Scifi questions: scenario and rule feedback

[Lloyd Dupont]

Hi yall!

First, I finally finished a first draft of my Master of Orion ruleset (actually 2nd draft, well, never mind). Anyway, sharing it for feedback. By the way, while it says Mythras in the description, main difference with BRP is that my Weapon table does a lot less damage than a BRP one would and also, I introduce a smaller number of new skills. There are still a few things that could be improved, but I reckon it's good enough! Have a look and let me know?

Secondly, now that this is finally done, I can move on to my first short adventure with it! I just don't feel like big campaigns in a Scifi settings, can't imagine one that satisfy my suspension of disbelief. But perhaps do short spy / thriller adventures?

I got some vague plot idea (below) that need some help fleshing out. Hopefully it can be a "3 acts" adventure. Ideally it should have some hoverbike chases, some short gunfights (i.e. run away and then.. car chase! and then.. maybe fight just 1 guy), and some interesting space locals. I think that would be enough for a good scifi vibe check.

-- 

The setting would be the PCs are part of some sort of shop that is a front for some spy on a system that is well known for being a research location (due to concentration of Psilon researcher). As any self-respecting MoO games should, the game starts with some GNN announcements!
Something along the lines of: The diva Alice Alure is visiting the system! The glorious troops of the Emperor are victorious against an evil Antarian excursion once again! Population of the local system almost reaching 4 billions, do your part for the empire!

Anyway suspicious movement of troop coming up in system. Act 1 is figuring what's going on. PCs rapidly found out that Antarian relics are coming en masse and have to find which lab will get the lion share of it, with the directive to steal some, and most if possible. I am not quite sure how to go about it. Probably just some talking minigame (talking with unwitting informant). Failure build-up threat... too much threat = found out by counter spy!

Act 2 would exploring the (hopefully, probably) lab of interest. It will be a "dungeon" with robots and cameras. With a goal of perfect stealth. In case of discovery could have a car chase running away hey?! In the lab one could find clue that, more that those small relics a complete spaceship is in the (not so) secret military research spacestation somewhere in the system. A whole Antarian spaceship! Must acquire at all costs!

Act 3 would be assault on the spacestation to steal the spaceship and fly away with it.

--

Now I got multiple problems with this vague outline.

1. I am not sure how to fill / play the Act1, investigation / information gathering phase

2. I am not sure how I could make Act 3 / the assault on a military research spacestation be both a success and realistic. It should have overwhelming defenses.

 

Any help and tips welcome! 😄 

Mythras - Master of Orion.docx Mythras - Master of Orion.pdf

Edited July 15 by Lloyd Dupont

[Ethereal]

On 7/15/2024 at 2:25 AM, Lloyd Dupont said:

Hi yall!

First, I finally finished a first draft of my Master of Orion ruleset (actually 2nd draft, well, never mind). Anyway, sharing it for feedback. By the way, while it says Mythras in the description, main difference with BRP is that my Weapon table does a lot less damage than a BRP one would and also, I introduce a smaller number of new skills. There are still a few things that could be improved, but I reckon it's good enough! Have a look and let me know?

Secondly, now that this is finally done, I can move on to my first short adventure with it! I just don't feel like big campaigns in a Scifi settings, can't imagine one that satisfy my suspension of disbelief. But perhaps do short spy / thriller adventures?

I got some vague plot idea (below) that need some help fleshing out. Hopefully it can be a "3 acts" adventure. Ideally it should have some hoverbike chases, some short gunfights (i.e. run away and then.. car chase! and then.. maybe fight just 1 guy), and some interesting space locals. I think that would be enough for a good scifi vibe check.

-- 

The setting would be the PCs are part of some sort of shop that is a front for some spy on a system that is well known for being a research location (due to concentration of Psilon researcher). As any self-respecting MoO games should, the game starts with some GNN announcements!
Something along the lines of: The diva Alice Alure is visiting the system! The glorious troops of the Emperor are victorious against an evil Antarian excursion once again! Population of the local system almost reaching 4 billions, do your part for the empire!

Anyway suspicious movement of troop coming up in system. Act 1 is figuring what's going on. PCs rapidly found out that Antarian relics are coming en masse and have to find which lab will get the lion share of it, with the directive to steal some, and most if possible. I am not quite sure how to go about it. Probably just some talking minigame (talking with unwitting informant). Failure build-up threat... too much threat = found out by counter spy!

Act 2 would exploring the (hopefully, probably) lab of interest. It will be a "dungeon" with robots and cameras. With a goal of perfect stealth. In case of discovery could have a car chase running away hey?! In the lab one could find clue that, more that those small relics a complete spaceship is in the (not so) secret military research spacestation somewhere in the system. A whole Antarian spaceship! Must acquire at all costs!

Act 3 would be assault on the spacestation to steal the spaceship and fly away with it.

--

Now I got multiple problems with this vague outline.

1. I am not sure how to fill / play the Act1, investigation / information gathering phase

2. I am not sure how I could make Act 3 / the assault on a military research spacestation be both a success and realistic. It should have overwhelming defenses.

 

Any help and tips welcome! 😄 

Mythras - Master of Orion.docx 933 kB · 1 download Mythras - Master of Orion.pdf 426.26 kB · 7 downloads

 

 

In regards to your second question, I would recommend three resources. While I am not a game creator I am a writer. When I was taking writing classes, one of the things the instructor emphasized was research. So I recommend

 

1) ‘Warfare in the Classical World by John Wary. (Available on Amazon in PDF, Paperback and Hardback )

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Warfare+classical+world+Salamander&i=prime-day&crid=39OEML3C66VD1&sprefix=warfare+classical+world+salamander%2Cprime-day%2C126&ref=nb_sb_noss

 

2) Two magazines, same publisher.

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/products/ancient-history-magazine-49?utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=Karwansaray%20Publishers%20Newsletter%20-%20April%2024th%202024&utm_medium=email

 

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/products/ancient-warfare-xiv-4

 

The reason I recommend Ancient warfare in both resources is that while weapons may change, Tactics and Logistics are quite often many times more important than even Esprit De Corp. By reading up on Ancient Warfare and Weapons I have been able to adjust my stories to fit the scenario.

 

3) A book by Rory Miller called “Violence” a Writers Guide. Available on Amazon in the same 3 formats. I have found this an excellent resource for Combat.

 

Hope this helps.

https://www.amazon.com/Violence-Writers-Second-Rory-Miller-ebook/dp/B00CWGH46I/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1IJXQRCDQY20S&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.VnIFPz_u1KNx7hRj7HfstU3TaMykz_6rC1c9Nre4i3U.JpS7b_IBTxFI3urtHNujvTGEsUUBAju-LPVXLDLkEFg&dib_tag=se&keywords=violence+a+writer's+guide+rory+miller&psr=PDAY&qid=1721154595&s=prime-day&sprefix=violence+a+writers+guide+rory+miller%2Cprime-day%2C130&sr=1-1

Edited July 16 by Ethereal

[Atgxtg]

On 7/15/2024 at 5:25 AM, Lloyd Dupont said:

 

1. I am not sure how to fill / play the Act1, investigation / information gathering phase

I think this hars to start off with some sort of "hook" that leads the PCs into the adventure.Here's one stab at it.Take anything you like and ingore the rest.

Since the PCs are part of a covert organization, I suggest that they run into someone or something and find somSay one of the artifacts and a locker key for a locker at the spaceport. sort of clue that suggests that something unsual is going on. Like , say someone stumbles into the shop he drops or hands some item in front of the PCs before running out. Perhaps he is being chased. Maybe the guy is someone the PCs know, so they will follow it up rather than pass it on to higher ups, the police, etc. Maybe he gets grabbed and tossed into a van outside or even an ambulance (Medics say he's delusional/paranoid."). Since the PCs are working for a front company, their higher ups wouldn't want a scene and the authorities investigating the shop, so they sidestep things.

Then in the locker there could be a data chip with some photo's and more information. Ship NBames, Warehouse numbers. Not really enough to clue the PCs into what is going on (think of it as the guys notes. He knows what there are about so he just stored the data without explaining what it is). One of the photso is of the guy who was outside te shop when the incident happened.

PCs follow one of clues to the warehouse or the freighter ship or to an office or aparment. (it dpepends on what you prefer or you can set it up so that there are clues no matter what location they go to).  Putin some stuff at the location that doesn't fit with it statues purpose. For instance the apartment could be empty expect for baxes (with artifacts). Crates in the warehouse or ship have artifactcs but labeled as something else. Probably some evidence that one or more customs officials are in on it (they signed off on all the cargo, and maybe the PCs saw them earlier).

 

Eventually they clues all point to the lab, and act Two.

 

 

 

On 7/15/2024 at 5:25 AM, Lloyd Dupont said:

2. I am not sure how I could make Act 3 / the assault on a military research spacestation be both a success and realistic. It should have overwhelming defenses.

I think you need to give the PCs some sort of "backdoor" to disable or bypass a lot of the defenses and level the playing field. Somehow they need to get advanced knowledge of what sort of defenses thet are up against, and a way to bypass or disable most of them. Perhaps they can hack something. Or maybe they got someone on the inside? Maybe they can shut down the power or something, and that shuts down a lot of the security devices, cameras, and laser emplacements? Just something that can prevent the base from defending the way they had expected to. That can give the attackers an advantage while the defenders scramble to react. 

In real life there was a close call incident at a US airbase. During a storm someone tried to break through an electric fence at an airbase where they stationns bombers that carry nukes in the event of WWIII. Fearing it was  a preemptive Soviet attack, the base commander ordered the planes to take off.   They were stopped on the runway by a officer in a jeep, yelling that the fence was damaged by a bear, not by the Russians.

So you could use bad weather as a possible cover for the attack. Some of the PCs actions could be mistaken as effects of the storm.

 

Oh and watching a James Bond film might help. You Only Live Twice in particular. Often Bond films ended with an assault on the villain. Typically Bond does something that helps his side.  

 

Hope some of that helps.

 

 

 

Edited July 17 by Atgxtg

[Lloyd Dupont]

Hey Atgxtg strikes again! 🙂 

Yes this gave me food for thought.. I need to restrucure my story a bit more.. and yes.. obviously I forgot! There will be some inside job for Act3!
In fact I was planning to make a list of "assets", i.e. compromised actors that could help for just such cases! On it now! 😄

Started to flesh out the story in its own document, we shall see how it goes... 🙂

Edited July 17 by Lloyd Dupont

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Hey Atgxtg strikes again! 🙂 

No, that was the Pink Panther.

4 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Started to flesh out the story in its own document, we shall see how it goes... 🙂

Good Luck. Let us know how it goes. 

[tooley1chris]

Yup I was gonna go with what the creative Atgxtg said about sabotage or high-tech hack that disables something not obvious, like trick the station mainframe into believing life support is malfunctioning requiring a system reset. Everything off-line for a few minutes giving players a sense of urgency 😎

Someone sneaks aboard and disables the shields or weapons systems taking a few minutes to reset.

 

Edited July 20 by tooley1chris

[Atgxtg]

7 hours ago, tooley1chris said:

e trick the station mainframe into believing life support is malfunctioning requiring a system reset.

Now that is nasty.👍

"I'm sorry Dave, but I'm going to have to shut down life support and reset it it. The whole procedure should only take seven minutes. I recommend putting on your environmental suit. Would you like an audible timer of time to completion?"

"I don't have an environmental suit!"

"I' apologize for the inconvenience. Please patient, you should revive before suffering any permanent effects."

"Should?"

"Yes, as the cause of the malfunction is unknown, it's possible that a reset might prove ineffective, and life support might not be restored. Would you like directions to the nearest escape pod?"

😄😄😄😄😄

 

7 hours ago, tooley1chris said:

Everything off-line for a few minutes giving players a sense of urgency 😎

Yeah you took their breath away.

7 hours ago, tooley1chris said:

Someone sneaks aboard and disables the shields or weapons systems taking a few minutes to reset.

Tat was more what I was expecting but going after life support is hitting below the belt. 

Oh, and if the assult team has night vision gear, turn off the lighting system while your at it. Then they have to defend the base in the dark while someone tries to fix life support. I wonder if you can get mainframe to tell the Roombas that all personnel are in need of a good vacuum?

Edited July 20 by Atgxtg

[Lloyd Dupont]

Hi yall....
I think I will park that for now,.. maybe read Pirates of Drynax or something as well... just don't feel satisfied with the content I have for now...
(Might be my excessive D&D gameplay, dont know how to make spy story! 😮 ) 

Will focus on the fantasy campaign I had in mind... But.. I might be back! ^_^

[Atgxtg]

8 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Hi yall....
I think I will park that for now,.. maybe read Pirates of Drynax or something as well... just don't feel satisfied with the content I have for now...
(Might be my excessive D&D gameplay, dont know how to make spy story! 😮 ) 

 

Spy stories are different. Most of my players used to find Bond the hardest RPG to play. Not because it is harder, but because it's different. Spy stories are not ususally combat adventures but detective stories with a bit more action. The genre and style of play are just so different from what the players were used to that they had a hard time adapting to the way things work.

The players would get frustrated with their lack of knowledge, but that is how detective stories work. The investigators start off knowing nothing and then follow clues and don't really know what is going on until shortly before the end.  But that different from how most RPG adventures work.

Likewise, they would be bothered by how they were constantly outnumbered and outgunned by the bad guys, who usually had some sort of base with defenses. Again this wasn't any harder to deal with (the PCs were superior to most of the NPCs) just that they usually couldn't tackle the place head on and ad to find more creative ways of getting inside.

The players hated when somebody showed up and tried to kill them, and would often go into hiding afterwards, But in the genre it's a good thing since it means you're getting close enough to bother someone, and the people who try to kill you are clues and possible sources of information. 

The players had a very hard time accepting the the idea of surrendering, so they can escape later. This dispute the fact that whenever they did it they got whisked right through all those pesky defenses to the  the major villain who then told them his whole plan, and left them in  is a good spot to foil it. 

 

 

8 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Will focus on the fantasy campaign I had in mind... But.. I might be back! ^_^

I hope you do come back to it. From what you posted it seemed like a good adventure in the making.

That hard bit with these types of stories is working out what clues to leave the players. Basically the bad guys have to make mistakes and leave clues or else you players won't have a trail to follow.  So you have to figure out what the bad guys could do wrong that the PCs could pick up on, but that they bad guys wouldn't be able to spot or correct before the PCs found out. I'ts kinda tricky to write because most people are used to deliberate trying to make mistakes and GMs are't used to writing that into their NPCs actions. Nobody thinks that the bad guy will drop his wallet during a robbery, but it has happened.   

Maybe you just need to read a spy adventure for an RPG to see how they look compared to other RPGs? 

 

 

[Lloyd Dupont]

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Maybe you just need to read a spy adventure for an RPG to see how they look compared to other RPGs? 

The idea crossed my mind indeed!
Plus some good feedback there 🙂 

[Atgxtg]

58 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

The idea crossed my mind indeed!
Plus some good feedback there 🙂 

Well you post sounded eerily familiar. 

Investigation-type adventures are a different breed than typical RPG fare. Not really harder. I think that's why most of the modules for Top Secret were mostly assault the bad guy's lair. That is much closer to a dungeon crawl. Heck, the bad guys in a spy adventure might actually have real dungeons to crawl through.

I think ispy advrentures use a sort of inverted format. I mean in Lord of the Rings the characters don't have to work to find out what hte plot is (get the One Ring to take over the world), whos'e behind it (Sauron), and where he's at (Mount Doom). It's similar with Star Wars. That information is given to the character for free, usually very early in the story. In a investigation story they have to hunt for it, and that throws everyone off (GM included) because . they got used to having that and feel like things aren't going well when they don't. 

So don't give up on it. 

[Lloyd Dupont]

Well, thanks for the encouragements, I decided to keep... slowly building it and writing idea down as they come... gonna take a while, but might happen! ^_^

It will probably be a tad bigger than initially thought, which is a good thing! :) 

[Atgxtg]

6 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Well, thanks for the encouragements, I decided to keep... slowly building it and writing idea down as they come... gonna take a while, but might happen! ^_^

It will probably be a tad bigger than initially thought, which is a good thing! :) 

There are some random plot generators for SciFi and Espionage genres, I think I've got at least one that was free. Sometimes they help with coming up with ideas, and can get you to think of things you never would have., or set adventures in places that you never though of. If you are interested let me know. 

 

Oh, plus there is some free software for creating and rolling on tables with a PC or android device that can help you roll on those tables without dice and flipping through pages. 

[Lloyd Dupont]

Sure... But for now I keep working - slowly - on that concept / story. Which, unlike the usual stories I heard of, is not a lucky stumble on a great opportunity, but a spying agency having to work overtime on a special occasion they have not any particular lucky insight...

Anyway trying to make a list of assets and locations with information that can be extracted and risk associated with them.

Other that, sure, it will sure be interesting to see what kind of tables you wrote. Will certainly give some idea! 🙂

[Atgxtg]

6 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Sure... But for now I keep working - slowly - on that concept / story. Which, unlike the usual stories I heard of, is not a lucky stumble on a great opportunity, but a spying agency having to work overtime on a special occasion they have not any particular lucky insight...

Okay. I just didn't want you to give up. I know a few DMs who only run D&D because they don't want to go through the learning curve needed to GM another RPG. So they go back to what is safe and easy, and miss out on other games. Those who stick with it, tend to like the new games (and find they are easier to run because they aren't as complicated as D&D). Same with different types of adventures. They aren't so bad one you start doing them.

6 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Anyway trying to make a list of assets and locations with information that can be extracted and risk associated with them.

Good idea. Keep the list too, because whatever you don't use in this adventure might be useful in another. I've got a few files and a campaign manager program that I jot down different ideas, story plots, scenes, obstacles, gear, etc so I have options for when I'm putting together an adventure. For instace I might see something about the UK developing a new laser weapon called Dragonfire and note the specifics on it for a future adventure. Another time I might see something on JFD's Torpedo SEAL Swimmer Delivery Vehicle and note the specs for a possible mission where the PCs sneak into a place use it and SCUBAS gear. Then maybe sometime later I combine the two ideas. So keep any ideas you come up with because what you don't use now you might want to use later.

 

6 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Other that, sure, it will sure be interesting to see what kind of tables you wrote. Will certainly give some idea! 🙂

Oh, most of the tables I didn't write they were generic tables that are available for free on the internet. I did put something on them into inspiration pad pro (a free program for creating and rolling tables) expanded on them (you can roll odd sided dice and such so if you have 21 ideas you can do 21 choices on a table), and interlinked some tables so it can roll on more than one table at a time, but most of the tables were free stuff put out there by someone else for anyone to use.

 

For instance, stuff from this page: https://www.modus-operandi.co.uk/top-secret-si/a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-the-mission/

BTW, Modus Operandi is a pretty good site for spy RPG stuff. None if it is for BRP, but much of what's there isn't system specific or can be adapted to BRP without too much work.. 

 

There are also a few system agnostic mission generators that are useful and  inexpensive such as this: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/190687/Espionage-Mission-Generator that can help. Esepcially with the stuff you find more difficult. 

Edited July 23 by Atgxtg