Quote:
Originally Posted by The Colonel
for a criminal campaign, I recall there being an RPG called "Dog Town" about being a criminal in the 1970s ...
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Shhhhhhh! I have that.
Shhhhhhh! (Looking left then right) It is FREE at Drivethrurpg.com - at least, it was when I picked up the main rpg book AND the supplements that went with it.
I've also picked up FANTASY CORE THE BEAT Police Roleplaying. It has a really NICE 911 call generator that can be used to generate random police calls that police officers have to respond to. Were I to ever run a SERVE AND PROTECT (Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook) style campaign, that is the one source I'd use for sure.
As it is, for my upcoming Fantasy Grounds online game campaign, I will be running a campaign where the two players are members of the Continental Investigations Agency - essentially a justice for hire organization that is part "Magnum PI" style investigators and part "Pinkertons" style investigators. Many of their operatives are former Police officers who have left the force over perceived corruption within the system where the politicians control the police activities enough to make some politicians and their buddies - untouchables.
As always, the players when I start a new game, start in the middle of action, and finding themselves in an old abandoned slaughterhouse - and discovering that they were captured, denied water, hung from an old system of rails that used to move carcasses for processing - is hardly the kind of place you want to waken from. Toss in the drugs that were used on them makes the last hours a massive haze, and the players will have to use their wits carefully. A duffle bag of equipment, a dead "unknown" rescuer who died of bleeding to death, and later, they will find a young woman unconscious and also a prisoner. Do they leave her behind? Do they rescue her? Do they fight it out with a group of unknown operatives who are actually well armed and have equipment that poor people on the street have no chance of owning/using - or will they try to sneak out the back door?
Is it fair for the GM to assess dehydration damage, drug impairment penalties and the like for when the game starts? Ask them after they survive (or not). That's like starting a World War II movie with our heroes in a mine field. Worse yet? Even if our two heroes get out alive, there is still that unaccounted for time period before they woke up. Who did that to them? Whose toes did they step on by escaping? If they bring out the woman, who is the woman, and who are HER enemies?
I'm not postulating MINORITY REPORT style surviellance - but I am looking at GURPS ULTRATECH and GURPS BIOTECH and looking to see what TL9 stuff can make their lives miserable. Without adversity, there can be no heroism. In cyberpunk, the line between good guys and bad guys might be so slim as to not exist. As I tell my players - if you're not paranoid from the start of the game, I'm not doing my job. Unravelling the mystery of what is going on and why, is half the fun.
;)