Post by StoryTeller on Apr 10, 2006 22:03:49 GMT
"Gamma World"
An item has been stolen from a temple/mage/lord etc, the thieves trailed to a portal leading to an unknown plane/realm. The PC's are hired to follow and retrieve the item and/or scout the realm. The realm escaped to is from the Gamma World game. Several thousand years after an atomic war, patches of technology still exist. Most survivors are animal and/or human mutants and have a mix of equipment. Laser pistols, bow and arrows, smart missiles, swords, armalite rifles, battle axes, war robots etc. Survivors are TOUGH and many have physical and/or mental mutations, as the weak ones have already died out. Several technological installations still exist, guarded by robots etc. PCs must trace the item, find the current owners, retrieve the item and return before radiation traces in the atmosphere slowly kill them. (Optionally, the portal is now set so that it can only be used by someone carrying the stolen item, hence stopping the PC's escaping or more raiders coming through). Equipment bought back may or may not work. PCs with laser pistols, rocket launchers and mini-tanks are worrying in fantasy worlds.
A plot for a Paranoia campaign:
A Death Leopard Head Honcho decides to run a scam on the First Church of Christ Computer Programmer. Her theology is fairly limited: "Jesus H. Christ" stands for J. HARLEY C., and Harley is the 3rd person in the
Trinity. Jesus said "Have Fun!", and Harley shows us HOW to have fun. As the prophet of the Lord, she begins convincing lower Church members of the truth (her Death Leopard handle is Son of David, which she changes to
Son-U-David for missionary purposes, and which also allows a handy link to Harley). The main mission consists of forming a rock group where she and her lieutenants take on yet more persona as ELL's Angels (Gabr-I-ELL,
Raph-I-ELL, Mike-I-ELL and Ur-I-ELL) and give impromtu concerts to the Infrareds, inciting all 30 000 of them in the sector to "Have Fun!" She proposes a link between the Church and Death Leopard, which shall be called the First Church of Harley Games Progammer. It is a vital, yet little understood (especially by her) part of her thelogy that Jeremiah was a bullfrog.
Troubleshooters should be inserted, perhaps as agents for the high Church officals in Internal Security, who may or may not have varying degrees of certainty on how heretical all this is. Of course, if the Troublesootters are IntSec, they have a good chance of being Church themselves, and may get caught up in the low clearance revivalist
atmosphere...
The party has just cleaned out some ex-mage's compound. In the scenario I was working with, the party had found a virgin ring of spell-storing and some matched jewelry, but just about any similar high-power magic would be useful as a set-up.
The party is resting from their endeavors when a well-dressed person comes to find them at their current quarters. He is an emissary from a high-level noble of a nearby country. He asks if the party is the one that cleared out the mage's quarters. If the party denies it, he produces proof. After the identification, the emissary asks if they have the magic item. He explains that the item belongs to his master, it was commissioned and paid for. He demands the item and offers little or no (DM's choice as necessary to provoke the party) reward. When the party refuses the emissary explains that by the laws of the country he comes from the item belongs to his master and they must return it to him.
If the party still refuses, the emmisary declares them outlaw (something most countries ignore) from his country.
Whenever life is getting boring after that, send an assassin or two or maybe thieves to steal the desired item after the party. If the party tries to go after the noble they will have the difficulty of manuvering in a country where they are outlaws. The whole setup provides a good hook for several other plots and can be used to cause havok wherever the PC's go.
The group has come to a city of which half has been taken over by orcs. The humans still control the other half. This stalemate has lasted for approximately 2 weeks with occasional border penetrations by each side into the opposing half (guerilla raids, party loves 'em, 2sp/head!).
But things have changed for the better/worse. An army from the north, in an attempt to make good on the city/kingdom's problems, has sailed into town. They wiped out the mercenaries guild (the only opposing force) and stated that all people were now citizens of the new empire and they would be rid of the orc menace within two weeks. Everyone has been drafted into the militia. What is really bizarre about the army is that it consists of all sorts of races (human, elf, 1/2 elf, etc), all speak a common tongue, they are VERY well organized yet are individuals.
(Everyone has personal weapons, armor, etc.)
The party can decide what to do. They may not like the idea of being drafted into the militia to be used as fodder (for an empire they don't belong to) to rid the town (that they are only visiting) of the menace. However, it WILL provide for some good roleplaying trying to explain to the new invaders why the group should (or rather wants) to remain together.
The plus is that after the orcs are gone, the militia wil be disbanded (or so the invaders say) and the members will be free to go on their way as citizens of the new empire (more lands to visit). The other bonus is that the party may be able to get ahold of a little of the recaptured territory.
"Acquainted With the Night"
A group of players *start* by discovering that one of their friends has been bitten by a vampire. They follow through the entire process, possibly killing their friend once he/she has risen again, probably hunting down the vampire that bit their friend. Happy ending.
Then the vampire community seeks retribution. Yes, it was clumsy of the vampire to get caught, but it's not the place of the herd to exact justice on the vampires. The complexity of this scenario depends upon how you imagine the entire supernatural community.
One possible idea is that vampires -- the cool manipulative Undead --just don't exist. Vampires are mindless creatures which reek of clotted blood and which fixate on their families because those are the strongest memories left. A vampire is what happens to someone who dies of a ghoul-bite. (Doesn't happen often because ghouls don't usually bite live people. NOTE: these are obviously not _Vampire: The Masquerade_ ghouls.) The image of the vampire is the result of a plot between the ghouls and the werewolves: they wanted a patently false supernatural image that would distract attention from themselves. In this case, the PCs are under attack because they have a sample vampire to look at and modern science may discover the connection.
If you're running _Vampire: The Masquerade_, then the PCs are initiated by a Sire for their own protection. The Sire has some long-standing grievance against the Sire of the clumsy vampire, or has some ideological conflict with those who would kill the PCs.