Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

[Herolover]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

Cool I can't wait to read them.

[Mister E]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

"Man-kind is not yet morally advanced enough, to be trusted with the technology of the air-ship. If it were to fall into the wrong hands, (like the Nazi's) and mass produced, it would change the face of warfare, and spell certain doom for humanity as a species." (hm..this is maybe a little too Victorian Age, and Nemo-esque... I'll keep thinking. 1936 might be a little late for that kind of stuff.)

 

What if the crew of the air-ship was searching the world for a pristine land, unfettered by modern worldly tidings of war, where they could start, or be a part of, a new utopian society? But everywhere they go, something isn't right... dangers abound... or the Nazis got there first? This could be a kind of "Return to the Garden of Eden", or "Ultimate Realization of Man-Kind's Potential" kind of thing.

 

Have you heard of "Foo Fighters"? They were these balls of light that wizzed around bombers, during WWII... maybe you could work that in, somehow, by coming up with an explanation for them, and making them part of "The Big Mystery" of your campaign.

 

"Sky Captain" was pretty far out compared to Indiana Jones, which was more or less concurrent with our real world continuity, and it sounds like you are heading more into a fantastic depiction of reality with your campaign... which is cool. How far are you willing to go? Will you have titanic robots battling King Kong in the middle of New York City? Will most of your adventures take place beyond the range of civilization's domain of influence? I'm very curious...

 

My final thought, is that at the end of the campaign, you should engineer one of two final outcomes... 1) Have the air-ship crash, taking the captain and all his wonerous knowledge with it... or 2) Reveal the existence of a secret faster than light drive/ancient super-advenced startgate, and have the captian and the air-ship depart for far distant alien vistas without the heroes.

 

~ Mister E

[Herolover]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

"Man-kind is not yet morally advanced enough' date=' to be trusted with the technology of the air-ship. If it were to fall into the wrong hands, (like the Nazi's) and mass produced, it would change the face of warfare, and spell certain doom for humanity as a species." ([i']hm..this is maybe a little too Victorian Age, and Nemo-esque... I'll keep thinking. 1936 might be a little late for that kind of stuff[/i].)

 

I may end up doing something like this. Some small pieces of the technology that the don't want to fall into the wrong hands. Nothing major that would cause a major upheaval, but enough that it might make things easier for the Nazis.

 

What if the crew of the air-ship was searching the world for a pristine land' date=' unfettered by modern worldly tidings of war, where they could start, or be a part of, a new utopian society? But everywhere they go, something isn't right... dangers abound... or the Nazis got there first? This could be a kind of "Return to the Garden of Eden", or "Ultimate Realization of Man-Kind's Potential" kind of thing.[/quote']

 

You know, I kind of like this idea. Maybe this is the secret agenda of the philanthropist. Maybe while going around he is looking for a place to set up the ultimate society.

 

Have you heard of "Foo Fighters"? They were these balls of light that wizzed around bombers' date=' during WWII... maybe you could work that in, somehow, by coming up with an explanation for them, and making them part of "The Big Mystery" of your campaign.[/quote']

 

Yes, I have heard of them, and now that you mentioned them I plan on using them. Funny thing I hadn't thought of them, but I love the idea. I will just have to figure out who-what they are.

 

My final thought' date=' is that at the end of the campaign, you should engineer one of two final outcomes... 1) Have the air-ship crash, taking the captain and all his wonerous knowledge with it... or 2) Reveal the existence of a secret faster than light drive/ancient super-advenced startgate, and have the captian and the air-ship depart for far distant alien vistas without the heroes.~ Mister E[/quote']

 

Once again you have come up with a great idea. I like the idea of both actually. I like #1 because it could be a good way to end the campaign and go into WWII HERO. #2 is really good because I could allow the PCs to go through the gate-use the technology and go right into a Flash Gordon-esq campaign. I like the idea that maybe they go to fight a villain that makes the Nazis look nice

[Herolover]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

"..... How far are you willing to go? Will you have titanic robots battling King Kong in the middle of New York City? Will most of your adventures take place beyond the range of civilization's domain of influence? I'm very curious...

 

I can see that this is something that I am really going to have to work on. As I think I stated I want it to be 60% Normal with about 20% Sky captain, and 20% other.

 

When I say 20% sky captain I think I am more referring to the flying portions not so much weird science. I guess what I am wanting is something that is 80% normal and 20% weird science-magic-supernatural.

 

Of course some of this depends upon what my players want and how the campaign starts going. I want some weird science devices, but not enought that the campaign still doesn't feel like an Indiana Jones movie.

 

An example of this is the airship. I am thinking (at the moment) that for lift it uses a mixture of 70% Helium and 30% Hydrogen. Just enough that major explosionis not a problem. When they need some more gas for whatever reason they have a piece of equipment that they can put together (takes several days to do this) and they can produce limited amounts of Hydrogen and Helium.

 

The piece of equipment is obvioiusly weird science, but no so much as to unbalance things. Other than that I plan on trying to keep it like Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark where they are dealing with things that could be a problem, but who really knows for sure.

[The Monster]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

This is pretty much what my Archangel campaign has been since its inception almost 20 years ago, and still going strong (OK, so that group only gets together once or twice a year; still...)

 

The framework I used was really Star Trek: You have a big ship with lots of people on it and some big guns (relatively; historical airships only carried a couple MGs and maybe some bombs). It's impressive and kewl and powerful, but the focus needs to be on the players, not the ship. What the ship mostly does is gets the heroes where they need to go, with speed and support as they need. Basically, the heroes (top officers, just like Trek) land (beam down) in whatever location and have to deal with the local situation man-to-man. Only a couple times have I got the ship itself really involved in an adventure as anything more than transport or scenery.

 

Thing is, an airship can cruise at highway speed (50+mph) as long as it has fuel; when you consider it can keep going day and night, like a train or ocean ship, that adds up to a lot of territory very fast. Basically, they can theoretically get almost anywhere on Earth within a handful of days; the only reason they can't is stuff the GM puts in the way, like storms or bad fuel. (Hugo Eckener, who piloted zeppelins for decades, and who never lost one of them to accident, was asked what his secret was. "You just fly around the storms.") Few zeppelins were lost due to accidental hydrogen ingition; most fell to enemy action - and balloon busting was not all that easy - and to storms.

 

Anyway, I use a slightly enhanced USS Akron/Macon for my Archangel; it's got plenty for regular adventurers - no real labs except what a wildreness-trekking explorer would carry on a mule train; enough weapons to scare natives but not modern armies; enough crew to provide assistance but not take over a city. The Akron and Macon were pretty much the most advanced rigid airships ever to enter regular service, so you can't find a better model to work with.

 

All that said, I've taken the Archangel crew to adventures in New Guinea (headhunters!), San Francisco (Chinatown underworld!), the North Pole (Mad scientist! With a machine-gun-toting polar bear!!), and several places in China and Mongolia (ancient sorcerous cults! Martial arts assassins! Genghis Khan's tomb!). They spent a couple sessions in a Lost World (ideas stolen hevily from the old "Lost World" Hero supplement). Now they are in Nazi Germany, overflying the 1936 olympics and discovering occult plots (Deep Ones at Helgoland!?!). The next long arc of adventures is going to be directly from Indiana Jones, trying to keep mystical artifacts out of the hands of the bad guys.

 

I orgininally had the airship sponsored by by a secretive but philanthropic organization, the Archangel Corporation; all I knew about it was that it was absolutely legit and had essentially unlimited resources and connections with Western governments (and, as it developed, some Asian ones as well). It has turned out - and I really didn't plan this, but after reading Farmer's book, it seemed obvious in retrospect - that the mysterious "Mister A" was, in fact, Doc Savage! He finally did a cameo when sending the ship to Berlin. Smiles from all the players at this!

 

Anyway, you're definitely on the right track with your concept. You can go anywhere with it, and the sky really is the only limit!

 

(As a freebie, one concept I played with but never used was a "hollow earth" where the airship would actually go underground and discover a whole savage realm on the underside of the earth's crust.)

[Herolover]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

Thanks for the reply and I really appreciate it and all the other advice I have been getting. I would be interested in seeing anything you have. (Any place I can ste...errr....mine ideas from is good.

 

I too am going to base my airship off of a modified Akron/Macon. I too, immediately saw a kind of Star Trek simularity, however, although the airship is going to be neat it is not going to be that all powerful. So far I am planning on it having only a couple of things that are above normal tech.

 

1) It is going to be large. 1.5 times the normal airship size with a crew of around 150.

2) It is going to have an apparatus that will allow it to create (in very limited quantities takeing much time) some form of lighter than air gas.

3) As part of the airship it is going to have 6 planes embarked on board. These planes can serve as scouts, fighters, etc. They are going to be high quality aircraft and they are experimenting with a high tech fighter that outstrips any aircraft anywhere in the world. (I am going to use the stats for the P-51 and just change the way it looks.)

 

So far I am planning on them traveling around the world taking part in various strange and exotic adventures. As the campaign wears on they will run into more and more encounters with "Foo Fighters." They will discover that the "Foo Fighters" are real. They are not of this earth. They pose some kind of threat to the earth.

 

As WWII looms and begins in Sept-Oct 1939 the crew will be involved in a great adventure where they will discover that the "Foo Fighters" are preparing to invade and earth is not ready. By this time they will have captured a damaged "Foo Fighter." A local scientist will be able to hook up the "Foo Fighters" engine to the airship. They will know it will take them to the "Foo Fighters" "home" and will know that it is a one way trip.

 

This will dissovle that campaign into a "Flash Gordon-esq" campaign.

[austenandrews]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

Problem: The arrival of a giant airship will be highly conspicuous in most places. Sneaking into a situation will be unlikely, which removes a large slice of scenario options.

 

Solution: Sky-camo, a cloud-bank generator or some other method to hide the airship. Also, collapsible gliders for stealth landings (which will conveniently strand the passengers on the ground until a mechanized retrieval is enacted).

[Mentor]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

Problem: The arrival of a giant airship will be highly conspicuous in most places. Sneaking into a situation will be unlikely, which removes a large slice of scenario options.

 

Solution: Sky-camo, a cloud-bank generator or some other method to hide the airship. Also, collapsible gliders for stealth landings (which will conveniently strand the passengers on the ground until a mechanized retrieval is enacted).

Another solution.

 

As the mad scientist replied when being warned of the problems inherent to flying a spaceship to the sun, "You fool! We shall only travel at night. Bwahahaha."

[The Monster]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

Problem: The arrival of a giant airship will be highly conspicuous in most places. Sneaking into a situation will be unlikely, which removes a large slice of scenario options.

 

Solution: Sky-camo, a cloud-bank generator or some other method to hide the airship. Also, collapsible gliders for stealth landings (which will conveniently strand the passengers on the ground until a mechanized retrieval is enacted).

 

In my campaign, the Archangel Corporation, although its inner workings are hidden, is well-known as a philanthropic and science-supporting group. Part of the official airship mission is to act as a universal ambassador of goodwill, dioing "geographic" research (in the National Geographic Magazine sense, i.e., covering both mapping/oceanography/geology and anthropology). This gives the ship an excuse to go just about anywhere and lessens the need to hide it.

 

For missions that require stealth, you can use ideas like that above. Or you could just make the players live with it, so taht if they really need to sneak in somewhere, they have to leave the airship parked out of sight.

 

On the other hand, I mentioned the speed of an airship cruise. It's possible that they can get the ship in and out of a location faster than most would expect - not invisibility but at least an element of surprise.

[Herolover]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

What I am planning is that most of the time the airship will not have to hide. It will be known, in fact I am planning a couple of adventures vs spies that are trying to learn-steal the technology used in the airship. To the people of the amazon and african areas it will be just another wonder.

 

When it does have to "hide" it can go so high into the cloud cover that it is hard to see. This and the fact that most times it's squadron of planes will be used to get people where they are needed so the airship doesn't have to land.

[st barbara]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

To "Herolover" Is it the only one of its kind ? Can other airships catch up with it ? (An airship vs airship battle might be a good climax to an adventure !)

[LordGhee]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

in the late 1930's the U.S. Naval experimented with a light system that gave off the same amount of light as the back ground. this makes to the human eye the lighted item invisable. this worked a plane using this system that could be spoted without it at 20 miles was spotted at less than 5 miles with the system on.

 

now a evil genuis figureing this out and using it to conquer the world muhahahaha

 

a. . . . mentor, treb do not read this k.

 

radar ended this project.

[Shadow Warrior]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

It's from the Big Finish radioplay Storm Warning with the 8th Doctor and Charlie Pollard

And currently being broadcast on BBC7 every Saturday evening, at 18:30 BST.

 

For those out of range of BBC Radio transmitters, you can listen to it on the BBC7 website. Top pulpy listening, I can assure you. Episode 2 is currently up, blurb as follows:

 

Doctor Who

Storm Warning: Aboard airship R101 for its maiden voyage, The Doctor (Paul McGann) and Charley deal with a glitch in time, a ruthless spy and a mystery passenger. Episode 2 of 4. [Rptd Sun 12.30am]

 

Click here and scroll down to 18:30 in the schedules. You will hear the end of the previous programme (Journey into Space) and some continuity announcements / trailers before it gets going (about 2 minutes in).

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/saturday/

[Herolover]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

To "Herolover" Is it the only one of its kind ? Can other airships catch up with it ? (An airship vs airship battle might be a good climax to an adventure !)

 

I agree that is an interesting idea. It is, I would say, a one of a kind, but no so advanced that it is immeasurable. A nice way to think about would be what would happen if a 1950s battleship in WWII. Yeah, it is good, but not overpowering.

[Curufea]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

2) It is going to have an apparatus that will allow it to create (in very limited quantities takeing much time) some form of lighter than air gas.

 

Might I suggest- The Cobcroftian Radium Powered Electrolytic Converter? With but a modicum of sea water, quantities of gas can be created.

[st barbara]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

I agree that is an interesting idea. It is' date=' I would say, a one of a kind, but no so advanced that it is immeasurable. A nice way to think about would be what would happen if a 1950s battleship in WWII. Yeah, it is good, but not overpowering.[/quote']

At the risk of being thought of as a pedant (which wouldn't be the worst thing I have been called) There have been VERY few battleships built after World War II. THe only two that I can find are the U S S Wisconsin" and HMS "Vanguard" and the latter did just scrape into the end of the war ! The "New Jersey" and others served in World War II and were subsequently upgraded with cruise missiles in about the 1980's. A 1950's battleship isn't very different from a 1945 battleship.

[The Monster]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

About air battles:

In my campaign, I've staged a couple air battles, with okay-to-good results.

There's been one or two times been enemy fighters, but only a couple, and never yet against WW2-era planes (now that they're up against Nazi Germany in the late 30s, that will change!). Since their crew includes two really hot pilots, it wasn't a problem. Also, I haven't done a full-scale modern air asault on the ship - yet.

 

In the Lost Worlds series, the ship was attacked by a bunch of tribesmen riding flying dinosaurs. I figured on heavy casualties coming in, but an interesting close-up battle once some got on board. Result? Basically what you'd expect (in hindsight) from a cavalry charge against a couple of machine guns: annihilation. Shoulda had 'em attack at night (or have them armed with guns/rockets by the rogue modern bad guy who was trapped in the LW).

 

In the final battle against the sorceror warlord in southern China, the ship was attacked by a combined force of balloons and hang gliders: the balloons acted as MG posts, and carried a couple hang gliders each up to altitude before release. The hang gliders were for boarding. Because of better numbers and coordination, they actually landed a couple on the ship, took out a few crewmen, and sent the captain on a fun hunt among the gasbags (Stray shots could cause gas leaks! You *sure* you wanna use the Thompson?).

 

The most successful I've been at putting the ship itself in peril was when most of the crew and officers (and all PCs) were invited to a party by a local Mongolian warlord. His German advisers and hired ninjas sneaked on board and overcame the skeleton watch, and lifted the airship right in the middle of the party! The frantic rush ended up with two PCs clutching mooring ropes as the ship flew off, with the others scrambling for planes and dealing with hostiles on the ground. Nice touch as that the one session ended with the two heroes dangling from the ropes - a perfect "cliffhanger" ending.

[st barbara]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

in the late 1930's the U.S. Naval experimented with a light system that gave off the same amount of light as the back ground. this makes to the human eye the lighted item invisable. this worked a plane using this system that could be spoted without it at 20 miles was spotted at less than 5 miles with the system on.

 

now a evil genuis figureing this out and using it to conquer the world muhahahaha

 

a. . . . mentor, treb do not read this k.

 

radar ended this project.

I must admit I hadn't heard about this. I DO know a little about the "Philadelphia Experiment" because it has been popularized in recent years (by people such as Charles Berlitz) which was an attempt to make a naval vessel invisible to radar.

[Basil]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

A few thoughts.

 

First, I see someone beat me to the Hollow Earth idea. Dang!

 

Second, IRL the limit to cruise time/distance of zeppelins was the need to vent gas and drop ballast now and then. When out of either, the airship had to land. You could have the philanthropist, or the designer he hired, come up with the helium-bag-in-a-hot-air-bag trick that wossname used to get a balloon across the Atlantic a few years back. This would mean the airship needs very little ballast, and almost no spare lifting gas (only enough to replace leakage, and that can be carried compressed.) Not historical, but totally plausible.

 

Also, one problem airships had is that, as they burned fuel, they lost weight, and had to vent lifting gas to compensate. One method, used IRL sucessfully, to counter this is to cool the exhaust from the engines, and recover the water vapor. This does not recover all the "lost" mass, but a large fraction of it, enough to allievate the problem.

 

Now, about the lifting gas---first, mixing hydrogen and helium does little good; if oxygen gets in contact with the hydrogen and a spark is applied, the helium does nothing. Helium is onlly useful in making it harder for the oxygen to mix in well enough to cause a fire. Once the mixing starts and goes on for a while, which happened in every air-ship fire in history, helium does nothing.

 

Second thing about lifting gas; you'll have to use laughably rubbery science to have a machine "produce Helium". In reality, you can get helium from four places: holes in the ground, very large astronomical objects, the radioactive breakdown of some elements (principly uranium), and fusion reactions. All helium presently available comes from a few oil/gas wells that drill through salt domes; the salt domes have, across millions of years, trapped the very, very, very slowly produced alpha particles (helium nuclei) given off by breakdown of uranium and such. The geological conditions that make this possible are extremely rare. Note that the PCs couldn't live long enough to make waiting for radioactive breakdown feasible.

 

I don't think you'll want your PCs able to go to Jupiter or the other gas-giant planets to pick up a load of helium.

 

And, I'm sure you don't want them to have access to controlled fusions reactions (much less uncontrolled ones) that they use for no better purpose than making a little helium. And, it woud be a little helium.

 

All in all, I'd say either go with a hydrogen/hot-air craft (replacing hydrogen requires water and electricity, which is pretty simple), or figure out how the PCs can keep getting helium; perhaps the philanthropist has supply depots set up all around the world? Of course, the airship can always depend more&more on hot air as time goes on, so it needs new helium only rarely. The fun with that is, when the lift is largely from hot air, running out of fuel to heat it with could becomes a major problem.

 

Let me end by saying I think your overall idea is SPECTACULAR! I love it, and wish I could play in it. But then, I think airships are wonderful, marvelous, and I wish like all hell they hadn't been tossed aside by people pushing those stinky, noisy aeroplanes.

 

BTW, did you know a zeppelin can, in still air or gentle breezes, take off and land straight up and down? Those propellers were able to swivel through 180 degrees vertically, and 45 degrees or more horizontally. If the wind were right, they could go sideways, relative to the ground.

[Curufea]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

Ah - but this is for a Pulp game. Real science just shouldn't be contemplated.

 

If you put reality into a pulp game, you get a "dark champions" or "noir" game.

 

Give me sandbag counterweights and rolling stone deathtraps leading to nazi archeologists any day

[Basil]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

Ah - but this is for a Pulp game. Real science just shouldn't be contemplated.

 

If you put reality into a pulp game, you get a "dark champions" or "noir" game.

 

Give me sandbag counterweights and rolling stone deathtraps leading to nazi archeologists any day

 

There's something to what you say. OTOH, plausibility is important, and "a machine that produces helium" is so implausible it doesn't suspend disbelief, it hangs it by its neck until dead. At least, IMO.

 

Since hydrogen can be produced by known science and technology, why go to all the hoorah of producing helium from a rubber science machine? And potential problems with hydrogen are another plot hook for the GM.

 

And, if you put the helium in an inner envelope, with potential loss "buffered" by an outer envelope holding hot air, you can hand-wave away the problem of replacing the helium.

 

...until it's time to use "We need more helium!" as a plot-driver.

[The Monster]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

If you're really concerned about helium-loss issues (I just ignored it in my campaign), another way to handwave it is to have a set of inner gasbags chiach are helium-filled and do not vent except in emergencies, and an outer ring of hydrogen bags for the extra lift and lift control. It might work, and if you really want to deal with hydrogen problems (fires and the like), you still have an excuse. It mostly depends on what you want to deal with in your campaign.

 

Another note of interest around Helium was that, in the 30's, the *only* country that could produce helium in quantity was the USA. It was considered a strategic resource, to the point that Germany was not allowed to buy helium for their planned ships, especially after Hitler came to power. In fact, the "strategic helium reserve" was still a federal budget item up to the last several years of the 20th century (I don't recall the year, but IIRC it was at least into the Reagan years).

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

National security demanded that American children have the best birthday parties in the world.

[Curufea]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

Besides - explosions are pulp. So Hydrogen would be best.

 

Main reason all cars in movies and TV shows are jampacked with airfuel. Even though their body is made of bulletproof armour - especially the doors....

 

(talk about rubber science ;p )

 

Also - I think knockback for guns may be appropriate.

[Herolover]

Re: Questions and Suggestions for my next campaign.

 

First things first. Thanks for all the information. I appreciate all the suggestions.

I am currently recovering from Gen Con and trying to get my work back in order. I will be updating this soon, but have a lot to do right now.