Just What's Going On Here?

Setting

One of the central ideas for any RPG campaign is the background and setting. As Sailor Moon is a very closed story, much like when fanfic writing any prospective GM will have to somewhat alter the overall storyline to fit their own campaign in. But that's okay, we've all been doing it for years...

When running a Sailor Moon campaign, there are three basic choices for character origins and the like. The first is simply to use the characters from the original TV show; each player gets one of the scouts, and any left over are NPCs. This is the easiest for the GM as it requires minimal work on estavblishing the setting, but it may be difficult for the players to get their characters right. And besides, we can all do better than that!

The second option is to work backwards into the history of the Silver Millenium, either as an inspiration for new types of characters for the same setting, or to run a "historical" campaign set during the era. The latter provides great width for character variation and such (maybe they're all friends from different planets or all a part of the Moon Palace's royal guard? Who knows), but will require the GM to do an awful lot of background and developement work to flesh out the period (after all, all we know from then are the scouts, guardian cats and Queen Serenity). The first option requires the GM to think of a new kind of warrior or personnel related to the Silver Millenium and how they fit into the new world. A careful GM can have this fit in perfectly with established continuity. The players may even get to meet the scouts in betwwen the scouts' battles!

The third option, and my personal favourite would be to run an "alternate" version oif the story, replacing the established characters with new ones. This provides the GM and players with an estrablished setting but more freedom to mmake their characters. As this is an alternate version to the Sailor Moon storyline, a bit of mucking around with the history of the Silver Millenium would probably be okay.

For example: Let's say Jane and some of her friends have decided that roleplaying a Sailor Moon campaign would be a lot of fun, given the opportunities available for both comic relief and serious drama. Jane gets nominated as the GM (again!) and gets to work on the background. She decides that she likes the standard setting and the roles of the Sailor Scouts, but finds the characters... annoying to say the least. She decides to run an Alternate campaign, once again set in Tokyo with the characters as Sailor Scouts. She tells the players and begins to flesh out the background as to why they are here and where their powers came from.

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