Adventure Planning Help [Action]

[A Ladder]

Hello forum,

I am planning an Action adventure one-shot for my group and could use some creative help.

Setting: Modern day Thailand. A gang of thieves likes to rob tourists who are out on fishing trips in the myriad of islands and then disappear to their hideout on a small island.

The PCs will need to infiltrate the gang's hideout and grab the mcguffin. I figure that the gang is successful enough to have a building complex.

What are some cool encounters/scenarios I can place on this island?

[khorboth]

Some quick ideas:

How hidden is the dock? How well guarded? Is this a quiet night approach? Do the PCs drop anchor somewhere else and swim/climb to get in? SCUBA to the beach? (how cinematic are we? Sharks with friggen lazers?)

Are there captives on the island? Human trafficking is dark, but Thailand is a reasonable place for it. If you're willing to go dark, adding a few helpless folk can be a fun twist.

Support staff: If there's an island fortress, is there a retired pirate/thief who is now the cook? Missing a leg, but great with knives? (machine gun crutch)

Bunkers: Lots of abandoned WWII bunkers dot the Pacific. Throw one in. Give a machine gun nest. Maybe even make it abandoned or completely collapsed but not readily apparent from the front. Watch the PCs approach with extreme caution.

Maybe some dangerous critters?

[AlexanderHowl]

An idea for a McGuffin:

Iran has recently bought a few nuclear weapons from North Korea through a complex deal that exchanges $1 billion worth of oil for the weapons (as well as the technical designs for additional nuclear weapons). In order to avoid detection by the UN and the USA, they planned to hide the weapons and the plans in a yacht registered in South Korea. They would then transfer the weapons and plans to a second yacht in Thailand and a third in Qatar, with the third getting 'captured' by the Revolutionary Guard when it 'accidentally' crossed into Iranian waters.

The plan worked until the pirates boarded the yacht. Facing unexpected resistance, they slaughtered the crew and are now trying to sell the yacht on the black market. Unknown to the pirates, the weapons and the plans were hidden in a secret compartment in yacht and both the Iranians and the North Koreans want the yacht (the Iranians because they want the cargo and the North Koreans because the Iranians will not transfer the last half of the oil).

The characters are part of an Interpol group assisting the Thais in dealing with the pirates, who have started to operate in nearby Cambodia and Malaysia, when they received orders about retrieving the yacht. The USA has asked Interpol to find the yacht, which they erroneously believe possesses a cargo of biological weapons that the Iranians bought from the North Koreans. The characters are unaware of the true reasons behind their orders to retrieve the yacht, as their superiors do not want anyone to know that there are bioweapons floating around, they just know that the US government is very interested in the yacht. Unfortunately, the North Korean government designed the nuclear weapons to detonate if the secret compartment is breached without the proper codes, and the US is planning to destroy the entire base when Interpol reports its location, which will inevitably breach the secret compartment.

[namada]

Captives seems appropriate, some sort of slave labor camp?

An uncontacted tribe of negrito (similar to Andamanese)?

It's Action - so there needs to be a chase scene - perhaps on the boat to the island?

A hidden group of smugglers unknown to the thieves, and their hideout?

[Agemegos]

Parts of the coast of Thailand are marked by picturesque limestone formations including extraordinary steep hills and islands with cliffs all around, carved and undercut by the action of the water. Some of the islands offer very limited access, and if the sole beach is guarded Action heroes might need to get in by parachute or parawing, or swim up to a cliff and then free-climb it.

Sea-level caves under the towering cliffs are common, and these cry out to house hidden docks at which the incumbents unexpected vessels, such as powerful motor cruising yachts and even submarines.

If your players are not familiar with this landscape at least from pictures and movies I recommend googling some images to show them, because it really is spectacular.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The characters are part of an Interpol group assisting the Thais in dealing with the pirates, who have started to operate in nearby Cambodia and Malaysia, when they received orders about retrieving the yacht. The USA has asked Interpol to find the yacht, which they erroneously believe possesses a cargo of biological weapons that the Iranians bought from the North Koreans.

Ah, the horror!

I know it's Action! and there is a tradition in action movies of being completely ignorant about the organizations that appear in the movie, but still, not a single thing that appears above has even the remotest connection with what Interpol does.

It's an office that coordinates reports from police forces in different countries. It has no law enforcement powers, no agents and no ability to do field work.

Even if they did, what you are describing is an intelligence operation, not a law enforcement one, so it's not even appropriate for a fantasy version of Interpol.

[AlexanderHowl]

Of course, but we are talking about an Action version of Interpol, not a real version of Interpol. IRL, Interpol agents really have no law enforcement powers, but that would not be interesting unless you wanted to play a game about bureaucratic red tape. Of course, there are Incident Response Teams (IRTs), and it is possible that the threat of potential biological weapon terrorism could realistically have a group of Interpol agents help coordinate an international law enforcement response.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Of course, but we are talking about an Action version of Interpol, not a real version of Interpol. IRL, Interpol agents really have no law enforcement powers, but that would not be interesting unless you wanted to play a game about bureaucratic red tape. Of course, there are Incident Response Teams (IRTs), and it is possible that the threat of potential biological weapon terrorism could realistically have a group of Interpol agents help coordinate an international law enforcement response.

Yes, but why use the term Interpol at all?

Use an existing intelligence agency or invent a fictional multi-national one, but don't invite assumption clash by using the name of a real-world organization, but then having it assume a role in the campaign that bears no relation to its real world function.

It's like running a film noir investigative game, but specifying that the PCs must be employees of NASA, which in the campaign is inexplicably also a private investigative firm.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by Icelander

It's like running a film noir investigative game, but specifying that the PCs must be employees of NASA, which in the campaign is inexplicably also a private investigative firm.

...I'd totally play that game. It'd be like Where In Space is Carmen San Diego.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

...I'd totally play that game. It'd be like Where In Space is Carmen San Diego.

I could see a future where NASA was privatizated and eventually evolved into a franchise private eye firm throughout the Solar System. The characters could have set up shop on the Pluto-Charon L4 orbital colony and get roped into investigating a deuterium smuggling ring. Deuterium-deuterium fusion is the primary method for creating helium-3, the fuel of the Sol System, as the products are either helium-3 or tritium (which decays into helium-3).

At $10 per gram in the Inner System ($1 per gram in the Kuiper Belt), deuterium smuggling from the Kuiper Belt to the Inner System is big business, as even a SM+6 vessel could easily smuggle $400 million worth of deuterium. Even with the cost of making the Kuiper Belt to Inner System run, an automated SM+6 spacecraft costs less than the value of its cargo. It might take a couple of years to get to its destination, but deuterium does not go bad.