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Ideas for quick games to design

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clockworkjoe:

--- Quote from: Tim on January 14, 2015, 02:27:32 PM ---
--- Quote from: clockworkjoe on January 13, 2015, 05:34:06 PM ---Ruin is the architectural horror gumshoe engine rpg I plan to make.


--- End quote ---

Will Operate Heavy Machinery be an Investigative Skill in this gunshoe variant?

Player: "I spend one point in Operate Heavy Machinery"
GM: "The Bulldozer is a Caterpillar Model #2309 which was only sold in Europe so seeing it here in South America is certainly unusual. Also they are not normally covered in the blood of creatures from beyond time and space but that is sort of an aside."

--- End quote ---

It would be a general ability with the cherry KILL IT WITH HYDRAULICS - spend 3 points to guarantee that a usable heavy machine will be in the scene which can be used to fight or block a mythos threat. Feed those Dark Young tentacles into an industrial grinder or stop a Cthonian with a bulldozer. 

Jace911:

--- Quote from: clockworkjoe on January 14, 2015, 05:11:21 PM ---
--- Quote from: Tim on January 14, 2015, 02:27:32 PM ---
--- Quote from: clockworkjoe on January 13, 2015, 05:34:06 PM ---Ruin is the architectural horror gumshoe engine rpg I plan to make.


--- End quote ---

Will Operate Heavy Machinery be an Investigative Skill in this gunshoe variant?

Player: "I spend one point in Operate Heavy Machinery"
GM: "The Bulldozer is a Caterpillar Model #2309 which was only sold in Europe so seeing it here in South America is certainly unusual. Also they are not normally covered in the blood of creatures from beyond time and space but that is sort of an aside."

--- End quote ---

It would be a general ability with the cherry KILL IT WITH HYDRAULICS - spend 3 points to guarantee that a usable heavy machine will be in the scene which can be used to fight or block a mythos threat. Feed those Dark Young tentacles into an industrial grinder or stop a Cthonian with a bulldozer.

--- End quote ---

Not to be confused with the cherry GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BITCH, which grants you a 3 point refresh to Operate Heavy Machinery after narrating a brief snippet of your character making use of heavy machinery in combat.

Kamen:

--- Quote from: Jace911 on January 14, 2015, 05:54:31 PM ---
--- Quote from: clockworkjoe on January 14, 2015, 05:11:21 PM ---
--- Quote from: Tim on January 14, 2015, 02:27:32 PM ---
--- Quote from: clockworkjoe on January 13, 2015, 05:34:06 PM ---Ruin is the architectural horror gumshoe engine rpg I plan to make.


--- End quote ---

Will Operate Heavy Machinery be an Investigative Skill in this gunshoe variant?

Player: "I spend one point in Operate Heavy Machinery"
GM: "The Bulldozer is a Caterpillar Model #2309 which was only sold in Europe so seeing it here in South America is certainly unusual. Also they are not normally covered in the blood of creatures from beyond time and space but that is sort of an aside."

--- End quote ---

It would be a general ability with the cherry KILL IT WITH HYDRAULICS - spend 3 points to guarantee that a usable heavy machine will be in the scene which can be used to fight or block a mythos threat. Feed those Dark Young tentacles into an industrial grinder or stop a Cthonian with a bulldozer.

--- End quote ---

Not to be confused with the cherry GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BITCH, which grants you a 3 point refresh to Operate Heavy Machinery after narrating a brief snippet of your character making use of heavy machinery in combat.

--- End quote ---


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCV:_Battle_Construction_Vehicles

crawlkill:
Listening to the first Killsplosion playtest on the B-Sides, I thought it was in some ways more a "boardless board game"  than a pure RPG. the absoluteness of the settings and definiteness of what could be accomplished in a turn put me in that headspace. I think it could work great as a card game, if you've got the stats to work it out. maybe players would draw from powerpoint decks to keep track of their pools at the start and when they got refreshes in-game, and some of the cards would be wild surprises? I imagine you've given this some thought already.

Twisting H:

--- Quote from: clockworkjoe on January 13, 2015, 05:34:06 PM ---Ruin is the architectural horror gumshoe engine rpg I plan to make.

--- End quote ---

If Ruin happens to be about abandoned places and discovery I stumbled across a couple of news stories in my daily reading that may be interesting/inspiring:

http://www.viralnova.com/explored-office-building-gallery/

Dude explores an abandoned building that is attached to his town hall and discovers an abandoned dance hall, and below that abandoned jail cells.

 http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/05/travel/gallery/mobile-architecture-homes/

New concept houses, including houses on rails (overpriced boxcars). 

Also a story.  I'm sure you are familiar with every college/university having its share of forgotten places and hidden rooms. 

MIT's underground tunnels are likely the most famous. Supposedly they connect every building.

http://tech.mit.edu/V123/N36/36orange.36n.html

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/blogs/thenextgreatgeneration/2012/03/school_secrets_5_things_to_kno_4.html

http://weburbanist.com/2010/04/14/hack-this-eerie-abandoned-roof-tunnel-hacking-pics/

The last is a great article about Urban Ex around the world.

Now for a couple stories.

UC Irvine was founded in 1965. As the story goes, the UC Regents witnessed the chaos of student rebellion during the 1960s and they were determined to design the university to prevent mass student gatherings from happening. If you look at an overhead map of UCI there is technically no center gathering point.  Yes there is a large circle in the middle but that is built on half a hill with rocks and elevation everywhere; no real large place for students across disciplines to gather.

Then there are stories about the tunnels. Those who claim they have explored them say there are empty rooms littered underground with one or two computer terminals quietly humming and a desk. The purpose? In the event of a mass gathering or panic (Ken State sniper, terrorist attack, Russians), these are the go to places for campus security to monitor the situation and deploy from.  Trust the UC Regents. The Regents are your friend.

In a university that shall remain nameless there is a six story building.  This building was erected five or six decades ago and houses several research labs.  On the roof is a lab that is closed.  One man on the sixth floor holds the key.  As the story goes a lab had need of extra space to carry out experiments with radioactive isotopes.  Most labs just have a room for this work, but this lab was important so it got the entire top floor lab.  Times change and newer methods were developed for the work that did not require radioactive isotopes.  Once the experiments stopped, the rooms were used for storage.  Now it lies silent and forgotten, the man on the sixth floor having the only key to the roof.  Supposedly there is graffiti of a chemical nature by grad students of ages past on the very top when the lab was open during the 60s.

At UC Berkeley there are secure facilities that take up an entire floor to house small animals for research. One is underground and another is on the top floor of a five story building. I got to tour one once, and they are very maze like, white walls and white doors with few signs. In the frog room (which is deafening) there is this massive kiddy pool, the plastic kind people buy to put on their lawn in the summer, that housed one population of frogs.  The other were in these super large open bathtubs, just being frogs.  Of course the rumor is one room hold crocodiles some professor was working on, but I'm pretty sure that is a joke.

At Hopkins there are these underground tunnels (they look very uninteresting, just blank white corridors) and balconies that connect research labs with the medical center.  I believe I was told they were built for transportation during bad weather and for security since the medical center is in a less than safe area.

Edit: 

You probably already know all the details about this, but here is an article about the tunnels under Manhattan.
This may be of interest for Aaron too for his Mordiggian adventure.   

Choice quote:


--- Quote ---Until that moment, I had only heard tales of New York City’s invisible empire, an elaborate maze of tunnels that goes as deep as the Chrysler Build­ing is high. Under construction in one form or another for more than a cen­tury, the system of waterways and pipelines spans thousands of miles and comprises nineteen reservoirs and three lakes. Two main tunnels provide New York City with most of the 1.3 billion gallons of water it consumes each day, ninety per cent of which is pumped in from reservoirs upstate by the sheer force of gravity.

--- End quote ---

http://www.gonomad.com/1757-six-hundred-feet-below-manhattan-a-visit-to-the-land-of-the-sandhogs

Now I recall seeing a tv show about the guys who work in these depths. It was maybe 15 years ago and on 60 minutes or 20/20.  The most compelling memory I have of the show was that they had to take an elevator down and even with lights some areas had just massive expanses of total blackness.  I may be misremembering.

If I recall correctly there is also a Native American myth about the island of Manhattan being supported by a giant pillar under the earth.

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