I love it when a plan comes together…
As Jeff noted, we sat down the other night and figured out what the group was interested in doing. Jeff and I will trade off story arcs (probably every 4 sessions or so) in two different games. He’ll be running a pulp SF game in the Buck Rodgers style. I’ll be doing a cyberpunk-fantasy-post-apocalyptic mashup – Shadowrun meets Gamma World. Jeff is going first, which gives me a bit of breathing room to get ready.
Right now, I have elements:
- Giant corporate arcologies – self-sustaining ecosystems that are isolated from the rest of the world.
- Wastelands between the arcologies, devastated by magical disasters and inhabited by strange creatures.
- Tribes living in the wastelands, some clinging to ill-understood bits of civilization.
- Colonies from the arcologies sent out to reclaim Wasteland Zones… and running into trouble.
- PCs as the A-Team – travelling from Zone to Zone within the wasteland – righting wrongs and hunting threats.
- PC ideas: Doug as a rigger – former Deathrace-style driver. Jeff as a heavily-cybered combat vet, struggling to maintain his humanity in a post-human body (or at least afford treatment for cyberpsychosis).
- Inspirational material – Television: Ark II, the A-Team
- Inspirational material – RPGs: Shadowrun, Gamma World, Ex Machina, Paranoia (setting more than tone), Cyberpunk 2020
- Inspirational material – books: Hardwired, The Book of the New Sun, A Canticle for Liebowitz, In the Drift
- Inspirational material – movies: Six-String Samurai, A Boy and His Dog, Logan’s Run, The Road Warrior
- Inspirational material – other: Fallout
- Other inspiration? Ideas welcome…
Things I know I need to figure out:
- PC motivation/organizational affiliation
- System – Shadowrun is the obvious choice for me, but there’s a temptation to do something pulpier… and adapt Spirit of the Century
- How to maintain a mission-of-the-week feel
google the morrow project.
It may contain a few things that could help you in your endeavor.
Always meant to do something with it, but my stinking group has always vetoed me for fantasy.
Heh. I forgot to mention the Morrow Project. I’m actually playing in a game based on it now (with another group)…
This looks like a wild-ass good time!
Possible inspiration: early Ian McDonald (though possibly more straight cyberpunk than you're aiming for, Out On Blue Six & Desolation Road have some pretty cool ideas to be swiped)
ENworld has a forum series by a gentleman who is trying to write up a campaign world. Unfortunately my work computer cannot access the, but if you google it or search for “Coreline” d20 or BESM, it’s VERY well fleshed out, and a combination of everything…in fact IIRC, a Voltron vs. Gamera fight took out cleveland, and Rainbow brite controls a large part of texas…all due to a computer virus using the worlds computing power to alter reality by bringing our popular fictiuonal characters to come to life…Gundam wing battling it out with GI joe and the Go’ould and more.
Use “Spirit of the Century”, and aim to retain the sheer pulpiness. Do for 1930s art deco and Republic serials what “Fallout” did for 1950s Americana and Cold War propaganda.
Needs moar Zeppelin pirates. No exceptions! 🙂
The Planet of the Apes TV show would give you some ideas, as would the Logan’s Run movie and TV show (though the TV show isn’t available on DVD yet). Damn shame that TV show hasn’t made it out yet. Cheesy, but perfect fit to go along with Ark II.
The PotA series is essentially A-Team (two human astronauts and one sympathetic chimp) on the run through Ape lands trying to find a way home while also solving the problem of the week for semi-sympathetic apes. Moderately low-tech, bu can give you some good ideas for Wasteland regions.