The Miscellanium |
As well as documenting the random variety of life, this blog is a public note pad for jotting down the random RPG premises that pop into my head. These entries are numbered and include a seed of a potential game as well as which systems I might use to run it. Please give me feedback and tell me if any sound like something you might want to play. |
The PCs are gentleman (and lady) assassins in a steampunkified mid-19th century Europe. As the great powers maneuver in the Great Game and revolutionary ideas spread among the oppressed working classes, the PCs are hired to kill the German Confederation’s Iron Chancellor (so named because he is kept alive in a massive iron cybernetic case, of course). Intrigues will be plotted! Romances will flower in the least likely places! Loyal friends will turn out to be craven traitors! Karl Marx will tell bad jokes!
System: If someone has not yet created a light and humorous steampunk system it will be necessary to create one.
The Smuggler Game: The PCs are small time moonshiners operating in rural North Carolina during the early years of prohibition. They have a pretty good operation and make a decent amount of money. One day, a well-dressed man with a foreign last name approaches them with a business offer. He can provide them with the funds and support to take their operation big time and make loads of money, all they need to do is agree to his terms…
System: I like the mechanics of CoC, and it’s designed for the time period, so I might use that…
The Légion Étrangère Game.
The PCs are members of the French Foreign Legion (with the necessary dark pasts, world-weary sarcasm, and fake names) stationed to a dusty desert outpost in North Africa sometime in the late 19th century. Their regular routine of desert patrols, exchanging shots with Bedouin, drinking brandy, and telling stories about the girls they left behind is broken when the commander of their outpost is murdered. An investigator (an officer of the regular army, not of la Légion) is sent in to solve the crime and he selects the PCs as his investigators (not because of any particular skill or character trait, he’ll probably pick them by lots). They will uncover plots, schemes, dark secrets, and all that good stuff.
System: I’ll need to think on this.
The PCs are a small group of recently dead people who awake one evening to find themselves quite inexplicably alive. Indeed, they seem to be not only returned to perfect health, with any diseases having been cured and wounds healed, but they are fitter, stronger, and tougher than when they were alive. Their only clue to why they seem to have recovered from death is a small tattoo on the back of their left hands.
Just as they start to get used to the idea of being given a second try at life, they discover that a secret, but possibly world spanning group of religious fanatics is out to get them. Oh, and their newfound life may also have hidden costs not instantly obvious.
System: something light and modern, although I suppose this could be set in another time and place
If I don’t get my act together, there will be more guest posts than me posts on this blog! Then I will face eternal shame and be forced to retire to a Zen monastery for the rest of my days.
Anyway, from the One and Only E:
The Harry Turtledove meets Flash Gordon Game
It’s the 1950s, with some 1930s/1940s “World of Tomorrow” technology thrown in for good measure. The Cold War is in full swing, but the American Dream is at its peak. We’ve got malt shops, huge tail fins on cars, couples are “going steady,” and everything is “swell.” The atomic age is at hand, and soon man will surely conquer the galaxy with rocket-ships and robotic men. Apart from a nuclear war or communism, the greatest threat to Western civilization is this new-fangled “rock and roll” music.
Until the aliens arrive. It turns out that pulp magazine writers are fantastically good predictors of what the aliens are like: green, completely brutal, and after our women. The Soviet Union and the USA quickly form a truce to fight back against the invaders, but even the mighty atom bomb is not enough to stop the green men from Mars, or wherever it is they’re from.
It’s up to an intrepid band of commandos and scientists to save the day, armed with little more than a few laser guns, jet packs, and an unending stream of over-the-top pulp cliches.
Suggested System: Danger Patrol has exactly the flavor and feel I want. PDQ or Risus would also work.
The Jagged Alliance Game: The PCs are an elite team of mercenaries dropped in to a small South American country to help a local insurgency overthrow a tyrannical dictator. They will need to coordinate with the local freedom fighters, field interviews from foreign reporters, and seize control of natural resources to purchase better equipment.
This could either be played seriously, or done with a fair dose of humor.
System: Unisystem, maybe. Or maybe something a little harder and more tactical.
It’s a guest post! From the One and Only E!
The Barbarian Prince Game:
The PCs are sons and daughters of the most influential tribe in all the Kingdoms of the Northern Wilderness. They all are in the position to succeed their parents as the leaders. Everything is wonderful until one day, a rival pulls off a coup, and the party must flee the only home they’ve ever known. They venture south to (somewhat) more civilized lands, and must find a way to defeat the hated usurper and restore order to the Kingdoms. Will it be by raising an army? By acquiring great riches? Mastering ancient magics and martial arts? Discovering the Infinity Plus One Sword? Or perhaps they will seek not to return to their homeland but to carve out a name for themselves in a different way. Who knows what challenges will await our band of heroes?
The Mir Game: The PCs are cosmonauts on an aging spacecraft put together on a shoestring budget with production overseen by corrupt officials. As well as completing their mission and dealing with alien horrors, they must struggle to keep their equipment functioning through the judicious use of duct tape (although even duct tape is not immune to poor quality control…).
System: Unisystem, maybe. Something pretty light with a future feel.
The PCs are the last surviving members of an ancient order of warrior monks. They have lived their entire lives in seclusion, mastering combat techniques that allow them to preform superhuman feats of strength and agility. One day they find their master murdered. They must venture out into a strange and unfamiliar world in search of his killer.
System: Feng Shui might not be a bad choice
The Rocking Son of Genghis Khan (Inspired by the song).
The PCs are the late-teenage children of the Mongol nobility at the court of Genghis Khan. They experience oddly modern teenage problems; trying to escape the disapproval of their strict Chinese tutor, living up to their parents’ expectations, and trying to look cool in front of that cute guy/girl. Think a classic high school story in a decidedly unusual setting.
System: PDQ
