Author Topic: Pariah?  (Read 8204 times)

Zomboner

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Pariah?
« on: January 04, 2013, 05:28:53 PM »
Hey there RPPR community!  Been listening for a while now, and supported Ross' Baseraiders kickstarter, but finally registered for the forum because I have a question:

I got the preview AP podcasts through kickstarter, but I never received anything to indicate when or how to get Pariah.  I read elsewhere that it would probably be available in December.  Did I miss it, or is it not available yet?

Thanks!  And I'm sure I'll probably post again now that I bothered to register.

clockworkjoe

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Re: Pariah?
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2013, 06:24:27 PM »
I've been waiting for the cover art actually. Ean Moody just finished it so I should be able to format and make it available to all of you this weekend in pdf, epub and mobi format.

Next week, I'll make available for sale for those of you that missed the Kickstarter but want to learn more about Base Raiders.

Zomboner

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Re: Pariah?
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2013, 06:34:24 PM »
Awesome, thanks for the speedy reply!
I'm not impatient, I swear, I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss it! ;)

Setherick

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Re: Pariah?
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2013, 08:26:55 PM »
Of course, it's delayed after Ross made me completely drop everything from my schedule to proofread it--for free.  :-X
"Something smart so that I can impress people I don't know." - Some Author I've Not Read

Teapot

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Re: Pariah?
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2013, 10:36:26 PM »
So I just read it, and I'm thinking there's a game in the Ruined city. Something about psychics come from there? I'm still germinating on it.

Teapot

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Re: Pariah?
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2013, 01:44:37 AM »
So here's what I've scrawled out:
I'd use Wild Talents give the players 16d for stats and 20d for skills to make them semi gifted folks. They'd be under 27 and normal people with troubled dreams and latent powers (I'd make a couple "packages" each costing around 70ish points, I'm thinking a telepath, telekenetic, biokenetic, maybe some other -kenetic as people/I think is cool and I interpret.)

The game starts in NY or another big city with the players at an art exhibition titled "Photographs of the Only City" which is paintings of a ruined city, some odd landmarks dot the exhibition but mostly incredably detailed yet unfocused images of an abandoned Russian city. The players are there because the city sometimes appears in their dreams. The artist is a 32-year-old stringy man who looks strung out. He's a clairvoyant, though it's not doing him any good these days, he's somewhat near dissapating if he avoids overdosing on something. He's seen the city, he's walked through it. Then he painted it in amazing detail because nothing helps like spreading hungry memes.

That night they will wake up in the city. Likely together or nearby each other. The first trip is safeish, the city is truly empty, asleep even as they wander. Also this is when they get their powers, no explination beyond what A,D,U mean and rolling dice. (I'm dreaming of running this for thegroup I've got here in the 'Du who don't know anything beyone Pathfinder).

The trip through the city is mostly to give them a place to tinker with their powers (which wakes up the city) and expose them to the strange side of the world. They can find an exit from numerous points and the exiting will be rather easy/painless this time.

I'm making a list of places/neighborhoods in the city. Most of them were created by children, something about being older made people less likely to cling to the fringe of reality. As the city wakes up, it will try to consume them. The two sub-threats are shadows and constructs. Shadows are shadow things that work bluntly, shadow horses trample you, a shadow rock falls on you and so on. Constructs are things made of meat and metal and wood and glass and fear. They are things based on the hazy memories of the children who became the architechs of the city. They don't serve anyone but they hunt intruders and others for some reason. Their form changes by location, bear shaped things of wood, fur and bone in the Hills, students of glass and steel glide through the University and so on.

All psychics can get connected to the city (the players were attuned by seeing advertisments for the art show). Once connected escape is dangerous and difficult. Because the city wants in. The City isn't alive per se but it is kind of a creature, it consumes, it excretes, it slumbers and it awakes. It exists in the mind. It wants to exist in reality too.

The idea for the game would be the players meeting the city, meeting the children, fleeing from the creations etc. One way "out" is to help the city by anchoring it in reality at the origins of the sites and neighborhoods. That's a bad ending. With a bloom of psychics on Earth and madness running wild. Other endings would be killing off the children and loosening the moorings of the City. Or, I'm still fleshing it out. Locations to follow.

I haven't decided how involved the X-files/DG junk fits in but I'm thinking pretty small. In that psychics are a thing but not big. Jim Marrs still writes books about them and how 9/11 was an inside job. Madam Cleo will read your future cheap and so on. Most countries had some programs but many met with failure, children being hard to train and the adults vanishing. I'm thinking that some of the psi-spies from the cold war are trapped in the city but most adults just died or vanished.

Locations to follow.

clockworkjoe

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Re: Pariah?
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2013, 02:01:14 AM »
Are you using Pariah at all for this game? I like the set up so far though.

Teapot

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Re: Pariah?
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2013, 03:08:25 AM »
I have stolen the name and city and exit strategy. I am adding a bunch of places all created by psi active people who dissolved/ascended. Pariah is the strongest presence

Here's the places I've gotten so far:
Ruined City:
Primarily Russian from Pariah’s influence
There are places in the city attuned to other psychics these come as sites or neighborhoods. These places appear in the city, sometimes in different places where the rules of the city are subject to change as well as the constructs appearing differently.

Sites:
The hospital: The hospital: A huge building modeled after an idealized Osmania General Hospital the first sign of the building is the palm trees and shadows moving quickly about. The building holds the architectural glory from the real world. The inside is large and spacious with beds everywhere each holding a construct, things of gauze and tubes wrapped around injured flesh. Tubes writhe from these construct seeking to attach to other constructs or unfortunate humans. Blank mannequins in nurses uniforms or janitors coveralls carrying toolboxes float through the halls stopping by beds to prune the gauze and tubes and sometimes giving shots from long needles that sprout from their fingers. Further in, strange doctor shaped things made of shining machines and immaculate cloth move about and the patient constructs appear cleaner.

The Mission: built in a 17th century Spanish Colonial style sitting on rocky ground sprouting from the street

The Bunker: A French bakery in bright clear sunshine sits on the street, inside past the pastries, counters and chairs there is a black staircase. The staircase leads to an underground complex appearing first as a military instillation turning into a large playroom, classroom and living quarters for a young boy. The walls are covered with French music and propaganda from the eighties. This is the domain of Andre St. Claire a young pyrokenetic who the French government didn’t know what to do with. The constructs here appear as large asbestos containment suits each emblazoned with a number sequence. Though powerfully large and solid, they cringe away from any threat. There are also the generals men made of light and chocolate with either a clipboard or military hat. The servants fear and obey these.

The Reactor: a bleak dome rising above the other buildings with faded signs written in simplified Chinese warning that intruders will be shot. Inside there is only one path, ranging from a 2m wide by 2m tall tunnel to a massive curving room stretching hundreds of meters into the air that spirals to the center, a sparse bedroom and giant dynamo. The constructs here appear as humans with elongated legs, arms and head, their mouths filled with syringes in place of teeth and long sharp rubber claws in place of hands and feet. They scuttle on the walls, ceilings and floors. A young telekinetic boy lived here providing power for much of Yunnan province.

The Deli: “Joe’s Subs and Pierogies” the color is washed from the store and surrounding area, there is a constant drizzle and never any sun. Inside the deli, faded gray men smoke, drink, eat, read newspapers written in a combination of all written languages. There are no constructs here, this is the resting place of psi spies from the Cold War who weren’t ready for their deaths or had attachments that prevented them from going to wherever people go. This is rather safe as long as people don’t spend too much time here and become grayscale. The spies can be helpful and can make demands.

Neighborhoods:
The Hills: a rural forested hilly place with many pines and sometimes covered in snow it seems to be in the city just starting somewhere almost randomly. People often have a hard time noticing when they cross into The Hills. The area is full of animal sounds and light filters oddly through the trees. This is the domain of Jenny Duncan, a Californian psychic who was never discovered. She died/was absorbed in 1976 at the age of 14. The Exit is a small two story wooden house where Jenny grew up in with a stump in front of it. The constructs here appear as animals of wood, earth, stone and bone with glowing red eyes.

The tunnels: Anyone who’s gone urban exploring in the tunnels under modern New York can recognize these. Dwayne Johnson, a young biokenetic spent his short homeless life here living among the “mole people.” The sewers are dank and oppressive where water drips and flows from somewhere to somewhere, sometimes waves of sewage crash down the tunnels. The tunnels are accessible from most of the Ruined City through manholes, storm drains and pipes. The constructs here look vaguely human formed from sewage, broken glass, rusty cans and other garbage.

The University: If anyone knows it, they can kind of recognize Ain Shams university’s medical campus from Cairo, someone who’s been there or checked it will recognize the era as the seventies. The constructs appear as students made from chrome, clean glass and other shiny metals, their movement is more like gliding as a fish through clear water. Except for the leaders, large obsidian or black metal in the shape of men carrying briefcases who stride the area their feet fracturing the ground sometimes stopping to pulverize a student.

As for exiting from the city. Each site or neighorhood has an exit (except the Deli, they know there's no way home). A simple symbolic action here is all it takes, chopping a chicken in the Hills or turning off a heart monitor in the Hospital etc. I need to add these.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2013, 01:11:48 AM by Journ-O-LST-3 »

Teapot

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Re: Pariah?
« Reply #8 on: February 28, 2013, 11:21:05 PM »
So the problem I'm having with this, beyond not having a group I can run it for now, is what tone to use. Because once the players figure out how to handle it, how do I keep it interesting. Either way they'll have to go to the real locations for the children but I don't want it to be a place of the week type thing.

I'm thinking of jumping genre with each location. As well as keeping each one tight enough to take one-two sessions but not too much. For real world antagonists I'm thinking some choices will be mostly normal problems with underfunded paranatural investigators and the occasional military guard.

One of the things I want to put in is that psychics are not super useful to any government and aren't ment to be super-heroes. I want to combine a globe trotting adventure in the real world with danger from the psychic world.

Some encounter ideas would be a genetic research company trying to buy their blood and asking them to undergo MRIs (go in the machene, spend some time in the Ruined City). A tired EPA man telling them that they can't go to the fenced off few acres in the Sierras because of "logging... chemicals..? It says here," and so on. That there is a conspiracy but it's more of a general aggreement to not talk about psi active people and hope they all go away.

I'm thinking I want a few more locations and at least one desert/wasteland location. Most of the "people" in the city were children but a few adults can have slipped in over the years.

Also, people they use their powers on too often can get pulled into the city as well. Without powers they're much less defended against the city itself as well as the constructs.

clockworkjoe

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Re: Pariah?
« Reply #9 on: March 01, 2013, 12:00:53 AM »
I'd look to things like Silent Hill, Alan Wake, Twin Peaks, Psychonauts, Don't Rest Your Head, and Hellblazer (comic, not movie) for inspiration.

Sounds like a great setup so far. You should write it up as a proper game setting.