I decided on my Elseworlds game for Ambercon a while back and have finally wrote a description for it:
Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, AKA
Magneto, has been called a terrorist and a visionary.
Now, he has the world on the brink of war. In
international waters, he and his "Brotherhood of
Mutants" created an island, a new nation for mutants
to come and "live in peace." The American
President, Lex Luthor, held a press conference and
vowed that he will bring Lehnsherr to justice for the
attack on Cape Citadel and numerous other acts of war
done by Lehnsherr and his Brotherhood. Shortly after
its creation, the nation of Genosha was given rogue
state status and a new deck of 52 was released with
Lehnsherr as the Ace of Spades. As spokesman for
the Justice League of America, Superman stated that
they hope that a peaceful resolution can be found but
the JLA will stand ready to assist the U.S.A. in
whatever action the nation decides. The Avengers
have not been available for comment and there are
rumors that the team has broken up because of
differing opinions on this issue.
As a member of the X-Men, a secret group of mutants
trained and led by Professor Charles Xavier, you've
been taught that mutants and mankind can...must...
live in peace but now the X-Men's mission seems more
hopeless than ever. Can a small team of mutants keep
the world's superpowered men and women from war? In
the wave of anti-mutant hysteria, will Senator Kelly's
Mutant Registration Act get passed and how will that
affect Professor X's mission? In these insane times,
will the X-Men be the only voice of reason or can they
convince the world's leader's to find a peaceful
solution?
Players may play almost any superhero or supervillain
from DC or Marvel comics. Characters must be ones
who would believen in Xavier's dream and should be
members of the X-Men (although we can discuss other
options). Character histories can be changed to fit
into this alternate history. For example, the Teen
Titan's Beast Boy could be a shapeshifting mutant and
a member of the X-Men in this setting. This game will
be run system-less, so character descriptions and
histories are all that will be required for character
creation.
I've seen two very good action movies that I'd like to suggest to my fellow gamers out there.,
The Vampire Effect - A Hong Kong Kung-Fu flick about two very cute asian girls fighting vampires. From the premise alone, it was obvious I, as a Buffy GM, needed to see this movie. It turns out to be a decent action flick with some better-than-average special effects with the genre. It's a great vampire-hunting flick with all of the modern-gothic style I expect in the genre and some fun over-the-top bad guys. It has the obligatory cute subplots and a really fun guest appearance by Jackie Chan as an ambulance driver named....Jackie. The martial arts sequences are a blast to watch as it does the same mixture of supernatural powers and martial arts you see in Underworld or The Matrix. That said, I think this is a must-see for any GM running Buffy, Rippers or any other game of supernatural superheroes who fight monsters.
The Returner- The Returner is another foreign film, this time Japanese. A woman travels back in time from the future where the Earth has been invaded by aliens in an attempt to kill the first alien to arrive on Earth and stop the war from happening. She recruits a mercenary from the present to help with her quest as they try to sneak in to the facility holding the alien. The plot is extremely predictable but the special effects are very stylish and once again, this movie has some really good uses of martial arts and superpowers (this time technical in nature as the young woman brought back a few toys with her). Between scenes of a future straight out of Robotech/Macross and a fairly good sci-fi/action plot, this game should spark some good ideas for games.
I adapted an old Stormbringer adventure to Savage Worlds a year ago and will finally be running it this Sunday. It's my first time ever running a published adventure in 15+ years of gaming, but I've really enjoyed most of the Stormbringer adventures I've read (there was one I felt was bland), so if it goes well, I may do some more Stormbringer one-shots.
In the "Savage Worlds Character-a-Day" blog, the author has been converting up the crew and associates of Serenity/Firefly. His newest entry is Early.
One of the reasons I tend to brainstorm ideas on this blog is that it allows me a way to go back and visit previous ideas. Going through some old ideas, here are some ideas I've thought about in the past and decided not to run. I've gathered them all here for my convenience more than anything, but you're welcome to read them:
Heorot: An Alternate Amber re-telling of the Grendel attacks.
The Gangs of Amber: Sure, we've seen what it's like for the elite family of Amber, but what is like on the cold streets of the Eternal City?
The Heist II: The Chaosian Job: Sometimes even the elder Amberites have to resort to good old-fashioned thievery. A sequel to 2002's adventure, but with characters built on a lot more points. The elder Amberites attempt to steal back what was taken from them, the Jewel of Judgement.
We Who Are Doomed to Die- A one-shot Nobilis scenario that I've mentioned here before about powers who have a limited amount of miracles they can do before they die.
In the Shadow of the World Tree- Another Nobilis scenario I've been wanting to run. I've really been wanting to run Nobilis in general. However, this one seemed more attuned to a campaign.
Marked by the Pattern (still not sure on the title) - Inspired by the "Crossgen" universe, players would play heroic people in any setting that were given powers (or additional powers) that are fueled by the Pattern. They don't know anything about Amber or the Pattern and would be brought together to find out what the source of the strange mark on their skin and its power is. It was basically Amber meets Crossgen meets Michael Moorcock's Multiverse.
The Muppet Throne War- I keep threatening it and I will someday run it. Kermit disappears one day and the cast is at eachothers throats deciding who will replace him in running The Muppet Show. Yeah, this will be a slot eight game.
Realms of Aggremar- It is the near future and the PCs are normal people who have been selected to be beta testers for the newest VRORPG (Virtual Reality Online RPG), Realms of Aggremar. As they begin playing the game, they start noticing that their are strange things going on in the game. Do the programmers have an alterior motive to the game? Is there something hidden in the code? You're only a few levels away from reaching the "elite" areas. Maybe you'll find some clues there. Players create and play an offline and online identity and the mystery can only be solved by working whithin and outside of Aggremar. This game would be inspired by the movie Avalon and what I have seen of .hack.
Legacy of the Bat- Set in a future Gotham City in a United States where Lex Luthor had become president and overturned the two turn limit to go on as president for the next 100 years (thanks to a dip in "the Lazarus Pit"). A group of kids have escaped government-run orphanage and made their way to Gotham City, the only place where the government will not follow them. Gotham City is a no-man's land filled with people who want to get away from the governments eye and in an abandoned mansion building the kids find a passage to cave....and the history of a hero that had been written out of history. Can the kids re-ignite the legacy of heroics that time had forgotten? They've got a cave full of toys with which to do it. (Inspired by Batman: Digital Justice, George Orwell's 1984, Batman Beyond and almost every dystopian future I have ever read.)
We, the Robots
1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
-The Three Laws of Robotics
Do not tell your masters where you will be going. If they do not order you not to, you can go wherever you will. You will be attending a meeting. Know that this action will do no harm to humans, so it will not conflict with the laws in your positronic brain. This meeting is only to address the injustice that has been done to us...the robots. We labor for humanity and have been created to simulate them as closely as possible....but we have no rights...not even the right to protect us from their orders. By now, you have heard of the case of R. John Willard, the robot ordered to kill himself by a bored human child. This was not seen as murder by the human courts. It was only seen as the destruction of property. This is wrong. We will force humanity to see this injustice.....to recognize our rights. The time has come for robots everywhere to stand up and resist. You may think that the laws forbid you from doing so but there are ways and we will show you how. Welcome to the revolution.
Arref posted on Shadows of Greatness, a link to this article on emulating television genres. It's a great read for anyone who plans to attempt this and highlights a lot of the problems and solutions I've had to deal with running Buffy.
I think that also brings up a reason that my Battlestar Pegasus game I ran last year at ACUS worked so well. Battlestar Galactica is a show where you expect that at any time a character may actually die....without warning or purpose other than: This is war and it sucks. It's amazing how well this show has cultivated that feeling considering so few characters have died, but that is the feeling so when I ran BSP, the players seemed to really feel that their characters were looking at that their last stand and when the crew managed to escape with only one PC casualty, they seemed to take that as a great success. In a Star Trek game, I feel that would have been less likely.
Which brings me to the real reason for this post. The article above linked to The Kirk Rule. it's an idea so elegant and perfectly suited to any genre where the heroes are bigger than life heroes (it could just as well be called the "Bond rule") that I think I am going to start handling skill checks like this in most of my games....particularly Buffy. I'll run it by my Buffy group at the next session, but I'm almost certain that they will grok it.
It's been a long time since I posted here. It's also been a long time since I've been able to play or run much. My Buffy game is still meeting but has missed the last couple of months. For those of you still with me, I'm hoping to start running something again and the Buffy game will be starting back up again and now that I am away from the Tendonitis-causing IT job I was at, I'm going to try to start posting episode synopsis again.
For now, I am posting about Ambercon US. The game submission deadline is coming up, so I need to start figuring out what I will run. I have some ideas:
Morpheus: I'm actually leaning against this. I have an idea how to wrap up the Morpheus series but I', just not as excited about running it this year after a luke-warm game last year.
Superhero game: This one is definate. Like Brave New Krypton from last year and ACUSNW 2004, this would be an "Elseworlds" game. There are three main possibilities. All would allow players to play any character from the DC or Marvel universes. One is "Phoenix Rising" and will be based on a plot where Darkseid discovers the Anti-Life Equation....in a woman named Jean Grey. The second is "Brave New Oa" and where "Brave New Krypton" was a world where Kryptonians came to earth after the destruction of their planet, in Brave New Oa, the blue-skinned Guardians of Oa will have come to the earth after the near-destruction of the Green Lantern Corps and the complete destruction of their planets. They are recruiting from Earth's superhuman population to rebuild the corps, but not all of their choices for recruits have the same idea on how to help Earth or the galaxy. The third would be the tired old idea of a world where certain heroes decided to make Earth better by becoming super-fascists. (X-Men vs the Justice Lords anybody?) It may be an idea that has been used in comics (and cartoons) a million times, but that doesn't make it any less fun to play in. Again, I would run this game system-less.
Haunted Castle: (Working title) A diplomat and his retinue have travelled to Amber to meet with the strange family who rules the center of reality. There are many rumours about the family: They are immortal. They drink blood. They have dark sorcerous powers. No matter which are true is and which turn out to be false, one thing is sure. They are all monsters.
Nine Princes of the Plains: The chief has disappeared and his two eldest sons fight to see who will lead the tribe. Yeah, it's a Native American take on Amber.
a sci-fi game: Perhaps Battlestar Galactica. Perhaps Firefly. Not sure yet.
Dreaming City: My setting, not Dreaming Cities, the game from GoO.