A sci-fi setting (And all the problems therein)

[Aust Xiloscient]

I had an Idea for a campaign world that was based off the the tripod trilogy, and
I want to see what you guys think. For anyone who hasn't read the tripod trilogy (and I myself have only read the first book) it is set in a future earth where aliens called tripods control humans through mind sucking hat things and stop them from advancing their technology from beyond medieval.

The campaign would actually take place on the East coast of America and would be all about discovering what happened to civilization. The PC's could go to all sorts of places in the real world, and, although it was intended as a serious campaign world, it could very easily be made into a joke one.

The problems that I forsee:
1) How do you explain magic? Could it have been brought to earth by the aliens or should you just make it a non-magic game?

2) What do the aliens look like? Humanoid would probably unoriginal, but they should also have vehicles and weapons that would make them have very high CRs.

3) How do the PCs possibly resist the control of such powerful beings? After all, everyone who has a mind-hat on believes that the aliens are the ultimate gods!

Suggestions about what sort of things the PCs should see in the "Real World" would be great too.

[Ben Miff]

1. This one's tricky. The only "suitably advanced magic" I can recall in the whole trilogy were the "metal eggs" they found in one of the ruined cities (grenades). However, if you're going to do magic, then I'd explain it as something to do with the atmosphere converters. (The invaders are converting the air, y'see, to colonise.)

2. Off the top of my head, I can't recall any physical descriptions. However, one of the machines was a orb on three legs with more metal tentacle things that could pick people up (or presumably swat them), and a safe storage area to put them where they can be transported normally or gassed unconscious.

3. There is a resistance group in the mountains who are uncapped in the trilogy, but they survive since the aliens can't get up there (something to do with thin air or unsuitable terrain, the book was unsure.) They can move around below with "false caps" which they put on, which then fuse to the skull like the normal caps but without the mind control effect. What is more, the aliens never suspect this, since they are of the opinion that they've won and that there isn't any resistance.

As for real world encounters, some individuals go around pretending to be mad for the resistance in order to keep an eye out for those who look unlikely to want to go through with the capping ceremony, who they can then recruit. I suspect that would make for a decent introductory encounter if they don't want to begin in the resistance, although it does mean the characters' would be quite young.

Exploring the ruins of old cities would also be interesting, although the majority of encounters would be traps (from unsafe terrain), suspiscious objects (the players might know what a grenade is, but to character's it was an metal egg with a loop of wire in) and wild animals.

The aliens also run a kind of "olympics" every two (or something like that) years, and the winners get to go to where they live and be slaves for them. (They run it since their environment is heavier gravity and the slaves have to wear suits all the time except in small personal areas and so they choose the winners since they last for longer.)

[Squidmaster]

The campaign would actually take place on the East coast of America and would be all about discovering what happened to civilization. The PC's could go to all sorts of places in the real world, and, although it was intended as a serious campaign world, it could very easily be made into a joke one.

The problems that I forsee:
1) How do you explain magic? Could it have been brought to earth by the aliens or should you just make it a non-magic game?

you could just not use magic, and use the non magic varients in CW. If so, then modern tech could become the "Magic"


2) What do the aliens look like? Humanoid would probably unoriginal, but they should also have vehicles and weapons that would make them have very high CRs.

three armed, three eyed, three eared and three legged cones. they have a weak spot in between there eyes and noses. The actual aleins are also called tripods.


3) How do the PCs possibly resist the control of such powerful beings? After all, everyone who has a mind-hat on believes that the aliens are the ultimate gods!
well, there is a resistance, but the only way to really resist is to not be capped in the first place.


Suggestions about what sort of things the PCs should see in the "Real World" would be great too.

Well, killing the tripod would be fun, though unoriganal. I cant think of ant more ideas of the top of my head.

[batsofchaos]

One way to deal with the lack-of-magic is to go with D20 Modern instead of DnD. It's easy enough to run a Modern game with low-technology and will give the game a better feel of realism.

[Jack_Simth]

I had an Idea for a campaign world that was based off the the tripod trilogy, and
I want to see what you guys think. For anyone who hasn't read the tripod trilogy (and I myself have only read the first book) it is set in a future earth where aliens called tripods control humans through mind sucking hat things and stop them from advancing their technology from beyond medieval.

The campaign would actually take place on the East coast of America and would be all about discovering what happened to civilization. The PC's could go to all sorts of places in the real world, and, although it was intended as a serious campaign world, it could very easily be made into a joke one.

The problems that I forsee:
1) How do you explain magic? Could it have been brought to earth by the aliens or should you just make it a non-magic game?

Any number of ways.

The amount of magic available for use by any one person is inversely proportional to the number of free-thinking beings who quietly drink it up wishing for things to happen (to little or no effect, as there's not much available). When humanity was at it's peak and there were six billion free thinking beings running around, that wasn't much. Now that the aliens have come, reduced the tech level to the point where it can only support a fraction of the people from before, and removed the "free thinking" part from the majority of the rest...

The aliens are "terraforming" the earth into something livable for them - and as a side effect, the energy fields they're building to make it happen can be harnessed by a trained mind.

Or there isn't any, and you just use d20 Modern. Whatever.


2) What do the aliens look like? Humanoid would probably unoriginal, but they should also have vehicles and weapons that would make them have very high CRs.

Haven't read many of the books - didn't really appeal.


3) How do the PCs possibly resist the control of such powerful beings? After all, everyone who has a mind-hat on believes that the aliens are the ultimate gods!

Avoid getting really capped, while pretending to be capped.

As for things to do....

1) Get food (mountains aren't really all that hospitable) and equipment.
2) Find out what in the world the aliens are doing, traveling all that way to conquer.
3) Stop them.

[kentma57]

1) How do you explain magic? Could it have been brought to earth by the aliens or should you just make it a non-magic game?

Radiation, use Psionic/Magic transperancy and blame everything on radiation...

[kentma57]

1) How do you explain magic? Could it have been brought to earth by the aliens or should you just make it a non-magic game?

Radiation, use Psionic/Magic transperancy and blame everything on radiation...

[Aust Xiloscient]

These are great suggestions, thanks. I was actually thinking that maybe the PC's start out capped, and the resistance free them. I like the idea that the more free beings you have the less magic, so I will use that.
More in depth, I have been thinking about locales that I could give to the PC's. The PCs would not know from the start that they were on earth, I would call it something different. So the places they go to need to slowly unveil that they are on earth.
Also, to explain monsters (I didn't mention them in the first post, I know, but they still need an explanation) I could say that they were brought here as pets or to make the aliens feel "More at home". I went to Washington D.C. only a week ago and a battle with a hydra in the ruins of the air and space museum would be excellent.

My questions now are: 1) How closely should I rely on the White mountains and other tripod books? Keep in mind that the PCs are not going to be the three frightened boys from the original trilogy.

2) What other post-apocalyptic references could I have? The City of Ember? Half life two?

[Squidmaster]

2) What other post-apocalyptic references could I have? The City of Ember? Half life two?

zombie survival guide. You can never have enough zombies. They could be another radiation affect.

as for locations, don't use obvious places that your players will recognize. This probably means using nothing near you.

[Ben Miff]

1) It depends on whether or not you intend it to actually /be/ the tripod trilogy, or whether you're using it as a base. If actually being the trilogy, really close, otherwise it's pretty much a case of taking what you like and leaving the rest behind.

2) I'd keep down on references to other post apocalyptic settings simply due to the "wait a second, this is X" response from players. Off the top of my head, though, I would remove the general trusting / helpful nature of capped people to others, simply because it means PCs may well end up never needing to find food or water since they can wander into a town; with that, the campaign will gain a lot of the post-apocalyptic nature of survival and so on.

Also, as a side thought, another potential in-setting encounter would be one of the more violent capping failures (the ones who respond badly to capping and go mad.)

[Squidmaster]

Also, as a side thought, another potential in-setting encounter would be one of the more violent capping failures (the ones who respond badly to capping and go mad.)

sound like a potential for reavers. medieval reavers:smallbiggrin: