Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

[Lethosos]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

It's starting to sound a lot like some sort of dark version of Jennifer Goverment or a more organized Snow Crash.

 

I like it. Man, I wish I was in this.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

It's starting to sound a lot like some sort of dark version of Jennifer Goverment or a more organized Snow Crash.

 

I like it. Man, I wish I was in this.

 

Snow Crash was Organized ?!?!

[Lethosos]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Hey, I have the book. I know what I'm talking about.

 

We're getting into a tangent here.

[MisterVimes]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

It's starting to sound a lot like some sort of dark version of Jennifer Goverment or a more organized Snow Crash.

 

I like it. Man, I wish I was in this.

 

You know. I read Jennifer Government and it didn't occur to me until just now that I was subconciously channeling those ideas.

 

Snow Crash? *shudder*

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Jennifer Government

http://www.maxbarry.com/jennifergovernment/

 

Jennifer Government: Nation States

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi

 

Cheers

 

QM

[MisterVimes]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Jennifer Government

http://www.maxbarry.com/jennifergovernment/

 

Jennifer Government: Nation States

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi

 

Cheers

 

QM

 

At the risk of derailing my own thread, I liked Max Barry's Syrup better.

And I used Nation States as a tool to show relational networks to my students.

[Captain Pants]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

From your sources, I'm guessing what you're going for is semi-dark fantasy, taking place in the modern age.

 

I'd suggest starting out by introducing a MDQ (Major Dramatic Question) from the get-go. Introduce something mysterious the players will be curious about, but have no leads to. Think "Lost" or "X-Files." Hint at the big shocker at the end of "season one" throughout your sessions, but don't lay it on too thick, or give them too much. Just feed them enough to keep them intrigued.

 

Then, make all your sessions primarily about whatever one-shot you're running, and sprinkle in tidbits leading back to the MDQ, or at least clues they won't be able to make sense of until much later. Be careful not to give them too much, but don't keep things too close to the vest, either.

 

Place your encounters or plot leads in differing areas of their home city, and introduce the NPC movers and shakers. It will give them a sense for how the city works, get to know familiar landmarks, etc. Note: Key NPCs can be corporations as well as people.

 

And lastly, use only antagonists that unquestionably enforce the genre. For example, if it's megacorps you want to focus on, introduce the PCs to corporate enforcers, evidence of their corruption, results of their experiments, or anything else that fleshes them out. If it's like Dresen Files or Buffy, have new twists on vampires, werewolves, or demons be the main dish, but leave subtle signs there is a guiding hand in the background.

 

Hope that helped.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

I don't know either, but have added it to my reading list.

 

We now return you back to our regular Thread Topic.

 

QM

[MisterVimes]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

From your sources, I'm guessing what you're going for is semi-dark fantasy, taking place in the modern age.

 

Hope that helped.

 

Actually, yeah, that helped a lot.

The Big Question... the big "Something is out there" is: "Do you have the answer?" make the heroes tell me how to make the world a better place.

 

The stuggle I am having is where to place the emphasis. This is a near-now urban campaign that will slowly reveal the mystical, I don't know with whom that lies yet... but Joss Whedon is whispering in my head: "Big Bad! Big Bad!'

 

By way of example, one of my one-offs that may dovetail into something else is as follows:

 

The Subway service reorts some disappearance. A partial body is found near the access to the city sewers. The Body has gator bites on it. Rumors persist of the mythical albino alligators in the sewer.

 

The reality? A genetech corp was breeding Gator-moreaus and thought they had a failed batch. They flushed the newly hatched offspring. They should have waited because there are now one or more Gator-Men in the Sewer.

 

McGuffin?: Maybe the corp owns the Subway company and now are sending the heroes as a live test before sending in their own team to grab the gators.

[zornwil]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Jennifer Government

http://www.maxbarry.com/jennifergovernment/

 

Jennifer Government: Nation States

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi

 

Cheers

 

QM

Oh, wow, I forgot all about that, my (second) nation has long collapsed.

[zornwil]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Mr. Vimes, I really like the setting, I can't rep you yet but it's on the list.

[MisterVimes]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Mr. Vimes' date=' I really like the setting, I can't rep you yet but it's on the list.[/quote']

 

Thanks Z. The next challenge is for me to sit back and let this stew and them start asking those GM questions: How plausible is this? WHat is the global impact? If I do set up the foundations of WWIII, then do we go through with it? If we do, how does that change the campaign? WHen I answer these questions, how far from my original vision will we be? AM I sacrificing the player's entertainment for my obsessive pursuit of the campaign vision?

 

Oh, the life of the GM is fraught with peril...

[The Monster]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

OK, if the good guy behind the scenes is Merlin, and the heroes are Arthur, who are the bad guys? And What are they up to? If you're going to use Arthurian stuff, it may evoke all kinds of things - grail quest, Green Knight, Lancelot/Guenevere, etc. You obviously don't have to use them, but be ready to have your players make assoications and assumptions.

 

One way to use this is to emphasize the theme that Arthur was the one who brought order and unity back to his native land when it was sinking into chaos - Arthurian stuff doesn't really have a Big Bad per se, which I think works to your advantage. Instead you have the Morgana/Mordred motif, which works way too well for a megacorp setting. And even that doesn't dominate the stories until Arthur's end; most of it are fairly episodic stories.

 

So I would go with a deep-background villain, a plotter and schemer, using magic and megacorp power combined (just about every corp in Shadowrun does this anyway; also look to Wolfram & Hart for ideas). Go ahead and make her Morgana revisited, but don't even reveal her existence for at least a couple adventures. Make her a second-level contact, or even patron, of the heroes - she's the one who's behind one of the PCs first important contacts, and she's watching them and using them to keep her underlings & enemies off-balance; when the first contact dies, she steps in (maybe as they approach the sword-drawing scene) and becomes a kind of "Deep Throat" mysterious stranger with way too much knowledge about events and people (including themselves). If they come to rely on her for help, so much the better: betrayal is so much more dramatic then mere assault.

 

Possible scenarios for Morgana?

Her stooge (probably a corporate veep of security or something, important and powerful but finally expendable) alerts the heroes to a crime being committed by a rival corp. SImple enough; sets up the relationship.

 

VP Stooge then sends the heroes on a run against his own subsidiary. This can be either a "test" or a setup where the PCs end up facing an assault by a rival corp, which the stooge knew was coming. They can resolve it by combat or diplomacy.

 

VP Stooge gets killed at some point (insists on going along on a run, is assasinated while the heroes are contracted to protect him (since he suspects that Morgana's going to dispose of him?), or is simply gunned down at a meet like in X-Files.

 

Before or at the sword-drawing scene, *Morgana* is the one who explains what's going on, painting it in the worst possible terms - or encouraging the heroes, with the intent of controlling and ultimately stabbing them in the back. Merlin pops up and explains what she really is. Who to believe? Maybe a direct fight between Merlin and Morgana? Maybe this is the first revelation of what *Merlin* really is!

 

(BTW, the sword in the stone was not, IIRC, Excalibur, though you could certainly make it so. Excalibur was given - and returned to - the Lady of the Lake. Somebody had to point that out, just to satisfy the picky ones.)

 

Anyway, there's some more grist for the mill. A lot of the Arthurian legend revolves around loyalty - true, false, misguided, and misunderstood. Fun stuff to play with.

[MisterVimes]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

OK, if the good guy behind the scenes is Merlin, and the heroes are Arthur, who are the bad guys? And What are they up to? If you're going to use Arthurian stuff, it may evoke all kinds of things - grail quest, Green Knight, Lancelot/Guenevere, etc. You obviously don't have to use them, but be ready to have your players make assoications and assumptions.

 

Anyway, there's some more grist for the mill. A lot of the Arthurian legend revolves around loyalty - true, false, misguided, and misunderstood. Fun stuff to play with.

 

Damn. That's some excellent stuff. A lot of things I wasn't considering. Thanks.

[Vondy]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

For a substantial arc that isn't a campaign:

 

Read Red Harvest by Dashielle Hammett. It was adapted to film (without lawsuit) as Yojimbo, which was remade in America (with lawsuit) as a fistful of dollars.

 

Hero's arrive in city. City is filled with corruption, warring gangs led by evil men have the hard working man on the street cowed. There is a ton of cleaning up to do (and money to be made) in as the players (who may or may not have been wronged by those running things) seek vengeance and pit the rival factions against one another.

[zornwil]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

I used Merlin a bit ago in our campaign. He was (at first unknown to the characters) a mage apparently imprisoned against his will by one of the PC's connections, a powerful family in China that has been operating continuously for centuries. They grabbed Merlin from Arthur's court as their far-flung spies in Europe back then heard about him. The PCs didn't really know it was Merlin at first, and his name was Marlin, not Merlin, Merlin being the legendary name The family explained that although they were quite willing to let Merlin leave if he desired, he knew too much about them and they were concerned both about retribution as well as what might happen if he fell into "the wrong hands" (one could argue the family was in this case the wrong hands!). The PCs managed to free him through diplomacy and negotiation, as well as the mind reader examining his mind closely and verifying he just wanted out, not revenge.

[MisterVimes]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

For a substantial arc that isn't a campaign:

 

Read Red Harvest by Dashielle Hammett. It was adapted to film (without lawsuit) as Yojimbo, which was remade in America (with lawsuit) as a fistful of dollars.

 

Hero's arrive in city. City is filled with corruption, warring gangs led by evil men have the hard working man on the street cowed. There is a ton of cleaning up to do (and money to be made) in as the players (who may or may not have been wronged by those running things) seek vengeance and pit the rival factions against one another.

 

 

I actually have a copy of Red Harvest. I find it sort of ironic that Last Man Standing (a gangster film) was based on Yojimbo which was based on a gangster story.

[MisterVimes]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

I used Merlin a bit ago in our campaign. He was (at first unknown to the characters) a mage apparently imprisoned against his will by one of the PC's connections' date=' a powerful family in China that has been operating continuously for centuries... The PCs managed to free him through diplomacy and negotiation, as well as the mind reader examining his mind closely and verifying he just wanted out, not revenge.[/quote']

 

Very cool. My plan is for Merlin to guide the group (to a bit) as Dr. Mark Albion.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Could go the Camelot 3000 route and have all the PC's (not just Arthur) be reincarnations of the various characters from the stories. Maybe even later on have everyone develop a mystical "Highlander sense" that could help them find each other, locate potential new PC's, contacts, or enemies. Of course, their reincarnated enemies will develop this sense too, possibly even sooner, and may be trying to eliminate those of the Round Table who haven't yet become aware of their past life.

 

Perhaps the medical wing of some megacorp has the Holy Grail, and is trying to synthesize its properties/powers. Perhaps with disastrous consequences.

[MisterVimes]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Could go the Camelot 3000 route and have all the PC's (not just Arthur) be reincarnations of the various characters from the stories. Maybe even later on have everyone develop a mystical "Highlander sense" that could help them find each other, locate potential new PC's, contacts, or enemies. Of course, their reincarnated enemies will develop this sense too, possibly even sooner, and may be trying to eliminate those of the Round Table who haven't yet become aware of their past life.

 

Perhaps the medical wing of some megacorp has the Holy Grail, and is trying to synthesize its properties/powers. Perhaps with disastrous consequences.

 

Interestingly enough I dug out my Camelot 3Ks right after I got the idea.

 

The Grail Quest... seems obvious for season II (or perhaps III)

[The Monster]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Perhaps the medical wing of some megacorp has the Holy Grail, and is trying to synthesize its properties/powers. Perhaps with disastrous consequences.

 

They chose . . . poorly

[Markdoc]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Ok, here's a couple of suggestions.

 

First off, throwing players curveballs, so long as it is done without gonking their characters is always fun. Most players will slide with it - even like it - as long as they don't get gonked (1).

 

So.... my advice would be to start it off as a Dark Champions game. Say nothing at all about mystic beasties and throw the characters a series of standard thugs and crim.s adventures. You can (a la early X-files) also throw them a bunch of apparently mystic things - with mundane "explanations" ie: it wasn't really a gator-man, it was a psychotic serial killer, who raves about the gator-man. Or was it - could be there really is a gator-man and the psychotic got that way from the shock of meeting him/them? That way, some time later when you introduce a genuine mystic beastie the players will soil their urban combat trousers ("Bullets don't stop it! What do we do now?") The players will probably be cool with that because their characters are still competent arse-kickers - they just suddenly need a little help on the magic front - and you already have an advisor lined up.

 

If you go this route, it offers a solution for your problem of the whole thing being a little cyber-punky. The ruthless corporation aspect could be covert: either corporations that have little or no public profile, or arms of well-known corporations that operate in a totally different sphere (for example, using mystically-derived technology which is not - for obvious reasons - available on the open market). If the mystical aspect is totally covert - and powerful nameless groups have a strong interest in keeping it that way - then you can balance off having a "normal" world setting (keeps down the GM's work) with having advanced technologies/powers accessible to some groups of NPCs.

 

If this route appeals, you should check out:

 

The Feng Shui roleplaying game. I personally dislike the rules, which are very heavy on "GM's call" but there's a gold mine of stuff in the background, much of which is available free on the net. The concept of Arcanotech - magically-powered technology - in particular, might fit your needs.

 

Tim Powers' books "Last Call", "Expiration Date" and "Earthquake Weather" all of which (apart from being damn fine reads) describe a covert magical war based Arthurian archetypes running under the surface of normal life in California.

 

The comic series "Planetary" by Warren Ellis, which deals with a team of super-powered individuals trying to ferret out the world's "secret history" - alien visitations, ghosts, lost cities, etc - and the people who want to stop them.

 

 

cheers, Mark

 

 

1. Where I come from from, a "gonk" is a useless cloth doll thingie, shaped kind of like an egg with limbs. A gonk character is one that is pretty much useless (a character can still be a gonk, even if it's well designed - a Wolverine clone in a golden-age, 4 colour settng for example). Gonking a character is messing with its backgrounds, powers, etc, or the game setting, so it's useless.

[MisterVimes]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

Tim Powers' books "Last Call", "Expiration Date" and "Earthquake Weather" all of which (apart from being damn fine reads) describe a covert magical war based Arthurian archetypes running under the surface of normal life in California.

 

The comic series "Planetary" by Warren Ellis, which deals with a team of super-powered individuals trying to ferret out the world's "secret history" - alien visitations, ghosts, lost cities, etc - and the people who want to stop them.

 

Excellent stuff and you've given me the excuse I needed to read Planetary.

[Lethosos]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

You can also try Anathor, by Jane Lindskold--it's a group of immortals who try to shield their work from unsuspecting mortals, and internal indepentent groups want to do things that has strong possibilities of breaking the deep cover they've spent generations and magic to conceal.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome

 

When I read your first post, my initial idea was along that line.

 

"Who the frack is this guy, and how does he keep coming back?" - PC's encounter, and are then repeatedly beset by "that bastard". Never speaks, just shows up and starts causing damage. Why is he after them? What does he want? How can he be here since we killed him last week? Always appears exactly the same, including gear. If he was wounded but not killed in a previous encounter, these wounds do not exist on the next encounter. Is he a legion of clones? Lots of people altered to look the same? Something supernatural?

 

This brings to mind my favourite line from Spiderman in Secret Wars #4. When confronted by a Green Goblin look alike. "Gods I hate these things, there better not be another Norman Osborn face under there. I hope paid your Green Goblin Union card with health benefits" *Wham*

 

I love Spiderman

 

QM