Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

[Great Beyond]

So I was coming up with keen game idea, but it seems that I've painted myself into a corner over a plot point.

 

Cobra (or Specter, or KAOS - your vast underground World Crime League) needs to get their hands on some scientists for their Nefarious Plot. First, they have to distract the superheroes and local authorities with a series of incidents all around town. First, they arrange a multiple car accident with injuries and fire at a vital highway interchange, tangling up traffic all over the city.

 

Meanwhile a team of agents kill the head of the local disaster coordinator (and the next couple assisstants in line), to make sure nobody knows what to do. Then they take a tanker truck and blow it up right over the telecommunications network hub, knocking out all local land line and cellular communication.

 

After the local heroes, police, fire and rescue are swamped beyond belief, agents strike at the university. The university had locked the campus down (normally they'd send people home, but with the gridlock gripping the city they've decided to keep people on campus. So the science department gets hit, with select professors being snatched and taken back to Cobra's secret base to start their work.

 

And that's where I run into the wall. They've done their jobs too well - in theory, the heroes will be miles away when the kidnapping goes down and I'm not sure how

 

Oh sure, I could have them jump a straggler, but that's so overdone - I was trying to come up with a subtle clue of somesort (and something that might take a couple of days to suss out, since Cobra needs time to get their scientist slaves to create the needed technology for stage two.) Something that'll make the players go "Yeah, we're brilliant for figuring that out!"

 

I've got a couple of ideas, but nothing I'm really enamored with. So I'll turn to the peanut gallery for your ideas! Thoughts, gentlemen (and others)

[CoreBrute]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

You could allow the university to have video cameras, allow the heroes to see the heist in progress.

 

Use very distinctive clues about where they could have gone. Using a Greiger counter (or appropriate sense) to track radiation, and say the base is near a nuclear plant (There is only one in the city). Or use any energy the heroes can track (Magic, Mutant etc...)

 

A left behind magazine from one of their guns is made from a strange metal that the city doesn't have, and there is only one supplier, black or white market. Use the supplier to find out who he sends the metal to.

 

Or the heroes could catch the agents who are causing the accidents on the road, and interrogate them. Many of the best plans fail because one agent got too cocky or messed up.

 

Whatever you do, let the heroes use their skills or special powers. They paid points for them. Let them use it. That way they can do things no other police man or super hero could do. And that will make them feel special.

[assault]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

It seems like the bad guys are "destined" to get away with a lot - whacking the "head of the local disaster coordinator (and the next couple assisstants in line)" is a pretty serious crime for the PCs not to be able to stop.

 

OK, sometimes the bad guys get to get away with something before the heroes get on the case, but this is mass murder. I would suggest that the PCs get to stop at least one of these murders.

 

Aside from that, the kidnapping of the scientists should provide a clue as to what the Bad Guys are up to. Presumably, they are specialists in something, and that "something" should be pretty much a clue as to what is going on. They might also need equipment or rare materials.

 

The scientists alone aren't necessarily enough to allow the plot to work.

[assault]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

Another thought:

After the local heroes' date=' police, fire and rescue are swamped beyond belief, agents strike at the university. The university had locked the campus down (normally they'd send people home, but with the gridlock gripping the city they've decided to keep people on campus. So the science department gets hit, with select professors being snatched and taken back to Cobra's secret base to start their work.[/quote']

 

"The university had locked the campus down"? This implies that "the university" can do that. Some of the "select professors" might have chosen to ignore this "lockdown". After all, some of them can probably walk home.

 

Were all the "select professors" on campus at the time? Academic hours are often rather flexible.

 

Furthermore, they don't spend all their time in their offices or in the lab. What if they were giving lectures? What if they were having lunch? What if they were in the library? What if they were visiting their partners in another department? What if they were at the campus bar? (Heaven forbid! ) Etc...

 

It would only take one or two key people not being where they were expected to be before the plan falls apart.

 

OK, with adequate planning, they could be picked up where ever they were. But this is a much more complex plan than a single raid on a single target, with all the extra opportunities to go wrong.

 

I presume none of the PCs are among their ranks...

[bubba smith]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

a pc in their mix either as a studen ,faculity or viitor good idea assault

[assault]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

a pc in their mix either as a studen ' date='faculity or viitor good idea assault[/quote']

 

The problem with that is the immense amount of effort they went into drawing out all concealed superheroes. No PCs should be left in their midst unless they were somehow unaware of this huge crisis that the Bad Guys set up.

 

Any PC superhero worth the name would be off trying to fix the other problems - if they were aware of them.

 

Frankly, I'm not bothered with the situation except for the bit where the Bad Guys get away with mass murder without the PCs having any chance to stop it. There are plenty of ways where their plan could come unstuck. Just leave one of these loopholes open, and their whole plan unravels. If the players (not the PCs!) aren't complete idiots, of course.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

I agree there may be too much the bad guys are getting away with without the heroes being able to do much about it. Maybe instead of arranging specific accidents, blowing stuff up and killing folks there's a more subtle way to accomplish their ends?

 

1] Have the scientists be from out of town, here for a special conference.

 

2] A couple of Tele-vipers or other tech types in a van disguised to look like a phone company vehicle park and hook into the network. They proceed to flood 911 with pre-arranged calls, alarm reports and such (patching in an army of people from an Arbco call center if necessary), potentially crashing the system, but giving the police innumerable calls to try to respond to all over town. For added fun (and possible clue) throw in some calls about people dressed like the heroes causing trouble so any cops that see the heroes might hassle them a bit/check them out.

 

3] The cops are headed all over, except for three areas. The airport, the facility that controls the city's traffic lights, and a specific route out of town. A team takes over the facility and puts everything on red. Once that happens the team following the scientists' limo from the airport (Hey, it's the comics ) strikes and captures the scientists. The agents at the facility keep everything red except for a single route out of town that they green all the way. The team at the facility leaves the staff tied up and departs.

 

4] With the traffic all tied up, heroes out and about may start to get involved helping ambulances get through, may help with accidents or follow the police somewhere and start getting the story.

 

Possible ways to catch someone/throw a wrench in/figure it out:

 

A] Finding out that 911 is getting swamped and some of the calls have been wild goose chases a techie hero tracks down the agents tapped into the system.

 

B] Getting a big picture of the 'emergencies' someone may notice the areas that *don't* have a big spike in reports and go check them out.

 

C] Someone may get the idea to go to where the stop lights are controlled to see what's going on.

 

D] Spotting the corridor of green lights, might investigate vehicles traveling that route.

 

E] If the agents get away, the specific work/knowledge of the captured scientists may give clues.

 

F] One targeted scientist missed a connecting flight and wasn't at the airport on time. They collaborated with one of the captured scientists and could help the heroes figure out what Cobra wants with them.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

I agree, though, that you can't "lock down" a typical university campus. There's every chance a scientist is missing - not where he's expected to be, or not on campus at all. Many universities have medical facilities - a logical place for a hero to take an injured bystander or an ambulance.

 

Assuming the villains will get away with the scientists, won't they need:

 

- materials to work with, giving the heroes a chance to catch agents looking for same? Perhaps the nature of the scientists' work provides an insight into the materials likely to be needed, allowing the heroes to set an ambush.

 

- power, perhaps allowing someone to tap into the power grid to determine the hidden base's location?

 

- motivation for the scientist(s), leading to attempts to kidnap friends/family?

 

- maybe a scientist is able to use base resources to send a cry for help - one that only the heroes can decipher. Morse code using power fluctuations, for example? Perhaps the medium used is tailored to a specific hero's abilities ("I can't get a conventional message out, but Electron Man's Electric Sense should cause him to perceive these fluctuations as a series of dots and dashes"). Do any of the heroes have a DNPC or Contact who might be a kidnap target?

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

I keep forgetting not everyone thinks Iron Age. Assault is right on just about every point; Scientists aren't conveniently gathered into one location, unless it's a summit or similar. Especially not on a college campus. And okay; you've taken out the core communications hub, but cell phones will immediately default to the next available satellite/bouncer; it's nearly impossible to kill cell phone reception. It takes one student with a camera phone and a clue to contact their Local Authorities and for those Authorities to put 2 & 2 together long enough to scream "It's a trap!" Admiral Ackbar style.

 

I don't have a problem with them getting away with murder. I DO have a problem with them having the time, talent and resources to knock these people off in swift succession and then an additional assumption that no one else will know what's going on. Traditionally, someone always steps up, probably someone no one expected (so long as they're 18 or older, this is fine; no "wonder children" please). Remember, also, that a lot of disaster coordination is common sense combined with efficient communication. Short wave radio and (again, cell phones) won't be affected by the land-line blackout. Beyond that, if that many people were murdered with that obvious an affiliation, that gives a certain amount of fore-warning. As one of my players said to me: "The thing about your world, Thia, is that when someone dies, that wasn't 'NPC 414.' That was Joe. Joe has friends and family. Joe will be missed. People ask us, "Why did we kill Joe?" and that's what makes it compelling.

 

Create a reasonable (note: not REALISTIC) situation for your campaign, light the fire, then let it roll from there.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

I keep forgetting not everyone thinks Iron Age. Assault is right on just about every point; Scientists aren't conveniently gathered into one location' date=' unless it's a summit or similar. [/quote']

 

Very true; OTOH if there was such a conference, that in itself could be a clue as to why the scientists were taken, and where.

 

Let's say the conference is on dealing with potential radiation contamination of the environment. The scientists taken are experts on radiation management technology, and on radiation-induced mutations. Why was the conference being held in this city? Because a nuclear power plant in the area gained recent notoriety for an accidental release of radioactive water or steam, which led to it being shut down for inspection pending a review of the incident, and (supposedly) left unoccupied.

 

BTW Great Beyond, whichever of the fine suggestions posted to this thread you like, I recommend leaving several of them in the adventure, including the potential to nudge the PCs in the right direction. You can't count on players discerning the obvious.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

I might even suggest going back to the beginning and doing some rethinking. You said "First, they have to distract the superheroes and local authorities with a series of incidents all around town."

 

Why?

 

If these are crackerjack evil agents, and the scientists are just normal university scientists, why is such a grandiose distraction necessary? The heroes can't be watching everyone all the time, so unless they had some reason to keep a special eye on the scientists, the agents shouldn't have too much trouble simply grabbing the scientists.

 

If you don't want the agency to be fingered as the kidnappers, causing distractions elsewhere won't help; there will still be witnesses on campus. If the main goal is to have the kidnappings go unnoticed/unsolved by the heroes for a few days, and what you really need is a delaying tactic, maybe a much more mundane "delaying tactic" will work...

 

The weekend.

 

If they're all at the same university, just have the agency grab them quietly (and separately, to minimize obviousness) sometime Friday evening/night. Maybe some are grabbed after their classes but before they leave campus. Maybe some are intercepted on their way home. Maybe some are taken from their homes. Or some could be snatched while in town somewhere on Friday night.

 

Heck, if the agency is cagey about it, the disappearances might not be noticed (or at a minimum, not be connected) for several days. You have the agency fake a call pretending to be Professor A, wherein he phones a colleague asking him to cover his Monday classes due to a family emergency. Then maybe Professor B doesn't teach any classes until Wednesday normally. Etc. It could easily be midweek before anyone starts to realize the scope of the problem...

[Utech]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

Derek has the right of this. Cause mayhem just to nab some scientists? That's going overboard. Now, if that's what you want to do -- show that the bad guys are just bat-s*** crazy -- then go for it!

 

If they really are capable of all this split-second timing, though, it's probably a lot easier to just kidnap the scientists. Here are a few things that could go wrong for the bad guys:

 

1. One scientist's ex was visiting. The bad guys sure didn't expect to see! They ended up killing/abducting the ex and others have noticed the absence.
   
2. A lab assistant was unexpectedly working late with one of the scientists -- maybe the grad assistant needed some extra credit. The bad guys were surprised to see the lab assistant and abducted him/her, too. The lab assistant was a Twitter addict and is carrying a device (phone, PDA, whatever) that can be tracked.
   
3. One of the scientists they intended to kidnap had a heart attack and died. The bad guys left him/her in place. The heroes get word of the death and investigate. Meanwhile, the bad guys are looking for a replacement scientist...
   
4. One scientist was abducted in the middle of a complex -- and dangerous -- experiment. The heroes have to deal with the experiment first. Then they have to figure out why the normally very responsible scientist just left this thing running.
   

[ghost-angel]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

There's no such thing as a "Central Communications Hub" to a city, or any major point.

 

If there were, my job would be a bout four billion times easier. The telecomm system in the US is decentralized specifically so a single point of failure won't take it down. And at this time no one single entity even owns the entire network, between telephony, cellular and the various fiber trunks owned by network providers you'd have to remove about 3-4 dozen buildings in a large city.

 

If you really want to take a telecomm network down just look to the 1989 failure, a sort of virus was introduced into the network that caused a cascading failure in them, eventually taking out a large area.

 

On the other hand - inducing panic and getting the civilians to overload the emergency network is probably easier and cheaper. Just make sure FOX News reports some very convincing "happening right now!" footage of a pandemic, the other networks will (true to real life) pick it up and run. Instant terror. . .

[mattingly]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

When I GM, I just have the bad guys go about their business without any clear idea of how the heroes will stop them. They always come up with something, so I let them have at it.

 

If they seem to be stuck, I fall back on the old chestnut of their third idea being the right one.

[Prometheus]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

In a comic book world, nothing like that happens without sending out ripples. All it takes is a witness noticing the peculiar behavior of another motorist after the accident, or one of the "assistants in line" narrowly escaping (maybe someone the heroes know?) to tip off the good guys that something is going down.

 

What do the heroes do when they aren't fighting crime? Could any of them be at the right place at the wrong time? Honestly, what you've got right now sounds like a plot idea rather than a game idea to me. There doesn't seem to be an in for any player, and without that interaction it's just the GM describing how the bad guys won.

[assault]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

The university had locked the campus down (normally they'd send people home' date=' but with the gridlock gripping the city they've decided to keep people on campus. So the science department gets hit, with select professors being snatched and taken back to Cobra's secret base to start their work.[/quote']

 

There's a hole in the plot here. How could the Bad Guys predict the university's response? After all, as you pointed out, normally they'd send people home. The Bad Guys plan seems to rely on the university doing something abnormal.

 

In short, it's a pretty half-baked plan, even leaving aside the massive overkill of causing citywide chaos just to kidnap a few scientists.

[assault]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

Well, clearly the plan worked. Time for the investigation.

 

It may or may not be clear which organisation was responsible. If they tend to dress their operatives in green and yellow spandex, it would be obvious. If they prefer plain clothes, less so.

 

The scale of the mayhem would require a substantial number of people. The more people who know a secret, the less likely it is that it will remain secret. The authorities should start looking for informants, while the PCs should, of course, start checking out their sources.

 

The usual procedural stuff should happen - witnesses, crime scene investigations, autopsies on victims and so on.

 

A rough profile on the Bad Guys: they're casually murderous. They're fond of convoluted plans. They're willing to unleash massive chaos in order to accomplish goals that could be achieved through much lower key means. Their leader(s) probably isn't entirely playing with a full deck.

 

They also seem to want to take on all the city's superheroes at once! That suggests a teamup is in order.

 

The fields in which the scientists work are relevant. It can provide a clue to what the Bad Guys are up to, and can suggest potential lines of investigation. They would need equipment and raw materials, which may have been acquired in the past, or which may be sought in the future. Possibilities for doing that should be investigated.

 

Checks on possible hostages who could be used as leverage to force the scientists' compliance should be made. Putting them under police protection should be considered, because at least you will know when they are kidnapped anyway.

 

You also might get some information from talking to them. In particular, you might be able to pick up some clues about the one who is secretly the mastermind behind the whole nefarious plan...

[Vulcan]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

The problem with that is the immense amount of effort they went into drawing out all concealed superheroes. No PCs should be left in their midst unless they were somehow unaware of this huge crisis that the Bad Guys set up.

 

Any PC superhero worth the name would be off trying to fix the other problems - if they were aware of them.

 

Frankly, I'm not bothered with the situation except for the bit where the Bad Guys get away with mass murder without the PCs having any chance to stop it. There are plenty of ways where their plan could come unstuck. Just leave one of these loopholes open, and their whole plan unravels. If the players (not the PCs!) aren't complete idiots, of course.

 

Simply taking out the main communications hubs cripples the disaster coordinator's ability to deal with what's going on adequitely, I would expect. No need to kill the poor guy, and his top assisstants.

[freakboy6117]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

Seems like you've jumped straight to plan Omega when you should have started with plan Alpha.

 

You need to think of it like a movie or TV series your describing the final act or the season finale, not the first episode.

 

The intricate doomsday plot should be reserved for something really heavy duty not gathering a few puny scientists protected by rent a cops.

 

Kidnap the scientists first. snatch and grab them from their beds or there labs with a few agents bundle them off the street into a van etc.

 

This lets the police ask the heroes for help or the beautiful and brilliant daughter of a missing scientist to come into town looking for answers.

Then you up the ante.

 

Now your heroes are investigating the scientist disappearance. The city is rocked by a series of daring and increasingly violent robberies stealing high tech equipment and raw materials. Can the team’s scientist with the help of professor’s daughter/lab assistant former partner figure out what the next target will be in time to thwart the forces of evil?

 

Now knowing what the insidious plot is the heroes must try to stop the forces of evil from acquiring the final component for their ultimate weapon (an experimental rocket engine a prototype stealth bomber a shipment of plutonium or whatever).

This final key component may be heavily guarded but the evil forces know no fear and unleash their most diabolical plot the ultimate distraction PLAN OMEGA they will destroy the city to keep the heroes away till their ultimate victory is assured.

 

Can the heroes prevent the theft and stop the city falling into chaos and madness? will the coordinated attacks of the villains throw all of the cities defenders into disarray? will then be able to regain control before the doomsday weapon is complete? will they be able to rescue the scientists and capture the arch villain before its all too late?

 

Tune in next time

 

Same HERO time

 

Same HERO station

 

For the thrilling conclusion of this epic adventure

[nebulaimplosion]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

Man there are a lot of great ideas here. you should have enough ammo for several games out of these suggestions:thumbup:

 

There is one thing that I noticed though. . . . . how the plan for kidnapping the scientists is planned. . . and eventually goes down, depends tremendously on the psychology of the villain planning it.

 

If he is a raging megalomaniac with a grudge against the city/state anyway. . . he will probably choose the method that would create the most havoc and distruction.

 

If he is a more calculating individual. . . . than you would see him use the quietly abducting the scientists method.

 

Anyway. . . even though this isn't my thread. . . thanks for everyones responce. . . I will have enough ammo to last me the next several months for my players

[Great Beyond]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

Actually, I think you guys are right, as I brainstorm more and more it does seem that I'm starting off with the final act. Now that I've been thinking about the mastermind and his motives (I'm thinking some kind of 3,000 year old Fu Manchu kind of guy, perhaps).

 

But yeah, a more slow, steady hand is in order here. But thanks for all the ideas - there should be more than enough to milk several games now.

[Vulcan]

Re: Painted into a plot corner and the muse has fled!

 

Or David Lo Pan...