Syberdwarf2 Posted March 22, 2003 Report Share Posted March 22, 2003 Here's a website that I use a lot for when I'm stuck for ideas. Go to "settings" on the main menu, they have a government name generator and set it to generate as many as you can do at once. I'd never really use the stuff as presented, but it works GREAT as a springboard for ideas... http://www.seventhsanctum.com/gens/index.html enjoy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James_Kiley Posted March 24, 2003 Report Share Posted March 24, 2003 Originally posted by ShadowRaptor wow this sounds like a cool idea having some people kidnapped from our time period and wake up in a future period. Just to follow up, how are they reacting to their predicament and how are the locals treating them? The two PCs who are from the present day and are part of the overall TE society are dealing with the sleepers as best they can -- both of them have issues of their own. They're cooperating, because they're stuck in a bad situation together. My cunning plan. :-) The only other people that they've encountered have been the crew of the Dauntless, the Peregrine-class frigate they just encountered. The crew of the Dauntless is rather fascinated by them, from a social, economic, genetic, and historical perspective, but right now the PCs are fleeing from Dauntless and who knows how things will go from there. This is very much a seat-of-my-pants game, so I don't know what will happen next. I have detailed about half of Dauntless's crew and am trying to get the rest of them done before the next session. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heroman Posted March 26, 2003 Report Share Posted March 26, 2003 I actually have been running a Star Hero (ish) campaign for some odd 4+ years now, kind of a mix of Star Wars meets B5 meets Call Of Cthulhu. Recently (past year) it has become SW meets B5 meets CoC meets The Matrix meets Fantasy Hero. Hey, the players gotta have *something* to spend points on The group are basically a bunch of fixers, directed by the former boss they had from a MegaCorp (who went solo). They are all human (though some dispute that for at least 1 player...). Among the stranger players: Sam 'Butcher Of IO Station' Taggart who has been showing some...unusual traits (like shooting life draining tentancles from his body), an ex-marine who has been showing more and more signs of being freaky (beside the tendrils he can make his skin all armory, recently peppered his marine armor with spikes which grew out of his body, and has on a number of occasions melted highly advanced technology/religious items with his touch) Brian 'Destroyer of Pluto [acquitted]' Malloc, a super genious who has a strange fetish for alien technology (including a strange alien fragment found on one of the first missions) who has acquired far, far more Psi talent than capable for normal humans (wait til he goes in for a psi-record update...) and who's next goal in life is to make a dimensional disruptor beam weapon for the ship. 2 humans from a parallel earth universe (20th century) who found out their own world was a mere projection from a super machine known only as 'The Great Machine' (basically based on The Matrix) who escaped to the real (?) universe thru the aid of the group. In addition to their existing funkiness, they were recently joined by their daughter that neither knew they had but who knows all about *their* world. They already lost their druggie (a combat guy who was heavily, heavily addicted to drugs) and tripwired (chemically super enhanced human, a design which actually relates way way back to a TMNT campaign I used to run) guys. I cannot say stuff about the others cause the players read this This goes to show that you don't need books to run a complex campaign... Oh, one of the key things I think which has worked very well for the group and the excitement: I don't care if players die. Mind you I don't go out and focus on killing them, but they are very, very mortal and I am not one to make up last minute rescues or bail out situations. They are not the focus of the universe which helps alot. -Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowRaptor Posted March 26, 2003 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2003 Originally posted by James_Kiley The two PCs who are from the present day and are part of the overall TE society are dealing with the sleepers as best they can -- both of them have issues of their own. They're cooperating, because they're stuck in a bad situation together. My cunning plan. :-) The only other people that they've encountered have been the crew of the Dauntless, the Peregrine-class frigate they just encountered. The crew of the Dauntless is rather fascinated by them, from a social, economic, genetic, and historical perspective, but right now the PCs are fleeing from Dauntless and who knows how things will go from there. This is very much a seat-of-my-pants game, so I don't know what will happen next. I have detailed about half of Dauntless's crew and am trying to get the rest of them done before the next session. This actually sounds like it could be one of the best player character driven campaigns I have heard of. You toss in a see here and there, and then run with what the players do in response, especially those from the 20th century. You just have to be mentally ready to be surprised though, but I am thinking that will be one of the more exciting things about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syberdwarf2 Posted March 27, 2003 Report Share Posted March 27, 2003 Originally posted by Heroman Oh, one of the key things I think which has worked very well for the group and the excitement: I don't care if players die. -Scott Er... Um... You mean Player Characters , right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mavnn Posted March 27, 2003 Report Share Posted March 27, 2003 *Off Topic* I had a quick look at this website - great fun, and I was intrigued by this idea: Aerial Cavalry: The "Charging Storms" - Minotaurs, riding giant mecha-magical birds, armed with warhammers and muskets. This unit is mainly used for covert operations. "Covert Minotaur Strike!" Michael Originally posted by Syberdwarf2 Here's a website that I use a lot for when I'm stuck for ideas. Go to "settings" on the main menu, they have a government name generator and set it to generate as many as you can do at once. I'd never really use the stuff as presented, but it works GREAT as a springboard for ideas... http://www.seventhsanctum.com/gens/index.html enjoy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobGreenwade Posted March 31, 2003 Report Share Posted March 31, 2003 Originally posted by Agent Escafarc Very much what I have plan but my players are going to be members of an elite "Emperess' Own" type units with shades of the Three Musketeers thrown in. It just occurred to me yesterday that maybe we ought to try coordinating our efforts, at least as far as the Imperial agency our PCs work for. Then we could forward the results to Steve, and maybe (just maybe) they could influence something in a future publication.... Or at any rate we could more easily let each other's PCs make "guest appearances" in our games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowRaptor Posted April 1, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2003 PBeM?? What about a PBeM game in the Terran Empire? Is anybody else up for something like that? I would like to be a player since I am new to it all but I think that there are a lot of sci-fi gamers here that would be able to make it a kick butt game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gannok Posted April 24, 2003 Report Share Posted April 24, 2003 I'm currently starting up a low Sci Fi game based off of the first X-Com game. Though as they progress, I'll probably start using some of the material from later games. I had originally been making a game based off of the Aliens movie, but decided that the similarities between Aliens and X-Com were close enough that I could do either just as easily. Since the Aliens universe is alot more limited then the X-Com one, I decided to use X-Com instead. The source material for X-Com just seemed easier to expand on then the Aliens material. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fauxgemini Posted May 6, 2003 Report Share Posted May 6, 2003 Phantasy Star. I've been tinkering on a Phantasy Star type universe. In this case, more closely modeled after Phantasy Star Online. 3 primary races, a LARGE selection of gimicked weapons, and a number of techniques/powers/psionic talents. I find dice scaling a great way to represent star values on equipment from the game. Players start out with less discinctive/damaging gear and as they gain money and exp they upgrade to rarer and more unique equipment. The rest is story/plot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Shadow Shulker Posted May 8, 2003 Report Share Posted May 8, 2003 *SIGH* DELETED AND BANNED Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermit Posted May 12, 2003 Report Share Posted May 12, 2003 IF I can ever get a STAR HERO game going, I'm not sure. It depends if I get the official settings or not. The budget being what it is, I may have ot get my own. I used to love the Star Frontiers game (And thanks to those working on the conversions) so I'd probably try to mix that (or the races from it) with a setting of my own design.. a bit of 'Untamed Space' as it were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snarf Posted May 15, 2003 Report Share Posted May 15, 2003 Can anyone tell me what star frontiers is? I'm still learning Hero system. Is that a Hero expansion or some other RPG? Me? I'm doing a game based on that show Lexx. That show wasn't stupid and cheap at all!!1 No, seriously, I'm doing a travelling around the universe type of game with super-hero level psi powers. We'll be toppling empires and going nuts like a couple of nutty nut-brained nuts. The setting is still being developed but we're making good progress. We already have a token robot character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nlubofsky Posted June 4, 2006 Report Share Posted June 4, 2006 Re: What kind of campaigns will you all be running? I always wanted to run a Private Investigative firm, that wasn't the pulp version of the lone P.I.... but rather a group of specialists underneath a corporate PI umbrella. A freelance Pinkerton outfit. Why? Because I can run mysteries, spy, surveillance of wayward spouses, smuggling investigation, organized crime investigation, corporate security and a whole range of adventures that should keep the game fresh. Each week could be really different, yet a very solid framework for the characters to exist in. I see the firm be about 100 people, and have 3 teams of elite investigators (the PCs) working on various cases. The other 80 folk are admin, support and researchers. So it is a decent size company. The adventures would happen mostly in "civilized" space and would probably only visit 3 or 4 planets for mose of the adventures, so we get a real sense of these places. Occasionally, the "hunt the missing freighter" might take a team out to the boondoocks. PCs would have to justify expenses and maybe the company only has one spaceship, which all three teams might need at the same time... so there would be "public" travel at times. That is the sci-fi game I've always wanted to run. Terran Empires would handle that just fine, as would Star Frontiers. This idea could really be dropped into almost any sci-fi game. I'm starting a campaign almost like this, with the exception that the PC's are partners in their own private eye firm, i.e. they are the only ones in the company. In the first or second adventure, a wealthy customer gives the PC's an advance big enough for them to purchase a starship (the customer wants to find out what happened to his daughter). I'd be interested to hear if anybody has any ideas or recommendations for this type of campaign. Thanks! Nick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erkenfresh Posted June 5, 2006 Report Share Posted June 5, 2006 Re: What kind of campaigns will you all be running? Dang dude, why didn't you start a new thread? Personally, I avoid investigation adventures. There's too many snags that could happen: 1. The players glaze over an important clue. 2. The players miss an important clue altogether. 3. The players don't deduce the solution from the clues. 4. The players go overboard on something meaningless you mention. One solution is just railroad them through it. But, in that case, I would think the players might want something more fun like fighting pirates or overthrowing a corrupt government. Anyway, good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nlubofsky Posted June 5, 2006 Report Share Posted June 5, 2006 Re: What kind of campaigns will you all be running? Dang dude' date=' why didn't you start a new thread? [/quote'] I revived this old thread instead of starting a new one to increase the odds that interested parties would see my message. Personally, I avoid investigation adventures. There's too many snags that could happen: 1. The players glaze over an important clue. 2. The players miss an important clue altogether. 3. The players don't deduce the solution from the clues. 4. The players go overboard on something meaningless you mention. One solution is just railroad them through it. But, in that case, I would think the players might want something more fun like fighting pirates or overthrowing a corrupt government. Yes, these are the bugaboos of mysteries in RPG's. There's some really good advice for mitigating these in Pulp Hero (the "Deduction" subsection on page 357). Also, often a detective case doesn't turn out to be much of a mystery at all -- rather, the foul play is very apparent to anyone that makes the effort to investigate. The real problem is the antagonist that doesn't want anybody to find out what's going on and tries to stop the detective from snooping around! Anyway' date=' good luck.[/quote'] Thanks! Nick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted June 5, 2006 Report Share Posted June 5, 2006 Re: What kind of campaigns will you all be running? Nothing wrong with a little thread necromancy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Frisbee Posted June 5, 2006 Report Share Posted June 5, 2006 Re: What kind of campaigns will you all be running? What kind of campaign am I running? Right now it's a Fuzion-powered game which is a cross-breed of Firefly and Cowboy Bebop where humanity has fled the devastated earth and has found a trinary star system with dozens of planets suitable for terraforming. The whole thing is STL (Slower Than Light), though ships can get from one planet to another in a few days (via unrealistically efficient reaction drives). It's been fun so far, as the players were thrown together as unwilling partners and have been at each others' throats almost as often as their adversaries'... Of note, this is the first time all of the players in one of my campaigns have been members of the same family (the players, not their characters -- a father and mother, plus their son). Matt "Only-steals-from-the-best" Frisbee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted June 5, 2006 Report Share Posted June 5, 2006 Re: What kind of campaigns will you all be running? I would really like to run an Alien Wars style campaign. I have a bunch of ideas popping around in my head after playing a few video games* and systematically going back over the pilot mini-series and first season of Battlestar Galactica. * Namely Quake IV (distinctly Sci-Fi war genre, though tending to more fantastic tech) and X3:Reunion, which gives me a nice view of what it would be like to be a freetrader or freelance merc in a war setting. Well that and some mega cool ship models for cap ships. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nlubofsky Posted June 5, 2006 Report Share Posted June 5, 2006 Re: What kind of campaigns will you all be running? Firefly and Battlestar Galactica -- great shows! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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