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General Category => RPGs => : Teapot July 25, 2014, 10:23:36 AM
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So I'll be running Base Raiders at a con here in China soon, this is what I have so far, mostly I'm looking for any problems anyone sees with it or suggestions to add on.
PCs:
Tyrone Jones, social engineer at the top of his field - looking for a bigger field and new challenges
Dana St. Claire, really skilled failed tech startup, screw it, go big or go home
Ryan O'Bannon, super hero otaku, been training his life for this
Jessica Rider, former henchwoman to Destructina, can't cut it in civilian life
Pedro Rodriguez, over achieving extreme sport enthusiast, wants to pay off med school now
Power sources
Ninja Dust, holds the skills of numerous second rate ninjas, also some coke, the snorter will be haunted by the ninjas who show up to harangue and ask for favors.
Omni-Tool, adjusts to do many useful things, not hand shaped, covers the arms and won't come off.
Vampire Blood, become a half-assed vampire, comes with several classic vulnerabilities.
Good'ol Pangloss psychic mushroom, gives a lot of TK, also some telepathy you don't control.
Alien mutigen: gain the powers and only some of the appearance of the lizard supermen, also an allergy to cobalt.
[Note that all of these grant some form of offensive capability making them Schedule III enhancements. Vampire blood is contagious so it's Schedule I.]
Outline:
The game starts with the players in the back of a U-Haul talking to “Jerry” a base raider of unspecified powers explaining the heist. There is a semi-massive secret base under the West Philadelphia Happy Cow Processing Center, the center does all its' business during the night/early morning, so that's why the team'll be infiltrating at high noon – only the front office has people. He's got some powers for them, as advertised and they've got five minutes to deck themselves out. If they do well he'll vouch for them with the Underground, highly valuable in its' own right.
However the base is still populated, unlike the other hideouts, this on had a deeper purpose and so the henchwomen here had different orders. But after a year of lockdown, only one is left alive – minion 436 - she has forgotten her name and become a wendigo after consuming many other henchwomen. She is still loyal in her own way and will fight to keep intruders out.
The base is also home to an anomalous magical thing, a cancerous godlet stuffed deep into the bowels and kept in check by a constant stream of necrotic energy from the slaughterhouse above. Minion 436 has also been feeding on it. [If longer campaign, dealing with it is a thing.]
Lastly, the man who sold Jerry the base info double sold to “Army of Jeff” a base raider able to duplicate himself. He made it in using a boost patch but when the patch wore off he was savaged by Minion 436 and has holed up in the armory without any willpower left. He can call for extraction (at the cost of 40% of the haul) but hasn't yet.
Challenges:
Choose powers
Navigate new powers
Get past the front desk at the slaughterhouse
Find the entrance (Jerry has GPS coordinates)
Get past the dumb Aide-De-Base doorman (dumb AI)
Restore non-emergency power
OH GOD SOMEONE LET OUT SOME DEATHBOTS/ZOMBIES/FROZEN XENOMORPHS
Investigate base layout (discover the dorms)
Security glitches are funny and only 42% murderous
Talk to the locked armory speaker (shell shocked base raider)
Someone else is keyed into the system, maybe meet Minion #436
Wendigo, everybody panic
Dealing with Jerry
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It's a solid outline for a base and adventure - I assume you at least have a sketch of the map of the base? Also are you using Wild Talents?
My only concern is this may be too much for a con game - depends on how many fights the PCs get into, I suppose. Have you playtested it with your own group first to see how long it would take to finish?
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The base is sketched with an octagon theme. I'll do a better drawing before the con. It's WT because I don't understand Fate and I already sacrificed the goat to understand WT.
I have two fights planned, both with minions and one NPC.
I think I'll take out the first ambush.
Also I need some ideas for motivational posters and other things to have around the base.
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For the motivational posters, who owned the base? Was an Ideal hero, a villain, some independent hero or what?
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Former CFO turned villain, she did a lot of protection type rackets. Had an all female crew primarily operated in NY but this was her backup base in Philly.
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I would probably use this list for inspiration then: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
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Did a playtest, Jessica snorted ninja dust and Ryan took super lizard serum. They were pretty focused on opening the armory and didn't check the dorms. For two players i took out the xenomama and took off the wendigo's armor.
Big part was to make Jerry a bigger dick.
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Players love getting swag/superpowers. Do you want to write up the base as an adventure for Base Raiders? It sounds great.
BTW, I'd love to hear more about the con - what is the scene like in China?
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I'd love to write it up, I'll email you the doc in a couple of days, right now I'm trying to find some software above mspaint to use for making the map and it'll be ready.
As for the China con scene, I don't know yet, Alex and I will be heading off to check this one out soon and it sounds like there's not much else. I heard about this through the PFS but I don't know what the place will be like, it's apparently small, they expect less than 200 people for this, but it's only the second year.
And apparently there's one in Shanghai too. Their website keeps changing: http://www.khankon.com
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First thing, would this be a good place to put the con writeup?
Second, next play test, this time Ryan took the magic robe (I swapped it with the omni-tool) and Tyrone took the TK shrooms. They were much more proactive with exploring the base and Ryan was rolling like a monster on attacks (but nothing else). They fought off the xenomorphs easily and wandered the base a bit. I added a Lyutian saboteur's rig which came with 5d in attack and teleport as well as 25 points of burn. Ryan put it on without hesitation. They killed Jerry by crippling the wendigo, festooning her with claymores and teleporting the snarling mess right into the van and ended with a solid alliance with Army of Jeff, the base raider.
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This would be fine to write it up for the con. Also, the teleporting wendigo claymore trick is an old one but a good one. Good job!
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So, KhanKon. It was a drunken blast.
This is apparently their third year but I think it's the one where they went beyond a group of friends and tried to make it a con. There was a room of video games, a room of Chinese people playing card games and RPGs, two rooms of board games and four rpg rooms. There was also Artemis Starship but not until Sunday night. I was again drunk and captianing, I think I did well, though Alex said the ship exploded a few times under my watch.
Sadly no one came to my Base Raiders game. This was mostly my fault, because the RPG section was a bit small and kind of off in a corner. Before my game I was off playing 5e (not bad but still fantasy so bleh) and I wasn't drumming up people to play. Alex's Eclipse Phase game went off pretty good with a full roster and all were pretty happy.
Also apparently the dudes who're translating Pathfinder and 5e into Chinese were there too.
I'd say the negative was that it was a bit cliquish because it's a small group of friends building something bigger, also they were welcoming to anyone who showed up. So more of a new thing.
The positives were that it was pretty good for a first big effort, things happened as they were supposed to and the board game room literally had more and better games than my whole childhood.
Misc links:
http://haogamers.com/287/beijings-khan-kon-showed-fan-run-gaming-conventions-can-work-china/ (http://haogamers.com/287/beijings-khan-kon-showed-fan-run-gaming-conventions-can-work-china/)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwy-yUz3CdQ&feature=youtu.be&list=UUHBDXQDmqnaqIEPdEapEFVQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwy-yUz3CdQ&feature=youtu.be&list=UUHBDXQDmqnaqIEPdEapEFVQ)
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Funnily enough, one of my friends was a founder of KhanKon, and last Friday was his first ever game of base raiders. He flew out from the uk and back this year to help run it. I garentee you probably heard him at some point(what with being within a hundred miles ;) ) I will let him know of your attendance and enjoyment.
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Yeah, running non-DnD/Pathfinder RPGs at very small cons is tricky. Gamers are very particular about what games they actually play, so few games actually get the critical mass necessary to run pick up/unadvertised games. Thanks for trying though! Once I clear my desk of a few other projects, I plan to publish the adventure you sent me.
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I don't think it was gamers being all worried about non D&D type games, it was mostly me not spending the time to tell people to sign up. A lot of the people there would have been interested but were doing something else.
Mainly, lesson learned was next year spend the hour to get people to sign up.
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It depends a lot on the con, I'd say. I would have had to cancel my CoC game at Springfield GAME is there hadn't been a bunch of RPPR folks available who wanted to fill the seats. But at Fear the Con 7 back in June, almost all the tables were full for just about everything.
If it's a small con or you're friends with the organizers, you might want to talk over how they could improve their system for signing up for games. Fear the Con had an awesome online pre-registration system, but Springfield GAME only had an online list of events, and just on-site paper sign-ups. I think that made part of the difference. (Well, that and Fear the Con is a 100% dedicated tabletop con.)
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Yeah, I think that's the main thing about small cons - if they emphasize tabletop games, you're fine, but general purpose small cons are so scattered, only the most popular games of any type can get something going - the MtGs, the D&Ds, etc.
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Yeah, that came up in the post con pre-party. The offshots that I recall (before the run kicked in*) was that the sign up board was kind of just put out and ignored and next year they want to put it nearer to the official con people. I think that may be all they need really, there was an online sign up system but I didn't know about it and it didn't work apparently. Also I think that this kind of con would do just fine with people getting pitches next to the board and having folk nearby to point at empty games.
*It's not in the game but Artemis could totally have a ship bartender, it worked great.