The newest adventure for F#ck ‘Em Up is available and—just like the TTRPG—it’s free.
(more…)Tag: action
Op ROGUE: The CASE Files
The newest adventure for the Clandestine Activities Special Executive is available now.
(more…)Sic Semper Tyrannis: an Adventure for F#ck ‘Em Up
My sound and fury signifying nothing has arrived.
A black ops team returns home to find that the tyranny they thought they were fighting abroad has taken root in their own home. These are patriots but to a concept of the nation that is inclusive, equitable, and lawful. That’s not what they see. What they see is encroaching fascism. They see a tyrant taking root. When a trusted friend and ally disappears, the team investigates, only to learn that it was their own government. And their own handlers and government contacts? They don’t see a problem. But there is a problem. And the team knows the answer. Sic Semper Tyrannis. Note: This is a work of dystopian fiction, but it ain’t that far from stuff we’ve been seeing in Western “democratic” countries. If you—the reader—feel affronted because you think it’s pointing to you and your beliefs as reprehensible . . . I don’t know what to tell you. The actions of the antagonists in this story are indeed reprehensible. Have you seen the skit from The Mitchell and Webb Look called ‘Are We the Baddies?’ If you feel personally attacked, maybe find that video, think about its message, and then have a good, hard look in the mirror. Note the Second: This product is free because it hasn’t gone through all the components of publishing that cost real money—like editing and layout. If you think it can be improved, tell me how. Leave a comment where you found this and let me know what you suggest.
This is just me screaming into the void, but hopefully it has some intrinsic value.
Skull Shot: A Sword’s Edge Adventure
They tried to kill your handler, someone you kind of thought of as maybe a friend. That wasn’t nice.
Then they tried to kill you. That was a mistake.
Now you are going to find them, you are going to mess them up, then you are going to figure out how to profit from it. Sometimes, just sometimes, profit doesn’t come first.
A science-fiction action adventure for Sword’s Edge, Skull Shot is the sequel to Face ‘Splosion.
Skull Shot is a possible project slated for a vote on my Patreon.
Directorate 7: THE SOURCE
Directorate 7 is the government’s expendable solution to the most dangerous of problems. It offers a simple deal with people that have done wrong: make the world better and we can make your life better. Cross us, and you die.
THE SOURCE
A D7 contact team is working undercover as bodyguards for the family of an arms trafficker. When he crosses the wrong person, the trafficker and his family come under threat, and D7 offers a deal: work with us and we can protect your family. But that’s easier said than done, and as the clock runs down, the contact team needs to get the family to safety.
Directorate 7: THE SOURCE is a possible project slated for a vote on my Patreon.
Directorate 7: ASSASSINS
Directorate 7 is the government’s expendable solution to the most dangerous of problems. It offers a simple deal with people that have done wrong: make the world better and we can make your life better. Cross us, and you die.
ASSASSINS
A third-world republic has seen a seismic shift in its political landscape, as bribery and crony capitalism has led to a grassroots movement that has shattered the ruling party’s hold on power. Now a firebrand politician offers real change, and the implications have led D7 to activate a contact team to protect them from their enemies—who are numerous and powerful.
Directorate 7: ASSASSINS is a possible project slated for a vote on my Patreon.
Directorate 7: Warmonger
In case you weren’t following it, Sagas of the Sea Peoples failed to fund. My Patreon is ongoing, and I’m going to be posting the various possible projects here for reference.
The first is the project due in April: Directorate 7: Warmonger
Directorate 7 is the government’s expendable solution to the most dangerous of problems. It offers a simple deal with people that have done wrong: make the world better and we can make your life better. Cross us, and you die.
WARMONGER
When reliable intelligence indicates that an arms dealer has access to a strategic weapons system and is ready to sell it, Directorate 7 recruits a contact team to recover the system by any means necessary. The stakes are high, but for those doing the deal, the payoff is even higher, and they aren’t the only pieces on the board ready to kill for what they want.
Lawless Heaven Now Available
Four cops. One hundred criminals. Countless broken bones.
The Sword’s Edge adventure, “Lawless Heaven” is now available through the Composed Dream Games RPG Marketplace. You can also find Sword’s Edge there.
In this homage to modern Korean action cinema, Three cops and an intelligence operative in South Korea’s industrial heartland face off against a local gang involved in a heroin smuggling ring. The cops have only one order: bust the ring, but no one realizes the true depth of this particular cesspool.
This is an adventure for two to six characters for Sword’s Edge. It includes six pre-generated characters and supplemental rules for chase scenes.
This adventure, and others, are part of my Patreon campaign, which I would appreciate you supporting.
You can find out more about “Lawless Heaven” here.
Killin’ Zombies! Nazi Techno-Zombies to be Precise
In my last post, I mentioned a short campaign idea based on the movie Outpost: Black Sun. The Outpost series (I see there are three of them) is basically a zombie movie franchise with a slight different: the zombies are technological in origin and they are Nazi. That makes them extra fun to kill.
But killing zombies isn’t easy in the Outpost series. Killing zombies at all is kind of difficult in most media portrayals. A headshot is not an easy shot to make, and in Outpost, the headshot won’t do it. The zombies are animated by an electromagnetic field that keeps them active even after catastrophic injuries. An electro-magnetic pulse renders them vulnerable, but those things – in the movie – are large and one-shot. After you fire it off, you’re just out of luck.
There’s no way I would put my players up against un-killable foes. Actually, I might, but it would be a very different game. It would be about remaining unseen and losing foes who have spotted you. That’s not the kind of game I was envisioning.
So what are the mechanics of facing Nazi techno-zombies? I would throw out “the EM field keeps them undead” and switch that to “the EM field keeps them powered.” You mess up the device that routes the power within their body and they are rendered inert. You could put that device in their head no problem, and then the headshot trope works. I’d put it in the chest, behind reinforced ribs – I mean you’re cracking them open to put the device in anyway, why not leave a little extra protection behind?
The actual game mechanics are pretty simple. In a game like D&D, you’d have a super high AC but very low HP. You would make the target area really hard to hit, but not terribly difficult to destroy. In the games I’m running, it would pretty much be the same thing. Give them a target number of Olympian proportions, but the damage threshold of a Mook. Really hard to hit, but one shot can kill.
Inspiring Outpost
I recently watched Outpost: Black Sun, the sequel to the movie Outpost. Both movies offer some gaming inspiration, but I think for a short campaign, Black Sun offers the most grist.
The story of Outpost: Black Sun is that of a young Nazi Hunter (second generation) who finds out about a secret Nazi project from World War II and in pursuing it, stumbles upon an old acquaintance who seems to be some kind of engineer/researcher of weird science – like Dr. Zarkov in our A Team of Losers Pulp campaign, but saner. In the Balkans, they stumble across an expanding bubble of electro-magnetic sciency wiency stuff. And the Nazi zombies are there. And there are evil special forces guys who are also good.
And loud roar! Scary!
Okay, anyway, Outpost was also inspiring, but much more of a “survive the night’s siege of supernatural monsters” game. That’s cool, but not really a campaign. I see Black Sun as a short campaign. I’d break it into four or maybe five one-pagers.
The first would be hunting down the evil Nazi who clues the team on to the Zombie-machine (of course he never admits that’s what it does, and since he’s old, if they are about to get that out of him . . . heart attack!). I’m thinking either the PCs are a group of famed, globe-trotting trouble shooters hired by McGuffin Exposition or they are a super-secret team from government of your choice. They know something about something – this scientist dude was involved in something and they finally have a bead on him – but they don’t know the whole story.
The second would be finding the outpost. It should be someplace remote and also shitty. There’s a low-grade civil war going on and both sides are firing surface-to-air missiles at everything, so no helicopters allowed. Besides, they don’t have an exact location, just a bunch of vague clues or half-remembered directions using long-lost landmarks. This is where the PCs hear all the crazy rumours from the townsfolk. Everyone says the village was ethnically cleansed, but the locals talk about werewolves and ghosts. This should also be the part where the team meets their first Nazi Zombie. And those things are tough to kill, not like regular zombies.
The third adventure would be chasey, shooty fun, as the team moves through a no-man’s land created by the expanding bubble of science in which the Nazi Techno-Zombies can operate. The PCs have a chance to help villagers and realize just how tough these bastards are. There’s also a dude that’s with the Zombies, and he doesn’t seem techno-zombified.
The fourth would be the Outpost – dungeon-crawl! It’s an underground base, a secret factory for putting stuff into people so that they are super strong and super tough to kill. The PCs need to destroy The Machine (patent pending) and then the Zombies will be regular Nazis – which are evil, but not so hard to kill. Of course, the heroes succeed . . . or get wiped out. It depends.
I’d do a fifth based on another team of specialists that seem to shadowing the PCs. If they are caught, it turns out they are working for the same employer OR for the same government, but a different agency. These guys are here to bring back all the techno-zombie tech so that employer or government can build their own zombies. In the fifth, I’d give the PCs a chance to track down the baddie, and stop the spread of techno-zombies!
While Nazi Zombies are pretty cool, I might do Soviet Zombies as well, and set it in Siberia or one of the Central Asian republics.
You can learn more about Outpost: Black Sun here.