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View Full Version : Space Opera Punk! The ongoing project / campaign blog!



Nurseninja
2014-05-11, 05:31 PM
Starting tomorrow I’m going to be running a new campaign using the d&d next playtest rules. It’s going to be a Sci-Fi campaign! In the vein of Dragonstar / Farscape / Guardians of the galaxy im aiming for... Space Opera Punk

I’ve been planning it on and of for the best part of two months, and have gone back to formula several times. I’m posting my ideas here hoping for advice and criticism and to post the results of my sessions as we go along.

Is d&d really the system for this? Maybe not, but I do have my reasons. It’s Partially that Next is the system we’ve been playing recently, but also because not got a lot of content it allows for a great deal of flexibility in packing it with my own weird crap.

Overview
The players find themselves unknowing, unwilling celebrities whose every thought and sight has been broadcast to a pan-galactic audience for the last six years. They have been the players in a game where they have fought, died and been resurrected many times over to the delight of viewers throughout the sentient worlds.

But now something has broken their shadowy masters control and now they are back in control of their lives, how will they react when they learn what has been done to them? How will they cope with fame on the run? Who has the knowledge to answer their questions?

Their situation is made worse when they discover that they have almost just about finished a coup that will bring this sector of space into civil war, and only risking all will put the princess back on the throne, if that’s what the players decide they want to do. Millions of lives lay on the line and they didn’t ask for any part of this.

Session One
Scene 1: The Palace
The players find themselves in the middle of a screaming crowd of party goers, the Queen, her bodyguard and her chief concubine dead by their hands. Alarms are blaring all around them. A voice in their heads is telling them to kill the remaining princesses. (This will be a function of the DM, like the Stanley Parable or the Castle Ravenloft psychic commentary “You are standing ontop of a banquet table, silverware underfoot. Your trusty sword is in your hand, you know what you have to do, you have to kill the princesses”)

The players will have questions. Why is everyone screaming? Did they really kill these people? Where are they? Why are the players now resistant to the psychic control? Some of these questions will be answered and I want to keep the conversation going even as the combat start.

Hegemony guards will arrive, impressing upon players the very different feel of combat Im aiming for in this campaign. The Magitek nuclear bomb the players have placed will begin its countdown (I hope they try and disarm it! “A trio of floating spheres begin to spin round one another, a growing sphere like a contained fireball growing around them, one of the floating components has a control screen and a helpful flower with a face. “It looks like your trying to disarm the1 Kiloton OmniDrake 9000 thaumaturgical explosive device?”)

The players will have to escape / kill the palace guards and try to escape the palace. They will discover that the palace is in fact floating in low orbit over a cracked world below (think Zoltans palace in flash Gordon) It looks like a massive bite has been taken out of the world below, its inner core glowing inside, by the missions of lights it looks like vast cities litter the interior. Nearby is an orbital docking ring, routinely spaced space elivators, spaceports and maglev trains run along it.

From here it’s pretty free form but I have three scene sketched out. 1)a train chase / being chased 2)Spaceport holdout / king of the hill until they’ve reloaded fuel onto the only functional spaceship they have 3) the spaceport platform collapses as they just start the spaceship leading to a freefall fight with an opposing team while doging debris and trying to get into the spaceship. Activate hyperdrive, boom, and end of first session.

WAIT! WHAT?

Okay, so here is what the players will hopefully be discovering in the first few sessions:

Adventurers League
The Adventurers league is a sports league / Reality TV show / criminal organisation composed of teams sponsored by different divisions of a company called Drake, Drake & Drake. (It’s a Legal conglomerate that owns many other companies)

The seasons objectives are set by head office and the different teams compete to win the league cup. The current seasons objective is to conquer the Divine Hegemony of the Vulgar races. Points are gained by Killing members of the royal family, taking worlds, etc.
The players characters the primary members of the “Blue knockout Piledrivers”, each team has a gimmick, their teams gimmick is that they are all 'lost' people who stumbled upon the machine (More later). Each “player” is controled by an “agent” who directs their actions. Producers are bizzare truefae monsters that act as referees in the game.

The players have been under the control of their agents for the last 6 years or so and have been mind controlled for all that time, however the royal family of the Hegemony have a powerful gift as psychic blockers (its never really come up / secret of the families success) All the time they have the princesses with them they will be immune to the mind control of the Agents and Producers, the princesses will also function as exposition / explainers when it comes to high tech stuff. (after a session or two the players will work out more permanent ways to shield themselves from the League. But they will never be able to undo the suffering their hands were forced into, they will never be able to not be famous sports stars.

Drake, Drake & Drake
One of the primary antagonists of the setting, not actually evil but a banal grinding callousness. Its a corporation, it is managed by a CEO who is appointed by the Board of Directors who are appointed by the stockholders. The stock is used as currency by many people, the 3 largest stockholders are Drake, Drake and Drake, a trio of dragons. (also called the triumvirate) Drake is missing, and hasn’t been seen in nearly a thousand years. After a thousand years his Will will be read and his stocks and shares redistributed. The board of directors are split, some think that it’s a plan to dominate the company, others don’t care and are loyal to drake, in just a short while, time is up and the will is read and all will change. One party wants the party to liquidate the company before the will is read. This is one way the players might defeat them. (think wolfram & hart)

Notable subsidiaries: Wyrm-Draconii, OmniDrake, Drake Hoarding & Loan, Chromatic, inc., WyrmTech, Yoyodrake and many others.

WHERE AM I?!

The Short version is that they players are in a scifi / fantasy mashup setting dominated by the presence of “The Machine” Its an impossibly large, unknowable thing that occupies half of the galaxy and may stretch on forever. Amongst the many things is does is consume other realities to many people from other dimensions end up in this universe (I call the setting “The Grease Trap”) One of the most important features of the setting is that people who want to become lost have a habit of accidentally slipping through into it, where it is impossible to get back. At the centre of the galaxy is confusing regions of space were the machine sucks through and consumes realities. Here their are many empires and many broken worlds and people. This is where the players are. Below are just some idea drabbles I created to hopefully explain it a bit better.

In this place you will find that a half-orc is a human with orc arms grafted on, that your armour probably has sponsor logos on and you can watch youself on TV adversising Lizard-Cola, the low calorie reptile juice that wont rot your brain stem!

“All I know is... Once every 445 days, 7 hours and 22 seconds the light-ring eats another star. The process takes a variable amount of time depending the size and colour of the star, but that doesn’t seem of vary the time till the next star is murdered, It also doesn’t seem to vary the size, mass or luminescence of the ring. I have a theory extra mass is converted into high-mana thalmatons but I lack a means to remotely measure the rings output.

You can see the stars out there, in a line, equally spaced 445 days, 7 hours and 22 seconds apart, about 100 million miles distant from one another, like a line of lanterns strung down a street. Gravity should have them moving towards one another but something prohibits it. Law of averages says they should have planets and steroids and Stellar debris orbiting them, but they are nude and alone.

A streamer of solar mass erupts from the dying star, drawn into the ring until the cooling core of trace elements begins to break apart. From this distance and so close to the burning brightness of the ring it’s hard to be sure, but I often see shapes working on the core scraps. Traders? Scavengers? Or come part of the machine itself? After a few aeons of studying the mechanisms of the machine I have given up all hope of knowing a tenth of a tenth of what this place is, what it’s for or does.
So... You want Gristlemok fries with that?”

Vartax the consorter, Fry cook.


“Day 46. We came across a tribe of demi-humans a few days ago. They were sick. This close to the Monofilaments the radiation is intense. A mix of Gamma rays and Transmutation magic comes off those things in constant waves.

Under normal circumstances their colony is protected by a shield of some sort, but the mechanism is in a state of disrepair. A wheel or capstan drives the mechanism but it grows harder to turn each day.

They used to farm a hive of Gristlemok for food, feathers and fat. Their big dumb birds, similar to the giant osprey of my homelands. About twelve hands tall, they are clumsy and require extensive training to perform the most basic of tasks, but can be used to pull a cart or carry a man upon their back. Their fat, once rendered into grease can produce an organic lubricant. It is my intention to help these people, If I can.

Day 49. I have scoured the lands around the colony and believe I have found a hive of wild Gristlemok. If I can take a juvenile queen I believe I will have the means to save the tribe.

Day 53. I am shut into a small chamber inside the Gristlemok hive; I’ve bared the doors in hope to get a little rest before going on.

I fear I might be trespassing on someone’s property, these Gristlemok appear to have been branded and bare leather collars. I’ve had to kill quite a few of the warrior breed Gristlemok. Larger and with feathers almost as hard as chitin they have proven formidable. This should be the last entry before I get to the queens chamber.

Day 54. I found the queens birthing chamber and in it I find a horror I had not imagined. The queen is the largest Gristlemok I have yet seen. Her crown is a circlet of gold and iron, the walls of her chamber are decorated with a frieze in the same material as the hive itself but in such exquisite detail that tears roll down my cheeks. The revelation of the Gristlemok culture, and they slave state is a pain I cannot bare. To think of the hundreds that have died in the mouths of the local tribes, which have died to grease an axel, it is too much. I have been genocide to these people, an intruder come to slaughter them. The queen stares into my eyes and offers me a leather collar. Though we cannot communicate in words she offers me a wretched choice in that collar. Do I return empty handed to the demi-human colony, condemn them to lingering transmutation and death? Knowing that I condemn endless generations of Gristlemok to servitude and death as a farmed slave, do I return with the queen? Do the demi-humans know of the sentience of these birds? Would they care if they did? What do I do?

-Last entry of Jovankus the dead, found in Gristlmok burial mound.


Weapon Companies
Different companies and organisations build similer items in diferent ways. So for example OmniDrake weapons have a tendency towards being heavier and doing more damage when they hit. The weapons made by the Imperial Armouries tend towards a longer reach and more balanced build. The exotic weapons of the Shard are built with internal power sources and can keep firing indefinetly. Its my intention that the players never find an unbranded item, I want to hype the 80s consumerism angle.

OmniDrake. Weapon gains Brutal 1. That is re-roll any damage roll of 1
Imperial Armouries of the Thri-Keen. Thri-Keen weapons gain +1 to hit but not +1 damage
Shard Consensus. Never require ammo. Still need to be reloaded.

Opponents to be faced early on
Hegemony Guards.

Ooze filled suits of mecha armour with Arbelesta rifles. They have shoulder mounted interdictor cannon. The interdictor cannon deflects incoming missiles in the same way as a monk can but less well (1d6 reduction, no catching). The mecha suit chainmail confers the large size and min 10 again on strength checks and strength saving throws and disadvantage on all dex based skills. The arbelesta is a large only weapon and is a crossbow 1d12 damage. If killed the ooze may come out if I need to freak the players out.

Targeting Drone
Gives advantage on ranged attacks, gives advantage on search checks. Minions. AC 12

Medic Drone.
Gives advantage on Con Saving throws. Heal allies within 10' 1d4 and one ally within 10' an extra 2d4. Minion AC 12

Point Defence Drone.
Grants a 1d6 deflection against any ranged attacks within 10' ECM and ECCM systems grant advantage to will saves against spells. Minion AC 12

Countermeasure Drone
Flashbang grenades. On a hit the player is intoxicated for 1 round. Or can cast Fog Cloud. Minion AC 12
OmniDrake Marshals

Basic humanoid soldiers a forcefield. They force a reroll to hit once per turn as a reaction. Minion AC 12. Carry Pulse carbines. They fire continious beams Each turn that the they consecutivly hit a player they do more damage. (light Crossbow +1d4 damage each consecutive hit)


So! that what Ill be throwing at the wall in about 18 hours!