06-28-2011, 01:39 AM | #1 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Mars 1917
I have an idea for a campaign, which needs a little kicking into shape.
The idea is that the PCs are [Australian] soldiers on the Western Front in December 1917: exhausted, disillusioned, alienated, and jaded by two and a half years of the industrial butchery of infantry combat in WWI. They are caught in the effect of an experimental weird-science weapon, which tears other men apart, but which fortunately transports them bodily to another world. (Where they arrive in the midst of piles of Flanders mud, pieces of weapons and kit, and body parts of other men who have been only partly caught in the beam.) In keeping with contemporary tradition (E R Burroughs, especially Master Mind of Mars) the other world is Mars, a desiccating, dying, dusty world, home to a decadent culture. I'm torn between using Schiaparelli's map and laying a bit of water on a modern relief map of Mars. Likewise in keeping with tradition, I intend to make the Martians comfortably human enough for romantic motivations &c. The idea is to make the culture of Mars pretty violent, but romantically, dashingly, heroically so—in contrast with the ghastly impersonal violence of trench warfare. The PCs will get to swash their bucklers, and to feel as they do so that they are fighting bad men who deserve to die. Do I need an establishing sequence in France to make the contrast? Decadent Mars is basically sword and sandal, with a strong dash of sensawunda provided by relict TL10 or TL11 bits and pieces, both High Tech and Bio-Tech. This will be indistinguishable from magic at the start of the campaign, but I want the PCs gradually drawn in to the plots and intrigues of a nearly-immortal caste of engineers who, though they no long have access to the industrial base to use the stuff, at least know what it does, and can use it effectively, even repair it using cannibalised parts. Relict tech, especially lethal weapons, is rare enough that the PC's SMLEs, Webleys, and Mills bombs will give them an advantage in early encounters. But running out of ammunition will force them to take on local weapons and kit, and then they will gradually accumulate heroic outfits of relict stuff. Bio-tech relics, at least such of them as are self-reproducing, will be more common than hard tech ones, but less inclined to be weapons. There will certainly be improbably-useful plants: battery bushes and gobsmackingly useful medicinal berries. Initially the PCs won't speak [ the | any ] Martian language. I am thinking of putting them in circumstances that will force a long overland march with a Martian or party of Martians, perhaps fleeing pursuit along a canal choked with desert sand, with the spires of lost cities sticking up out of it. Give them a few weeks to pick up enough lingo to get by. I'm thinking that the PCs might get placed to rescue a beautiful Engineer from the machinations of his or her enemies without realising what is going on, and that he or she might guide them and accept their escort in a flight of a thousand miles or so: teaching them Language and showing them survival tricks unknown even to most Martians. That should get them to arrive on the littoral plains with enough lingo to get by. Can I run a campaign in which the PCs are the allies and champions of an NPC wizard who is striving to regain her throne? Or won't players cope with playing the second fiddle? Can I make ally/champion a first-string position without making the wizard unattractively weak? What relict bio-tech ought to be available? What ultra-tech?
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. Last edited by Agemegos; 06-28-2011 at 04:07 AM. |
06-28-2011, 04:55 AM | #2 | ||
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Schleswig, Germany
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Re: Mars 1917
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By the way, Wizard ? Is this another term for the old engineer caste or where does magic come in ? Quote:
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No unconsenting english phrases were harmed during the writing of this post. |
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06-28-2011, 05:35 AM | #3 | |
Computer Scientist
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dallas, Texas
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Re: Mars 1917
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Or they can fight it out amongst themselves, and take the consequences of carrying their war to this strange new yet ancient place. |
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06-28-2011, 06:02 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Mars 1917
If whoever was operating the teleport gun was sufficiently trigger happy you could even introduce several factions of humans - the player faction (mixed) and one or more competing factions who are determined to carry on the war - perhaps a German faction determined to finish the battle and eliminate the entire allied presence and an Allied faction lead by someone determined to colonise Mars. Thus as well as the Martians the players can bang heads with other humans - who probably regard them as traitors - and the diplomatic chaos they create with Martians whose first encounters with humans were with dangerous fanatics.
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06-28-2011, 07:12 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Jacksonville, AR
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Re: Mars 1917
This past weekend, my group just started making characters for a Steampunk Mars game set in 1889. I'm basing it on Stirling's "The Court of the Crimson Kings" as much as "A Princess of Mars".
I have the Martian tech mostly be TL 4 with remnants of Biotech and Psitech. Most of the biotech is food, medical, and construction related with poisons and drugs (delivered via dart guns) being the primary weaponized biotech. Living gasbags make the ever-popular AH zeppelins possible. The psitech is rare and is mostly odd energy weapons and some communication devices. Have you decided upon the political structure(s) on Mars? Stirling has the major city on Mars based around the Tharsis area (which gets some cloud formation in real life) with the Grand Canal around it. The Martian ruling Dynasty is tens of thousands of years old. I liked the idea that the Martians are old and refined in ways that have no direct earthly counterpart but in decline along with their planet (I'd actually model them on ancient Egypt in many ways; like the idea of Ma'at). I haven't came up with reasons for the Martians to have never developed (or developed and lost) space travel given that Earth has discovered various ways of using ether-based space travel. I may use the same as Stirling and have them be very retarded in physics. I would definitely limits any advanced manufacturing except for biotech (plants, animals, chemicals). Why do the immortal engineers no longer have access to an industrial base? I'm thinking about using a war between Mars and the former planet that is now an asteroid belt to account for a great decline (it made a marginal situation tip over into being unsustainable with resources and psychic ability both being nearly used up). What is stopping them from gradually rebuilding an industrial base, even if a small one?
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Travis Foster |
06-28-2011, 07:24 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Mars 1917
Have you encountered S. M. Stirling's In the Courts of the Crimson Kings? It seems quite apropos to your premise; its Mars has an ancient civilization with extremely advanced biotech that largely makes sense by current scientific standards, and with complex political intrigues in a decadent and corrupt planetary empire. I think you would find things in it worth borrowing.
Bill Stoddard |
06-28-2011, 08:37 AM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Mars 1917
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There is no FTL ... teleportation on the other hand or stargate style technology does work. The martians used to use it before they collapsed but no longer do (this is possibly the PCs route home if they can find and re-start a long lost gate) - the disruptor weapon that sent them to Mars uses the same physics for a different purpose (unless they were trying to pull a "Messines Ridge" by teleporting away a big chunk of the front line). The Martian collapse was partly triggered by some massive malfunction of the gate network - or of its power source. |
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06-28-2011, 08:42 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Mars 1917
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The militaries of the day did significantly more bayonet training than more modern forces though according to All Quiet on the Western Front when the Germans went over the top they used grenades and sharpened shovels (probably Two-handed Axe/Mace) instead. There were a lot of "trench knives" both factory made and field expedient and a number of other things (spiked clubs and such) that look like they were made in a prison workshop. If the Martians engage in stand up sword fights one of rhe long WWI rifles with bayonet isn't that bad a spear (though very heavy comapred to a real one).
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Fred Brackin |
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06-28-2011, 09:07 AM | #9 | ||
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Mars 1917
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(The American Civil War also had this disenchantment with the Byronic romance of war. In this case, you want to preserve the romance. But perhaps there's some imagery or atmosphere to be drawn from there.) Quote:
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06-28-2011, 10:54 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: The Enchanted Land-O-Cheese
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Re: Mars 1917
Arg! I want to run this campaign! Or play in it! Unfortunately, I don't have a group right now that would be a good fit for it.
Maybe I could do something like it as a one-shot convention game. |
Tags |
bio-tech, mars, sci-fi, sword & planet, ultra-tech |
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