Movies which are PC adventures

[Quint]

Quint; how would you administer 2001 as an adventure?

Ok, @Hemdian did a good job of answering this but I'll add in my own take. First off, this really has two good potentials - as a campaign/setting in and off itself or as a strong storyline within an existing campaign. I've actually done this a couple of times over the years, plucking the various elements that I wanted to use at the time.

Personally, to closely replicate the movie, I would start with the TMA-1 section (the second section of the movie, on Luna). Characters can either be experts pulled in to the story post-discovery like the movie (and the witness or spark the transmission) or they could be the people who discover the monolith in the first place and then continue through the rest of the adventure.

Then it moves to the Jupiter mission (the third section of the movie) and this is mostly kind of classic Traveller (small crew, insane AI, mysterious object to be investigated). This whole section can run pretty close to the storyline of the movie IMO.

Finally, after the secret has been penetrated it moves to the final section of the movie (Beyond the Infinite) which I think could also easily include a section that duplicates the first section (Dawn of Man).

A lead in to the events of 2010 is pretty easy as well, with ether ignoring the whole "Cold War" piece or translating that to tensions between the Imperium and the Consulate/Confederation/etc. Cue huge showdown between fleets as the players are stuck trying to escape the about to change gas giant. Characters can be revealed to be spies for whomever, etc. Much of the flavor of that film can be retained if wished.

For a game, one of the characters could certainly be picked as the Starchild and then be retired, but it could also be a gestalt of the groups mind as well. Cue psionic awakening, cue special psion abilities when together as a group, cue... you get the picture.

If the goal is to use one core group of characters for the whole set of adventures then I'd make them field scientists for the most part with the "right sort of focus". I've used the Ancient's Foundation IMTU as a nice proxy for this sort of campaign. It also gives them the potential authority to basically take over or run the investigation.

You could also run this simply as "Free Trader crew" whatever, and place it in an isolated system with either a low tech or extinct race where they stumble over things initially as a fluke (or simply because they are scanning for resources and discover the monolith on the moon).

Note that the long periods of time between sections two and three of the movie is due to TL8 standards of the movie. Move this into the OTO or an close analog and things move pretty much as quickly as the GM wants them to.

Hope this answers the question!

D.

 

[Murph]

Of course the epic Firefly/Serenity group. Also Guardians of the Galaxy looks fair to be a PC adventure movie.

 

[Reynard]

War of the Worlds (either version) - A high TL civilization invades a low tech civ to colonize and exploit the people and planet ruthlessly. What's not to love?

Moontrap - Virus like machines lay dormant on the moon until one machine in orbit lands on Earth and alerts the nation of the potential threat.

Virus - Virus like entity travelling through space is downloaded into the system of an isolated seagoing research vessel that also happens to have an extensive robotics facility. Salvagers come onboard and trapped there during a storm.

Robinson Crusoe on Mars - An astronaut crashes on a hostile world and must survive the environment and alien slavers until he can be rescued.

Runaway - a society with high robotic presence is terrorized by a hacker able to modify robots plus create purpose built units to act as assassins.

Jurassic Park - research facility discovers how to rebuild the DNA of long extinct life and grow them but lose control.

The Day of the Triffids - Engineered plants used as a valuable resource producer get loose after a worldwide disaster to populate in huge numbers and prey on animal life.

 

[shadowcat20]

Some more oldies.

Silent running was an old favorite (the Plant ship with the three robots)
Black Hole had more interesting ideas.
Space 1999 is still a classic
With a little work Ice Pirates even has potental.

Take any old U-boat movies and make em a SDB in a gas giant being hunted.
Use the old X-Boat movie (WWII mini subs mining German Battleships in harbor) and come up with a sneak in and leave mines in cargo containers on a ship or station type game.
Take any of the current crop of Zombie movies and turn them into outbreak survival type games. World War Z is a good example of a outbreak rather than the classic undead.

With a little work and imagination the possabilities abound.

 

[aramis]

The Flashpoint TV series. The more I watch, the more I realize how wonderfully RPG-like it is. Especially seasons 2 & 3.

 

[JimMarn]

I don't remember the title of this short story. An AI robot is out in space, probably out by the Oort Cloud. Some sort of killer robots have been attacking solar systems, and the human and robot AIs of Earth have been successful mostly. The killer bots set off some sort of high atomic explosion. One of the Earth AI robots goes back to Earth to warn of this new weapon. And finds no patrolling craft, everyone is on the wrong frequency, etc. Figures out its a parallel Earth. The robot AI has picked up signals of the killer robots approaching the solar system. The parallel Earth defenses, of a lower tech level, decides the robot AI is the enemy and is making up the killer robots. They start firing missiles at him. So he crashes into the ground near the Chesapeake Bay in the hopes the parallel Earth defenses will look at the computer records and make weapons in time and this parallel Earth is saved.

 

[leo knight]

I'll second The Thing. I don't know how many times I've ripped off... er... made an homage to the scene where they find the saucer under the ice. Always gets to me. (cue theremin music.)

A few more:

"Raiders of the Lost Ark", etc. Grave robbing for fun and profit!

"Inglorious Bastards" (1978) Escaped prisoners a V2 prototype, and Nazis!

"Escape to Athena" (1979) POWs and a crooked German commandant loot antiquities to sell on the black market.

"Kelly's Heroes," the ultimate we-are-player-characters movie:
'Make a deal with him.'
'What kind of a deal?'
'A deal deal! Maybe the guy's a Republican. Business is business, right?'

"Fistful of Dollars":
'Baxter's over there, Rojo's there, me right smack in the middle.'

 

[Limburger59]

Dr. Jeckyl & Mr. Hyde...

How long before the players begin to suspect that Hyde is not a different NPC, but their lovely patron, or even one of the PCs.

 

[DonM]

I have for YEARS contemplated redoing Hogan's Heroes as a Sword Worlds POW camp during the 5FW. I have not found a group of players yet to run this with.

If you think about this somewhat, you begin realizing the entire run of that show is open for exploit.

It helps that it is my favorite sitcom of all time. My wife bought me the entire run to help me recover during the open heart surgery, and I've returned to it for the current recovery.

Just watched the episode where the Swordies bring in a Zho int officer to make sure the Impies are as calm as they claim to be, resulting ultimately in the prisoners having to capture the Zho, hide him, and get him shipped back to the Imperium while the Swordies are trying to find him and not be embarrassed by his disappearance.

 

[Timerover51]

Just watched the episode where the Swordies bring in a Zho int officer to make sure the Impies are as calm as they claim to be, resulting ultimately in the prisoners having to capture the Zho, hide him, and get him shipped back to the Imperium while the Swordies are trying to find him and not be embarrassed by his disappearance.

Could you translate that one for me please. I watched Hogan's Heroes as well, and that one does not ring the old bell.

 

[DonM]

The SS officer who claims he's reading Hogan's mind and gives them a great bloody nose foiling all their schemes. In the end, they leave evidence that he defected, put him in a bag and let the submarine take him to England.

I try after each episode to rewrite it as if it was a Swordy camp. It could be a Solomani camp during the Rim War, if your interest is on that side of the Imperium. It could be a Vargr camp, but I just cannot bring myself to consider Aslan or Zhos as the camp hosts.

I suppose it could be a K'kree camp for meat-eaters that cannot just be killed, but the idea that LeBeau would be cooking for the horselords would have to be played up on where he keeps finding meat.

 

[GypsyComet]

Alien & Aliens, I'd have mixed feelings about the rest of the series but could be convinced.

Alien Resurrection is totally a PC group, not all of whom survive.

"Dude, you know how many points I get back for being a midget in a power chair?"

"Can I get cybernetic power holsters?"

"Secret Past: Generation 3 AI"

 

[aza]

Suprised no one has come up with Dogs of War or Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven yet...

 

[Chris Barlow]

Suprised no one has come up with Dogs of War or Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven yet...

Dogs of War I agree makes an excellent adventure for a group of players, either as Traveller or a Mercenary type scenario. Magnificent Seven - fine if you can run an adventure with seven players or have players willing and able to play multiple PCs. MY own attempt as a referee to run a movie as a PC adventure used the early Hitchcock movie "The Lady Vanishes" relocated from a train in nineteen thirties Central Europe to a type R subsidised Merchant ship in jump space, with the elderly female spy who vanishes, replaced by a young journalist in over her head, befriending one of the Player Characters, and then disappearing with the ships's crew denying she was ever on board. Unfortunately the changes were not enough to prevent one of my players spotting the similarities in plot. which I felt reduced the enjoyability of the adventure.

 

[martletsquire]

Kinda esoteric, but I ran a Solly against the evil Imperium based upon the tv miniseries on George Washington.

Damned Sollies kept losing the battles, but won the war.

Characters were Solly military serving with "George".

 

[martletsquire]

Sharknado!!!! Nothing is scarier than flying shark! A K'kree's worst nightmare, haha.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Rock and Rule

An animated sci-fi film that came out in 1983. The story isn't much Traveller oriented, but the setting is pretty interesting.

 

[Reynard]

It has wonderful elements you can port over to Traveller. A dystopian world view after a devastation and rebuilt literally on top of the old civilization. Mixes of low and high tech. The less shiny side of a civilization and the cultural personality you player would be surrounded by.

And inhabited by aslan, vargrs and ratfolk.

 

[Samog]

i thought i was the only person on earth who saw rock and rule.

for a film to use as an adventure i would put them through Event Horizon.

and Zulu.

And The Sand Pebbles.

 

[SpaceBadger]

Continuum TV show

Not a movie, but I recently discovered the "Continuum" TV show - Netflix has 2 or 3 seasons of it, I'm only in S1 Ep4, so please, no spoilers!

Short version: In 2077 some terrorists seeking to liberate Earth from its corporate masters - and personally, I think I'm on board with them ideologically, but they are psychopaths who don't care about killing innocents, so yeah, terrorists - get caught, and manage to escape into the past: 2012. Their escape brings along a cop from 2077, who now tries to work with 2012 law enforcement to track down the gang and prevent them from carrying out their nefarious plans. Oh, yeah, she'd also like to get back to her own time because she has a husband and young son then.

Dunno if it's be much use for Traveller plots, but some of her future-cop tech is pretty cool and might be inspirational; lots of augmented reality stuff.