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gloriousbattle
Guest
This topic was originally taken from an OD&D forum, but I think it fits better with Traveller. Anyway, it is a good idea for coming up with campaigns that are way off the beaten path. So, if your player's are tired of finding Twilight's Peak for the fifth time, try this idea on for size.
I urge everybody who reads this to contribute something, as it is the sort of thread that could really be very beneficial to our hobby as a whole.
I got the idea for this thread after watching the original Outer Limits, Demon With A Glass Hand on youtube recently http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSZ3RdUL7Iw&feature=related
While many people do not like Harlan Ellison, he really was capabale of writing some amazingly imaginative stuff, and this story about a man(?) from the future who is running across time, being chased by future aliens who want to destroy humanity, has become a classic of science fiction. Obviously, it would require some modifications to make it useful as an rpg setting. One man in a climactic battles with a few aliens would be a good one-off game, but not a campaign
So...
What if, instead of just Mr. Trent, the setting was a group of people with no memory of who or what they are waking up in an location of which they also know nothing. They have some abilities and skills that they are aware of, but what else? Who are we? What is our purpose?
Gradually, they become aware of the following:
1. They are all that is left of humanity
2. Humanity was destroyed by shadowy forces of some type, that now seek to kill THEM, but they don't know why.
3. The abilities that they possess, though impressive, are only partial. They need to acquire something to complete them.
4. They begin to learn their purpose along the way. Probably it is that humanity can, in some way, be brought back, but maybe something more exotic, like the forces stalking the PCs are the evil things that humanity will become, and the player characters are going back in time to try to create a better destiny.
Anyway, this is just one idea from one old sci-fi show that I can see as making a great rpg setting, combining combat and adventure with a real sense of mystery, but that would be very playable in OD&D (or similar) rules. As an example, Mr. Trent's gradual recovery of the "fingers" of his "hand" and the knowledge he gains when this happens could be seen as a form of "levelling up."
This particular setting I would probably not play using OD&D or one of it's fantasy clones, but there are certainly sf OD&D clones like Star Blades http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/STAR_BLADES_OGL/ or Hideouts and Hoodlums http://sites.google.com/site/hideoutsandhoodlums/ that could be modified for this purpose with the addition of no more than a page or two of additional rules.
I'd love to hear other suggestions for campaigns with similar inspiration.
I urge everybody who reads this to contribute something, as it is the sort of thread that could really be very beneficial to our hobby as a whole.
I got the idea for this thread after watching the original Outer Limits, Demon With A Glass Hand on youtube recently http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSZ3RdUL7Iw&feature=related
While many people do not like Harlan Ellison, he really was capabale of writing some amazingly imaginative stuff, and this story about a man(?) from the future who is running across time, being chased by future aliens who want to destroy humanity, has become a classic of science fiction. Obviously, it would require some modifications to make it useful as an rpg setting. One man in a climactic battles with a few aliens would be a good one-off game, but not a campaign
So...
What if, instead of just Mr. Trent, the setting was a group of people with no memory of who or what they are waking up in an location of which they also know nothing. They have some abilities and skills that they are aware of, but what else? Who are we? What is our purpose?
Gradually, they become aware of the following:
1. They are all that is left of humanity
2. Humanity was destroyed by shadowy forces of some type, that now seek to kill THEM, but they don't know why.
3. The abilities that they possess, though impressive, are only partial. They need to acquire something to complete them.
4. They begin to learn their purpose along the way. Probably it is that humanity can, in some way, be brought back, but maybe something more exotic, like the forces stalking the PCs are the evil things that humanity will become, and the player characters are going back in time to try to create a better destiny.
Anyway, this is just one idea from one old sci-fi show that I can see as making a great rpg setting, combining combat and adventure with a real sense of mystery, but that would be very playable in OD&D (or similar) rules. As an example, Mr. Trent's gradual recovery of the "fingers" of his "hand" and the knowledge he gains when this happens could be seen as a form of "levelling up."
This particular setting I would probably not play using OD&D or one of it's fantasy clones, but there are certainly sf OD&D clones like Star Blades http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/STAR_BLADES_OGL/ or Hideouts and Hoodlums http://sites.google.com/site/hideoutsandhoodlums/ that could be modified for this purpose with the addition of no more than a page or two of additional rules.
I'd love to hear other suggestions for campaigns with similar inspiration.
, but after the first few episodes the show really grew on me. It's no Firefly, but it's still fun. It had some interesting plots involving clones and such, and did a fair job of combining grungy (low budget) with high-TL concepts.
