-energy game, so I dropped it.

Skies of Tenocha - The Olmec Cat

I ran this game in DC, when I was living there for a year. Featured the tightest storyline I had yet done, as well as a very bright group of players who made me a lot better GM. Set in the capital of the 21st-century Aztec Empire (based on Lords One) and based on the visuals of the city and background events in Alexandro Jodorowsky and Jean Girauds' The Incal, which is an exceptional SF graphic novel.

I don't remember the character names, but the players - from left to right are: Jeff Glasco, Brian McCue, Henry Jacobs and Warren Dew.

The Bleak Isles

Taking a cue from Jeff Glasco's great Pendragon campaign, I ran an Arthurian Britain game where there was no King Arthur. I must have run this game for over a year, with a gang of players numbering from five to twelve. The early part of the campaign went very well - things were grim, gritty and characters got slaughtered at an alarming rate.

Eventually, after the Black Fen episode, the game began to drift into manorial politics, economics and so on. I lost interest and shut it down. Too, since the players had actually managed to get into the guts of The Plot, most of the interesting stuff had been wiped out or derailed.

The picture is actually a fan-pic I did of Gary Erskine's great Knights of Pendragon comic series from Marvel UK. Gorgeous stuff!

The Voyage of the Ashtaroth

I've never been a great one for SF campaigns, but this was an actual honest-to-god Space Opera campaign. I think we played about three sessions before the rules drove us to suicide. I stole a lot of the plot for a comic that Chris Cornuelle and I were doing (Arcadia) for this game.

From left to right: Ambassador Sthoon, Captain Andronicus, Lieutenant Gath and Major Ix.

This was set in the CoreWars universe that I developed originally for my first PBM Core, and then expanded for the CoreWars PBM and finally became the SF Universe for my Hellspace campaign and now the novel Wasteland of Flint (part of the In The Time of the Sixth Sun series).

The ship was, of course, destroyed.

Armenia

This lasted two years, a hugely extended campaign that saw our heroes start in Constantinople with a little vampire hunting and then wind up seeing most of the Middle East, Persia and points inbetween.

The first game that used what would become my Micea system. Included big parts of the AD&D spell list and was, basically, a run around and blow things up game.

Had, of course, a rather epic, convoluted plot that the players (having figured out my plan) spent their time working strenuously to avoid.

Featured Eberhard Faber from Tarin and Meson.