Post by StoryTeller on Apr 10, 2006 22:04:37 GMT
"Dandelion Party"
North America is balkanized, split into twelve smaller countries, most of which call themselves the United States of America (except for two which call themselves Canada and one Quebec). Teleporting aliens (the Dandelions) have discovered Earth, which means that the other races of the interstellar Confederation have found us.
All trade agreements are tentative and depend upon Earth's acceptance into the Confederation. We are engaging in an exchange of art objects (yeah, I know I stole this from _Doorways In The Sand_), and Earth seems to have lost one of the alien artifacts. [When I ran this, it was a "pure" AI they lost; a wirehead had accidentally jacked it into the world network. Choice of artifact depends upon how the artifact was lost (by accident or not) and who is after it.]
Each country wants to be the one to find it. [Country of choice], which had the artifact when it disappeared, doesn't want the news to get out, though all the security services know about it. A subgroup of carnivorous aliens don't want the humans to find it.
Alien motivation: Humans may make amusing game or food animals, but it's not practical to ship them across interstellar space. However, if humans fail to make it into the Confederation, the aliens can bid on copyright to human DNA, producing clones for whatever purposes they want. [Intelligent species own their own copyrights.] Aliens may also have internecine struggles.
The characters could be innocent bystanders, diplomats, detectives, police officers, spies for the L-5 colonies, ninjas, yakuza...
"Not All Be Changed"
Superheroes seem to form their own communities, their own strata in society. Given that some of these people have the power of a nuclear bomb, it's understandable that certain espionage, police, and security agencies would want a mole in the superhero community.
The easiest types of supers for a non-super agent type to simulate are martial artist-gadgeteers and armoured-suit guys. (Actually, the agency may not have the budget for a *really good* armoured suit; I ran it with a martial-artist gadgeteer as the mole.) And having a secret ID is a good excuse for wandering off at odd times (and making reports to superiors).
The problem begins when the mole goes native. He forgets about making reports, he forgets about his loyalties, he's just caught up in the entire experience of being one of the Good Guys and thumping the Mauve Marauder. He ignores a recall order, so the Agency sends people in to collect him.
The PC's can be the agents sent to collect the mole, or they can be other supers, who are helping to defend the mole without knowing quite what's going on.
If you need to make things more confusing, there's the fact that he's been recalled because his ID has become known to *other* Agencies, and they want to capture him (in the guise of a supervillain, perhaps) and wring his brains about that little escapade in Bangkok four years ago, or the defection of Gyorgi Dimitrov, or whatever suits your political inclinations.
For a mostly non-human party:
The party is approached by an elf. He explains the following situation:
His nephew (niece, whatever) was visiting some relatives a ways away, and during the travel home was "invited" to stay with a human lord. The lord sent a message that he wanted to arrange a "lease" of some territory
for his brother to hold for (say) 30 years or so. The elves are very aware that such "leases" nearly always end up being permanent. They wish to secure the return of their relative, without allowing the lease. By their standards the health of their relative is more important than the relatively small lease, but they cannot act directly as the lord is on
the other side of a neighboring humano-centric country. An elven force large enough to take the relative back would have to fight its way there and break long-standing peace treaties and probably start a war. So they want someone to act in stealth for them, they cannot provide any security outside their own country. The party's job, should they accept it, is to find the relative, break it free and return to the elven territory... without causing an inter-racial incident in the process.
The lord's holding should be strong enough that a direct attack by the PC's is suicide. Be prepared to have the party try several different methods.
Some twists possible: The elf is a mage, but has lost/used up all his spells and the lord has his spell-book hidden. The elf is drugged and won't cooperate. The elf is forced by a magical curse to stay near the lord's castle. A member of the elf's retinue is a traitor and tries to interfere with the party in non-obvious ways..... (traitor is a
polymorphed human?)
"Make Judgement by Their Rules"
A starship receives a distress signal from a cold-sleep colony ship launched X years before, to an unexplored section of space. When they arrive, they discover that the entire colony ship is under the death sentence (or has already been killed) because a native killed one of the colony ship's scouts. The reason was that the scout violated <apparently untranslatable concept>. You may up the stakes by leaving the entire colony ship, still in cold sleep, in orbit, and the captain apparently committed suicide. The scenario is a mystery: why do *we* get punished for *them* killing us? *Why* did they kill us?
The crew of the starship is soon under the same death penalty. Evidence shows that the scout had a slight xenophobia--("Well within bounds, though--he was a scout, after all.") The aliens happen to be horned hominids, vaguely Satanic looking. Further examination shows that the scout also had a strongly religious background.
Eventually, peculiarities in the alien culture are explained when it's discovered that they are telepathic in some ways, and that <concept> is *Privacy*. Or maybe *Aggravated Mental Assault*. The scout didn't have the decency to keep his/her emotions under control, the alien picked them up and broadcast them back, and *voila* positive feedback cycle wherein the alien was tougher than the human, and won the fight.
This scenario depends upon a universe where telepathy is not impossible but is also not present among any of the players and probably not common or reliable in player space. I've never run it because I haven't had any brilliant thoughts about a society created by graminivorous telepaths.
"Sword Of Kadorn"
An introductory fantasy adventure. Players are a group of village adolescents who have discovered a Sword of Power. The local lord responsibly decides that it should be sent to the capital, where they have mages who would understand such a thing, and since the PC's are not needed between spring shearing and harvest, the lord sends them with an advisor (village hedge-wizard, old man-at-arms, family retainer, whatever). The sword has chosen one of the PCs as its carrier.
Beyond the simple journey to the capital is the fact that the sword has its own agenda. Possibilities include:
-The sword was created to kill a particular ethnic group in a war; that ethnic group subsequently won the war, and it turns out that all the PC's but the chosen carrier are descended in some way from that ethnic group. Over the course of the journey, that PC argues with the sword over whether or not the other PC's should be killed.
(PC: "It will be rather a long fight if I have to kill everyone in the province" SWORD: "But the glorious fight will at last be won!")
-The sword is a Lawful Good sword created a millennium ago, when morals were considerably different. *It* wants to encourage the kind of behaviour that it believes is good, probably rough eye-for-an-eye justice that is frowned upon in most civilized societies.
-The sword is a weapon to be used in an upcoming Apocalyptic War between Good and Evil (tm) and is searching for the best Hero (tm) for the war. In this case, the PC's are simply a vehicle for it to get to the capital. It may have magical abilities that keep the PC's alive during the early parts of the journey, but after it leaves
them, they must learn to live without it.