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Old 07-23-2010, 04:28 AM   #1
ajardoor
 
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Default [Adventure Workshop] Assassination of the Week

Okay, let's see your ideas for an adventure revolving around the PCs killing someone for money.

Basic set-up:
- TL8 modern day setting
- completely mundane, no magic or psi
- team of 100-point PCs
- moral ambuitity or even outright evil actions by the PCs will be expected

If you've play the Hitman games, you'll get a general idea about what kind of scenarios we'll think up ITT.

Things you should try to include:
- stats for NPCs
- notes on what should happen and NPC reaction in case the PCs do X
- little "side details" or "bonuses" that scenario might have for PCs outside of the main objectives
- list of main objectives (one of them should be "kill X", of course)
- anything else?

Over to you guys!
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Old 07-23-2010, 04:31 AM   #2
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Default Re: [Adventure Workshop] Assassination of the Week

Are the PCs professionals or is this a I Love You to Death sort of scenario?
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Old 07-23-2010, 04:33 AM   #3
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Default Re: [Adventure Workshop] Assassination of the Week

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Are the PCs professionals or is this a I Love You to Death sort of scenario?
Hired killers, independant of specific organised crime syndicates. Although they do jobs for the mafia and the like as well.
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Old 07-23-2010, 04:38 AM   #4
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Default Re: [Adventure Workshop] Assassination of the Week

I once wanted to run a similar campaign set in 2020 GURPS Action - with signs of TL9 coming. Never even started doing the sketches.
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Old 07-23-2010, 08:59 AM   #5
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Default Re: [Adventure Workshop] Assassination of the Week

Quote:
Originally Posted by ajardoor View Post
Okay, let's see your ideas for an adventure revolving around the PCs killing someone for money.

If you've play the Hitman games, you'll get a general idea about what kind of scenarios we'll think up ITT.
For individual adventures? Id probably run a few of these

1. Oceans 11 - Here the clever bit isnt necesarily the killing, but the getting to the target. Treat it as a bank type heist, but instead of loot, they are attempting to get to a reclusive PC in a fortress. This is probably closest to the Hitman style.

2. Depose and Destroy - Assasinate an arbitrary dictator/drug lord etc who is armed, defended, and more than slightly paranoid. Like a Rambo movie.

3. Mortality of Heroes - Whoever the PCs take thier instructions from should assign them to kill someone who is either well regarded, or that has some extended connection to a PC that they esteem. Cousin Earl, Thier 3rd grade science teacher, Religeous Leader, Activist/Idealist, Scientist. Nick Cage did a movie like this recently I think, but I didnt see it and cant remember the name.(Bangkok Dangerous?)

4. Generous Culling - A large group of people has paid to have themselves killed. Terminally Ill, Old, fanatical, but as they have paid good money, they have an unusual laundry list of somewhat specific requests as to how they would like to go. Die laughing, in the sack/on the job, in my sleep, peacefully, painlessly, on the Whitehouse lawn, in the service of my country, as a Hero, etc. See the Movie Grace Quigley (aka The Impossible Solution of Mrs Quigley) for an idea. (Nick Nolte, Katherine Hepburn)

5. Clean House - Like Wanted, or Mr and Mrs Smith, the hit must be done inside the organization.

6. Assasins Like Us - An expert group of assasins has been hired to neutralize the PCs.

Any of those grab you?

Nymdok

p.s. As I recomend these I really have no Idea how to cobble them together into an overall coherent story arc. For a campaign arc, Ill invoke the most ominous words ever written in a physics text 'That is an exercise left up to the reader.'
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Old 07-23-2010, 10:47 AM   #6
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Default Re: [Adventure Workshop] Assassination of the Week

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how to cobble them together
One possible arc given those caegories:

The PCs start off doing the perhaps morally defensible Depose and Destroy. Then some of the Generous Culling missions start showing up. They're not bad people, but hey, they _want_ our help. Then you get a Mortality of Heroes. These people are no better or worse than the previous batch, but they _didn't_ ask to be killed, so there's a moral quandary. Assuming PCs go for it, we're back to Depose and Destroy, but increasingly not of the "bad guys", but relatively "good guys". Eventually the PCs run counter to the goals of the higher ups in their organization, which causes the Assassins Like Us to be assigned to Clean House of the PCs.

It's a "decline and fall" story. Maybe you'd prefer one with a happy ending.
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Old 07-23-2010, 10:51 AM   #7
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Default Re: [Adventure Workshop] Assassination of the Week

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
One possible arc given those caegories:

The PCs start off doing the perhaps morally defensible Depose and Destroy. Then some of the Generous Culling missions start showing up. They're not bad people, but hey, they _want_ our help. Then you get a Mortality of Heroes. These people are no better or worse than the previous batch, but they _didn't_ ask to be killed, so there's a moral quandary. Assuming PCs go for it, we're back to Depose and Destroy, but increasingly not of the "bad guys", but relatively "good guys". Eventually the PCs run counter to the goals of the higher ups in their organization, which causes the Assassins Like Us to be assigned to Clean House of the PCs.

It's a "decline and fall" story. Maybe you'd prefer one with a happy ending.
Brilliant!

Edit: As I think about it, there might be another type of assassination.

Sockpupet Killer : The PCs must find a way to get someone else to do the hit, knowingly or unknowingly. Forcefeeding a family dog C4, assuring a jilted ex-lover they wont be caught etc.

Nymdok

Last edited by Nymdok; 07-23-2010 at 11:06 AM.
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Old 07-23-2010, 11:19 AM   #8
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Default Re: [Adventure Workshop] Assassination of the Week

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Originally Posted by ajardoor View Post
Hired killers, independant of specific organised crime syndicates. Although they do jobs for the mafia and the like as well.
Nitpick, but the actual Mafia doesn't actually do this. If somebody needs to die, it gets assigned to a guy whose loyalty is unquestionable, usually somebody whose responsibilities tend to involve money more than violence. Willingness to do the job and not talk is exponentially more important than marksmanship here in anything resembling a realistic setting. If an organized crime group outsources a hit, it's because the individual in question doesn't want their own crew to know about it.
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Old 07-23-2010, 02:14 PM   #9
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Default Re: [Adventure Workshop] Assassination of the Week

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Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc View Post
Nitpick, but the actual Mafia doesn't actually do this. If somebody needs to die, it gets assigned to a guy whose loyalty is unquestionable, usually somebody whose responsibilities tend to involve money more than violence. Willingness to do the job and not talk is exponentially more important than marksmanship here in anything resembling a realistic setting. If an organized crime group outsources a hit, it's because the individual in question doesn't want their own crew to know about it.
Yes, and at one hundred points it suggests "realistic crime drama" rather than "action thriller shoot-em-up". Of realistic "hits" are usually kind of sordid and boring.
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Old 07-23-2010, 02:29 PM   #10
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Default Re: [Adventure Workshop] Assassination of the Week

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
One possible arc given those caegories:

The PCs start off doing the perhaps morally defensible Depose and Destroy. Then some of the Generous Culling missions start showing up. They're not bad people, but hey, they _want_ our help. Then you get a Mortality of Heroes. These people are no better or worse than the previous batch, but they _didn't_ ask to be killed, so there's a moral quandary. Assuming PCs go for it, we're back to Depose and Destroy, but increasingly not of the "bad guys", but relatively "good guys". Eventually the PCs run counter to the goals of the higher ups in their organization, which causes the Assassins Like Us to be assigned to Clean House of the PCs.

It's a "decline and fall" story. Maybe you'd prefer one with a happy ending.
This is a really cool idea, and one that I'd pencilled out for a DnD campaign that ultimately never came through.

If you REALLY want to be ambitious about it, follow that campaign arc with a handful of sympathetic higher-ranking NPCs in the organization... then when the PCs are inevitably turfed out, have those NPCs follow them out.

Their last hurrah - their "sequel trilogy" adventure - will be to regain control of the organization now that everybody of actual skill, loyalty, or decency has been cast out. This plot structure is quite reminiscent of John Le Carré's Cold War spy novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.



The Hitman games are good idea fodder, although I found the overarching plots a little too loosely connected to be realistic. You may want to look at the video game Far Cry 2, which takes moral shades-of-grey behavior to an extreme. A lot of the missions there are eliminating a person or destroying a supply depot or something similar, which would normally be morally and ethically bad (poisoning wells, destroying painkiller supplies, etc.) but which are made tolerable solely because the country is in civil war and you can't run the risk of the other side seizing control of it.
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