Campaigns and Adventures

The Charmed campaign is very similar to the Buffy game. It is up to your group to stop the forces of evil doing their thing. Like the Slayer, Witches should keep their identity secret, as known Witches become targets for the forces of evil. Unlike Slayers, Witches have no support network. There are no Watchers to guide them or get in their way. So they go out to fight evil with only the assistance of a Whitelighter, who isn’t always there to help. That’s if they have a Whitelighter at all, as Leo was only assigned to the Halliwells due to their extreme importance as the ‘Charmed ones’. However, on the plus side, Witches look after their own. Unlike Slayers, there are a lot more than one, and they are often able to help and support each other. A great way to start a campaign could be with the players meeting the Halliwells, who help them begin their own fight against evil. The sisters could awaken any player character Witches to their magical powers, as they have with many other Witches in the series. This means they may be able to ask them for help and advice later in the game, as long as they don’t do it too often. After a while they may realise that the Halliwells are not always the best people to get advice from.

As in Buffy, the adventures themselves usually focus on helping people against the forces of darkness. Usually someone is being preyed upon by a creature of Hell, and needs the characters to vanquish it. The characters need to try to figure out what they are up against and how to destroy it. All the while they also need to protect the innocent victim, who is still the target of the Warlock or Demon. Sometimes the bad guy will see the Witches as a bigger prize and go after them directly. In the early seasons of Charmed, the plot arcs were often more about the sister’s social lives instead of demonic ‘Big Bads’. However in later seasons their battles against ‘The Source’ became similar to the Buffy style. If anything, Charmed is really more like Angel, but a lot less dark. You can’t erase evil from the world; some things are too big to destroy. However, you can make sure the plans of the dark never come to fruition, even if it means helping every victim one at a time.

Charmed is about more than just fighting the minions of Hell. It focuses a lot more on the characters as fallible human beings. As such they often don’t want to keep their powers, and try to hold onto a normal life. This is something Buffy and any Slayer can surely sympathise with. However, as Witches are not as powerful as a Slayer (or a mega-Willow) they need to rely on outside help a lot more. There are people they can trust their secret with, and enlist their help. Usually this is because the person in question saw too much and had to be told. However, many are prepared to help in whatever way they can. There is more of a team feeling to a Charmed game, as everyone (Witch or not) is as powerful as anyone else. After all, evil is everybody’s problem, not just the Slayer’s.