Low Level, Mid Level, High Level.

[Ragitsu]

Just for fun, I thought i'd try my hand at creating a (message) board game.

 

The rules are simple -> You first choose a topic typical of tabletop gaming such as "Dragon", "Battle at Sea", "Paladin's Mount", or "Unorthodox Treasure". Then, you describe what each topic would look like if introduced at a low level, a mid level, and a high level; you can be as serious/funny/brief/elaborate as you wish. Once you've finished, suggest a topic for the next poster to tackle. The thread will continue for as long as people are willing to contribute. I'll kick things off with a time-honored adversary...

 

--- --- ---

"Roadside Bandits"

 

Low Level: Bandits lie in wait, concealed within bushes while wearing rudimentary camouflage.

Mid Level: Bandits lie in wait...out in the open, equipped with chameleonic cloaks and rings of invisibility.

High Level: Bandits safely observe travelers from another dimension entirely with the help of a crystal ball/magic mirror or other such scrying device. At at moment's notice, they can traverse the incalculable distance thanks to a powerful artifact.

 

--- --- ---

Next topic: "Nervous Client"

[Ninja-Bear]

Nervous client

Low Level-typical civilian, doctor, teacher, what-not.

 

Mid-level-Super Agent of some sort, Viper or PRIMUS.

 

High-level-Super Villain themselves. Oculon, Sledge, or Pulsar.

Next idea- Foes

[Lucius]

2 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

 

Next idea- Foes

 

Low Level: An Orc

 

Mid Level: A dozen Orcs

 

High Level: 3872 Orcs

 

Next idea:

Allies

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And another idea: Palindromedary taglines

[Funk Thompson]

Low level allies:  Steve from marketing and his jack Russell terrier

 

Mid level:  A squad of marines

 

High level:  Foxbat

 

Next:  "Plan A"

[Amorkca]

 

Low level: Plan a what?

 

Mid level:  Plan a vacation 

 

High level:  Plan a new topic

 

Next:  “Banana Attacks”

[Cassandra]

Banana Attacks

 

Low Level:  Throw a Banana Peel on the Floor.

 

Mid Level:  Hit in the face with a Banana Cream Pie.

 

High Level:  Drop a crate of Bananas from above.

 

Next:  Superhero TV Shows

[Doc Shadow]

Superhero TV Shows

 

Low Level: Captain Nice (1967)

 

Mid Level:  The Incredible Hulk (1977 - 1982)

 

High Level: Batman: The Animated Series (1992 - 1995)

 

 

Next: World War Two movies

[Ragitsu]

Can we stick to tabletop gaming topics/themes, please? Films/movies and television shows are another matter altogether; however, "World War 2 Campaign" would be fine.

[Doc Shadow]

Ok, change that to WWII boardgames.

[Cancer]

Low level: Patrol engagement: eight-on-eight individual riflemen plus one squad machinegunner-loader team on each side encounters the other in, oh, the jungles west of Henderson Field.

 

Medium Level: Tank, mechanized, foot infantry battalions, and artillery batteries in support and individual air strikes in support, move, dig in, and apply fire to the opposition to hold (or take) a crucial spot on the map.  Think Tobruk here in 1941/2.

 

High Level: Divisions and corps level formations are the active elements, contending over a broad section of the Eastern Front.  The overmatched Army Group Center tries to avoid utter destruction (it could not in real life) as the Red Army applied relentless pressure everywhere.

 

Next theme: Maritime raiders

[Ninja-Bear]

5 hours ago, Cassandra said:

Banana Attacks

 

Low Level:  Throw a Banana Peel on the Floor.

 

Mid Level:  Hit in the face with a Banana Cream Pie.

 

High Level:  Drop a crate of Bananas from above.

 

Next:  Superhero TV Shows

I was thinking for High level, Foxbat automatic banana thrower!

[Ninja-Bear]

Low level-Pirates, walk the plank!

 

Mid level-Nazi U-boats

 

High Level-Release the Kraken!

 

Next up, character backgrounds!

[Lucius]

22 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

 

Next up, character backgrounds!

 

Low Level: I grew up on a farm

 

Mid Level: I got some militia training and killed a bear that was getting into a widow woman's chickens. She gave me this armor, it was her husband's.

 

High Level: I lost a hand in that last big war. But I can hold my own in a fight with any one handed weapon you can name.

 

Next up, More Foes!

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And a high level palindromedary

[Ragitsu]

"More Foes!"

 

Low Level: While on an adventure to locate a family heirloom at a long-deserted mausoleum, you earn the ire of the local militia while contending with the usual suspects (skeletons, wandering monstrous humanoids, and rodents of an unusual size).

Mid Level: During a skirmish between two galleons of opposing kingdoms, a group of aquatic beings who happen to venerate an evil ocean goddess decide to launch a sneak attack on the weakened forces in order to earn the favor of their deity.

High Level: It turns out that slaying that dragon was a monumentally bad idea; he was secretly a teacher of an established mage's guild. Upon hearing the tragic news, his students (many of them are now grown up and accomplished archmages in their own right) vow to avenge his death.

 

--- --- ---

 

Next topic: "Tavern Proprietor"

 

(Whomever is up next, don't disappoint me on this one .)

[Cancer]

Low:  Hiram Lowman, halfwit son of Bertram Lowman, owner and master of the Blue Goose.  Hiram knows how to pour beer, collect pitchers, and swab floors.  On a good day, he can figure out how to cock the crossbow hanging on the peg behind the bar.  And, he can manhandle two full kegs from the cellar up to the taproom all by himself.  But he won't take money and he won't make change, sending anyone with cash to his younger brother Brent, who's half his weight and thrice his brains.  Don't try hitting Hiram in the head; there's nothing in there to hurt.

Middle: Jarod Tanner, graveyard shift barkeep at the Broken Axle Gulch.  A biker bar outside of Pueblo, Colorado, the Gulch is a rough place, where the beer and the bourbon are plentiful and easy to come by, though the law and quiet aren't.  He won't sell you weed, but for a two-buck tip he'll direct you to someone with high-quality goods out in the parking lot who will.  His left hand and half his forearm aren't his, being an early-generation prosthesis with a little voluntary gripping and nothing in the way of nerve endings that he earned on a shortened tour outside of Peshawar.  What is his is the small collection of blades jammed into a board on the wall next to the cracked mirror behind the bar, every one of which had earlier ended up point-first in that left hand when he had to escort a client out of the joint before things got really violent.  He's got a good head for numbers, and a good sense for who's worth trusting and who isn't, and so if you hand him a fifty once a week and don't make more than your share of trouble, he likely won't ask for the twenty bucks of overage when you hand him the next fifty.  A lot of the police don't like him; most of the Gulch's clientele does; and in his nine years there he's never had to draw the shotgun that lives under the register.  So four nights a week from nine until closing he's the main man on the premises.

 

High: On the eastern shore of the Schlachtsee ("Slaughter Lake") in Berlin is a posh old hotel built in the 1880s, shortly after the first streetcars were extended out into the forested districts on the western periphery of the city.  Catering not to the richest segment of the population but those who aspire to be and whose means and ambitions allow them to make it so, the hotel was modernized after World War 2 into a safer, updated edition of the large and exquisite Victorian hotel it originally was intended to be.  From its upper storeys is a view over the lake, and in summer the sunsets are quite sublime.  

 

Like many hotels of that era, there are several rooms on the premises where guests can get food and drink, in any of a number of different atmospheres, with different kinds of entertainment available.  While the Herzoginsalon ("Duchess's Parlor") isn't the finest of these, it is the one with the most intimate atmosphere.  Her Excellency Marie, apparently ageless, runs the place by herself (albeit with a large and excellently appointed staff).  The menus are superlative; the wines are the best; the comforts are many-layered and delightfully complimentary.  Quite pricey, but there's never been a dissatisfied patron.  The finest champagne; the most glorious delicacies; unmatched pastries and meals; and in the rooms of the floor below, restful, dreamless sleep in immaculate featherbeds.

 

Her Excellency Marie, though ... *is* ageless.  Exactly what sort of unnatural entity she is is unknown to any mortal.  She has always been there.  Her staff come and go, never admitting to any doubts about their employer, even though they will in an incautious moment let it drop that their great-great-grandmama remembered standing at Marie's elbow when a company of Prussian cadets marched by on their way to the Palace en route to the naval intervention against Venzuela in 1902.  Marie's services are cataloged nowhere, their prices are admittedly high but reasonable for the quality, and limited only by the patron's ability to pay.  The price need not be merely money.

 

One overbearing minister's wife was entertained for a fortnight at the Salon, and she admitted to having had the time of her life there, before she dropped dead at the breakfast table three days after returning home.  Oddly, no one seems to have noticed that her three dogs and two daughters never came back home from the hotel.  A similar end met an industrialist, whose competitor entertained him in the Herzonginsalon for five days while trying unsuccessfully to cajole him into selling out; his heirs were willing to accept the other's generous offer.  A gang of Brown Shirts simply vanished after going through the front gate of the hotel in 1935; the Nazis subsequently merely stayed clear of the place, and as the War ground to its end the British and American bombs never fell too close.  When the last battle came, a Red Army colonel was received by the hotel staff and promptly gave orders to stay entirely outside the hedge surrounding the grounds.  The occupying Americans acknowledged the hotel's presence but never interfered with it, though it was only after reunification in the 1990s that the old guesthouse returned to the full glory it had seen before the world exploded in 1914.  And once again, the richest folk in Germany come to the hotel on the Schlachtsee and have their comfort seen to by Her Excellency Marie.

 

Her Excellency Marie has seen it all, there on the western fringe of Berlin.

 

Is she a vampire?  It seems not, since she's appeared in broad daylight in the gardens countless times.  Is she a devil?  Is she something else?  A few have wondered.  They continue to wonder as long as they stay outside the hedge.  Those that go in, intending to find out ... come out changed, and their friends no longer quite recognize them after they return.

 

It seems wisest not to interfere with the hotelier on the edge of Slaughter Lake.
 

 

Next Up: Naval conflict in the Gulf of Mexico, American Civil War.

[whitekeys]

Man, I really wanted to get in on this, but Cancer... phew, you really set the bar high. I ain't got nothing on the American Civil War!

[Old Man]

 

Low level: Smuggling and blockade running in the bayous of Louisiana.

 

Mid level: Commerce raiding at the helm of an experimental ironclad.

 

High level: Cataclysmic fleet actions between ironclad airships, high speed submarines, steam-driven colossi, and zombie-crewed tall ships, in a wild free-for-all that draws in the European great powers, voodoo witchcraft, Aztec gods, and the First Peoples, that will determine which culture shall reign supreme over the world for centuries.

 

 

Next topic: Social events at a castle.

[Cancer]

Low level: Seduce the scullery maid (or stable hand) of your choice.  Make her/him grateful.

 

Medium level: You get seduced by a section of the housekeeping staff.  They make you grateful.

 

High level: You get caught by the lord of the castle in flagrante delicto seducing the lady of the castle (or vice versa, as appropriate) while the outraged spouse is still sober and the castle guards are still armed and on duty.  Actually, it is up to you if you are the seducer or the seducee; it really doesn't matter.  In any event, you will be grateful if you make it out of there alive.

 

 

Next topic: Negotiating peace with a long-time enemy.

[Ragitsu]

"Negotiating peace with a long-time enemy."

 

Low Level: Burying the hatchet with the village bully so the two of you can pick up hatchets in an attempt to ward off a goblin invasion.

 

Mid Level: Embarking on a journey to establish diplomatic relations with an expansionist dwarf king recently intent on securing your nation's vast mineral deposits.

 

High Level: Questing on the astral plane to locate an aeons old relic which will satisfy a god of misfortune who has cursed you since the day you were born.

 

--- --- ---

 

Next topic: "Rescue The Princess"

[Trencher]

Low level: A naive princess ran away with a actors troupe, unfortunaly they were goblins in disguise. She ran away when they tried to eat her and hid in an abandoned tower, barricading the door. Now she sits in a tower yelling for heroes to rescue her while a bunch of weirdly dressed goblins sits around the tower trying to negation for her to get down. "If you come down we only eat your arms"

 

Mid Level: The party is approached by a lady in waiting who offer the adventures a sizable sum to help the princess win her true love. The king has declared that whom ever slays the huge dragon or other evil that terrorize the kingdom will get the princess hand in marriage. The princess wants to marry this other guy  but even though he is really nice he is not capebale of killing a dragon. The plan is that the players pretend the kidnap the princess and then her chosen suitor will save her. After that he will certainly get her hand in marriage. The twist is that the Lady in waiting is a SPY working for another kingdom when the princess is taken to the agreed upon place the party will be ambushed by a special strike team consistent of soldiers and specialists from the other kingdom.

 

High Level: Riots break out all over the kingdom as huge swats of men starts fighting each other to win the love of a beautiful princess that wanders across the land. The party is tasked to find and stop this chaos. The princess is a young godless of love, she dont understand how to interact with our world and does not realize the damage her divine being is doing to the families and hearts she comes across. She is invincible in combat for most mortal heroes and her beauty is impossible to withstand unless you dont like women.Not only that in her wake is not only chaos of men fighting each other over her but animals becomes huge and dangerous, plants become alive and starts eating people and so on. Further complicating things is that she is being tracked by the gods of evils most dangerous agents who have the right to kill her since she walks the mortal world before it is her time to do so. And they are eager to destroy this godling before she become a real threat.

The agents are: a fallen angel dressed all in black robes with his white wings creating a sharp contrast, his face is pale white and twisted, his eyes black and gold and the white of the eye is pale blue. He fights with his magic bow and his book of stolen spells.

 

An black horse, this ancient beast god have been depowered and bound into this form by the evil god or gods. Its rage is enormous and he blames mortals for turning their back on him and waking him enough so that the gods of evil could bind him. Its jagged mouth have sharp shark like teeth and both its mouth and eyes glows with red infernal light as this being can breath fire that does not damage to material things exept it makes the blood boil in mortals. 

 

A small brick like being made out of grey rubbery material. The upper side of the brick have a huge blue lipped mouth that constantly scream curses and eyes all over. It can take over mens minds and kill with a tought. 

 

A large stone like man made up by thousands of little rocks. His eyes gleam infernal red and he can shoot swarms of flint sharp rocks turning everyone of his victims to so much red mist.

[Trencher]

Oh yeah. And next up is: Evil Library. 

[Ragitsu]

"Evil Library"

 

Low Level: In a horrific turn of events, PCs uncover a fledgling necromancer's study; his journals - all of them - are bound in human skin.

 

Mid Level: Years after the protracted seige of Feldmar, the largest library still retains a healthy residue of demonic energies and assorted ill-tempered spirits (poltergeists). Books are liable to fly erratically for no rhyme or reason. Spells are randomly cast from tomes which were once available to the public.

 

High Level: Walter Keogh is a man with a depraved love of knowledge. After decades of struggling to amass a considerable storehouse of intellectual treasure, he now retains a collection of living beings from various planes of existence in suspended animation. By passing equiangular non-quadrilateral hexagon mindstones over their heads (or what passes for a braincase on some of them), he is able to quite literally read them like an open book; their memories are projected through the stones and into the air as ethereal script.

 

--- --- ---

 

Next topic: "Assassin's Contract"

[Cancer]

Low:  High medieval fantasy.  Go into the seedy side of the old, corrupt port of Darkhaven and hire a slightly-more-clever-than-average thug to snuff out a neighborhood bully who came within an ace of raping your daughter.

 

Medium: Pulp era.  A senior detective on the South Side is getting too close to unraveling your web of extortion and loan-sharking.  Simply having him gunned down will bring in much more heat than you can handle.  Cultivate an understanding with the precinct's mechanic, so that ultimately the detective will get the car with faulty brakes at a crucial moment.

 

High: Cold War espionage.  Stasi are setting up the kidnapping of an Italian physicist when he visits a conference at the Free University in Berlin next month; rumors in the physics community suggest Professor Secchi has a theory breakthrough that will allow the development of medium-yield nuclear warheads much more compact than existing (1960) tech can make ... maybe small enough to fit in a lunchpail.  Key to their effort is a Vice-consul LeBlanc in the French Consulate in Berlin, who was a college friend of Secchi while both were undergraduates in Paris; Stasi has got to LeBlanc somehow (the CIA hasn't figured out how yet) and the plan revolves around the two old friends getting together before the conference begins, and LeBlanc getting Secchi off-guard enough so he can be quickly trundled into the Communist Zone.  [N.B.: in 1960 the Berlin Wall had yet to be built, so crossing between West and East was much easier than would be the case after August 1961.]  Your task: arrange for LeBlanc to be killed in some untraceable way -- i.e., by someone who doesn't know and won't figure out you're an American agent -- during the sixteen hours between Secchi's arrival at Tempelhof and the planned abduction from LeBlanc's residence at the Consulate.  Any earlier than that, and Stasi will put Plan B into effect, and there's no leads on how that works.

 

Next up: You're a pirate.  Over there are ninjas.  

[archer]

Low level:

The kids in the pirate costumes meet the kids in the ninja costumes in the middle of the street and argue about which side collected the best Halloween candy.

 

Mid-level:

The pirates and ninjas obliterate a small city in a battle which will go down in history.

 

High level:

Dead and mangled pirates lay everywhere with absolutely no sign of who killed them...other than that it happened instantly, violently, and totally without warning.

 

Next up: 

VIllains attack a superhero retirement village (aka assisted living facility)

[Lawnmower Boy]

On 7/31/2018 at 6:10 AM, archer said:

 

 

Next up: 

VIllains attack a superhero retirement village (aka assisted living facility)

 

Low level: Dr. Sinistro says that he's attacking the Golden Age Manor in Boca Raton because Mr. Extraordinary's recently published memoirs describe him as a "chiropodist with delusions of grandeur." Actually, he's at his absolute wit's end trying to enforce his daughter-in-law's screen time restrictions on the twins, and he's trying out side-kicking as a way to get them away from their electronics. Their sister is not impressed. "You're wearing that?"

 

Mid-level: Etherium Attacks! An invading army from the floating continent of Etherium attacks Boca Raton, including the Golden Age Manor, location of the seventieth annual reunion of the Blockade Busters.

 

High Level: Agon the Living War-Moon invades the Silent Zone of Arcturus, Store place of the Diogenal Lantern. Evil will soon learn that the LANTERN contains the souls of the heroes who waged war on the Cosmic Dysjunction. HEROES OF THE AGES! TO BATTLE!!!

 

Next up: McGuffins.