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Post by JohnK on Feb 8, 2010 15:17:40 GMT
Hullo, folks, I have now been running the new DW: AiTaS roleplaying game for just over a month now. My Sunday gaming group consists of a Time Lord and his companions, and so plots and scenario ideas and the like for such a game are easy. (And if anyone wants to see the write-ups on the Sunday campaign, please let me know.) However, my Friday night gaming group is playing a team of United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (U.N.I.T.) personnel, set around 2002 AD, and I find myself struggling somewhat to come up with various adventures and scenarios for their game at this point. I don't know why I'm struggling to come up with ideas for scenarios, but I am.  Any help and some plot ideas, possibly in the game format for DW: AiTaS, would be highly appreciated and much sought. Thanks in advance.  |
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Post by allivingstone on Feb 8, 2010 15:39:16 GMT
The mental block could be coming from having the UNIT game find its own voice, so to speak. For instance, Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood are very different shows, from Doctor Who and from each other, despite all three being set in the same continuity. Is there a specific tone/feel that you're aiming for with this group, or is one emerging organically through actual play? You may get some mileage by adapting plots and ideas from some of the TV shows that were around at that time (more or less). I'm specifically thinking of Ultraviolet and Spooks. Or how about the team becomes aware that shapechanging aliens have infiltrated the Earth, possibly including UNIT itself? Who can they trust? What can they do to stop it? This would give you something like the ' X-Files meets The Invaders and/or Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. The other thing I'd suggest is asking your group if there are any particular aliens or tropes that they'd like to explore. You're not making them any promises, but it could give you a little spark of creativity (or bring some loose thoughts together for you). |
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Post by Null and Void on Feb 8, 2010 15:49:06 GMT
While I don't have any ready-made UNIT scenarios, I could try and give you a few suggestions for such a campaign...
First off, I think a UNIT-based campaign would likely be the best sort of campaign to benefit from the 'campaign arc' style of play rather than single adventures. Because UNIT is essentially a military operation, the campaign could LITERALLY be a campaign... a campaign against a given opponent.
For example... Earth is invaded by some alien force. A subtle one, such as zygons, kraal, or even autons or movellans. The first few stories involve finding out that there IS an alien influence of some sort. The next one might involve exposing the alien. Then the aliens switch from subtle to direct, and it breaks into open conflict. UNIT fights a defensive action for a few adventures, while gathering further intelligence. Then they turn the tables and the last few adventures become the final stand as UNIT takes on the aliens directly.
This sort of thing can then be interspersed with other, more political 'episodes', with rival organizations or government bureacracy as their 'opponent'. They could have to deal with budget cuts (and find a way to justify their existance), having to out-maneuver or steal something from rivals.
Oh, here's an idea... create a rogue state, that is dealing in stolen and blackmarket alien technology. Where are they getting it from? WHo is behind it? What are they up to? And moreover, how can they stop it if it is a sovereign state that doesn't acknowledge the UN? What if they have powerful allies (perhaps they are selling alien tech to the US or China, and so they have a vested interest in keeping the rogue state free.)
Sorry this isn't in a more formal format, I'm just brainstorming ideas on how I would do that sort of campaign...
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Post by Stormcrow on Feb 8, 2010 18:44:51 GMT
What's so hard about UNIT plots?
An alien monster/mad scientist/evil corporation plans to eat everyone/break the laws of nature/take over the world. UNIT will learn of the threat gradually as the enemy takes over the rural countryside/a small village/a corporate factory. Just when it seems UNIT will wipe out the threat, it turns out that the Minister of Defence/Minister of Economic Affairs/Minister of Scientific Progress has been in cahoots with the bad guys all along, and turns on UNIT, but turns into a monster/falls victim to weird science/gets shot by the bad guy. Finally, after learning that bullets won't stop it/bullets won't stop it/bullets won't stop it and losing a man/a squad/a platoon, UNIT neutralizes the threat using sound/simple household chemicals/trickery to send it back to its home dimension.
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Post by traveller61 on Feb 8, 2010 19:43:02 GMT
You could do worse that raid some old Call of Cuthulhu adventures; some of the monsters would need to be changed (or altered to a more DW feel - e.g. less of "wants to send everyone mad" to persecuted minority fleeing terrible hunters, and causing madness in humans by accident) but there are some very good stories out there, plus there is a lot of free material available on the web.
DW
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Feb 8, 2010 20:19:32 GMT
The mental block could be coming from having the UNIT game find its own voice, so to speak. For instance, Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood are very different shows, from Doctor Who and from each other, despite all three being set in the same continuity. Is there a specific tone/feel that you're aiming for with this group, or is one emerging organically through actual play? All good points. I exalt thee!Ahem. Anyway. What do the team do? Roving specialists, general grunts, experts in a particular field, consultants? "Player characters" we've seen in UNIT include scientists as well as squaddies, so a traditional alien-related mystery would work, but with a bit of official backing instead of psychic paper to cover for it, and the option to resolve it by "five rounds rapid" often being available if there's a fighter in the team. How much of that official backing can they call on? The more they can call up, the more different from a general poor outsider "adventuring party" the game gets. So maybe they're on secondment somewhere that they can't call for squads of troops or airstrikes. But equally, being able to do that occasionally can be fun. And the PCs could always be moved to a place (or time!) away from their major resources for a particular adventure. Just don't do that too often - less than 25% of adventures. Certainly not as often as that shot of a mobile phone displaying "no signal" at the start of a horror movie in an isolated area... And how mobile is the group? Sarah Jane and Torchwood have protectorates and trouble comes to them, which immediately makes both their series different from the Doctor's adventures. Anyway, answer some of those and I'll see what I can do plot-wise. (And while I'm posting, I know John's seen this when crossposting on RPGnet, but for those just reading here, click here to visit the UNIT website. Secure login password "badwolf" and be sure to read the Disclaimer at the bottom. Because Glitterclysm can happen at any time.) Also: writeups! |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 9, 2010 1:48:48 GMT
Hullo, Al, The mental block could be coming from having the UNIT game find its own voice, so to speak. For instance, Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood are very different shows, from Doctor Who and from each other, despite all three being set in the same continuity. Is there a specific tone/feel that you're aiming for with this group, or is one emerging organically through actual play? I think you're right that part of the problem is the need for the UNIT game to find its own shape and tone. That would certainly seem to account for the difficulty and the mental block that I'm having. I like to think that a tone/feel for the game is emerging as the players play the game. That tends to be the method I prefer to see happen in games that I run, and it's not like the players haven't suggested a grand total of two scenario ideas. You may get some mileage by adapting plots and ideas from some of the TV shows that were around at that time (more or less). I'm specifically thinking of Ultraviolet and Spooks. Hmm, you make a good point about ripping off...err, adapting ideas from other shows around the same time. I love Ultraviolet and have the series on DVD, and I have vague memories of Spooks. Will have to search out some episode information and see what I can do with it. There's also the obvious of adapting actual UNIT stories for the game, since I have to hope the gamers haven't seen them *all*. Or how about the team becomes aware that shapechanging aliens have infiltrated the Earth, possibly including UNIT itself? Who can they trust? What can they do to stop it? This would give you something like the ' X-Files meets The Invaders and/or Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. That's not a bad idea, Al, and to be honest, I loved Roy Thinnes in The Invaders when it originally aired. Oddly enough, the shapeshifting aliens have been part of many of my sf rpg campaigns over the years, ever since I created a very neat race called the Kefandril in my original UNIVERSE RPG campaign (the old SPI game). The other thing I'd suggest is asking your group if there are any particular aliens or tropes that they'd like to explore. You're not making them any promises, but it could give you a little spark of creativity (or bring some loose thoughts together for you). Like I said above, they did give me a couple of scenario ideas that they wanted to see. I hadn't thought about asking them about specific aliens or tropes, but that's a good idea. Will talk to them about this Friday night. |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 9, 2010 1:54:11 GMT
Hullo, Null and Void, While I don't have any ready-made UNIT scenarios, I could try and give you a few suggestions for such a campaign... First off, I think a UNIT-based campaign would likely be the best sort of campaign to benefit from the 'campaign arc' style of play rather than single adventures. Because UNIT is essentially a military operation, the campaign could LITERALLY be a campaign... a campaign against a given opponent. Well, as you may have noticed from the "Ghosts in the Machine" story, the plan is to run multi-session stories for the game, rather than episodic tales, but this may change depending on what I figure will work long-term for the game with them. The major given opponent is more a theme of the current series, it seems, rather than Classic Who, and they're more interested in playing Classic Who rather than New Who. For example... Earth is invaded by some alien force. A subtle one, such as zygons, kraal, or even autons or movellans. The first few stories involve finding out that there IS an alien influence of some sort. The next one might involve exposing the alien. Then the aliens switch from subtle to direct, and it breaks into open conflict. UNIT fights a defensive action for a few adventures, while gathering further intelligence. Then they turn the tables and the last few adventures become the final stand as UNIT takes on the aliens directly. This sort of thing can then be interspersed with other, more political 'episodes', with rival organizations or government bureacracy as their 'opponent'. They could have to deal with budget cuts (and find a way to justify their existance), having to out-maneuver or steal something from rivals. The invasion by some alien force reminds me too much of a StarGate kind of series, but would certainly work in a very long-term campaign, where the end of a given "season" would be the major fight at the end of it all to save humanity or the city or the country or whatever. If nothing else, this has given me some stuff to think about, for sure. Thanks. Oh, here's an idea... create a rogue state, that is dealing in stolen and blackmarket alien technology. Where are they getting it from? WHo is behind it? What are they up to? And moreover, how can they stop it if it is a sovereign state that doesn't acknowledge the UN? What if they have powerful allies (perhaps they are selling alien tech to the US or China, and so they have a vested interest in keeping the rogue state free.) Sorry this isn't in a more formal format, I'm just brainstorming ideas on how I would do that sort of campaign... [/quote] |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 9, 2010 2:02:56 GMT
Hullo, Stormcrow, What's so hard about UNIT plots? An alien monster/mad scientist/evil corporation plans to eat everyone/break the laws of nature/take over the world. UNIT will learn of the threat gradually as the enemy takes over the rural countryside/a small village/a corporate factory. Just when it seems UNIT will wipe out the threat, it turns out that the Minister of Defence/Minister of Economic Affairs/Minister of Scientific Progress has been in cahoots with the bad guys all along, and turns on UNIT, but turns into a monster/falls victim to weird science/gets shot by the bad guy. Finally, after learning that bullets won't stop it/bullets won't stop it/bullets won't stop it and losing a man/a squad/a platoon, UNIT neutralizes the threat using sound/simple household chemicals/trickery to send it back to its home dimension.hehe Sounds like a good plan. I'll just write all these elements down on a sheets of paper, cut them into the right piles, and draw story elements from a hat! Perfect! Seriously, though, yes, this is a good cookie cutter method for doing plots. Perhaps I need to give this a spin and see what kind of storyline shakes out! |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 9, 2010 2:07:46 GMT
Hullo, traveller61, You could do worse that raid some old Call of Cuthulhu adventures; some of the monsters would need to be changed (or altered to a more DW feel - e.g. less of "wants to send everyone mad" to persecuted minority fleeing terrible hunters, and causing madness in humans by accident) but there are some very good stories out there, plus there is a lot of free material available on the web. DW It didn't occur to me to adapt some of the Call of Cthulhu or CHILL rpg game material for the game. Unfortunately, don't have any of the old CoC material, let alone the CHILL stuff. A lot of that was destroyed in the sewage flood of my house back in October. |
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Post by Kit on Feb 9, 2010 5:36:54 GMT
JohnK,
I think some good suggestions have been made here already. There is very little i can add, i fear. I will, however, say that for my UNIT game, some inspirations of mine have been Warren Ellis' STORMWATCH, Planetary, and Global Frequency.
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Post by Curufea on Feb 9, 2010 5:51:21 GMT
I've only read Global Frequency of that list, but I've liked some of his other work (ie Transmet etc) so will have to look those up, just as a matter of interest |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 9, 2010 14:04:29 GMT
Hullo, Craig, What do the team do? Roving specialists, general grunts, experts in a particular field, consultants? The very first post in my Friday Night Campaign thread found here dwaitas.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=campaigns&action=display&thread=477gives you a break-down on the five characters involved (six if you include Gayle's daughter, who hasn't been involved in the stories yet). They're now one of the UNIT Crash Teams (as mentioned in a thread by Gareth-Michael Skarka). "Player characters" we've seen in UNIT include scientists as well as squaddies, so a traditional alien-related mystery would work, but with a bit of official backing instead of psychic paper to cover for it, and the option to resolve it by "five rounds rapid" often being available if there's a fighter in the team. The group of five has a pretty good mix of skills and skill sets. The alien-related mystery is one that I've got in the works, but I'm struggling with a few of the concepts for it to this point. How much of that official backing can they call on? The more they can call up, the more different from a general poor outsider "adventuring party" the game gets. So maybe they're on secondment somewhere that they can't call for squads of troops or airstrikes. But equally, being able to do that occasionally can be fun. And the PCs could always be moved to a place (or time!) away from their major resources for a particular adventure. Just don't do that too often - less than 25% of adventures. Certainly not as often as that shot of a mobile phone displaying "no signal" at the start of a horror movie in an isolated area... Given they are a Crash Team now,and given that they called in the troops in the first scenario that I ran ("Ghosts in the Machine"), the team definitely has official backing, and can call in some resources as needed. But the players (and I for that matter) have agreed that we don't want this to become a regular thing, although that *is* the sort of thing that UNIT is known for in the series at times. And how mobile is the group? Sarah Jane and Torchwood have protectorates and trouble comes to them, which immediately makes both their series different from the Doctor's adventures. The group was originally going to be pretty mobile in my mind for the campaign, and the Crash Team status augments that, I guess. Whether that will seriously affect the game style and feel to this point is up for debate. (And while I'm posting, I know John's seen this when crossposting on RPGnet, but for those just reading here, click here to visit the UNIT website. Secure login password "badwolf" and be sure to read the Disclaimer at the bottom. Because Glitterclysm can happen at any time.) Also: writeups! Hmm, I don't remember seeing any write-ups there... |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 9, 2010 14:08:43 GMT
Hullo, Kit, JohnK, I think some good suggestions have been made here already. There is very little i can add, i fear. I will, however, say that for my UNIT game, some inspirations of mine have been Warren Ellis' STORMWATCH, Planetary, and Global Frequency. I've read some Planetary, but not the others. May have to go search the web for some synopses of these materials and see what I can find for inspiration there. Thanks, Kit. |
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Post by Null and Void on Feb 9, 2010 15:41:16 GMT
Hullo, Kit, JohnK, I think some good suggestions have been made here already. There is very little i can add, i fear. I will, however, say that for my UNIT game, some inspirations of mine have been Warren Ellis' STORMWATCH, Planetary, and Global Frequency. I've read some Planetary, but not the others. May have to go search the web for some synopses of these materials and see what I can find for inspiration there. Thanks, Kit. Global Frequency is excellent. The basic premise is an emergency response team of experts linked by cell phones to one another. They put teams on the ground and then network with the other people in the group through 'the global frequency'. Good stuff, lots of inspiration there. Other sets of missions they could be involved in... Threat Assessment. Something that MAY or MAY NOT be dangerous has developed, perhaps a new technology or a peculiar natural phenomenon, and the team is ordered to see how dangerous it is. Testing of new equipment... Project Indigo is obviously one, but no doubt other projects accessing alien technology exist as well. UNIT spent a great deal of time guarding global conferences on a wide variety of subjects, from peace talks to energy. The Team could be put on guard in one of those. For further UNIT inspiration, I'd recommend seeing if you can get ahold of Big Finish's UNIT audios, and the Auton Trilogy of spinoff movies. The Auton Trilogy, in fact, reminds me a great deal of your CRASH teams... The UNIT teams in that were called UNIT COntainment teams and did precisely the same things your teams do. The Auton Trilogy is a linked series of stories involving the reactivation of one of the Nestene power cells from Spearhead from Space and the consequences of it. While there is a danger, with subtle aliens, of it turning into something like Stargate, I think it is a broad enough category that you can get some good mileage out of it without having to resort to emulating that. I'm just thinking in terms of a permenant, recurring threat that the players can face. Disaster Recovery is also a good sort of adventure that you could run for them... UNIT may deal with unusual threats but they are still United NAtions affiliated, and if UNIT happens t be on scene for a natural or man-made disaster, they may be ordered to deal with the situation until regular troops can get there. What if the disaster was deliberately created, or was a byproduct of some other activity going on. A James Bond style supervillain playing with a tsunami creator...? An alien power detonating subterrainean bombs to weaken the earth's crust so they can terraform it to their liking...? Or pull a page from Torchwood's villains... have the Faeries as a recurring threat. What exactly is their agenda? Are there more creatures like Abaddon lying about? Will they try and wake them? That moves into somewhat more Call of Cthulhu territory... Again, just brainstorming. My mind appears to be functioning today for a change. |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 9, 2010 16:21:30 GMT
Hullo, Null and Void, Hullo, Kit, I've read some Planetary, but not the others. May have to go search the web for some synopses of these materials and see what I can find for inspiration there. Thanks, Kit. Global Frequency is excellent. The basic premise is an emergency response team of experts linked by cell phones to one another. They put teams on the ground and then network with the other people in the group through 'the global frequency'. Good stuff, lots of inspiration there. Sounds interesting, and will try and look up some stuff on that. Other sets of missions they could be involved in... Threat Assessment. Something that MAY or MAY NOT be dangerous has developed, perhaps a new technology or a peculiar natural phenomenon, and the team is ordered to see how dangerous it is. Testing of new equipment... Project Indigo is obviously one, but no doubt other projects accessing alien technology exist as well. UNIT spent a great deal of time guarding global conferences on a wide variety of subjects, from peace talks to energy. The Team could be put on guard in one of those. I hadn't thought of threat assessment kinds of scenarios, but to be honest, that sounds highly intriguing. When it comes right down to it, this sounds like it could have a lot of potential. Something else to explore in the near future. For further UNIT inspiration, I'd recommend seeing if you can get ahold of Big Finish's UNIT audios, and the Auton Trilogy of spinoff movies. The Auton Trilogy, in fact, reminds me a great deal of your CRASH teams... The UNIT teams in that were called UNIT COntainment teams and did precisely the same things your teams do. The Auton Trilogy is a linked series of stories involving the reactivation of one of the Nestene power cells from Spearhead from Space and the consequences of it. |
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Post by Kit on Feb 9, 2010 16:43:39 GMT
For further UNIT inspiration, I'd recommend seeing if you can get ahold of Big Finish's UNIT audios, and the Auton Trilogy of spinoff movies. The Auton Trilogy, in fact, reminds me a great deal of your CRASH teams... The UNIT teams in that were called UNIT COntainment teams and did precisely the same things your teams do. The Auton Trilogy is a linked series of stories involving the reactivation of one of the Nestene power cells from Spearhead from Space and the consequences of it. I reccomend both of these. I know www.mikescomics.com carries both of these series |
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Feb 9, 2010 18:45:51 GMT
Hmm, I don't remember seeing any write-ups there... I meant also do writeups.  Anyway, it's good that the team won't be summoning redshirts, but even if this isn't an issue, the occasional "behind enemy lines" or "sent through time and space" episode can still add variety to the game. For example, how would Thomas Magnuson feel about a chance to get back to his own time? |
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Post by DonnaDoctor on Feb 9, 2010 20:54:58 GMT
I'm kind of developing the concept of Project Bluebox fuctioning as an adjunct to Unit ("UNIT: the one thing the United Nations got right!").
I've actually been looking at the old supplements that I own for another game called Conspiracy X. Although I don't want to get too far into the "It's a conspiracy, who can we trust" theme in a Dr. Who game, I am toying with the idea of some of the aliens from Conspiracy X, specifically:
The Greys: The Greys appear as the stereotypical small grey aliens. Their tactics of kidnapping people in isolated area, cattle mutilations, and so forth conceal their real agenda: they are actually inhabitants of a paralell or alternate universe, seeking to alter the development of life on Earth, perhaps even to change to future history of Earth and affect humanity's colonization of space.
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Post by JohnK on Feb 9, 2010 22:08:05 GMT
Hullo, Curufea, I've only read Global Frequency of that list, but I've liked some of his other work (ie Transmet etc) so will have to look those up, just as a matter of interest Just spent part of my afternoon reading up on the Global Frequency stuff, and the other half of the afternoon watching "The Power of Kroll". There is some good stuff to cull out of the GF stuff, and so I may have to find some money for a few of these. |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 9, 2010 22:12:51 GMT
Hullo, Craig, Hmm, I don't remember seeing any write-ups there... I meant also do writeups. Ah... Anyway, it's good that the team won't be summoning redshirts, but even if this isn't an issue, the occasional "behind enemy lines" or "sent through time and space" episode can still add variety to the game. For example, how would Thomas Magnuson feel about a chance to get back to his own time? Thomas Magnuson and the player would love to get the chance to go home, but whether he would stay is another matter, and something only the player could answer. Same thing goes for the character of Kelasa Vostune, as he would probably want to return to her 26th century society. Her player is doing a wonderful job of "what sort of primitive technology is this?" kind of attitude and feel. |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 9, 2010 22:14:48 GMT
Hullo, donnadoctor, I'm kind of developing the concept of Project Bluebox fuctioning as an adjunct to Unit ("UNIT: the one thing the United Nations got right!"). I've actually been looking at the old supplements that I own for another game called Conspiracy X. Although I don't want to get too far into the "It's a conspiracy, who can we trust" theme in a Dr. Who game, I am toying with the idea of some of the aliens from Conspiracy X, specifically: The Greys: The Greys appear as the stereotypical small grey aliens. Their tactics of kidnapping people in isolated area, cattle mutilations, and so forth conceal their real agenda: they are actually inhabitants of a paralell or alternate universe, seeking to alter the development of life on Earth, perhaps even to change to future history of Earth and affect humanity's colonization of space. I had considered adopting some of the scenarios and ideas for CONSPIRACY X, but decided in the end that I wasn't wanting to run an X Files-like game. However, that said, more power to you. |
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Post by burningskies on Feb 10, 2010 15:40:31 GMT
Hi guys, I'm a lurker on these forums and this is my first post. The discussion about UNIT scenarios intrigued me. If you wanted to take a breather from fighting alien invasions, perhaps the talents of a UNIT team could be turned to investigating threats of a more terrestrial or manmade nature? You might be able to draw some inspiration by looking up the old 'Doomwatch' series from the BBC. Doomwatch is an underfunded agency in the British government whose job is to investigate (and when possible prevent) natural and manmade disasters. You can find a description of them on wikipedia, or here: www.doomwatch.org/One of the creators of the show 'Doomwatch' is Kit Pedler, the creator of the Cybermen for DW. Dr. Pedler was a medical scientist who wrote a handful of scripts for the first and second Doctor (including "The Tenth Planet" and "The Tomb of the Cybermen") and was involved in the ecological movement in the 70s. He adapted one of the episodes of Doomwatch and made it into a stand-alone novel, "Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters". It was about some kind of recently invented substance that could eat through plastic. Even if you preferred sticking with aliens, you could easily give these disasters an extra-terrestrial origin or cause. For instance, with the plastic-eating virus above, why not frame it as a kind of anti-Auton weapon (either created by a government agency or some enemy of the Autons) that was accidentally (or deliberately?) released into the world at large. Or perhaps, the Autons hearing of this chemical, are set to destroy it. For further inspiration, here's the trailer to the 1972 Doomwatch movie: Sadly not much is available on Youtube, but you might be able to find episodes elsewhere or buy them on EBay, Amazon or elsewhere. Steve (Burning Skies) |
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Post by DonnaDoctor on Feb 10, 2010 16:12:32 GMT
Well, as I said, I didnt want to go the conspiracy wonk route and go all X files-y.
I see the Greys as working behind the scenes, using Men in Black to perhaps influence human history at key points. Their saucers are actually their versions of TARDISes.
One of the thoughts that I had to keep the tone light-hearted is to bring in Stan Smith from the Fox cartoon American Dad! as a special agent assigned to Project Bluebox - essentially America's answer to Torchwood ("We're like Torchwood - but with better dental hygiene!"). I can see Bruce Campbell being cast as him. I'm actually looking forward to doing the writeup for him! ;D
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Post by JohnK on Feb 10, 2010 16:37:44 GMT
Hullo, burningskies, Welcome to the DW: AiTaS forums and the crazy world of Doctor Who roleplaying! Glad to have you here. You'll find the folks around here quite friendly and all, and willing to chat about all manner of aspects related to the game. Hi guys, I'm a lurker on these forums and this is my first post. The discussion about UNIT scenarios intrigued me. If you wanted to take a breather from fighting alien invasions, perhaps the talents of a UNIT team could be turned to investigating threats of a more terrestrial or manmade nature? You might be able to draw some inspiration by looking up the old 'Doomwatch' series from the BBC. Doomwatch is an underfunded agency in the British government whose job is to investigate (and when possible prevent) natural and manmade disasters. You can find a description of them on wikipedia, or here: www.doomwatch.org/This is one of the routes of scenario design that I plan to take for the UNIT crew, simply because I don't want to have them stuck with the "alien invasion of the week" storylines. I rather liked Doomwatch (what I did manage to see of it), and the website actually has pretty good synopses and storylines that can be converted to work in a DW: AiTaS framework. Thanks, mate. |
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Post by Curufea on Feb 10, 2010 22:22:36 GMT
I just had a thought -
How many folk will be using the new version of the acronym, and how many will refer to them as the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce?
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Feb 11, 2010 3:05:37 GMT
Posted here and at RPGnet since it has different viewers. You've had possessing aliens already, so let's have some physical aliens acting in secret. Something a Crash Team can deal with relatively discreetly. Hopefully.  Men Of Power An experimental power plant in the Home Counties, run by a London-based company, Carter Logistics. When dark figures enter, one of Carter's guards spots them, opens fire and screams. His partner alerts head office... Eight months later... Following a meteor shower, UNIT are sent to look for anything left behind - and see Carter Logistics looking around the site. A little research finds that the company has taken an interest in crash sites recently - often reaching them before anyone else, and sometimes before the meteorites themselves. Obviously they're looking for something, and working with information from a suspiciously well-informed source. That source turns out to be the Vathek, a group of alien thieves whose ship was disabled in high orbit, the source of the meteors. The gang broke into the power plant to steal a portable generator, Carter's men fought them to a standstill and then Carter offered them a deal - aid escaping from Earth in exchange for advanced technology and a cut in the proceeds of their thefts. Neither side trusts the other, but for the moment the arrangement works. Things To Do: Investigate Carter Logistics, trace the meteor showers and predict the next fall, getting there at the same time as Carter and his men. Find the Vathek working in secret, and work out a way to fight them. Antagonists: Carter and his men, the Vathek. Action Scenes: Infiltrating Carter's lab, getting past the guards, confronting Carter, fighting the Vathek and the secret project they've been working on, a stealth-capable gunship. Problems: Carter and the Vathek distrust each other, so an attack could unite them or could turn into a three-way fight. There's a lesson about cooperation here somewhere... Things To Prepare For: What are the Vathek like? Perhaps humanoid and creepy, maybe fast and ratlike and prone to scuttling and hanging from ceilings, but they could be anything really... Tactically-minded teams might try and get plans for Carter's facility as well. Continuing the Adventure: Was anything else unusual going on in the power plant? Has Carter sold any of his acquisitions to other interested parties, or has one of his scientists or guards walked off with something? And who attacked the Vathek ship in the first place? |
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Post by Kit on Feb 11, 2010 6:36:46 GMT
I just had a thought - How many folk will be using the new version of the acronym, and how many will refer to them as the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce? In my games, it will always be the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 11, 2010 15:16:58 GMT
Hullo, Curufea, I just had a thought - How many folk will be using the new version of the acronym, and how many will refer to them as the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce? For me, U.N.I.T. will also be the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. |
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Post by JohnK on Feb 11, 2010 15:34:25 GMT
Hullo, Craig, Posted here and at RPGnet since it has different viewers. You've had possessing aliens already, so let's have some physical aliens acting in secret. Something a Crash Team can deal with relatively discreetly. Hopefully. Men Of Power <snippage> Very nice premise for the scenario, Craig, and I love some of the twists that you've introduced in the notes about it. Besides, scenarios that have power plants in them are always of interest. Out of curiosity, do the Vathek come from anywhere in particular, source-wise? |
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