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Dr TPK
2015-10-19, 06:27 AM
This game will be ran to 2-4 strangers in a con. This one-shot will take about 4 hours.

The game will start in a relatively peaceful European country.
The superheroes will receive an emergency call from a nearby town. They only know that a massive battle is going on between two or more groups or armies, possibly alien in origin.

What they don't know is this:
60 years from now, aliens from outer space will attack the earth. The humans will give them a good fight, but the president of the USA will make a pact with the aliens and with his help, the aliens conquer the USA within a day and the rest of the world soon follows. The feudal aliens appoint the president as the grand duke of earth

The human rebels will find out the human scientists are forced to help the conquerors to provide final touches on their time travel technology. With the chief researcher's help, the rebels capture the time machine soon as it is ready. The rebels decide to send their elite forces back in time to kill the evil president's mother, before she relocates to Washington and killing her would be too difficult. In Lisboa, for instance, where lives right now, it will be easier. The rebels go back in time. Hastily the aliens recapture the time machine and send an army back in time. Then the commander of the alien army tries to follow the scouting army, but the chief scientist sacrifices herself to destroy the machine on a crucial moment that kills the commander and his entourage.

Now the futuristic human rebels are fighting a brutal urban war in a European city against lizardlike aliens. The aliens try to protect the president's future mother while the rebels try to kill him. That's where the PCs step in.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-10-20, 07:54 AM
Okay, cool.

Do you have an idea of how the players are supposed to figure this out? The order in which the twists and revelations reach them? You don't want to railroad them, but at the same time just telling the story in full would be boring. So the moment they try to sit down with a human soldier to hear the whole story some lizard squad will fire a rocket at the building or make off with their little doggy or something. On the other side of the same coin, if they just pick a side and start fighting (and they'll probably guess right who the bad guys are) they might kill them all without ever finding out what that was about or getting to the moral dilemma of killing the woman over the actions of a son who hasn't even been born yet. So I'm kind of curious what tricks you have up your sleeve to give them the right amount of exposition. I could probably learn a lot from those tricks.

TheEmerged
2015-10-20, 08:23 AM
This game will be ran to 2-4 strangers in a con. This one-shot will take about 4 hours.

The game will start in a relatively peaceful European country.
The superheroes will receive an emergency call from a nearby town. They only know that a massive battle is going on between two or more groups or armies, possibly alien in origin.

What they don't know is this:
60 years from now, aliens from outer space will attack the earth. The humans will give them a good fight, but the president of the USA will make a pact with the aliens and with his help, the aliens conquer the USA within a day and the rest of the world soon follows. The feudal aliens appoint the president as the grand duke of earth

The human rebels will find out the human scientists are forced to help the conquerors to provide final touches on their time travel technology. With the chief researcher's help, the rebels capture the time machine soon as it is ready. The rebels decide to send their elite forces back in time to kill the evil president's mother, before she relocates to Washington and killing her would be too difficult. In Lisboa, for instance, where lives right now, it will be easier. The rebels go back in time. Hastily the aliens recapture the time machine and send an army back in time. Then the commander of the alien army tries to follow the scouting army, but the chief scientist sacrifices herself to destroy the machine on a crucial moment that kills the commander and his entourage.

Now the futuristic human rebels are fighting a brutal urban war in a European city against lizardlike aliens. The aliens try to protect the president's future mother while the rebels try to kill him. That's where the PCs step in.

Be prepared for the following questions.

1> Why do the aliens, with clearly advanced technology, need human help to work on time travel?

2> What rules of time travel are in effect here? Clearly the rebels believe they can change their future, but does that mean they're right? For that matter, are they from the same future the PC's will someday have (I said "their" future instead of "the" future for a reason)? Is it even possible to time travel within your own dimension? Is there a time dilation \ "fairy time" type of effect? How precisely can they travel? Are you able to revisit a time you already exist in (trust me, there's a reason some rulesets eliminate this outright). What is stopping the aliens from simply flooding the past with more Terminators soldiers until the PC's fail?

I specify this because the first time I tried to run a Terminator-style plot like this, we lost most of a couple of sessions to debating this sort of thing - and you said this is a one shot, so you have 0 time to waste. Even if you don't dole this out to the players, HAVE THESE ANSWERS READY. If I were a player and the GM gave me that "wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff" explanation, I'd either be offended or expect this to be a comedy session.

3> How\why is the President's mother in a European city? Yeah, it's 60 years so Prez could still be naturalborn (on average, she has 10-15 years or so to get to the US), I'm just saying be prepared for this one.

Dr TPK
2015-10-20, 08:46 AM
Be prepared for the following questions.

1> Why do the aliens, with clearly advanced technology, need human help to work on time travel?

2> What rules of time travel are in effect here? Clearly the rebels believe they can change their future, but does that mean they're right? For that matter, are they from the same future the PC's will someday have (I said "their" future instead of "the" future for a reason)? Is it even possible to time travel within your own dimension? Is there a time dilation \ "fairy time" type of effect? How precisely can they travel? Are you able to revisit a time you already exist in (trust me, there's a reason some rulesets eliminate this outright). What is stopping the aliens from simply flooding the past with more Terminators soldiers until the PC's fail?

I specify this because the first time I tried to run a Terminator-style plot like this, we lost most of a couple of sessions to debating this sort of thing - and you said this is a one shot, so you have 0 time to waste. Even if you don't dole this out to the players, HAVE THESE ANSWERS READY. If I were a player and the GM gave me that "wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff" explanation, I'd either be offended or expect this to be a comedy session.

3> How\why is the President's mother in a European city? Yeah, it's 60 years so Prez could still be naturalborn (on average, she has 10-15 years or so to get to the US), I'm just saying be prepared for this one.

Very good questions!

1. The alien technology is extremely "uneven", meaning that they have loyally perfected some aspects of their technology for centuries, but completely neglected others. In short, they have concentrated 99.999% of their tech on war&conquer and the rest... Who cares? Since the non-war stuff is so heavily socially stigmatised, the aliens leave it to "slave scientists". We have this kind of thing here too: some aspects of technology are badly neglected.

2. Everytime you time travel, a new timeline will be created that starts from the spot where the time travellers enter the previous timeline. Timelines can connect to one another through time travel. The aliens can't send anymore people since the chief scientist's sabotage made a permanent mess of things.

3. Simple. The mother was born in Europe, emigrated to the States and had the the "Prez". The President will be 55 years old when the betrayal happens.

Dr TPK
2015-10-20, 02:48 PM
Okay, cool.

Do you have an idea of how the players are supposed to figure this out? The order in which the twists and revelations reach them? You don't want to railroad them, but at the same time just telling the story in full would be boring. So the moment they try to sit down with a human soldier to hear the whole story some lizard squad will fire a rocket at the building or make off with their little doggy or something. On the other side of the same coin, if they just pick a side and start fighting (and they'll probably guess right who the bad guys are) they might kill them all without ever finding out what that was about or getting to the moral dilemma of killing the woman over the actions of a son who hasn't even been born yet. So I'm kind of curious what tricks you have up your sleeve to give them the right amount of exposition. I could probably learn a lot from those tricks.

The game will be pretty much sandboxy (I know, it's hard to believe). The events will run in a certain time periods and the PCs are welcome to do whatever they want. My only problem is to finish the game in 4 hours, but I think it will be easy to improvise. It might happen that the PCs will get the full story right in the beginning, but it's hard to see that happening. The aliens can't speak English and the elite rebels commit suicide if cornered. Everyone is there to fight like hell. Mad Dog Mode on, Geronimo, Victory or Death etc.

So I'm not really doing any tricks. The situation will carry on on it's own weight unless the PCs intervene. I may resort to some tricks if the game is about to end prematurely. In that creatures that supervise the time-space continuum will attack the city, just to punish the time travelling creatures but making little distinction between innocents and the guilty.

The human forces consist of 43 men who are led by Lieutenant Colonel Bieber (the youngest son of Justin Bieber). The strike force is highly specialized and carries plenty of futuristic weapons and armor. The rebels are Americans, Canadians and Mexicans, not all speak English. The forces move in groups of eleven (four groups).

The alien forces: 20 large lizard aliens armed with powerful alien technology, but they are not packing that much punch because they are scouts. They have portable sensor (radar), though, and it makes them aware of ambushes etc.

The timeline of the adventure:
1. The alien and human forces arrive to the city. The first skirmish.
2. The PCs are the first at the scene. They are the only ones that can do ***t about the situation.
3. Some skirmishing between the aliens and humans as they try to locate the woman. An hour passes.
4. The human forces fight for half an hour against the alien forces that protect the building where the woman lives. All aliens and two-thirds of the humans fall.
5. The rebels take over the building and search it for fifteen minutes, find the woman and kill her.
6. The rebels scatter and try to assume civilian identities or simply hide. This will take an hour.
7. In four hours the army takes over the city.
8. Most of the surviving rebels are found by the police and army but they kill themselves before being captured.
9. The adventure (without any PC involvement) ends.

Honest Tiefling
2015-10-20, 03:06 PM
Given that a rebel force of Mexicans, Canadians and Americans are likely to only have about three languages to worry about, and that the group starts in Europe, I'd try to find some sneaky way to work in national origin for the characters that can be handled quickly to see who they can communicate with. Would be somewhat strange to have a group of Europeans and none of them spoke any French, English or Spanish unless they were from Eastern Europe.

Also, why off the woman? Why not off the father? Why not both if we're going to be murder happy? Or why not go to the vice president, ask how much he'd LOVE to be president and use the knowledge gained from time travel to get him there. Or otherwise sabotage the meeting between the president and the aliens, so he thinks he's been double-crossed by the aliens. He is either competent enough to be valuable, or dumb enough (and my money is on this one) to be easily controlled. What limitations are there to this plan, such as how much gear they can carry, or what can be sent through? Heck, if things were this desperate, I'd be tempted to just time travel in some bombs in juuuuust the right place.

Those asking why the president's mother would be in Europe should probably remember that the current one's father was born in Kenya.

Dr TPK
2015-10-20, 03:46 PM
Also, why off the woman? Why not off the father? Why not both if we're going to be murder happy?
It's because the woman (when still in Europe) is the only vulnerable one. This sort of attack is a lot easier to pull off in virtually all European countries but not in the States. The father lives in NY and the rebels have concluded that they it seems difficult of to kill him there. A lot of more subtle approach would be needed to kill the father and for many reason - mostly due to quarrels within the leadership - have led the rebels to abandon the idea.


Or why not go to the vice president, ask how much he'd LOVE to be president and use the knowledge gained from time travel to get him there. Or otherwise sabotage the meeting between the president and the aliens, so he thinks he's been double-crossed by the aliens. He is either competent enough to be valuable, or dumb enough (and my money is on this one) to be easily controlled. What limitations are there to this plan, such as how much gear they can carry, or what can be sent through? Heck, if things were this desperate, I'd be tempted to just time travel in some bombs in juuuuust the right place.

I like what you're saying and it's brilliant, but it's a one-shot and you have the ingredients of a (fabulous) campaign there.

Thank you, Honest Tiefling, that was just the sort of feedback and brainstorming that I was looking for!

Honest Tiefling
2015-10-20, 04:10 PM
I know those are more appropriate to a longer game, but you should think of a reason they can only go on that jump and no one thinks to give them a rocket launcher or robot armor to help them out.
Why not explore other options? The players are not going to automatically off a random woman when they can find ways around it. Good ones won't want to do it, and evil ones will be more efficient about it and find ways to benefit themselves.

Maybe that's when they have the dang time machine set to, so they wind up in the wrong country and need to sneak to the right one to get the job done. Also, wouldn't it be even easier to off the future backstabber's grandparents due to tech levels? Presumably the father's family is American, so if he happened to serve in the military, 'accidents' of an explosive nature could occur quite easily.

I think I am a little confused, as to when this occurs. I assume the present, which is why I am confused why time-travelling based rocket launcher assassination attempts won't work in New York. I didn't realize that New York has such great anti-artillery in its police force? Admittedly, I have never been there, but still. Admittedly, the part of getting away from the destruction is more of a problem, but I also imagine that these characters have some super powers.

Dr TPK
2015-10-21, 06:43 AM
I know those are more appropriate to a longer game, but you should think of a reason they can only go on that jump and no one thinks to give them a rocket launcher or robot armor to help them out.
Why not explore other options? The players are not going to automatically off a random woman when they can find ways around it. Good ones won't want to do it, and evil ones will be more efficient about it and find ways to benefit themselves.

Maybe that's when they have the dang time machine set to, so they wind up in the wrong country and need to sneak to the right one to get the job done. Also, wouldn't it be even easier to off the future backstabber's grandparents due to tech levels? Presumably the father's family is American, so if he happened to serve in the military, 'accidents' of an explosive nature could occur quite easily.

I think I am a little confused, as to when this occurs. I assume the present, which is why I am confused why time-travelling based rocket launcher assassination attempts won't work in New York. I didn't realize that New York has such great anti-artillery in its police force? Admittedly, I have never been there, but still. Admittedly, the part of getting away from the destruction is more of a problem, but I also imagine that these characters have some super powers.

Ah, difficult questions, difficult questions... I like them.

The PCs can do as they see fit. They have some options there. I'd be interested to see what they will do. Heck, I will even tell you in this thread next month! :)

I like the idea about ending up in wrong country, but again, that would require a longer campaign. It's nice, though, that you would prefer to have this span over several sessions. I take that as a compliment.

There are complicated limitations in time travelling. They can't take lots of heavy artillery with them, just some basic (but futuristic/alien) infantry weapons. Given the limitations, the rebels wouldn't stand a chance against the US National Guard and in the USA lots of people are carrying guns. Direct assault is too hard in a big city with an armed populace. At least this is what the rebel leadership thinks. Despite futuristic tech, there will be no rocket launchers etc. Just some futuristic infantry that will have their hands full even with armed civilians, if there's a lot of them, and in the USA there are. In Europe, there's mostly little.

This game is set in next year, in July. Killing the greatgreatgreat grandfather/mother of the President would be easier, but the scientists have a theory that changing an event too far in the past will give the timeline a chance to "adapt" and the event will happen anyway. The best way is to prevent the event as close to the event as possible. Does that make sense?

Honest Tiefling
2015-10-21, 12:22 PM
The PCs can do as they see fit. They have some options there. I'd be interested to see what they will do. Heck, I will even tell you in this thread next month! :)

I like the idea about ending up in wrong country, but again, that would require a longer campaign. It's nice, though, that you would prefer to have this span over several sessions. I take that as a compliment.

You should. I do find this interesting. And yes, I do want to know to know what happens.


There are complicated limitations in time travelling. They can't take lots of heavy artillery with them, just some basic (but futuristic/alien) infantry weapons. Given the limitations, the rebels wouldn't stand a chance against the US National Guard and in the USA lots of people are carrying guns. Direct assault is too hard in a big city with an armed populace. At least this is what the rebel leadership thinks. Despite futuristic tech, there will be no rocket launchers etc. Just some futuristic infantry that will have their hands full even with armed civilians, if there's a lot of them, and in the USA there are. In Europe, there's mostly little.

This MIGHT make the rebels seem like idiots. Unless the party has no way to conceal a weapon, most areas aren't...Really that secure. Not that many people really have conceal carry permits. Besides, future tech forgot what a sniper rifle was? Those do take a lot of training (and usually a spotter), but I assume the party has skills, and many will consider dragging a sniper in with them.

There's also the idea that future tech or super powers will shut down modern-day ballistics. Or the idea of simply using a bomb.



This game is set in next year, in July. Killing the greatgreatgreat grandfather/mother of the President would be easier, but the scientists have a theory that changing an event too far in the past will give the timeline a chance to "adapt" and the event will happen anyway. The best way is to prevent the event as close to the event as possible. Does that make sense?

Yes. Also, the idea that changing too much might whack someone they sorta need is also a good reason why not to go too far into the future.

And yes, I do think this is an interesting idea, I just think parties will probably try to explore it.