Well, I finally did it... [Banestorm]

[nanoboy]

When our heroic anti-terror heroes working for a new NATO task force set out to help destroy a ultra-rightwing Catholic terror group that had somehow taken over a small Albanian town, they were expecting a straight-forward fight. They moved their way up to the tiny ossuary on a hill overlooking the village, eliminated two sentries and botched the elimination of another (The guy with Knife-16 rolled a 17.) They fought the remaining guards securing the ossuary and investigated the building. They intended to use the building as a sniper nest. They intended to distract the militants in the village below as the larger real invasion force arrived to liberate the place. They intended to leave as the place got too hot, as there were APCs in route to their locations as soon as the militants below realized they were under attack.

Well, intentions don't always work out. In the ossuary, our heroic warriors found what looked like a warhead. The EOD specialist took a look and saw a countdown timer on a laptop connected to the device. It was set to 30 seconds and dropping. He tried to overcome the program, but that wasn't working, so he opened an unsecured panel with only 5 seconds left. After a success roll, I said, "You realize it's not a bomb. Everyone roll vs. HT-5."

All but one character passed out. The one who didn't saw psychedelic colors and strange images before she found herself, her companions, and the one terrorist who survived their assault in a field. Some time later, they surmised that they weren't in Albania. They couldn't contact anyone on their radios. Their cell phones had no service. Their GPS wouldn't work. The stars looked wrong. The leader of the team had a better radio than the others. He picked up some analog signals coming from very far away, but people were speaking in a foreign language. Was it French? No, but it sounded like that and English.

Our confused heroes eventually found a town inhabited by small people who were Muslims. They were about half of the size of humans, but they were clearly intelligent. Being Muslims, they spoke Arabic, a language that two of the characters can speak-- they were designed to be anti-terror soldiers, after all. After some effort, they found out that the poor village had problems. There were bandits who were choking them off from the outside world, killing and raping villagers when they left town. Things were desperate. Our heroes agreed to help the villagers and found and destroyed the bandits. Their only injury was a friendly-fire incident. They used mostly knives and a few bullets to kill the sword-armed bandits. They are beginning to realize that bullets are going to be precious.

Upon returning to the village, they learned that the bandits were apparently working for the local lord, but they don't know why. They were also told by the local hedge wizard that they were in danger. Normally, the hedge wizard would turn in new Banestorm victims, since he was told to do so by those he received training from. However, since they helped his village, he was willing to give them some help. He said to avoid mages, since they would want to neutralize them. He also checked each character with the Aura spell, and he found that one had a lot of magical potential.

So, yeah, I finally did it. I had modern characters taken from Earth to Yrth. The players were confused, but they realize this might be fun. They have their weapons and such, but they know that eventually, they'll need to adapt somehow. They have a clear goal for now: leave Yrth and return home. Will they keep that goal? Will they decide to reform Ytarria? This campaign should be a lot of fun.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by nanoboy

The players were confused, but they realize this might be fun. They have their weapons and such, but they know that eventually, they'll need to adapt somehow. They have a clear goal for now: leave Yrth and return home. Will they keep that goal? Will they decide to reform Ytarria? This campaign should be a lot of fun.

Was landing in Yrth a surprise to the players as well as to the characters? Did they know something unexpected was going to happen, or did they think they were just a mundane special forces team till they fell down the rabbit hole?

Bill Stoddard

[nanoboy]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Was landing in Yrth a surprise to the <i>players</i> as well as to the <i>characters</i>? Did they know something unexpected was going to happen, or did they think they were just a mundane special forces team till they fell down the rabbit hole?

Bill Stoddard

They thought it was going to be a realistic and mundane modern campaign. They didn't know when the created their characters. I'm going to need to find an equitable way to deal with some of their now useless skills. I know I intend to give them all 35 points worth of advantages that they don't know about. One character, for example, will have Magery 3. I thought I'd give another Healing. Others will get some weapons-oriented Talents. I know that these are normally not advised, but I figured that for such a campaign, it would be fair.

Incidentally, we also developed a new Talent for one character during generation, the Bombardier. It covers Chemistry, Electrician, and Explosives. The reaction bonus applies to those who work with explosives.

[Kyle Aaron]

In real life, people do forget old skills and let their bodies and minds lose abilities they once had, they do this because they're now concentrating on other things.

For example, a ST 10 [0] high school student enters university, spends a lot of time at their desk eating junk, and becomes ST 10 [-10], but because of the time freed up by not exercising gains CP in academic skills.

And so in our campaigns we've allowed decrements of existing skills and attributes, with each 2CP lost from them granting 1CP to spend on new stuff. We limit this to not more than one skill or attribute, and not more than one level of it, in each game session.

This has to be carefully managed, it's not really believable for someone with 24CP in Guns (Pistol) to have 0CP a (in-game) week later. It suits campaigns taking place over some (in-game) months or years, and works best in combination with new skills by study, CP awards per session, etc.

We also use it if the PC acquires a new Disadvantage. For example, I once had a character lose a foot to gunfire - he gained the Lame disadvantage, but used the spare CP to buy a mitigator (prosthetic).

In a Banestorm campaign, you could use it for their Secret (from Earth), or Enemy (Ministry of Serendipity) and thus justify the CP value of their Magery 3 or whatever.

I'd recommend consulting with individual players about what their character's new abilities will be. Players hate Disadvantages they didn't choose, but are generally not much more fond of Advantages they didn't choose. If they wanted to play characters whose traits they couldn't choose, they'd play a random character generation game, not a point-buy one like GURPS.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Was landing in Yrth a surprise to the <i>players</i> as well as to the <i>characters</i>? Did they know something unexpected was going to happen, or did they think they were just a mundane special forces team till they fell down the rabbit hole?

Bill Stoddard

Bill: The software uses [ ] tags instead of < > tags. ;)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

Bill: The software uses [ ] tags instead of < > tags. ;)

So it does. livejournal habit took over. Thanks!

Bill Stoddard

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by nanoboy

They thought it was going to be a realistic and mundane modern campaign.

Nobody seems irritated? This kind of bait and switch can really rub people the wrong way, IME. It would certainly annoy me, I think.

[nanoboy]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Nobody seems irritated? This kind of bait and switch can really rub people the wrong way, IME. It would certainly annoy me, I think.

My group doesn't mind that sort of thing. I wouldn't try it with some groups, certainly. As of the first session, they're realizing the possibilities. The thing is that they don't really know what setting they're in. They met Halfling Muslims, something that through them for a loop. I didn't describe them as Halflings, but I did describe them as short with big feet. We'll see how the thing evolves. One of the characters could be very, very dangerous with his knowledge of explosives. Basically, all of the characters are powerful in their own ways, so it will get crazy and hopefully crazy fun.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by nanoboy

My group doesn't mind that sort of thing. I wouldn't try it with some groups, certainly. As of the first session, they're realizing the possibilities. The thing is that they don't really know what setting they're in. They met Halfling Muslims, something that through them for a loop. I didn't describe them as Halflings, but I did describe them as short with big feet. We'll see how the thing evolves. One of the characters could be very, very dangerous with his knowledge of explosives. Basically, all of the characters are powerful in their own ways, so it will get crazy and hopefully crazy fun.

Different groups and different players are different. A GM who tried that with me would almost certainly have me walk and would have a good chance of not getting me back. But I've heard of other GMs whose players were fine with such surprises. Now if I plan to surprise players, I tell them up front that there will be surprises in the campaign. . . .

[The Wrathchild]

As usual it all depends upon the "contract" you have with your players.

I have pulled this stun once, and the campaign that followed was the one we still talk about. Granted, it was not quite as extreme (it was a Secret Magic/The Supernatural is Real-campaign where the players expected No Magic/Supernatural, and the setting otherwise remained the same - Cyberworld), but I could see the gears churning in the players to make sense of what was happening before their PC's eyes until some guy sat them down and spilled the beans on the REAL state of the world. this was ... three or four sessions in I believe.

Things got real quiet as the truth unfolded, but in the good, jaw-dropping kind of way.

After the intervening campaign, they have asked to go back to something similar. We rock'n'roll in January.