New Group and I'm Nervous.

[VR Dragon]

Okay, first adventure going to be my first Real GMing gig in a year and I haven't been vet before then.

 

Basic story line is this..

 

Mutants haven't been around long and so people are fearful of what they don't understand so....

 

3 mutants have been captured for study. They are being kept in a stasis sleep but a major power surge due to a hurricane hits the facility and knocks out the power and stasis fails. Mutants wake up in to a research station in the Flordia keys with a skeleton crew of people and their robot guards.

 

I was kinda wanting to leave it open because I am not sure what the players will do or how they will react.

 

 

Any advice or pointers? How about advice on robots and how to use them? I used a destroid from my Champians book as a model but modified/powered it down some.

 

Maybe some plot ideas? I was thinking the hurricane would strike the island and cause lots of flooding to the facility and pose a risk to the crew. Something for rescue drama.

[OzMike]

Re: New Group and I'm Nervous.

 

What if there were more mutants than the 3? And what if some of them weren't that nice?

 

Then it's rescue plus protecting the crew.

[Funksaw]

Re: New Group and I'm Nervous.

 

You know what I'd do?

 

I'd secretly ask each of the players, out of the game, without them knowing:

 

"Say, what's like, your favorite robot?"

 

Then I'd smush together the three into one antagonist. So, if they said, respectively, "Robbie from Lost In Space, The Terminator, and Johnny 5," I'd make a tread, retro-looking robot that's designed to kill but was very naive...

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: New Group and I'm Nervous.

 

I like OzMike's suggestion, as it adds a direct-combat element to the drama. (Some players might have trouble dealing with an environmental danger, which they can't attack.)

 

Alternately, the power surge could have affected the robots (plugged in and recharging at the time), causing them to attack friend and foe alike.

 

General suggestion: Plan some things (like other mutants, or additional / more powerful robots) to give the players a challenge, but hold them in reserve in case the players are having problems starting off.

 

Also, are the players the types to rescue the crew of the research station even though those people work with the people that captured their characters in the first place? They might just say, "eh, let them take care of themselves, it serves them right." Perhaps have 1-2 sympathetic crew members to help the mutants, but need saving / protecting?

[David Blue]

Re: New Group and I'm Nervous.

 

Okay, first adventure going to be my first Real GMing gig in a year and I haven't been vet before then.

 

Basic story line is this..

 

Mutants haven't been around long and so people are fearful of what they don't understand so....

So I warmly recommend you give the player characters a chance to counteract that right at the start.

 

If they do, you've set up a good conflict between an undesirable trend in the world and the heroic player characters overcoming it, which is great. And if they don't, then later on the player characters will be able to say, let's look to our own actions or lack of them for why things are the way they are.

 

I'll say this again: if you're leaving things up to the player characters, fine, but make sure they face real choices and real chances to do good and be recognised for it. Don't set up a situation where there's not much they can really do about bad things happening in the game and then say, "I left it up to them..."

 

3 mutants have been captured for study. They are being kept in a stasis sleep but a major power surge due to a hurricane hits the facility and knocks out the power and stasis fails. Mutants wake up in to a research station in the Flordia keys with a skeleton crew of people and their robot guards.

 

I was kinda wanting to leave it open because I am not sure what the players will do or how they will react.

Make sure they have ample opportunities to react like heroes if they want to, and that if they do act like heroes people whose minds are not made up - civilians, not guards - will see and remember them.

 

Here's what I suggest. Assume the storm has hit other nearby islands too. Design three rescue situations with normal people - not the staff of the base that is hostile to the player characters - specifically for each of the player characters. So, if one of them has telekinesis, set up one - two - three situations where ordinary people are in danger and a telekinetic would be the perfect person to save them. Make sure the player character telekinetic meets all three of those situations. (And do the same for the other two, based on their different powers.)

 

By the end of that series of choices, it will be clear whether the player character mutants help ordinary people

(3) every chance they get

(2) more often than not

(1) occasionally

(0) never or practically never.

 

Make these easy choices, there's no need to complicate them with dilemmas like "save the lady or the child". Just: help or don't help. For example, lift the people in the path of something bad up to a safe ledge and fly on, or just fly on. Easy, either way. What do you want to do? The whole campaign can flow from that choice.

 

Any advice or pointers? How about advice on robots and how to use them? I used a destroid from my Champians book as a model but modified/powered it down some.

 

Maybe some plot ideas? I was thinking the hurricane would strike the island and cause lots of flooding to the facility and pose a risk to the crew. Something for rescue drama.

I'd say don't get too interested in the guards, the robots and evil mutants. Those are all fine, but the player characters will have plenty of time to meet them all again later, when the hunt for the escaped mutants is on. Sure, use them, but make darn sure they don't stop the player characters getting away to their three potentially heroic situations each. Don't try to make these fights close run things.

 

Also, don't define the player characters by how they react to the staff, "sympathetic" or not. That risks confusing player characters who may be generous in spirit in general, but vengeful or unhelpful to those who may be their enemies, with player characters who are just not heroic in general.

 

Big difference. You need to clear that up - and not just by looking at what is on the character sheet but by how the player actually plays the character.

 

So be sure to get each player character mutant to those situations involving people who can't be suspected of having done him or her any wrong.