So I'm going to run a game again... (plz halp)

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 2:20 pm

Right, so next January I intend on running a game at Arcanacon. Or maybe sending someone else to do it instead while I spend time hanging out with friends. But probably I'll actually be there running it.

Here comes the tricky bit: what?

I'm currently batting a few ideas around, and input would be greatly appreciated:

*An Illithid Affair:

I ran this before, and I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. Seriously, I didn't have a single session free the whole con. Before that, I had middling success, but I finally found my sweet spot: funny, anime-inspired games that let the players have a bit of fun, while parodying Shakespearean romance.

The players are three mind flayers and a human who joins them just because she's in the Lawful Evil club. Yeah, it takes place in Sigil Prep. The human is in love with an NPC bearded devil, who doesn't know this and is interested in a succubus who isn't allowed to date before her older sister, a marilith. And there is also an angel who is sort of in an arranged relationship with the succubus. I think it's more complicated than that, with several mind flayers having a stake in it, but I can't remember. I wrote it down somewhere.

Anyway, right at the beginning, the bearded devil loses his glaive. If the PCs investigate, it turns out that two archons, Bazza and Gazza, stole it at the behest of the angel. Who turns up dead, impaled on it. Soon, the Paladins arrive, with glowing blue lights on their mounts, speaking like London coppers, and the PCs need to find a way to prove it wasn't the bearded devil. It turns out the angel did it to get the devil banished, and was then going to get re-summoned.

What the PCs actually do tends to be up to them, and most of the fun.

It's run free-form, as a "Make me laugh and it works" thing. Example:

"The Marilith picks up her decapitator - a six-armed pair of scissors!"
"I throw my psi-crystal at it! Rock beats scissors, I win!"

*Ue Ebi Akuma (Rise of the Demon Shrimp)

I wrote this up at a con. I was running a game, and had just bought "Call of Cthulhu: Secrets of Japan" (it's the best "______ in Japan" supplement I have ever seen. Free of "EVERYONE IS NINJA CYBORG SAMURAI!", and it even included a "Tentacle rape exists in anime, we're not touching that with a ten foot penis" comment). While relaxing (I had a session off), I decided to write up a scenario.

Basically the cast are sort of "Azumanga Daioh!" schoolgirls, so much with the extreme personalities and craziness. Noodle shops are being burned down by a mysterious cult, and it turns out that they're trying to summon one of the icky things. I forget how, but the team save the day. It's all done free-form, of course.

*An idea I'm cooking up: the theme of the con is "For SCIENCE!"

So I was thinking perhaps: "You are all scientists who want to make the 40K universe a better place. As such, you are HERETICS. You must go around improving people's lives against their will, and somehow survive."

Each of the 4-5 characters would have a specific field they excel in, giving them a broad range of abilities/skills/items they can use to solve the problems. I would also perhaps basically give each player 5-10 "Power Cards" to solve things - these powers are one-shot each, no gaining them back, as a way of passing the spotlight around and regulating power. Or something like that, to make a really easy resolution "system".

For this idea, I'd need some kind of basic story/goal for it, and I'm currently drawing a blank, and I'd also want to have at least 4 characters nailed down. I was thinking:

*Medical Scientist: they can perform surgery and do doctory things, they have drugs (curative, deadly and performance-enhancing) and can stab people with a chain-scalpel.

*Mechanic/Physicist?: the builder-dude. This one can fix vehicles, make guns, blow buildings up properly and has a number of great items. Possibly add chemistry to this and also have them be good with energy sources. I don't know.

*Biologist: they know about the alien species - they know a lot. They even have tyranid growths because they intentionally got infected to help the tyranids (via bio-diversity). They believe in either bio-diversity, so like to collect DNA and spread species everywhere (keeping ripper swarms around and the like) or they believe in survival of the fittest being taken to the next level, spreading diseases and so on.

*??? Need help here.

So, any ideas to flesh out option 3? Alternatively, votes on what I should go with? Also, my eyes are burning because my sister hilariously turned dinner into a huge fire and the house is still pretty smoky. It's awesome.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 5:50 pm

Personally, I like An Illithid Affair the most (Though I should note that I am generally biased against the Warhammer universe). Planescape is always most entertaining when you've got a decent shot at talking things out.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 6:09 pm

What if your scientists had abilities that were less super sciency and more sciency? A biologist doesn't need to grow tyranid claws or anything. They know biology. They can refine deadly venoms, find food others do not know about, release incapacitating plagues, and so on and so forth. Frankly, understanding the migratory patterns of animals, the basics of heredity, and so on and so forth really does let you completely three stooge 40K society as long as no one has a bolter to your head to your head right this moment. The biologist can demonstrate that the child of the governor isn't his, can incapacitate the entire garrison in a few days, and so on.

You could straight up make a Chemist. Explosives, corrosives, and toxins oh my!

Or heck, have an economist. The Imperial feudal economy is completely insane, and subject to massive amounts of arbitrage. Cornering the market on plastisteel is easy to imagine.

You could bring out any of the 40k lost future tech disciplines. Graviton Engineering, Fusion Tech, force fields, and teleporters all exist in that setting.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 8:16 pm

That's a really good idea. Seeing as the whole point is a bit of a joke, they don't have to be as over-the-top and crazy as the rest of the setting.

So we can have:

A) a chemist who can make explosives, poisons, antidotes, drugs, acid and fuel.

B) a biologist who knows what is safe to consume and where it can be found, what genetics means and how it relates to the community, and how to spread a disease really quickly.

C) an economist (I forgot that counted as a science in this weird universe we have) who could cause economies to crash to the ground and walk away with all the stuff while everyone else has to deal with the aftermath, and he could be called Austria. At a smaller level, he can just get stuff that is needed, and leverage people by having more money, and so on.

D) A political/social scientist/psychologist who knows how people tick, and can thus manipulate people into doing whatever they want, figure out how people are going to act, utilise effective propaganda and so on.

E) A physicist who can make plasma engines that don't over-heat and detonate in a 3-block radius (or can make ones that DO that), small forcefields/void shields, teleportation devices and grenades that create miniature black holes.

That covers a 5-man party, and for this I could make it the kind of thing where anyone is tied to the story and useful, and no-one is essential, thus allowing the actual group size to fluctuate between 3 and 5.

And perhaps they travel in a stripped-down Chimera-chassis with a warp-engine/cocaine furnace, hydraulics on the treads, and fuzzy dice, blaring "White and Nerdy" on their radio (in doing so confusing everyone, as people wonder where the noise comes from as they can't see a pipe organ and apparently a two-way frigging radio is military-grade stuff).

---

As for An Illithid Affair, I'm thinking I might save that another couple of years - enough people played it that if I wait a bit longer, there will be more new people who are yet to play it, whereas doing it too soon means half the people already played it last time.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 10:40 pm

If you wanted to redo the Ilithid Affair, just do Ilithid Affair 2: where there is much ado. So you have a masquerade ball, where Don John the Demon Prince's half-fiend rhinoceros brother is conspiring to ruin Claudio's marriage to the sexy medusa Hero.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 8:02 am

FrankTrollman wrote:So you have a masquerade ball, where Don John the Demon Prince's half-fiend rhinoceros brother is conspiring to ruin Claudio's marriage to the sexy medusa Hero.

You've waited your entire life just to say that, haven't you?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:07 am

So, in the usual tradition of con-games, out-of-combat will be just freeformed, with a list of "You're good at this kind of stuff". However I'll also provide 2-3 "Get out of jail free" cards to each player. Spending one lets them narrate a scene/retroactively use their abilities to alter a situation.

Example: the players know they're going to be arrested, so beforehand they whip up some latex skin-tight gloves and cover them with contact poison, so that once there they can be sure a number of Arbiters are going to die. Or whatever. That's a normal use of Chemistry there.

But say they get arrested without knowing it. Using such a card could let them retroactively declare all that, or the Biologist could say "Fortunately, I have space ebola, but because I contracted it from testing an immunisation, I'm simply a carrier. Oh, I also immunised the others. So now the arbiters are collapsing into piles of goo just from being near us."

Combat will, in the name of keeping things simple (at the cost of elegance/options), just basically be 40K with individuals. More like Necromunda, actually. I *could* do it Warp Cult style, but that would likely involve more stats on the sheets and more explaining at the start, for little benefit (given it's over in a single session).

So we have the cast...

Note that advice on expanding/tidying their knowledges would be great. Even simplifying their rules or ideas for gear, as well.

Geoffrey Cavendish
Role: Biologist
WS 4 BS 3 S 4 T 5 W 3 I 3 A 2 Ld 8 Sv 6+
Age: 37
Sex: Male
Knowledges:
-Genetics
-Nutrition
-Evolution
-Migratory Patterns
-Bio-Diversity
-Infection/Contamination
-Surgery
-Cell Structure
Equipment:
-Sniper Rifle: 36" S X AP 2 Heavy 1 (Sniper)
-Canisters of bacteria: thrown S+3" Assault 1 Blast (Toughness Test vs death, explode 1d6" radius)
-Scalpel: basic melee weapon (S 4 Armour -1)
-Ripper hidden in labcoat: extra attack at I6, hits on 4+, S 4 Rending
-Perfume bottles of pheremones: influence animals, bugs, rippers etc.
-A hundred blood samples
-Spare kidney in an ice box
-Bacteria cultures
-DNA kit
Special Rules:
-Boosted attributes due to gene therapy (counts as Chaos Gift)
-Feel No Pain 4+
-Counter-Attack (gain Charge bonuses when Charged)
Narrative Imperative:
-Something smells like Gangrene: you did something earlier that caused disease to spread. Name the basic series of events that led to this, as well as the general targets, and possibly the debilitating effects.
-Don't eat the red ones: you're a champion at survival, mostly by knowing how the body survives and what things interact with others. If there is a half-reasonable explanation as to how a situation was avoided using this knowledge, or otherwise something beneficial, then it happens.

Julian Galliarde
Role: Chemist
WS 3 BS 3 S 3 T 3 W 2 I 4 A 3 Ld 10 Sv 6+
Age: 48
Sex: Male
Knowledges:
-Poisons and antidotes
-Molecular structure/theory
-Medicine
-Explosives
-Fuel Production
-Acids and bases
-Reaction speeds, catalysts etc.
-Forensics
Equipment:
-Chemistry set
-Forensics kit
-Efficient fossil fuel
-Various acids, bases and poisons
-2 Poisoned Blades: 2+ to Wound any living target, 1d3 Wounds
-Webber: 12" S 3 AP - Assault 1 Large Blast, Pinning, No Cover
-Frag Grenades: thrown S+3" S 3 AP 6 Assault 1 Large Blast, No Cover
-Krak Grenades: thrown S+2" S 6 AP 4 Assault 1 Blast
-Demolition Rocket: 6" S 9 AP 1 Assault 1 Large Blast
-Demolition Explosives: Destroyer hit to a building
Special Rules:
-Fleet of Foot (move +4" when charging or running)
-Furious Charge (+1 S and WS when charging)
-Feel No Pain 4+
-Combat Drugs: boost S, T, I and A up to 3x each, roll 1d6 for each boost. Every 1 causes a Wound (no save, but Feel No Pain applies).
Narrative Imperative:
-Both glasses had the poison: you have somehow introduced a poison or drug into circulation, and if you can give a reason why, a number of people of your choosing suffer from the effects.
-I was saving this: you have up to a litre of a mystery liquid. When you decide to use it, you can declare what it is and how it works.

Marjory Midgery
Role: Economist
WS 3 BS 2 S 3 T 4 W 3 I 5 A 2 Ld 10 Sv 3+
Age: 52
Sex: Female
Knowledges:
-Various economic theories
-business theory
-how to bullshit people
-how to destroy society and get away with it
Equipment:
-A lot of money
-Power Armour
-Master Crafted Boltgun: 24" S 4 AP 5 Rapid Fire
-Combi-Melta: 12" S 8 AP 1 Melta, 1-use
-Penetrator Bolter Rounds: 24" S 5 AP 3 Heavy 2
-Hellfire Bolter Rounds: 18" S X AP - Rapid Fire Poison (3+)
-Frag Grenades: thrown S+3" S 3 AP 6 Assault 1 Large Blast, No Cover
-Armoured Limousine: 8"/12" move, T 7 W 6 Sv 3+, holds 8+driver
Narrative Imperative:
-Gold makes the world go round: you bribed some people or otherwise have everyone in your pocket. Declare a form of treason that occurs thanks to this.
-Chicago Special: you spent enough time here to ruin the economy, and it's kicking in right about now. Riots begin in the streets, uprisings occur with violence flaring everywhere. You are suddenly the least of anyone's worries.

Gertrude Gutright
Role: Warp Physicist
WS 2 BS 4 S 3 T 2 W 3 I 2 A 3 Ld 9 Sv 4+/4+ I
Age: 29
Sex: Male
Knowledges:
-Warp Space
-Void Shields/Gellar Fields
-Vortex Weaponry
-Teleportation
-Daemonology
-Psykers
Equipment:
-Personal Teleportation Device: teleport 3d6" for free on your turn
-Void Shield: 4+ save and Invulnerable, ranged attacks must first take out two T8 Wounds (no saves)
-1 Vortex Grenade: thrown S+3" S D AP 1 Assault 1 Blast, Destroyer
-Teleport Rifle: 36" S 7 AP X Heavy 1 Causes Instant Death if Armour Save is passed
Special Rules:
-Armour Save is Invulnerable
-3+ save against Daemon attacks/powers and Psykic attacks
Narrative Imperative:
-Oops: so it turns out you are possessed by a daemon. This happens for a short duration, and grants you a considerable power boost to avert a situation. Alternatively, it whispered secrets into your ears, so you become really good at a specific task.
-Thinking with portals: given a bit of tinker time, you can hook a portal up, to travel through the Warp, to a location you just happened to set up earlier.

Deborah Mungings
Role: Physicist
WS 2 BS 5 S 2 T 3 W 3 I 3 A 2 Ld 9 Sv -/5+I
Age: 25
Sex: Female
Knowledges:
-Particle/nuclear/quantum/astro/plasma physics
-Advanced Math
-Engineering
-"How shit works"
Equipment:
-Refraction Field: 5+ Invulnerable Save
-Plasma Grenades: thrown S+3" S 7 AP 2 Assault 1 Blast, next round: Large Blast
-Melta Bombs: S 8 AP 1 Melta hit to a building/vehicle
-Plasma Engine
-Hot-Shot Laspistol: 6" S 3 AP 3 Pistol
-Jetbike: 12"/24" T 5 W 2 Sv 4+ Shuriken Cannon: 24" S 4 AP 5 Assault 4
-Neutron Projector/Rad Cleanser: 48" S 6 AP 3 Heavy 1 Large Blast, No Cover
Narrative Imperative:
-3... 2... 1...: you set some explosives up earlier, and now a city block detonates or goes up in flames. Or maybe it was smaller scale, and merely all the doors in a building are blasted open, or a squad of vehicles mysteriously cut out and won't start.
-Chaos Theory: specify a ridiculous series of events and coincidences that all work together to solve a crisis or avert a bad scenario. Everything then goes Just As Planned.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 1:03 pm

Now, most games tend to have some form of plot, even just dot-points of "Things that will end up happening, most likely" or a detailed "This is the plan of the enemy, and it will work like this until the point where players interact with it". In fact, those two tend to be the most common ones.

Starting Point: so the player characters just find out, via informants, that there's going to be a raid very soon, and they're all wanted criminals and heretics - they could get away with crucifixion if they're lucky. So they have chosen to grab their belongings and get out of there, only for the raid to begin while they're at the meeting place. This basically sets it up for two major paths:

1. Let's attempt to kill them!
-they probably rig the place to explode, double out through the sewers, and then clamber out to watch the carnage and maybe even set an attack against the local enforcers.

This means they're suddenly very wanted, but it'll be some time before anyone even notices they're not dead, so they suddenly have a golden opportunity to take the fight against the Imperium. After all, if they can take out the religious militia forces, they might be able to sway governors.

This path is going to involve having to fight a lot - or to stop fights by setting things up so they win ahead of time. They'll need to destroy a local enforcer base or two, at which point they will be attracting the attention of planetary guard/Arbiters. If they then keep stomping on toes, they'll effectively have seized the planet... but will need to find a way to deal with Imperial teams being sent in, with a possibility of eventually capturing another planet or similar, setting up education systems and urging in a new era of enlightenment (for those planets), while needing to repel actual forces of the Inquisition.

2. Let's escape
-this means they're primarily on the run and trying to find a place they can hole up long enough to lose the pursuers and start a base of operations. Options here would include running deep into the hives to try to get in the good books with local gangs (they're enemies of the law themselves, now, and can offer them huge benefits). The game could seriously turn into Necromunda where they proceed to fight The Man and make their gang big, taking over it and eventually seizing the hive by dint of having massive sway with the nobles (always secretly linked to gangs) and unclean mobs.

Or possibly they decide to do sneak off-world - perhaps they sneak onto a landing base high up (dangerous), or do something to attract enough attention that an Inquisitor's servant flies in and try to steal his Aquila Lander (also dangerous). If they can make time, maybe they can even build a functioning rocket (once again, dangerous).

This should allow for a few hazards and problems to work around, before they finally do manage to get off-world. This of course means they now have to figure out whether to, say, fly to the other side of the planet, inhabit one of the barely-policed mining colony moons and take over from there (then maybe launch a small invasion or threaten to crash the moon into the hive. Or, you know, infiltrate it secretly and corrupt the planetary governor) or even look to another planet altogether.

Maybe there is a space hulk that they can find their way onto, and the tech-priests will accept them in the mean-time because they need help, and by being smart the players can eventually control the ship crew and then pilot a 40km long space penis with cannons and cathedrals.

Staying on world, they could even try to enter high society, and show rich people the benefits of science. The rich people then get super-impressed, some try to assassinate them, others decide to ally with them and they start shifting the political map.

If they are running, time will always be their enemy. Someone is out to get them, and they need to race against the clock, moving on. Any time they mill about too slowly, they can expect to be under attack by a small number of enforcers or planetary guard, or in an extreme case, a couple of Imperial Storm Troopers/Arbiters. Ultimately, they'll be wanting to find ways to make combat *not* happen.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:41 pm

You should call the little cards that let you take control of the plot "Narrative Imperative" so that you can write NI on the cards. That way people will stop the game by saying "NI."

-Username17

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:54 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:You should call the little cards that let you take control of the plot "Narrative Imperative" so that you can write NI on the cards. That way people will stop the game by saying "NI."

-Username17

You're having fun with this, huh, Frank?

You just made me choke on a drink of water.

Not that I mind too much. The laughing was worth it...

Edit: Also, I just realized what Power Word: Kill sounds like.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 5:26 am

I am reminded of a piece of fiction I read on Planewalker. I'll try copying the links, but I should note that I've had some difficulty browsing the sight with Safari in the past.

http://www.planewalker.com/060106/a-wed ... troduction
http://www.planewalker.com/060108/a-wed ... gil-part-1
http://www.planewalker.com/060110/a-wed ... gil-part-2
http://www.planewalker.com/060111/a-wed ... gil-part-3
http://www.planewalker.com/060113/a-wed ... gil-part-4
http://www.planewalker.com/060115/a-wed ... gil-part-5
http://www.planewalker.com/060120/a-wed ... gil-part-6

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 6:39 am

FrankTrollman wrote:You should call the little cards that let you take control of the plot "Narrative Imperative" so that you can write NI on the cards. That way people will stop the game by saying "NI."

I hate you. And yet, I have already changed it to be that.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 8:39 pm

So, I made NI cards and they look good. Character sheets are done, too (and they don't look even slightly fancy. They're very... utilitarian?) Now, the game basically starts with them GTFOing before the Arbites arrive and arrest/shoot everyone. This will mean, of course, that there is a crime scene.

A crime scene that has to be investigated.

Yeah, the most important thing left to do is find a great line for Horatiatus.