Houses & humans ideas?

[Grûblik]

Some friends wanted to try playing a houses & humans campaign, but i have no idea how to run one or come up with a story for it.

Just to clarify, "houses & humans" is like the opposite of "dungeons & dragons" where you play as humans living modern lives

Maybe i could make a minigame version that our d&d characters can play, i dunno

Any suggestions would be much appreciated, thanks

[brian 333]

We have played many sessions in which the characters are the traditional monsters opposing human oppression.

Papers & Paychecks (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1106063658/papers-and-paychecks) is a real product now if you want a magic and monster free campaign.

And then there are the D20 Modern and GURPS Modern rules and settings.

Shadowrun is okay for cyberpunk style games.

And my favorite of all time is Traveller, which has an exceedingly simple combat system and any technology level from stone knives and bear skins to robots and versions of hyperdrive with a radius of almost 24 light years per jump. (Ftl is considered to be beyond the technology of any current race, but antimatter power generation begins at the top end of the tech ladder.)



Some friends wanted to try playing a houses & humans campaign, but i have no idea how to run one or come up with a story for it.
***edit***
Any suggestions would be much appreciated, thanks

The Cannonball Run is an often copied idea for Modern type campaigns. If you are too young to know who Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLouise are, I pity you, but I also direct you to watch the Cannonball Run and Smokey and The Bandit movies. With a date, preferably. The basic idea is to cross America, Europe, or wherever, in a secret race, competing against other racers, police, and possibly even someone with a nefarious reason to stop your team.

For a mystery type campaign episodes of Scooby Doo, Where Are You? might prove inspirational.

Police procedurals, secret agent films, (Get Smart, for example,) hospital dramas, or anything you like on TV might do if your players also like such shows.

Here is one I did, (synopsis only):

Burn The Mortgage!

In this adventure the players must come up with a way to earn the money to pay off Uncle Leo's house before the bank forecloses. Because rich Uncle Leo was involved in some less than honest dealings that fell through resulting in his bankruptcy and incarceration, the monthly notes on his house, and the PCs base of operations, have gone unpaid. The sum of $lots is required to pay off the mortgage in days or the bank will take possession of the house.

Options:
A jewelry store was robbed, with a valuable baubles worth $lots if returned to the owners. Sold to the highest bidder it could be worth $more, but attempting to sell it to a cop might result in jail time.

A team sport can pay $lots if the players choose to humiliate themselves on a game show, and win.

You could kidnap and ransom someone who is or is related to someone rich. The downside is obvious.

Wanna buy a lotto ticket? Pick six numbers between 1 and 100, then roll 6d100. You win nothing for one or two matches, return of ticket price for three, ten times ticket price for four matches, one thousand times the ticket price for five matches, and one million times the ticket price for six matches. Good luck.

A job requiring both catburgular and hacking skills could reveal that Uncle Joe was set up, and by exposing it the reputations of many in positions of power could suffer. If the job is successful the players can expose the data to news media, thereby eventually freeing Uncle Joe, but not before foreclosure. Blackmailing those responsible could result in Uncle Joe's record and finances restored with a bonus of $lots. It might also result in the data being confiscated and the PCs either in jail with Uncle Joe or on the lam.

***

My guys tried the lottery and the game show. The lottery failed, but in the game show they were required to run an obstacle course while being the target of rival team's armed with paintball guns and paint balloon grenades. They won 9nly because they failed to complete the course but got farther than anyone else. Poor Uncle Joe was left to rot in prison while the PCs went on to bigger and better things.

[Grûblik]

Wow, what a glorious wealth of knowledge! Many thanks kind traveler

[Knaight]

How much action do you want? There's systems out there for everything from slice of life (Lairshare stands out here) to ultraviolence that makes D&D seem combat light by comparison.