PC backstory TOO close to campaign premise

[Rebar]

RA-CHETT - DO NOT READ   

 

 

 

 

Help me find creative ways to resolve this.

 

A creation story of one of my characters is a little TOO close to my campaign premise. As soon as I introduce some plot threads, it'll kind of blow wide open.

 

This is a 1930's pulp adventure, travelling (nautical) circus theme. The thread that ties the characters together is the granddaughter of Madame Tassaud (of Wax Museum notoriety). She has a collection of weird things (skeletons, preserved monsters, cultural/religious talismans, etc.) from allover the globe.

 

One of her primary specimens is one of the other PCs: an intelligent ape-like creature named Ra-chett (he's good with mechanics - get it?) His mind is, in reality, that of a WWI pilot who crashed in the Amazon (lots of proto-Nazis hanging out there, just sayin') and mysteriously woke up in the body of this ape-like creature.

 

My story's premise involves Neanderthals still alive and well and living in the remote regions of the Earth, possibly enslaved by an ancient, highly-advanced race (not necessarily Nazis).

 

My plan was to have the team travel down the coast of the Americas by steamship (eventually ending up in S. America and even further south), encountering new lands and people and getting involved in A-Team-esque adventures. While that's going on, I would weave in encounters with giant ape-like men (which they would eventually discover are Neanderthal), ultimately leading them to a shown down with the superior race.

 

So, the problem is this: the moment they come face-to-face with the first N. in a battle, even if briefly, the focus of the campaign will shift to the obvious tie-ins between the PC and the N. I must determine ahead of time what these two ape-like critters have to do with each other. A unrelated coincidence would just be bad writing. I'm looking for inspiration on how I can have this PC in my game, and still give me enough room to play out my campaign plot over many episodes. Or involve him directly, but without every single episode being coloured with attempts to capture a N. and solve the primary mystery. See the problem? The plot is too important to the heroes to let it resolve at a campaign-spanning pace.

 

We have only played a single game of the campaign so far (they got chased off the pier by tommy-gun-toting thugs), and Ra-chett wasn't present, so nothing is set in stone.

 

I'm open to changing things:

 

- PC could be a N.

 

- PC could be a similar experiment (perhaps failed, perhaps successful) - of which N. is also a part, but not the same part - by the superior race

 

- the superior race (*sigh* I can't get away without full disclosure) is Atlanteans (the land-dwelling kind, not necessarily the ones with flukes) there COULD be a tie-in to proto-Nazis but this is not essential.

 

[massey]

Have your neanderthals look different than the PC.  Describe them initially as big, brutish men.  And honestly, when you said your PC woke up in the body of an ape-like creature, I imagined him to be all hairy.  Just describe the two as looking quite different from one another.

[tikiman]

I don't understand...if this was going to be a problem why did you let a PC like this into the campaign at all? Did I miss something?

[Lord Liaden]

Appearance-distinction is a good idea. Just the presence or absence of "fur" would make a big difference. If your PC is indeed very hairy, perhaps the Neanderthal culture removes facial and body hair. Possibly the superior race is big on hygiene.

 

It sounds as though the encounters with the Neanderthals that you planned to "weave in" aren't intended to be key to the earlier adventures you want to run, just teasers. If that's the case, I would recommend holding off on them altogether until you're closer to the time that you want the PCs to start seriously dealing with these races. That way, if they do see the connection and are motivated to solve the mystery, that will drive them where you wanted them to go anyway.

 

BTW I know from experience that you can't assume a connection that seems obvious to you will be so to your players. Sometimes even hitting them over the head with clues won't penetrate their obliviousness.

 

As an aside, while this topic is in the Champions sub-forum, what you're describing sounds more like a Pulp game. Is it intended to be supers, only in period?

[bubba smith]

maybe make the PCs fur gold [as congorilla ]

[Rebar]

Have your neanderthals look different than the PC.  Describe them initially as big, brutish men.  And honestly, when you said your PC woke up in the body of an ape-like creature, I imagined him to be all hairy.  Just describe the two as looking quite different from one another.

 

Yeah, but it seems silly to have two ape-like species-with-mysterious-origins in the same campaign, yet have no connection between them. You'd never see that in a book - comic or otherwise.

 

I don't understand...if this was going to be a problem why did you let a PC like this into the campaign at all? Did I miss something?

 

1] Complete creative freedom for the PCs. I don't want to have to say 'Great idea. Now here's a clean sheet of paper, try again.'

2] I am still forming the campaign end-story. At first, it was enough to have them in episodic A-team like adventures, but any good story will still have a story-arc. Even if it's not revealed what the campaign end-game is, I have to start foreshadowing it.

 

Appearance-distinction is a good idea. Just the presence or absence of "fur" would make a big difference. If your PC is indeed very hairy, perhaps the Neanderthal culture removes facial and body hair. Possibly the superior race is big on hygiene. 

 

Yeah, but I still need to have a omniscient knowledge of what the connection is, even if it isn't revealed yet.

 

Possibly the superior race is big on hygiene. 

 

Actually, I kind of like that. Between you and massey, you've given me an idea. The PC was their first attempt, but was too primitive. So they used a more modern hominid.

 

Hm No, that won't work. They've appeared on the scene in the wrong order. They would have been cultivating/enslaving Homo N. for the last 10,000 years. Yet the Ra-chett is here in modern times.

 

Hmm. Maybe Ra-chett has a whole people who were part of the first failed experiment 15,000 years ago, but one band of his people escaped extermination. They fled to the Amazon where they've hidden for 10,000 years.

 

Doesn't explain his origin though. He's a human mind in an ape-body. Thinking...

 

It sounds as though the encounters with the Neanderthals that you planned to "weave in" aren't intended to be key to the earlier adventures you want to run, just teasers. If that's the case, I would recommend holding off on them altogether until you're closer to the time that you want the PCs to start seriously dealing with these races. That way, if they do see the connection and are motivated to solve the mystery, that will drive them where you wanted them to go anyway.

 

Yeah. But that means I can't even use the coolest aspect of the campaign as ready-made opponents. (Every town is going to have to have their own pot-stirring gangs. Which I guess is fine. Lots of short plots to have fun with.)

 

As an aside, while this topic is in the Champions sub-forum, what you're describing sounds more like a Pulp game. Is it intended to be supers, only in period?

 

 

It is actually a Pulp Campaign, yes. But the question I'm asking isn't genre-specific, and this way I have a broader pool of creative thinkers (not to mention a much more active forum).

[Ninja-Bear]

Perhaps the pc is an experiment by the Atlanteans as devolution. End game is that the Atlanteans want to use their regression ray on humans so they are the superior race again. The neanderthals are an enslaved race by the Atlanteans which weren't allowed to go extinct-perhaps the neadertgals are clones?

[Burrito Boy]

Different appearance sounds good to me too. As for the reason he looks different...Maybe some member of the superior race was exiled for some reason, wandered around the jungle until he met up with some proto-Nazi scientists, and taught them about Atlantean science. Not having access to the Atlantean supply of Neandertals, they grabbed the nearest ape they could find and the first available brain for their expiriment. Thus Ra-Chett is related in a sense to the Neandertals but not actually one of them.

[Cassandra]

The PCs encounter Ra-Chett who tells them history about being a World War One Pilot who doesn't know who he ended up in the body of an ape.  He appears from time to time to guide the PCs into various adventures, and disappears usually putting on an overcoat, had, and glasses to disguise his true nature.  What the PCs don't know is that he's waging a war against the Neandertals because he's the agent of a secret society of intelligence apes who plan on overthrowing human society.

[assault]

Burrito Boy's suggestion seems to have promise.

 

Alternatively, why use Neanderthals? Why not use apes like the PC?

[Lord Liaden]

Yeah, but it seems silly to have two ape-like species-with-mysterious-origins in the same campaign, yet have no connection between them. You'd never see that in a book - comic or otherwise.

 

 

 

Yeah, but I still need to have a omniscient knowledge of what the connection is, even if it isn't revealed yet.

 

 

 

Actually, I kind of like that. Between you and massey, you've given me an idea. The PC was their first attempt, but was too primitive. So they used a more modern hominid.

 

Hm No, that won't work. They've appeared on the scene in the wrong order. They would have been cultivating/enslaving Homo N. for the last 10,000 years. Yet the Ra-chett is here in modern times.

 

Hmm. Maybe Ra-chett has a whole people who were part of the first failed experiment 15,000 years ago, but one band of his people escaped extermination. They fled to the Amazon where they've hidden for 10,000 years.

 

Doesn't explain his origin though. He's a human mind in an ape-body. Thinking...

 

 

Okay, so you definitely want a tie-in. Gotcha.

 

How about this: the original owner of Ra-chett's body was a rebel against his Atlantean masters, trying to escape their control. But he didn't believe he would be accepted among humans in the outside world. Then he came across a crashed human pilot, and used devices stolen from the Atlanteans to switch their minds.

 

Somewhere out there that Neanderthal is walking around in your PC's original body.

[Balabanto]

That's good!

 

Or, worse:

 

The original owner of Ra-Chett's body is Ra-chett. When the pilot encountered Ra-chett, he heroically fought the Atlantean ape-creature despite the fact that he had no chance. During the battle, Ra-chett's mind-enslavement ray was damaged and exploded. The pilot was killed in the explosion, but his mind imprinted over the villainous atlantean ape!

 

Now the story is all about the atlanteans trying to "save" their leader!

 

The best part is when they get to the end and the Atlanteans are about to enslave the minds of millions using a larger version of the device, and he says "Your plans will never succeed!"

 

The new leader just says "Our plans? No, my lord! This was YOUR plan!"

[Rebar]

Ooh! This is good stuff!