scenarios
New Warhammer Fantasy scenario competition
Given the demise of Black Industries and the effective end of support for WFRP 2e by FFG now that WFRP 3e is coming out, I assumed that this meant the end of the really amazing competitions that BI used to organise. Luckily, fansite Strike-to-Stun have stepped into the breach. I assume they’ll make them all available for download like the old BI competitions which will mean at least 5-10 excellent scenarios.
PS – there is an archive of all the BI web support files (including adventures, generators and ogre PCs) but I can’t seem to find it. If anyone has a link, please post in the comments.
Lear jets, neo-Nazis and repo men.. oh my!
While scanning the Salon RSS feed I came across an article called the Lear jet Repo man. It told the tale of a guy who has a highly successful business repossessing very expensive planes and getting paid into the 6 figures for it.
As I was reading the article the stories that were there were sounding like an awesome game. A team of highly skilled people with dubious morals are hired to break into a highly armed compound or airport to essentially steal back an aeroplane. Sound like fun to you? Here is an excerpt:
It was snowing hard when the bank called Nick Popovich. They needed to grab a Gulfstream in South Carolina now. Not tomorrow. Tonight.
All commercial and private planes were grounded, but Nick Popovich wasn’t one to turn down a job. So he waited for the storm to clear long enough to charter a Hawker jet from Chicago into South Carolina. There was just one detail: No one had told Popovich about the heavily armed white supremacist militia that would be guarding the aircraft when he arrived.
So I think I’m going to pull together a Savage Worlds scenario for just this set up. There will be:
- A team of 4 or 5 specialists
- A location or two
- A whole bunch of pissed off people with guns
- and three hours of fun!
I do love getting ideas for games from real life.
Wedding Knight – scenario for A Song of Ice and Fire RPG
Green Ronin have just released their first adventure for the A Song of Ice and Fire RPG, call Wedding Knight. I downloaded it today and was very happy that I did. As I’m likely to run it (at least in part) I won’t go into any detail but here are some initial impressions.
Firstly it is only 17 pages long, but they are really good quality. The adventure contains the main NPCs, a location and a well thought out number of plot hooks and potential events which all surround an imminent wedding between two houses.
The thing that really struck me was that as an adventure it was a quick easy read and I didn’t spend my whole time thinking about how much unneeded material there was. The NPCs were well fleshed out with good belivable back stories. The reasons given for why the PCs would even be there plausible and most importantly (for me at least) the writter wasn’t trying to tell me how to run the game or spoon feeding when each event would happen. This lack of rail roading meant that I would be able to slip this adventure in at any point that I felt I needed a week off, with out needing extensive re-writes before use.
Adventures at this length feel like they would take between 3-4 hours to play through, which is exactly the length I want my pre-written adventures to come in at. So I was really happy that I picked this up and I hope this is indicitive of things to come.
You can get the adventure through Green Ronin’s store for US$4.95.
An unbelievable heist – a real life RPG scenario
I bought the new issue of Wired for my flight yesterday and found this article: ‘The untold story of the World’s biggest diamond heist‘. Go and read it – it might take a while so do it over lunch, or print it out for the bus ride home.
Go on!
Now you’ve had a chance – and how cool is that – what a wealth of possibilities for a RPG that could be. The whole set up: elite criminals brought together by a corrupt merchant, an unbreakable vault (could be technological, could be magical), and the final betrayals by both an unhinged friend and by the merchant himself (or not) would make for a great session or series of sessions.
I’m tempted to do it a short campaign next time the Mythic Senguko Japan GM is away for a period. I’m thinking:
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: the PCs are three Tileans and a halfling employed by a Sea Elf merchant in Marienburg; or
- GURPS DMZ: based on the DMZ comic series, the PCs are a ragtag bunch of survivors hired to do pretty much everything that the story says, but in the New York DMZ. This has the advantage that you don’t have to come up with too many of the new details – no extra tech like you’d need for a sci-fi game, no weird magic like for the WFRP game.
Knowning my players, it’ll be the WFRP game they’d chose but it would be fun either way! What would you run with this set up?
Writing better scenarios
I’ve got an interest in writing scenarios for RPGs, as may be apparent with a section dedicated to the ones I have written on this site. So I was happy to find this essay (opens a pdf) by Gregor Hutton (game designer extrodinare and writter of Best Friends and 3: 16) on a 4 point plan to writing better scenarios.
It doesn’t add anything overly new (though it may have when written) but does give some nice concise points to think about when planning a scenario.
Things to look forward to in ’09
With January almost done 2009 is well under way so I thought I’d jot down a list of the things I’m looking forward to this year.
- Receiving, reading and playing Mouse Guard. An RPG of the graphic novels by David Petersen it has had a number of great reviews and as a gaming friend said to me:
“It is one of the most playable RPGs I have come across.”
- Pulling off Day of Games on May 16th. A small one day event here in Wellington with games being offered on the day and people voting for an choosing the game they feel like playing most. More info once I re-do the blog.
- As Nick mentioned in a previous post Green Ronin have announced that A Song of Ice and Fire rpg has been approved and is on it’s way to the printers. I ran through the quick-start adventure back in July’08 and really liked what they had done. The core book is due out in March so I’ll be doing a write up once I get my hands on it.
- Writing my Buffy: the Vampire Slayer RPG scenario series, The Slayer Chronicals.
- Playing in my new Buffy game (there seems to be a theme), Fall. It’s a great group of people and I think will be heaps of fun. I’ll do a write up on our first mini-session soon.
- Dollhouse starting on TV in the US.
I think that’s it for now. I’ll be back at certain points to see how these things all pan out.
Creating adventures, with a little help
I was sent a link by my brother for a little process a guy from the interwebs has come up with to help formulate adventures. He calls it the Adventure Funnel.
The process that you run through is a quick and easy one that helps you sort your thoughts out and get them down on paper. Worth a look if you run adventures often. I sure wish I’d been aware of this when I was running my long term DnD campaign!
New scenario – The 18:25 to New London
I’ve uploaded my SDC entry to the scenario section. Have a look or have a play. Any suggestions appreciated.
It was originally written for KapCon ’08 and uses the Angel Roleplaying Game (Unisystem). I call it a neo-Victorian horror, but you can call it what you want!
Project Breather – Update
I’ve added an updated version of Project Breather to the Scenarios section. Check it out here.
Minor updates
I’ve added a few links to the RPGs I’ve mentioned recently and also added a new section for the various scenarios I’ve written recently. So far the only one I’ve uploaded is Project Breather for Hot War. I’ll be putting a neo-Victorian horror scenario I wrote for KapCon 17, The 18:25 to New London, which I’m entering into a scenario design competition up soon as well.