Background: The setting is an alternate universe in which there are extraordinary people. People who can do amazing things far beyond the capabilities of ordinary people. The time frame is late 19th through early 20th Century, when technology is beginning to change lives on a more grand scale than before. However, even though these people are extraordinary, they have their flaws.
This story focuses on a group thrown together by circumstance but stays together through, dare I say friendship? More than likely money. And power. They are a diverse group of individuals from all walks of life and from places around the world. But the more they work together, the more they find out about each other and themselves. Sometimes it's not pleasant what they find out. Remember, at no point did I use the word "hero".
This campaign is inspired by the graphic novel League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill. I took the basic concept and amped up the power level of all of the characters to be around the same as Hyde in the graphic novel. I designed the characters using the Hero System in order to keep the power levels consistent. Having stated that, the majority of the characters are NOT bulletproof. If a non-bulletproof character get hits with a bullet, they will feel it like anyone else would. And, as in the graphic novel, this is the darker side of Victorian/Edwardian eras. Many things we take for granted or treated as more normal are not the same as it was back then. Just take a look at what happened to Oscar Wilde. Also, drug use and alcoholism was not as frowned upon back then as it is now.
I also took inspiration from Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and other writers of the time to add to the flavor to the story. If you look at China today, you can see similarities as to what is happening there to what happened to Great Britain at the turn of the last century. As Britain modernized and as China modernizes, the merchant class expands as more and more people come into the big cities from the rural areas. The poor stay poor but the rich get richer.
This is a continuing campaign, as in, the results what the players do, or don't do, influences what happens next. As I have already run 12 games as of this date and have about another dozen to go, I run each story once and continue on. Otherwise I would be running this game into my 70's. I know that this must annoy some players because they would be missing stories, but now you see why.
Thanks: First off, I'd like to thank Keith Darron, Robert Mitchell, and Quinn DeSmet for their encouragement and acting as sounding boards for my ideas as I started to flesh them out. I'd also like to thank the PlayTestCon Florida players who playtested the original scenario and also gave feedback to fine tune the game. And lastly and most importantly, I'd like to thank all of the previous players and all of the future players for playing. You people make this whole thing work. I use this game to entertain people and I hope that you were and will be entertained.
Monday, June 20, 2016
Friday, August 30, 2013
Characters
This is where I will post public information about the characters. PLEASE, if you have played this game and know some of the secrets not yet revealed, DO NOT post them. Do not ruin the surprise for future players. I will update this as secrets are revealed during play. Also, I have pictures associated with the characters printed out for the game. Due to copyright concerns (fair use is apparently no longer fair), I will not be posting them on this blog.
So without further ado, I present
Broyan, Man Of Brass: Australian adventurer who can turn his skin to brass.
Jacqueline O'Connor: American wife of Capt. Joseph O'Connor. She can get people to do what she wants.
Madam Nadya: Gypsy fortune teller, can summon forth spirits.
Magus Amasis: Magician and escape artist. It has been revealed he can walk through walls.
Mama Odelia: New Orleans voodoo queen. She has zombie servants and a collection of voodoo dolls, just in case.
Montague Sinclair: British consulting detective. It is known he knows people from the future.
Paddy O'Rouke: Irish reporter for the London Daily Standard newspaper. Also author of a series of adventure stories based on the group's adventures. And he can turn invisible.
Dr. S. Putzkammer: German scientist/inventor. Tends to get easily distracted.
Vladimir Petrov: Russian faith healer. Needs medication to maintain stability. Can also steal the life force from someone else and use it himself.
So without further ado, I present
DRAMATIS
PERSONAE
Broyan, Man Of Brass: Australian adventurer who can turn his skin to brass.
Jacqueline O'Connor: American wife of Capt. Joseph O'Connor. She can get people to do what she wants.
Madam Nadya: Gypsy fortune teller, can summon forth spirits.
Magus Amasis: Magician and escape artist. It has been revealed he can walk through walls.
Mama Odelia: New Orleans voodoo queen. She has zombie servants and a collection of voodoo dolls, just in case.
Montague Sinclair: British consulting detective. It is known he knows people from the future.
Paddy O'Rouke: Irish reporter for the London Daily Standard newspaper. Also author of a series of adventure stories based on the group's adventures. And he can turn invisible.
Dr. S. Putzkammer: German scientist/inventor. Tends to get easily distracted.
Vladimir Petrov: Russian faith healer. Needs medication to maintain stability. Can also steal the life force from someone else and use it himself.
What Else The Group Knows
This is where I post information that the group knows. It beats rewriting it multiple times for each character.
- Jacqueline had something stolen by Time Travelers
- Everyone has seen the mysterious pirate airship
- The Russian Government developed a disease that can be dropped from the skies. You only stopped the initial shipment. Who knows if they are still developing it and are planning on dropping more of it elsewhere?
- The 6 giant war machines created by the Turks were supposed to be shipped back to Turkey. However, none of them made it back from Greece. They had left at different dates and times and from different places. It now appears that one of these was captured by the Germans and modified for their own use.
- Sultan Hasan bin Mustafa was overthrown in a coup by conservatives because of his elevation of a woman to position of Treasurer. He then showed up at the South American pyramid with a group of other supers. Your group defeated them.
- A find from the pyramid is a metal cube which shows a ghostly figure of an insect-type creature. This same type creature was shot by the British Army when you saved the first British space ship from being destroyed by German giant robots. That same cube has since gone inactive.
- From the agreement with the “Atlanteans”, you were able to find out more of the war of the gods. The war devastated Atlantis and it sank. The war then moved out to the planets, where one of them was destroyed along with all of the inhabitants.
- Apparently, Broyan and Oscar Wilde seem to have an unusually close relationship. Two grown men shouldn't behave that way!
- From Montague's future contacts, the alien insect invasion is scheduled for several years from now. (Note from the GM, there are more stories to cover before this story can be told.)
- There is a U.S. Government department that is operating its own covert group of supers. You were able to convince them to leave your group alone.
- Jacqueline inadvertently let it slip that she does not have a husband and that everything she's done is of her own abilities.
- Broyan got outed as homosexual at the revival meeting in front of 8000-10000 people.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Dave's Shortcut for Champions
As much as I like Champions for role-playing, it can get cumbersome going through all the minutiae for combat. I spent several years trying to come up with a streamlined system and the first model was smoother but still cumbersome. Then I took a look at it from a different angle and came up with a method that is much quicker and only takes one roll of the dice.
One of the things I did was to not worry about Killing dice. Just make them the equivalent in normal dice.
Here's how it works:
Calculate your to-hit number. If you make it, multiply the number of damage dice by 1 and assume no body. If you make it by 1, multiply the number of damage dice by 2 and multiply the maximum BODY damage that can be done by 20%. Continue this until you can make it by 5 or more. It will generate the following chart:
For example, Blastor attacks The Rok with a 10d6 attack that does a maximum of 20 BODY. He makes his attack by 2. That means he does (10*3) 30 STUN and (20*.4) 8 BODY damage. The Rok still gets to apply his defenses.
The interesting thing about this is that the more likely you are to hit a target, the more likely you can do maximum damage. The reverse is true. If it's very hard to hit the target, you're less likely to do maximum damage. Some people may balk at this but, in general, I am more interested in the story being told than the details of the combat. Sometimes that's important but this method helps me speed up the story-telling.
One of the things I did was to not worry about Killing dice. Just make them the equivalent in normal dice.
Here's how it works:
Calculate your to-hit number. If you make it, multiply the number of damage dice by 1 and assume no body. If you make it by 1, multiply the number of damage dice by 2 and multiply the maximum BODY damage that can be done by 20%. Continue this until you can make it by 5 or more. It will generate the following chart:
| Make To-Hit Roll By | STUN Damage multiplier | BODY Damage multiplier |
| 0 | 1 | 0.0 |
| 1 | 2 | .4 |
| 2 | 3 | .8 |
| 3 | 4 | 1.2 |
| 4 | 5 | 1.6 |
| 5 | 6 | 2.0 |
For example, Blastor attacks The Rok with a 10d6 attack that does a maximum of 20 BODY. He makes his attack by 2. That means he does (10*3) 30 STUN and (20*.4) 8 BODY damage. The Rok still gets to apply his defenses.
The interesting thing about this is that the more likely you are to hit a target, the more likely you can do maximum damage. The reverse is true. If it's very hard to hit the target, you're less likely to do maximum damage. Some people may balk at this but, in general, I am more interested in the story being told than the details of the combat. Sometimes that's important but this method helps me speed up the story-telling.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Synopses
After each Gencon, I'll post updates to the stories. Trying to do it during the convention would be silly! The format I'm using here will be based on the title of the book that Paddy wrote but the synopsis would be what actually happened in game, not what Paddy wrote.
Book 1 - A
Colossal Return
An antique stolen from
Jacqueline's exhibit at the British Museum is followed to Greece
where a giant walking statue is delivered to Turkey and set loose
upon the innocent citizens. The group works together to stop the
statue and retrieve the artifact. The artifact is a controlling gear
for the original Colossus of Rhodes which was rebuilt in order to
conquer Turkey.
Book 2 - Her
Majesty's Iron Soldiers
Body parts kept turning
up in the turgid Thames. The odd part is that the parts were
surgically removed. The other odd part is that the parts were all
appendages. Clues and opportunistic shadowing led to an
out-of-the-way place in the country where soldiers were turned into
half-soldier, half-machine. The building was destroyed along with all
of the soldiers, equipment, scientists. Somehow Magus Amassis was
able to walk away from the explosion without damage.
Book 3 - Death
from the Skies
News came to Brother
Vladimir that people in his village were dying mysteriously. Word
then came to him that the Russian government was sending an airship
to drop death from the skies. Jacqueline was able to rent an airship
to intercept them. A night battle in the skies in which the bags of
disease was dumped into the English Channel, never to bother Man
again.
Book 4 - A
Turkey Dinner
Reports of the Turks
conquering Greece using giant war machines got the group to venture
to Greece. They split up into two groups. Jacqueline's group were
able to convince him (mind control him) to turn over financial
control of Turkey over to her and to recall the 6 war machines back
to Turkey. The other group was able to destroy the war machine plant
and take the plans for building them.
Book 5 - Zombie
Apocalypse
Reports of bodies being
stolen from battle sites all around the world got the group to
investigate. They were able to discover that a necromancer was using
them to build a zombie army to protect him as he was killing the
Houses of Parliament in order to zombify them and turn the British
government over to him. They were able to stop him before he had
killed the Members of Parliament. Paddy showed he can turn invisible.
Book 6 - Voyage
To The Bottom Of The Ocean
Jacqueline received an
invitation to join an expedition to explore the bottom of the ocean
to find Atlantis. The group found a glowing underwater city inhabited
by fishpeople, but they were not able to visit due to lack of air in
city. They did find out about history of ancient war of gods that
sank the city. They were also able to arrange an agreement of an
exchange of information.
Book 7 - Into
The Deepest, Darkest Jungle
Jacqueline has come
across a legend of a hidden treasure from an ancient civilization in
South America. The group found their way to the site and made their
way through it. They discovered that the traps became more advanced
the deeper they went. So advanced that not even Montague could
understand how they were made. Once finding the treasure room, they
found a cube that,when touched, displayed a ghostly image of an
insectoid-type creature chittering away. When the group left the
treasure room, they encountered former Sultan Hasan bin Mustafa with
a group of his own. He had also somehow recovered his mind control
gem. The group defeated the Sultan's group and re-recovered the gem.
Book 8 - Space:
The Next Frontier
The group was invited to
attend the launch of Britain's first orbital space ship. The group
was able to successfully prevent two different assassination attempts
on the attending diplomats, ambassadors, etc. They also prevented a
German Colossus from stopping the launch. The launch was successful
however, the landing back at the launch site created a new problem.
When the capsule door opened, a creature very much like the one in
the cube stepped out. Before anyone can do anything, the British army
shot and killed it and then took the body.
Book 9 - Chrononaut
The group was invited to
attend a demonstration of a “time machine” in Britain. The
inventor turned out to be have been the original inventor of the time
travel system in the 28th Century but due to an accident, he was shot
back to the 19th Century where he had to recreate time travel with
19th century materials. An alternate timeline was created from this
accident and duplicates of the group tried to prevent the inventor
from returning and resetting the timeline.
The group was able to
allow the inventor to return and the duplicates disappeared. Montague
didn't say much more but it is obvious that he is more deeply
involved with the time travelers than he let on.
Book 10 - Message
Received, We Await Your Reply
The group listened to
the box found in story 7. After a while the image of the insectoid
was able to translate to English the following message:
“Please! Please!
Whatever you do, do not bring your war to our planet. Our xxxxxxxx
drives are down and we are running on our --------- drive. We are
trying to get home as fast as we can”
After a few more
minutes, it then said:
“We are returning. End
transmission.”
Through various
investigations they found out the following:
The asteroid field was a
planet inhabited by the insectoids and apparently destroyed by humans
in the past. The insectoids are now claiming Earth as their own.
However, it will be several years before they arrive.
The astronaut from the
first rocket who didn't come back is in an alien spaceship in orbit
above the Earth.
The group concluded that
the ancestors of the Atlanteans were the ones involved in the war
that destroyed the aliens' planet.
The group was able to
steal the alien body and gather information from it before it was
destroyed by the aliens from remote control.
The group has started
testing the equipment found in the South American pyramid. The are
working on plans to power them up from the Niagara Fall hydroelectric
dam.
Book 11 - Think
Tank
Jacqueline and Oscar
Wilde, along with a significant number of other notables had
disappeared. They were traced back to an underground cavern in Norway
where the team discovered a secret lair with rows of brains in jars.
The group found out that the mechanical brain had been collecting
brains for thousands of years to try to understand why humanity rises
then falls. It is trying to stop that. Eventually the group was able
to shutdown the intelligence and restore the people to their
respective bodies. But before that happened, the intelligence
predicted that civilization will fall again and soon.
Book 12 - Uncle
Sam Wants You. NOW!
Jacqueline's “husband”
shows up and tries to begin to go over the finances but it turned out
that he was a shapeshifter. The group captured him and relocated him
to an empty warehouse for “interrogation”. They didn't get too
much information and ended his usefulness. Shortly after that, they
were attacked by another group of supers. It took a little while but
the group was able to defeat them. They relocated to yet another
empty warehouse to “interrogate” the survivors. They were able to
learn about a “Department of Paranormal Control” apparently run
by a Colonel Masters. After some investigation, the group was able to
get Col. Masters in a secluded area and convince him that the group
is not a threat and to establish a detente.
Book 13 - The Theory of Evilution
Book 13 - The Theory of Evilution
Brother
Zachariah was a traveling faith healer preaching the gospel and
ranting against “witches”, i.e. people of extraordinary ability.
But a short time after he would leave, hate groups would start up and
begin terrorizing people who they believed are supers. He was gaining
popularity to the point where he could hold a revival in Madison
Square Garden. The group tried to intercept him before he could make
his appearance but were thwarted by subterfuge. Once Brother
Zachariah started calling out members of the congregation for their
sins, he pointed to Broyan and called him a sodomite and denounced
him for it. He also called out to Vladimir as a brother in Christ,
told of his dark side and claimed to be able to heal him of it.
Vladimir went up on stage to confront him on it. After a short fight
involving several of the group, Zachariah was rendering deeply
unconscious. After finding a safe place in which to interrogate him,
he was revived. The group finally convinced Zachariah to undo what he
did.
Book 14 - Things Man Was Not Meant To Know
Book 14 - Things Man Was Not Meant To Know
The
attorney for the estate of Jacqueline's “in-laws” showed up to
deliver the news that Jacqueline's widowed “mother-in-law”
recently died. As her husband's legal representative, she was
requested to attend the reading of the will at the estate in upstate
New York. Upon arriving, you were greeted by the same attorney and
were introduced to the other relatives. After some snooping around,
the group deduced that there is a cult in the family worshiping the
“Ancients”, beings of great power. Later in the night, a secret
door was found and everyone went down. A little exploration took you
to a ceremony in which someone was being sacrificed. You were too
late to stop it but not too late to get caught. You were surrounded
by a being that you couldn't understand and were taken into the realm
of the 4th dimension. It took all of you to get yourselves
back. Once back, you arranged to have the remaining cultists arrested
and imprisoned.
Book 15 - A Stone's Throw Away
Book 15 - A Stone's Throw Away
On
their way back from an adventure and dropping off members,
Jacqueline decided to visit Stonehenge before dropping off
Montague. As they were hovering above in the airship, they
noticed that one of the lentil stones was hovering over the
monument. And then they noticed a young man seeming to manipulate
the stone. He also had a book with him similar to the others that
Jacqueline has stashed away. After trying to resolve the poor
fellow's pining away for his “sweet sixteen” (and failing),
they reached an agreement that the poor fellow would translate
the book he had and also translate the titles of the books
Jacqueline has for passage to where he wanted to go. The
group just met a young Edward Leedskalnin before he builds his
Coral Castle in Florida.
Book 16 - Parts Is Parts
Book 17 - Look At What We Dug Up
Book 18 - Terror In The Skies
Jacqueline
had had enough of the airship pirate and as no one else was doing
anything about it, her group would. When they found it and caught up
with it, the found out it was no ordinary airship. Instead of being
covered in a cloth-like material, it was covered in some sort of
ceramic! And very smooth! The group, being the group, was able to
easily overcome any resistance and take over the airship. It is not
like any airship ever seen! The inside and outside seems to defy
gravity in a way the group can't figure out. It has been taken back
to Jacqueline's airfield for further study.
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