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Old 09-22-2021, 08:09 PM   #1
RyanW
 
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Default Crazy campaigns ideas

Am I the only one who picked up GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms and thought "Why send four school children through, when you can send a circa-1960 military expedition though?"

I doubt I'll ever use that idea. Maybe I just really liked having an excuse for researching on the era's military hardware.
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Old 09-22-2021, 08:51 PM   #2
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Default Re: Crazy campaigns ideas

My current campaign is;
  • Near Future (30 years) TL8
  • Top Secret DOD section with special operators
  • Contact with ETs via a long travelled space probe
  • Gate technology that connects to many worlds (given to Earth from the ETs...)
  • ... with an offer to help save humanity from the impending inhabitability of Earth.
  • Space Orcs with advanced tech (TL11)
  • Spawn of Shoggoth flying fungus crab bat tree creatures OF DOOM (aka Space Dragons as the players have nicknamed them...)
  • Science!
  • Military!
  • Cool TL9 combat vacc suits with HUD, smart weapons, targeting, tac net.
  • Cool TL9 ETC weapons that do MEGA amounts of ridiculous damage putting maximum punishment on said Space Orcs and Space Dragons
  • Kidnapped Scientists and Logistics Personnel who came back 10 days later walking "au natural" in a fugue state back to base...
  • Fear, loathing, and many second thoughts about signing up for this wacky mission.

It's a science fiction + fantasy + horror game. And it screams "yes GURPS can do that."
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Old 09-23-2021, 01:29 AM   #3
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Default Re: Crazy campaigns ideas

Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
Am I the only one who picked up GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms and thought "Why send four school children through, when you can send a circa-1960 military expedition though?"

I doubt I'll ever use that idea. Maybe I just really liked having an excuse for researching on the era's military hardware.
One of the three campaign settings in Portal Realms, Gerontomachia, is designed precisely for that premise.
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Old 09-24-2021, 05:58 AM   #4
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Default Re: Crazy campaigns ideas

My recent campaign idea, which I haven’t really put together yet, is set in a private school where some of the students are fantastic creatures from myth and folklore. They have to maintain a masquerade as humans, at a time when their hormones and anxieties are pushing them towards their inhuman natures. The focus would be on the social and academic challenges of high school, complicated by intrusions from the hidden world of magic and monsters. The tone I’d like to set is teen age melodrama combined with surreal weirdness: “Big Mouth” meets “Doom Patrol”. I’m not sure I have the players who would get into the melodrama part though, my usual group is more into action-oriented games.
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Old 09-24-2021, 07:09 AM   #5
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My recent campaign idea, which I haven’t really put together yet, is set in a private school where some of the students are fantastic creatures from myth and folklore. They have to maintain a masquerade as humans, at a time when their hormones and anxieties are pushing them towards their inhuman natures. The focus would be on the social and academic challenges of high school, complicated by intrusions from the hidden world of magic and monsters. The tone I’d like to set is teen age melodrama combined with surreal weirdness: “Big Mouth” meets “Doom Patrol”. I’m not sure I have the players who would get into the melodrama part though, my usual group is more into action-oriented games.
I ran a campaign once that included a high school for young superhumans. One of the students for it was a young Norse goddess, Blikke, the goddess of eclipses. So in one scenario I had Loki's three kids show up—Fenris, Jormungandr, and Hela (I didn't think of including Sleipnir, but then Sleipnir was probably older and too busy). They could make interestingly weird characters. Kind of like some of the characters in the current video series Ragnarok, maybe.
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Old 09-25-2021, 06:46 AM   #6
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Default Re: Crazy campaigns ideas

Inspired by a passing comment on another thread, I am developing a campaign where the PCs will be non-humanoid utility robots (SM-1 or smaller) stranded on a low-tech world inhabited by alien biological life and a bizarre and cruel totalitarian culture whose holiest site houses the mcguffin that could get them back to civilization.


Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
Am I the only one who picked up GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms and thought "Why send four school children through, when you can send a circa-1960 military expedition though?"

I doubt I'll ever use that idea. Maybe I just really liked having an excuse for researching on the era's military hardware.
That reminds me of:

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/d/b...-coramonde.htm

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Old 09-25-2021, 01:22 PM   #7
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Default Re: Crazy campaigns ideas

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Am I the only one who picked up GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms and thought "Why send four school children through, when you can send a circa-1960 military expedition though?"
Because modern military would roflstomp a usual fantasy world (citation: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Gate).

Now, if you gave the fantasy world some kind of magical TL upgrade, then it's a different story....
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Old 09-25-2021, 02:09 PM   #8
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Default Re: Crazy campaigns ideas

My campaign ideas are usually fuelled by "crazy". I know I'm not alone in this regard :)
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Old 09-27-2021, 10:17 AM   #9
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Default Re: Crazy campaigns ideas

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Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw View Post
Because modern military would roflstomp a usual fantasy world (citation: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Gate).

Now, if you gave the fantasy world some kind of magical TL upgrade, then it's a different story....

Now I want to build a fantasy setting that is explicitly designed to be difficult for the Modern Army to deal with, while trying to stay in the realm where a sword-swinger with a pile a magic gear is useful.


You know, geography/topography that makes planes, tanks, and trucks difficult to work with, foes that are bullet resistant for one reason or another, mind resisting effects that can turn strength against you, and so on.
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Old 09-27-2021, 12:18 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Now I want to build a fantasy setting that is explicitly designed to be difficult for the Modern Army to deal with, while trying to stay in the realm where a sword-swinger with a pile a magic gear is useful.


You know, geography/topography that makes planes, tanks, and trucks difficult to work with, foes that are bullet resistant for one reason or another, mind resisting effects that can turn strength against you, and so on.
One immediate thought is a dungeon world - it's quite hard to push a tank through a 10'-wide stone hallway. It's the kind of thing that could work if the only portals are accessible through dungeons/caverns/otherwise difficult spaces.

The very easiest GURPS answer to bullets is an abundance of Missile Shield and Reverse Missile effects, but that also feels a bit like cheating. It's the kind of thing where I'd put in a countermeasure that's possible, but costly - individually enchanted ammunition, where putting it on a dozen arrows isn't too bad, but several magazines of 5.56 NATO get prohibitively expensive.

I would probably approach the bullet problem from a couple angles. Spell effects, as above; monsters that are resistant to piercing damage, like undead and blobs; and terrain that usually has short sightlines, so that it's possible to close to melee range. Importantly, none of these are insurmountable problems: spells can be counterspelled, resistances can be overcome with volume of fire, and firearms are still handy in close quarters.

Another challenge is logistics: a Modern Army depends on a good and reliable supply chain for ammo, gas, and food.

Mind control effects are going to be a big whammy, but it's boring if they're a never-fail win condition. I'd definitely include them (if for no other reason than I think mind flayers make great bad guys), but there would need to be workarounds. Experimental psychotronic stuff that doesn't always work, for example...
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