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 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 board the Orient Express in Istanbul in July 1914, the last train before the outbreak of the Great War, a train packed with patriots, spies, and at least one murderer. The PCs must navigate a maze of sealed envelopes and coded missives to survive the trip and carry out the secret instructions of their respective spymasters. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is a letter on the train that could prevent the outbreak of war and save Europe from self-destruction.
System: 1920s CoC - without the Mythos stuff
The Kaoboy Game.
1975, Paris, after midnight:
Two men sit in a dimly lit room, late at night, smoking and drinking whisky. The older one finishes his glass and puts it down. The younger man picks up the bottle to pour another but finds that the bottle is empty.
“It is OK, Raman. I have an early flight.” The older man sighs. “You know, I do not like it. I will tell her that when I got home tomorrow, but I do not know if she will listen to me.”
“If she will listen to anyone, sir, she will listen to you,” the younger man replies softly. “You are the hero of ‘71.”
The older man sighs again. “She feels backed into a corner.”
They are both quiet for a few minutes, their cigarettes glowing in the dim room.
The older man puts out his cigarette. “It is an uncertain future. Listen to the radio the day after tomorrow and you will know if I succeeded or not. Do what you think is right.”
The younger man nods. “Always, sir. You trained me well.”
The older man smiles faintly. “Good. Now, get me my coat, Raman. I should have been asleep hours ago.”
System: Unisystem
The PCs are Assassins, members of the secret order whose blades have haunted the shadows of Medinaat al Salaam, the City of One Thousand Stories. Trained from a young age in a remote desert oasis, they are brought to the Jewel of the Desert for the first time to being their work. Upon arriving in the city, they quickly learn that their clan is only one of multiple factions of Assassins (they, of course, belong to the True Sons and Daughters of the Mountain) and the Assassins are only one of the many groups that move through the Great City’s shadows. They may even begin to question whether or not their teachers are in the right.
I like this hook because it allows for the PCs being almost completely ignorant of the setting when they begin. The limited range of classes available also simplifies character creation. Overall, I think it could be a good introduction to the awesomeness that is Legend of the Burning Sands.
System: LBS
Another James Bond game: At the height of the Cold War, the PCs are called into M’s office. It seems that the KGB has recently gone to great lengths (multiple agents, poison, explosives, and a sniper, huge sums of money) to murder a waiter at a classy London hotel restaurant and MI6 has no clue why. M, understandably, finds this deeply unsettling and wants the PCs to go figure out what’s going on.
System: James Bond RPG
I’ve been busy lately with reading for class. Alas, nuclear targeting doesn’t provide good RPG material…
Anyway.
The Men of Honor Game: The PCs are members of a small but proud Sicilian (or fantasy world take on Sicily) family sometime around the year 1900, just as the mafia is becoming a (or the) major force in Sicilian politics and society. The PCs must defend their family’s honor and turf by uncovering and out-scheming conspiracies formed against them by other families. An added element to the intrigue might be some amount of resource management, as the PCs develop investments and manage the assets of their family over the course of the game.
The Hong Kong Triad Game: The PCs are members of a counterfeiting operation in Hong Kong producing almost undetectable fake US $100 bills. A meeting to sell a suitcase full of the bills to an American-based gang goes awry and the PCs quickly find themselves on the run from the police and suspicious that someone in their organization sold them out.
My goal with this game would be to allow for an heroic style of gunfighting (it is based on a John Woo movie after all) without completely straying into the realm of fantasy. I haven’t found a system that does this perfectly yet (I’m thinking of taking some concepts from L5R as a basis and writing my own, you know, when I have lots of free time…), but feel free to suggest any that come to mind.
Note: I am currently eagerly awaiting the delivery of the Legend of the Burning Sands rulebook. Expect a flood of LBS postings when it arrives.
The Ninja Trainee Game: The PCs are ninja cadets (hey, where do you think ninjas come from?) assigned to overcome increasingly difficult challenges with deliberately limited resources, always under the watchful eyes of their sadistic instructor (a grizzled, old, one-eyed, mustached ninja). As they grow in skill and influence, they begin to suspect that sinister, treacherous forces are moving behind the scenes in their academy, and that it may fall to them to do things to protect the secrets of their clan.
System: L5R
The Shadowlands Game: The PCs are loyal retainers of Daigotsu, the Dark Lord of the Shadowlands. They support him in struggles with other rival forces of darkness (those damn Bloodspeakers) as well as confrontations with the “good guys.” This game would be a chance to explore character options banned from normal L5R games. It may produce more powerful PCs (reveling in the twisted powers of the Shadowlands can do that) and allow a more combat-focused, tactical style of L5R play. It could also be a chance to play L5R cut free from many of the constraints of polite society that some players have trouble getting used to.
Also, the Shadowlands is a pretty exciting and varied setting, and it would be nice to explore it without having to worry about corruption and soul loss.
System: L5R (3rd or 4th)
