This continues a revisit to a series of game ideas based off the game show Burn Notice. I hope it’s of interest.
Originally posted 7 Sep 2008
Earlier, I wrote about Burn Notice and creating campaigns using it as a template. One night after watching a couple of episodes, I had ideas for all sorts of campaigns. I noticed that the campaigns I had imagined fit the genre templates offered in True20 Revised Core. That’s how I’m going to present my ideas, using the lingo of True 20.
2016 Note: I’m no longer playing True20, but I believe its system provides a fairly good basis on which to understand the characters mechanically, so I’ve left that structure in place.
First off, Burn Notice as a fantasy adventure campaign.
The basic premise of Burn Notice is the Michael Weston is trapped in Miami. In the fantasy version, the setting will be Hadrapole, a fantasy city in which I’ve set some of my fantasy fiction. Think of it as Constantinople just after becoming Istanbul, and with a tentative truce among all the different cultures and religions. The conflicts are there, simmering, but no one is looking for a war–not when everyone else in the world is eyeing them up as prey.
The Michael Weston character will just be Weston. He was one of the Urban Cohorts, a paramilitary force that is also used to police the city. Just before the campaign begins, Weston has returned to the Old Bazaar, an area outside the city walls and his old neighbourhood. His father has died and he has gone to bury him.
When he’s done the funerary rites, one of the Whites–a group of incorruptible, elite soldiers of the Urban Cohorts, known for their white tunics and white truncheons–let’s him know he’s barred from the city proper, from the city inside the walls. Weston questions this, and it is strongly implied the Whites know whose pocket he’s in. Thing is, he’s not in anyone’s pocket.
Weston isn’t stupid enough to go against the Whites. Doing so would just give them ample reason to not only toss him from the Cohorts, but make him a penal slave on one of Hadrapole’s merchant galleys. No, Weston has to find out who framed him and why. For that, he’s going to need help.
I see Weston as a Warrior. I like the heroic archetypes in True20, and I’m going to use those. Weston is a Champion (a kind of mythic hero) for certain, though maybe he’s going to move into Fated (the hero with a destiny).
Fiona left the Cohorts the hard way. She didn’t police so much as execute. She’s made a name for herself in the Old Bazaar as a sword-for-hire, and now she’s come looking for Weston. She always looked up to him, respected him, maybe even loved him. She flattered herself into believing he had feelings for her, but was that true? What now? That relationship is for the players to explore.
Fiona is certainly a Warrior, and she fits the Shadow archetype perfectly (not quite an apprentice, but a companion who might someday supplant the Champion), with Weston as her Champion.
Sam (Samwise? Samnal? Whatever) is a confidence man and sometimes informant. He’s been friends with Weston since childhood, and Weston always did his best to protect Sam, even when Weston stood as a Cohort. Knowing that Weston is being framed, Sam wants to help. He has a deep and abiding fraternal love for Weston, and this is one time when Sam is willing to lay down his life to find the truth.
I can’t see Sam as anything but a Trickster archetype, but I am torn between Expert and Warrior. Certainly, Sam is supposed to be a fixer, meaning he needs the social skills, but the contacts and information might also be a narrative element. Mechanics might not be the way to address it. For Sam, I think it would be up to the player. Does the player want to go Warrior or Expert?
Finally, there is the fourth character, the one that actually isn’t in Burn Notice. Except in this case, the character sort of is. Michael Weston has a brother named Nate who shows up a couple of times and becomes important in the season finale. Weston also has a sibling. A sister named Natalia (or Nate!)
Natalia is one way to keep Weston tied to the Old Bazaar, to keep him from doing anything stupid. Their father is dead, their mother–a gypsy fortune teller–has found solace in the bottle, and young Nate only has her big brother to take care of her. Weston, no matter how much the hardcase he like to play, is basically a man of duty and honour. He’d feel responsible for Nate (and for his mother, for that matter).
But Nate isn’t exactly a damsel in distress. I think the Maiden archetype works well (the young child of promise), given that she is supposed to be a relatively young lady. However, I think it would be cool to have Nate as an Adept (spell casting class in True20). She learned some tricks in her time in the Old Bazaar, and it turns out she might be able to help Weston out when things go south. She may also act as the voice of conscience, a counterpoint to Fi, Sam, and expediency.
The main story arc would be learning who framed Weston and why. But there would be little adventures in the Old Bazaar, on Flotsam, and other locales outside the city. These would be presented through Sam and Fiona, as people come to them for the service and aid. Weston and his family need money, and that’s one certain way to get it. This would allow for consecutive, unconnected adventures while unravelling the mystery of Weston’s framing.
It turns out one of the senators framed Weston. Weston is about the toughest SOB in the Cohort outside of the Whites. The senator wanted Weston broken, so that the senator could then swoop in and save him from destitution. Weston would then become a tool within the Cohorts to use against the Whites when the coup d’etat commenced.
Oh, did I mention the coup d’etat? One religious faction recently lost power after the city was recently conquered by another culture with another religion, and the faction want that power–and the city–back. Weston is just one of their tools.
When Weston does find out the who, he likely won’t find out the why. Even if he does learn the why, he won’t have the proof necessary to prove anything for for the Dey to act without it seeming to be simple religious prejudice. So Weston and his crew will likely end up involved in the attempt to uncover the plot and oppose it.
So there we have it: Burn Notice as a fantasy adventure.
Next, Victorian horror!