Plot seeds?

[Insaniac99]

anyone got plotseeds for Star hero? that is the only things I'm missing right now, a cache of plotseeds or ready-made adventures like I had at my disposal for Champions games. money is tight so I can't rent/buy many movies or books and because we are going to be wathcing serenity/firefly (which is the same kind of feel we are going for in many respects) I can't just rip them off for the first few sessions while I wait for my brain to start churning out Ideas.

 

also, I figure while helping myself, I'll also help others. once we have a bunch of Ideas here, I'll new thread devoted to posting more and more plot seeds (much like the champions one) and I'll start compiling them into a PDF to submit to the free stuff section.

[tkdguy]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Try this one:

 

Points in space

 

The freeware demo is found here.

[MPT]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

What sort of campaign are you running? I am coming to the end of GMing a Star Hero campaign myself and could possibly write up some of the plots that I have used (they mostly exist in my head), but they may not be suitable.

[Scarlet Drake]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

MPT -

 

Mostly Firefly/Traveler style with a dash of Star Wars (just the good stuff) when the PCs get more involved with Imperial politics and less Frontier-oriented plots. I'm starting with a generic Space Opera feel and seeing where things go. I have a general idea of the overarching meta-plot that I'd like to use; a "Man vs. Machine; Humanity vs. Souless Technology" theme but I'm not 100% sure where that will take us.

 

Anything you have to offer will be welcomed!

 

D

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

The trick is that while most Champions games are built around a common model (ie - superheroes fighting supervillains), SH games cover a much wider spectrum. Plot seeds that work for an alien invasion campaign may not be of much use for a planetary soap opera campaign.

 

That said, here are a couple ideas that you may or may not be able to use, from convention games I've run in the past. The first was for a Firefly game:

It was supposed to be simple. Deliver a load of mining supplies to a settlement on Jackson’s Moon. Collect payment. Refuel the ship. On to the next job. Easy money. Except for the part where the settlement got hit by Reavers and now the Feds are blaming you for the massacre. How come it never goes smooth?

 

The second was from an Alien Wars-esque military game:

The Tau Draconis colony has been invaded by an unknown alien force. The Brass is sending a relief fleet, but you know how they hate jumping into situations with no intel. So they’ve sent an elite commando team (you) to scout things out. All you have to do is get shot from an orbital rail gun onto an enemy-held planet, evade an alien army armed with unknown technology, infiltrate their headquarters, decipher their plans, and report back before the fleet arrives. Hey, if it was easy they’d send anyone!

[Karmakaze]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

I was in a Star Hero game with a not-dissimilar premise. You could crib from that. It's before I tagged my recap entries, but the first recap starts here: http://community.livejournal.com/sar_gaming/26092.html and then pretty much every Wedneday afterwards until the game ran to an end. (Back then, since there weren't tags, I was labeling the games in the titles, which you can see from the month view: http://community.livejournal.com/sar_gaming/2003/03/ )

 

June's backstory (and major plot thread) was that she was an artificially created human who'd been rescued by renegades before she could be delivered to the person who ordered her. Legally, she is simply a valuable piece of technology, so she hides. She was trying to work out how to be a person (with mixed success).

 

Here's the backstory for the 'artificial' humans - that's probably a usable setup for you.

 

And... a handful of short-fiction background snippets I submitted with the chartacter:

June: On cruelty, indifference, and bonding

June: Rebirth

June: On revenge and rescue

June: Always alone

June: On the Nature Of Memory

[Insaniac99]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Thank you all for what you've posted so far, Scarlet Drake isn't in the game I'm getting ready, but aside from the Man vs Machine aspect, it sounds like we have the same style game in mind, so this thread will help two people at the very least.

[Scarlet Drake]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Insaniac99 -

 

YOu are absolutely correct, I did not mean to hijack your thread; before I realized it I had posted in your thread thinking it was another thread that I had started. I'm interested in the responses, but want you to get what you're looking for as well.

 

Sorry about that!

 

D

[Old Man]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

From a game I'm currently in:

 

Your team has been hired to make a delivery of perishable goods to (X) location. You have been warned that there might be high jackers or some such - the area you have to travel through is sometimes dangerous.

 

Kicker - your team was only one of two? three? teams hired to make similar delivery. Only the first to reach (X) location will get paid. Of course, you didn't know that until the other guys started shooting.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

You have been warned that there might be high jackers...

May or may not be much of a threat, depending on what they're high on.

 

[tkdguy]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Here's a link to some Star Frontiers stuff:

 

http://www.starfrontiers.org/

 

Just make the necessary conversions.

[MPT]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Most of my plots (because of my campaign) relate to what happens when planets are rediscovered. From what I know of the Traveller Universe this happens rarely, if ever, and so my plots will not really work in your campaign.

[Lemurion]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

One thought is to have the crew transport something for a very dangerous customer, have their ship break down and the only way to repair it is to use something from the cargo.

 

Now they have to either replace that, or deal with the person who hired them. It's a great way to introduce a hunted.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Is this in the Terran Empire, or a homemade setting?

[JohnTaber]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

I really like this product...cheap too! 100 Sci Fi Adventure Ideas

[Insaniac99]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Is this in the Terran Empire' date=' or a homemade setting?[/quote']

 

it is a home-made setting but it does take parts from the Terran Empire. the main inspirations (IE plagirisms) come from Terran Empire, Traveller, and Firefly/Serenity in that order.

 

I hope my players aren't reading this...

 

but I plan to start the campaign as the stereotypical a bunch of mercenaries/merchants that get conned, or otherwise screwed and the government is now after them, so they have to retreat out of the central part of the federation and try to make a living while searching for clues that will help clear their name.

 

but I haven't come up with anything mroe specific than that, yet. I have about 2 weeks before I need to have the first adventure, I'm working on typing up something for the background to pass out to all the players this firday, If anyone is interested, I'll post it when I finish it.

 

 

one major difference between this campaign and the terren empire is that while there is FTL communication, it only works for a short distance, so the core of the federation may have the galactic computer net, but in the outer reaches it is faster to deliver data annd messages by ship, so that the planet wide computers are updated every once in a while with whatever the big ships carry, it is rarely a full update, and they can be out of date for quite a while, so the planets outside of the core kind of all manage themselves.

[Curufea]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

I really like this product...cheap too! 100 Sci Fi Adventure Ideas

 

Horror and fantasy books as well.

[Deucex]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Skulking around the a$$ end of space, our heroes stumble on a derelict government mil vessel. It's one of the new (insert cool name here) class of warships. One of its shuttles/fighters is orbiting near by. Drooling over salvage rights or to help survivors they get aboard. There is no sign of the crew, no sign of abandonment or a fight. Powering up the ships systems to check the logs they find out that A) it was on a top secret mission, it has an alien FTL drive onboard they were getting ready to test, and C) whatever happened, happened when they were testing the FTL Drive.

 

The heroes start to notice wierd things happening. They see things out of the corner of their eye, etc. Eventually the players get attacked by ghosts, evil shadows or whatever you want to call them.

 

Whats going on and how they can find out about it:

 

When they turned on the power, they set off an alien booby trap that messes with brainwaves so they see ghosts etc.

 

The crew was grabbed by aliens when they opened a wormhole/jumpgate/hyperspace window/whatever using the alien FTL drive.

Video logs of the FTL drive fireing up and the aliens showing up can be found on the shuttle.

 

Limiters:

The heroes dont have enough people to fly the big ship.

The alien FTL drive won't fit in the players ship,

The Alien Booby trap can be scavanged and with some heavy research can be made into a cloaking device.

 

cool visuals:

The unlit ship tumbling end over end in the blackness of space.

A giant shiny black ball floating in the engine room with no surface marks or defining characteristics.

Repelling down the hallways to the engine room to turn on power.

shadowy figures just on the edge of sight freaking out the players

[Old Man]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

The party must escort scientist to jungle planet to do some research on (dangerous) lifeforms.

 

Scientist takes some samples while the party fights off some nasty beasts.

 

The party minus some porters takes the scientist home.

 

---

 

A few adventures later the same scientist becomes known for discovering highly valuable jewels. Turns out that some of his samples when undergoing certain procedures becomes nice and shiny.

 

Scientist hires team to go back to jungle planet to get more samples, more interested in money this time around.

 

More lost porters

 

Party returns to ship discovering that shiny shiny jewel has hatched.

 

Not to mention that the other 3 (or more) shiny shiny jewels sold to important people may have hatched too. Was one sold to the folks hunting the party?

[Curufea]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

A giant shiny black ball floating in the engine room with no surface marks or defining characteristics.

shadowy figures just on the edge of sight freaking out the players

 

That's weird. I had almost exactly that for my scifi campaign. I even rendered some images.

Mind you the ship was organic technology (Vorlonesque) for a race similar to the Jockeys from Alien. They employed defense drones that grew out of the walls and behaved/sounded like the creatures from Pitch Black (but looked more Gigeresque)

 

The engine sphere (if the game continued) would have been able to work on the heroes' ship but required organic compounds to feed it. If they had made suitable scientific skill rolls - they could have worked out that if it was kept in a bath of effluent, it would function.

 

The ship was actually an ambassadorial ship between this organic-tech race, and a magical race (Space Elves, or Spelves ). It had unfortunately been in the path of an experimental human ramjet ship.

 

Here's the render I'd done-

http://www.curufea.dreamhosters.com/games/newton/images/sphere.jpg

 

From - http://www.curufea.dreamhosters.com/games/newton/story.php

[Deucex]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

That's weird. I had almost exactly that for my scifi campaign. I even rendered some images.

Mind you the ship was organic technology (Vorlonesque) for a race similar to the Jockeys from Alien. They employed defense drones that grew out of the walls and behaved/sounded like the creatures from Pitch Black (but looked more Gigeresque)

 

The engine sphere (if the game continued) would have been able to work on the heroes' ship but required organic compounds to feed it. If they had made suitable scientific skill rolls - they could have worked out that if it was kept in a bath of effluent, it would function.

 

The ship was actually an ambassadorial ship between this organic-tech race, and a magical race (Space Elves, or Spelves ). It had unfortunately been in the path of an experimental human ramjet ship.

 

Here's the render I'd done-

http://www.curufea.dreamhosters.com/games/newton/images/sphere.jpg

 

From - http://www.curufea.dreamhosters.com/games/newton/story.php

 

 

I sto... uh... adapted the sphere idea from "Sphere" http://imdb.com/title/tt0120184/

 

Tumbling ship I took from "2010: The Year We Make Contact" http://imdb.com/title/tt0086837/

 

I gave the players the big ship to use as a bargaining chip with a secret government entity as the story progressed. The psychic cloak of alien design was a cool and unpredictable toy.

 

The black sphere FTL drive was important because all FTL travel up to that point in the game used stable wormholes that were supposed to be naturally occuring but were actually made by the aformentioned alien race. I liked the idea that any race we ran into would be either way advanced and avoided us or so simple that we wouldn't concider them sentient. Which is of course how the advanced aliens see us.

[Deucex]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Quarantine: the poor ba$tards are stuck in a hollowed out asteroid turned space station. The feds have declared it contaminated and are waiting for signs of infection to prove it. There is nothing to do and the possibility that they could all get sick and die, but no one seems to be sick and the guards are acting funny. Is this really a quarantine or is something funny going on? If it is a quarantine, what is really being quarantined? Is some mutated wierdo about to go on a killing frenzy? Of course there is also the problem of the contraband the players have with them. They could spend a long time in slam for that alone. It's not like it would be hard to find. They've just been lucky so far.

 

This one is good for a breakout story, an alien mind control parasite, a secret government experiment, a secret government experiment gone wrong, human guiney pigs, any number of government conspiracies as far as that goes. How about rogue government troops pulling a heist that the players could foil, double cross or end run.

[Curufea]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Kingdom of the Blind

 

From a Bernice Summerfield episode I recently listened too-

 

One of the PCs picks up an artifact necklace of no apparent purpose. If the necklace is worn and the character sleeps - they communicate in their dreams to another person wearing that necklace.

This other person is a slave.

She is being kept with the rest of her race (Race A) on a remote planet by another race (Race . They are illiterate and harshly punished if they even attempt to talk (tongue cut out, or blinded).

 

The necklace comes from a long-dead telepathic race who used to inhabit a dying world. After they died out, the planet rejuvenated and new settlers wish to colonise it. However - historical records indicate that a ship was built and sent out before the rest of the race died out on that planet.

 

The obvious plot-

Go to the planet, free the slaves - who are the last surviving members of Race A that crash landed on Race B's planet centuries ago. The slaves are all latent telepaths unable to use their powers unless either their ship is re-activated or they wear a necklace (which is a booster only enabling communications between wearers). The ship was buried telekinetically deep underground by a member of Race A who chose to stay on board (and die) to hide it. If the ship is re-activated, Race A gains enough psionic energy to repair the ship and overthrow (and enslave) Race B. Activating the ship causes damage to anyone who isn't of Race A that is wearing a necklace (alien minds are incompatible). However, before they remove it, they will gain knowledge of the hidden plot.

 

The hidden plot-

Race A was decadent and selfish, using up their world and dying out there. The escapees were the rich and powerful. The ship crashed because they had a telepathic war onboard over what to do with Race B at their destination. If the slaves are given back their full powers, they will revert to their old ways. However - leaving them as slaves is also equally as immoral.

 

The Necklaces-

The slave's necklace comes from the ship and was found by a slave fleeing his masters, into the extensive subteranean caverns. However, since coming back to the surface that slave was blinded and is now unable to find his way back (even if he knew how to re-activate the ship).

The PC's necklace may be one of many found on the original homeworld of Race A. Non-Race A members cannot use the necklaces for anything other than talking to a Race A member wearing a necklace. 99% of Race A do not have the power of speach.

[LunaRagno]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

The colonists of Delta Something IV hire the group to help them deal with the Empire (or whatever the interstellar government is).

 

The Empire has very strict laws about native sapient life; if it turns out one of the life forms on a planet is sapient, any colony must follow VERY strict regulations, and frequently has to pull up stakes and leave.

 

The question on Delta Something IV is; are the Inventednames sapient or not? The Empire says one thing, the colonists the opposite. And the PCs are the people who might be able to answer that. (Or, the colonists need muscle/protection).

 

The twist is, the colonists say the Inventednames are sapient and the Empire says not. Why the reverse from the usual? The Inventednames can only inhabit a setting/area that is inimical to human life, so the colony is not in danger of being uprooted. As well, there's all the money visiting scientists (and their support staff) would spend. A win-win for the colonists.

 

So, why is the Empire so oppposed? Opposed enough to send "researchers" who are nothing more than thugs, trying to beat the colonists out of their POV??

[Thrakazog]

Re: Plot seeds?

 

Being that I own most of the Classic Traveller little black books (yes, I'm bragging ), I find 101 Patrons and 101 Plots to be excellent resources.