invasion

[Brutal]

Im thinking of starting up a campaign which includes an invasion (military). Timeline starts a few years into the future (5 years aproximately), around the chicago area.

Point being, anyone played any invasion type of campaign before? Would be nice to know if there is anything I should keep in mind and look out for, or to avoid or to enforce.

 

[Lord Liaden]

As a general piece of advice I'd strongly recommend looking for a copy of the 4E Champions supplement Invasions: Target Earth, by Cyrus G. Harris. The whole emphasis of that book is on running comic-style invasions, and it goes into quite a bit of detail on types of invaders, the sequence of events, leadership cadres, and more. It would be a good guide for you to refer to.

 

Although copyright considerations prevent me from transcribing much of that advice here, I will try to paraphrase a few of the salient points:

 

Decide at the start whether you want this invasion to be something that can be nipped in the bud before it really gets started (by convincing the invaders not to attack in force, find the "secret weapon" that will stop them, etc.), whether it can be turned back after a few pitched battles, or if it will be a protracted campaign. The longer and more involved the invasion, the more extensive and lasting the consequences to your world.

 

As part of that you should decide what the motivation for the invasion is: resources, "manifest destiny", strategic territory, religious conversion, saving Mankind from itself, whatever. Motivation can often be the key to victory if the heroes can find a way to convince the invaders that they can't achieve their goal, or that it's not worth the effort.

 

You should also decide whether the invasion is "open" (troops, vehicles, the whole military panoply), or covert, with the invaders trying to subvert this world through manipulation. Since you specified a military campaign you're probably looking at an open invasion, but it might start out as covert to pave the way, leading to investigative scenarios for the PCs.

 

Consider whether the invasion will be localized so that the PCs are key to turning it back, or national or even global. No matter how widespread the invasion, make sure that the PCs are able to make a difference through victories on their local scale; they can hear reports about the battles by other heroes in other theaters of the war.

 

Think about the leadership of the invaders. The style of the ultimate leader will affect how his troops deal with your heroes: does he lead from the front or stay in the background plotting? Will he attempt to crush his opponents in one massive blow or advance carefully and methodically? Give some thought to the leader's lieutenants as well. They'll most likely be the ones the PCs come into direct conflict with, so you want to make them as interesting and challenging as possible.

 

How much of an aftermath will you want the heroes to deal with? Do the invaders just pack everthing up and leave the place clean, or is there destruction to be rebuilt? Leftover technology that might be exploited by heroes, the government, or villains? Refugees or prisoners of war to care for (maybe including some new alien superheroes or villains)?

 

Hope that's useful to you.

[Magmarock]

...

 

Watch the movie "Red Dawn". That'll scare the britches off you... and give you some ideas too.

[Mark Rand]

Watch Stargate SG-1 on the Sci-Fi channel Monday nights from 7-11 pm eastern time. The Goa'uld are very open in the way they attack, too.

[Asperion]

In addition to everything that Lord Laiden stated above, something else needs to be concidered. How much does the invasion force truely know about Earth? They could have had covert agents on Earth for years, centuries, or longer or this could be there first time on this newly discovered planet. Each case will have an impact as to how they will treat the planetary resistance. In the first case, they will use their covert agents to nutralize the resistance before the invasion starts. The latter case will mean that they are unaware of the nature of resistance that Earth will provide and whatever defenses that are used will most likely will be the same that they use on every planet that they come to.

 

Something else that should be answered is if the invaders have some other force that is in opposition to them that could be called upon that will possess technology equal to them. If there is then the invaders might be trying to get warriors for the war that they are fighting against their mortal enemy. If there is not they the GM needs to come up with some other reason for why they are trying to take over Earth. Perhaps they see themselves as trying to bring the entire universe together for some noble purpose that will reveal itself only when all are of the same mind and belief.

[Ghost who Walks]

Assuming you are talking about an Alien invasion, here are some of my favorites I've run in the past.

 

#1 D'Vorn: They were originally humanoids from an old superworld module, that I had run years ago. I wanted an invasion, so I had them return. I made the whole race refugees from their world, which had been overrun by another group of aliens. They had escaped in a STL cyrogenic ship centuries ago. Of course their computer failed to wake them up, and Earth Astronomers mistook their planet for the moon of Pluto, Charon.

 

A group of them awoke in the late 1980's, and traveled to Earth to get spare parts to awaken the others. (this was the original Superworld scenario) Of course their ship crashed, and some superheores helped them fix it.

 

15 years pass. A supervillainous scientist discovers radio signals coming from Charon (where the D'Vorn are still fixing their ship. He travels out there in his private spaceship, and contacts them. Of course he brings along his supervillain crew.

 

Now the D'Vorn society is a caste based society, with what caste you are in determined by mental, psychological and physical testing. 8 castes existed in total (they had 8 fingers and thumbs) - Scientist, Administrator, Military, Farmer, Labor, Engineer, Artist, and Criminal.

 

the supervillains of course stage a coup, and put the criminals in charge. Why did the fleeing D'Vorn take the criminals with them into space? By ancient tradition the criminals were useful...they performed the lowest, most menial labor. They were also subjects of medical experiments (so some of them had quasi-powers)

 

With their criminal allies, the supervillain launches an invasion of the Earth...his target of course being the oil-rich Middle East.

 

Conflicts the mini-campaign had

~Heroes allying with corrupt middle Eastern dictators, to fight aliens

~Finally reaching the "Home Planet" of the aliens (a giant spaceship), and finding out the true situation, and that the other castes weren't so bad.

~Villains used the opportunity to go on crime sprees in many areas

~The government sent out a modified shuttle, on a suicide mission, with one of PC's in charge, to take out the enemy spaceship. Of course there were also 12 criminals aboard, who were promised pardons

 

Eventually, the pesky heroes won. The legitimate D'Vorn government (a council consisting of the leaders of all 8 castes) was restored. Since it was so slow, the D'Vorn ship stayed around, turning the campaign into a semi-cyberpunk one.

 

#2 The Methane Breathers

Remnants of a once great civilization, that consisted of many different races, the Methane Breathers centuries ago started a neo-fascist movement, and killed off all the oxygen breathers in their area of space. They had such a high level of technology, that a single Methane Breather would by himself command a single ship, crewed by hordes of robots.

 

The Methane Breathers had a very low population, and actually consisted of several different races (One from the Zodiac Conspiracy), all of whom breathed Methane. Their Robots did all the actual work.

 

Among their other activities, the Methane Breathers needed huge amounts of raw materials to keep their industry going, and sustain their ridiculously high standard of living (I mentioned they each owned their own spaceship?)

 

In order to sustain this level, they strip mined any world they could find, and it just so happened that Earth had something they wanted.

 

3 ships (and thus, 3 aliens) assualted the Earth with their legions of robots, bombing everyting in site, to get rid of the infestation of Oxygen Breathers. Many of their attacks were to gather components, to build more robots aboard their factory ships.

 

The fun part of this one was I had all the real life political leaders in office. Bill Clinton of course cut a deal with the aliens, promising to mine the mineral they wanted, in return for them sparing the Earth. To enforce their claim of tribute, the Methane Breathers left behind their robotic ambassador...Methanon.

 

Conflicts

~Obviously, this campaign was about racism. They were just biased on what atmosphere you happened to breath, and their were aliens.

~Smashing robot hordes

~visions of Independece Day

 

 

#3 EnGulfCo

I ran this around the Enron debacle. A corporation got hold of a "gate" that led to another worl (ala Stargate). Of course the Corporation launched an invasion, hiring a bunch of mercenaries to train a faction of the locals. Once the locals were in power, the corporation traded them more military equipment, in return for everything they could grab. Of course the corporation was an Oil company.

 

All the locals on the planet originally came from Earth. They lived in a quasi-medieval background, except one area was run by an actual dragon, and they had wizards. All their nobility were metahumans, to give the PC's someone to beat up.

 

The PC's got introduced to the scenario when the mystic was "summoned" by the wizards to the other world. Thus, they also had to find a way to get back to their world, and help the locals.

 

Conflicts

~The main function of this one was to show Corporate Greed

~The fact the corporation was introducing literacy, and freeing peasants. The corporation had been running around the planet for about 10 years.

~the Corporation was stopped when a wealthy PC bought controlling interest, via the stock market

~Of course I used maps and background from all those old Fantasy games I have laying around.

~trials of the various executives continue to get mentioned in the background of the campaign. For some reason, the PC's hate these guys more than their supervillains...

 

As you can tell, I run by invasions a bit different from the comic format. I try and put a little thought into them, and give a reason why the invasion occurs.

 

Oh, first post.

[assault]

Re: ...

 

Originally posted by Magmarock

Watch the movie "Red Dawn". That'll scare the britches off you... and give you some ideas too.

 

It certainly scared me! The thought that people would be given money to make such a relentlessly awful film is truly terrifying.

 

On the other hand, it's sheer awfulness makes it a lot of fun.

 

I'm not sure that I would use it as a source of ideas for a serious game, though. A silly one, definitely.

 

Hmm. The US is mysteriously invaded by morons. Even bigger morons band together to oppose them.. Yeah, that sounds like fun.

 

A picture of Foxbat appeared on the left hand side of my screen while I was typing this. Do you think that that constitutes an omen?

 

Alan

[Lupus]

Originally posted by Ghost who Walks

Oh, first post.

Welcome!

 

Some interesting ideas, too. Myself, I usually steer clear of any real-world leaders... in my players' living memory, anyway. I know I'd get carried away with commentary if I did it any other way. Same reason I never run games set in Australia, despite living here. But I can see that for the right group, it'd be of benefit for a game.

 

Myself, my two favorite alien invasions are from JLA (current volume) issues 1-4, and early issues of Astro City. The former featured super-powered aliens 'making the world a better place!' and fixing things behind the scenes to discredit the Justice League. They end up being exposed as invaders. Give the League a real hard fight to escape, too. And gave Batman an opportunity to show how completely badass he is.

 

The Astro City aliens also tried the subtle invasion route - tying up the local heroes with all kinds of bureaucratic trouble and stirring the population against them. Was told from an interesting perspective (the first issue of it was actually told from the alien's point of view).

 

If you're talking about a more mundane invasion (that is, coming from another earth nation rather than aliens), then things are probably just as tricky. 'Why' and 'how' are still the two primary questions. Both are difficult to answer. There'd probably be a lot of taking out of the chain of command, though.

[lemming]

Re: Re: ...

 

Originally posted by assault

Hmm. The US is mysteriously invaded by morons. Even bigger morons band together to oppose them.

I first read that as Mormons. Need more coffee.

 

Though what if it's akin to "Morons from Outer Space"? A great film if just for the salute.

[Asperion]

Regardless if this were to be at the start of a new campaign or introduced into some long-running campaign, I would most likely make the invasion one that the PCs would be able to stop with relatively little effort. However the invasion would leave behind agents that would have to be discovered and removed in some form. This could be by some simple means such as the alien looking nothing like any terrestrial lifeform to extremely difficult since the aliens for some reason looks exactly like normal humans. Complicating things would be if the aliens continue to possess their advanced technology or it was lost when the invasion was repealed. The less human looking they are the more of their advanced technology they should continue to possess. No matter what though, they either individually or collectively should be able to give the heros trouble whenever they meet. In addition there should be adventures that has nothing to do with the aliens, such as litigation problems, more normal villains, or the greatest problem that our heros could possess, their own selves.

[Diamond Spear]

Read Harry Turtledove's WorldWar series.

[GenreFiend]

Originally posted by Diamond Spear

Read Harry Turtledove's WorldWar series.

I love those books! I highly recommend them, along with almost everything Turtledove has ever written. As for the invasion question, I feel I can add nothing to what's already been said. Most important part is deciding what effect you want the invasion to have. Wait! Here's an idea. DC did an Elesworlds a little while back, where aliens invaded Earth and were quickly met by superhuman opposition. So, they tried a new tactic, slaughtering hundreds of humans everytime a super-human showed up. This caused normal people to turn against superheroes and eventually drive them underground. Of course, the few remaining superheroes eventually banded together and attacked the aliens' high commander when he visited Earth. Might give you some fodder to work with.

[Brutal]

Wow, i havent check the forums in like a week or so and now i come back and got some pretty useful input.

Thanks

 

/bru

[Ghost who Walks]

Turtledove is pretty good, although I find some of his characters a bit repetitive after a while. His original Videssos saga (5 parts) is his best work. It had a Roman Republic Legion going to a new-Gyzantine world, and running around, Roman style.

 

For alternate history madness, Willaim R. Forstchen's "the Lost Regiment" is pretty good. 8 parts, its about a civil war regiment that gets transported to another world, where they get involved in a war. Its a struggle for survival type conflict, but the basic premise could be easily be adapted to a "Superheroes-go-to-other-World plot." The baddies in the books are pretty memorable baddies. There was talk last year of turning it into a movie.

 

Best comic book invasion was in the "Strike Force: Morituri" series. Done (surprisingly) by Marvel, some years ago now. Earth gets invaded, and creates super-powered people through a process. Only catch, only a small fraction of Earth's populace can be powered up, and their life expectancy is reduced to a maximum of a year.

 

Every issue had a new character appearing, and an old one getting killed. The writers used to throw darts at a wall to determine who would die that issue. It pretty much set the tone I try and use when superheroes confront a military force, they can get killed, bullets hurt.

 

Very good, heroic comic, because the heroes now they are going to die. The question is how. Since you said (in your original post) that you were looking at starting a campaign, this could be useful.

 

if you are looking at doing a Fantasy style invasion war, try George R.R. Martin's "Game of Thrones", and its sequels. Its actually got me interested in the Fantasy genre again, and the political intrigue and characters are very well done. Every one of the characters could be written up by the Hero system, with realistic skills and disadvantages.