Free for all experiment.

I know I haven't given much attention to the 2d6 project lately, with school and starting other projects 2d6 got left behind.  But like a faithful friend, it sat and waited patiently for the day my attention would return.

I've come up with an idea, it might completely fail, or it might be awesome, or somewhere in between.

It starts with very few limitations.  Genre: Modern Fantasy (modern times with magic and beasties).

Each player will be given a handful of questions about the world.  Some or very open questions, while some or more specific.  Each player will of course also make a character, anything they want, and must include 2 things in character development 1) What makes your character special/unique?  What is his/her talent that no one, or not many have.  and 2) A secret that the character has.  Players will not know each other's secrets unless it gets revealed in game.  At the beginning only the player and the GM will know their secret.

And once all that is done, the GM takes all that information and runs with it.  I also plan on throwing my cute little story cubes and tarot cards into the mix.

I honestly have no clue how successful this will be, but I'm hoping for the best.

Here is the list of worldbuilding questions I have so far.  Please suggest more :)

Basic government structure

A popularly sold product

A famous person

A legend (a story everyone knows, but all think is just a story)

What is the income distribution like?  (ie. Mostly poor with a handful of extremely rich people, everyone is well off, huge middle class, etc)

A religion

The most common cause of death is….

A noteworthy historical event

Where do people go to have fun?

What was the top story on the news last night?

The most common mode of travel is…

Organics-The End

The conclusion to this campaignlet is being done through email.  I will be posting everyone's responses here on the blog.  PC responses will be in bold.  

You and 2 dozen others spent the cold night huddled together in a hunting lodge in the forest that separates the city from the suburbs.  It was a tense night, and very few of you got any sleep.  People diligently took turns patrolling, and keeping an eye on that lost little alien cube.  Dr. Biaochi learned much from that cube, he talked about his home planet and how it has become devoid of metallic substances, how he found aluminum foil to be delicious, and if his extensive knowledge of quantum physics.  He spoke of his parental unit, and hoped she would return for he found your kind to be strange and frighting.

The morning slowly came, and many were relieved to have survived the night.  People went to work, setting up the basement as a make-shift hospital and laboratory, a small group went into to town to look for any other survivors and collect any useful salvage. While another group went hunting for game.  Zebbi tried to calm the group, by singing her songs and distracting them from the recent events.  

Around noon, the earth started to shake and there was a loud humming noise.  Most ran and hid in the basement, while the more brave ventured outside to see what was going on.  Your little cube friend started humming excitedly and urged you to go out and look.

A floating cube, much larger than any you had seen or heard about approached.  This entity was the size of a small house, and it glimmered in the noon sunlight.  5 figures stood proudly on top waving enthusiastically to the onlookers below, the baby cube zoomed up and appeared to great the larger cube and started darting about the larger cube.  One of the figures on top gracefully floated down to the ground to greet you, followed by the other four who landed directly behind him.

When he landed, you instantly recognized him as your country's president.  Although he was altered slightly, around his head hovered 3 green leaves, and his skin almost seemed to glow in the noon light.

"Greetings, my citizens.  I am pleased to have found you.  Come, join us, and be frightened no more."  Your president reaches out his arms as if to embrace you all.

I (Zebbi) say to the President "Hi Honey!  What's up with the new hair style?"

The president smiles, "There are plants on our new home that even our most brilliant scientists could not have convinced."  He pulls from his pocket a green leaf with a purple sheen, "Try this, for example.  And you will be able to see beyond the narrow spectrum we have been limited to."

Session summaries

Since I didn't do a recap of the last game (of the one before that, I think), I'll combine them into hopefully a short summary...

You met a large shiny cube.  It said to leave the city and game you some hypo sprays.  You didn't trust them, but left the city anyway (After 'saving' all the pastries in the nearby starbucks from certain disaster).  As the group trudged their way to the suburbs, they came across a small, unpaved road.  With blueEye technology George, being a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy, decided it was best to kill the random dude by the side of the road.  Which had belonged to a group of 5, and had until recently been the only survivor.  All of them wore civillian clothes, but as Dr. Biaochii went through the dead peoples' wallets, found that they all were affiliated with the military.

Finally, the group made it to relative safety- A diner, owned, managed and waitressed by Petunia.  She made the travelers a late lunch, and was paid with and extra PhaseRifle.  She didn't want to leave her diner, someone might steal her pie.

Then three hooligans decided to loot the diner, and break Petunia's historic store front window.  One of said hooligans turned out to be one of Bianca's exes.  Damon was more important to Bianca than she let on, and she was glad to see him alive but upset to see him still being stupid.

Zebbi wanted to go to a mall.  So they went to the mall, and made some friends.  With the group now expanded, everyone set up camp in a hunting lodge on the edge of town.

But of course they couldn't escape the craziness, and found a cute miniature cube that ate George's precious tin foil hat.

NPC Bio: Bianca

Bianca Signen was an orphan, something of a rarity in these times.  The origins of this status were unclear at best, however her adoptive parents loved her, and she didn't think much on her mysterious beginnings.  Her adoptive family was quite large, she had 3 sisters (all of which were adopted), and a plethora of aunts uncles and cousins.  Her parents, and much of her family worked for Stein Labs all over the country.  Her father worked on improving and updating the BluEyes, while her mother was a receptionist.

Since about the age of 12 boys have liked Bianca.  She liked the attention, and would hop from guy to guy leaving them heartbroken and unsatisfied.  She never really found a boyfriend that she could stay with for more than a few months tops, they were all imperfect, and she always found a fault in every single one (which her therapist said was a fault of her own, not the boys).

Bianca graduated in the top 5% of her high school class, and was accepted to II.  But after one semester, she dropped out, and through her strong family ties with Stein Labs got a job as a lab assistant.  She was relatively happy there, she washed beakers, held test tubes filled with god-knows what, calibrated various machines.  When they discovered that Bianca was in fact quite intelligent, they allowed her more interesting responsibilities and even a couple hours a week to work on her own experiments that usually didn't go anywhere.

A week before 'the emergency' Bianca got news that her favorite aunt had passed away.  When Bianca arrived at the funeral, she learned that her Aunt Beatrice had left Bianca everything, including her beloved cat, Mr. Sniffles.  What Bianca didn't know, was that attached to Mr. Sniffles' collar there was a crystal memory chip with a very important message.  dun-dun-DUN! 
                                            

Shakespeare mash-up

I would be surprised if this was an original idea, however since I hadn't heard of it, it's original to me :)

I often find myself lacking in story ideas, and this method is meant to be the foundation of a story arc as well as a fun exercise people can do as a group and then maybe end up roleplaying it along the way.

So this is what you do: Find yourself a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare (my house has at least 3 copies, so that wasn't very hard).  Then turn to a random page.  You could either pick a line randomly, or find a line on the page that you like (after the first one, I think it's better to pick one off the page).  Copy down or bookmark that line, and then pick another random page and find another line.  Do this as many times as you see fit.  Now that you have a bunch of lines together, turn them into a script of sorts which becomes the basis of your story.  Each line can be said by different characters, or it can be a conversation between 2 or more, or even a monologue, if it works.

This is what I came up with on my second try:

Male Character 1:  "The fairest hand I ever toucht! O beauty, Till now I never knew thee!" ( King Henry The Eight I.iv)
Female Character 2: "Worthy sir, thou bleed'st; Thy exercise hath been too violent For a second course of fight." (Coriolanus I.vi)
Male Character 1: "Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay." (Antony and Cleopatra I.ii)
Female Character 2: "Follow me; thou shalt serve me: if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet." (King Lear I.iii)

Two strong-willed and rather aggressive soon to be lovers (maybe soldiers of some kind) have gotten into a fist fight.  As the woman is dutifully kicking the ass of the man, he blurts out that he loves her more than anything.  The woman stops fighting for a second and realizes two things 1. the man is pretty beat up and 2. she in fact loves him too, but does not want to admit it.  She comments on his injuries and suggests that he give up.  The man knows this to be true, but takes it as an insult none the less, calls her a whore and tells her to leave before he catches his breath. The woman, not wanting to leave his company, but not wanting to say so directly tells him that if he takes her out to an expensive restaurant and he behaves, she might forgive him for whatever it was that started the fight.

Barely Success

So Tim and I have been looking through the Doctor Who RPG (which also uses a 2d6 mechanic) and they had an interesting concept about degrees of success.  A lot of points below the DC means uber failure, a few points below is a normal failure, and a tiny bit below is a sort of failure (ie you convince the guards not to kill you on site, but they will throw you in the dungeon).  And similarly for successes (sort of success, normal, and super awesome success)

We've decided to add a new optional rule that says when you get exactly the Difficulty level, it counts as a barely success.  A few examples: John's character is trying to jump from rooftop to rooftop, John's roll plus his strength plus athletics is a 12, which is what the DL is.  The GM could say, "You make it to the other roof, but only barely, and you're hanging on by your fingertips."

Another example is if you're trying to pick a lock and you roll exactly the DL; it takes the character longer to pick the lock and therefore has a higher chance of getting caught.  Or, you pick the lock, but your pick breaks in the lock, leaving you without your pick and unable to relock the door.

Act I: EMERGENCY!

It started off as an ordinary day for the citizens of Earth. Zebbi was signing autographs for her adoring fans, George was blogging about the effectiveness of his antique tin foil hat, and Dr. Baiocchi was getting ready for work.

A mass announcement was proclaimed through everyone's blue eye and every holo-board. The white letters and automated voice said, "This is wide spread emergency, please head to the nearest Tele-pod station immediately. This is not a drill."

Naturally, people panicked. They collected their most valuable belongings and did just as the announcement told them. Dr. Baiocchi could not remember the last time a mass message was sent like this, not even tests, he concluded that this must be taken seriously and went straight for the New New York Telepod station.

Zebbi, who does not wear a blue eye was informed of the announcement by her body guard. She decided to pack up her luggage train, and set up shop, singing and selling posters of herself in the crowded station while everyone waited for further instructions.

George, who also does not wear a blue eye for fear of the government reading his paranoid mind heard of the emergency through his system of numerous holo-boards that he had set up in the basement. George felt it necessary to go and report back to his 3 loyal blog followers.

The station was packed, and the anxiety was tangible. Searching through the news channels brought nothing but the usual dribble, and did not speak of the mass announcement, though many underground channels did, each of them having their own idea as to what was going on. The intercom system switched on and told people to cram as many people into the Tele-pods, that they were to be evacuated.

A few minutes later, as Dr. Baiochhi was trying to decide what to do, the overhead sprinkler system went off. Normally a whiteish chemical is released, which puts out the fire, makes a mess but leaves everything else unharmed. (Can you believe they used to use water in these things?! Everything got destroyed!) However what came out of the valves was in fact an extremely fine green powder.

George pulled out a gas mask and a tarp from his trench coat and ducked underneath. Dr. Baiochhi and Zebbi found their way underneath as well. People that had breathed in the substance started coughing, and a dozen or so collapsed to the floor. The group grabbed who they could and escaped to an exit.

In the emergency stairwell, where the air was clean and circulated with the outside, they had time to think. Bianca, a 20 something attractive female clutching a black cat and a large suitcase and Johnny, an ordinary looking 12 year old as well as Zebbi both had inhaled quite a bit of that green powder and were bent over coughing. Dr. Baiochhi administered some stimulants which calmed down their coughing fits. Bianca seemed to recovered fully, but Zebbi and the boy noticed that their fingers were tingling.

Dr. Baiochhi went through his expansive knowledge of chemicals and knew of three green powders that were likely suspects. Though none of them fit exactly, the closest being an old style anesthetic, but he was pretty sure that it's paralyzing effects started from the spine and core of the body before moving to the extremities, and that it hadn't been manufactured for at least 50 years.

The group along with about 20 others who decided to use the emergency stairwell found themselves outside along next to the station's massive parking lot. Two people were bent over a young man who lay motionless on the pavement. "He had the North River Fevers. but I didn't expect him to go so soon." Dr. Baiochhi knew the North River Fevers was a terminal illness that has no cure, but if well treated, victims can live into their late 30s. The Chemist secretly drew a blood sample of the deceased and moved on.

Not 3 minutes after they had left the building, large military trucks entered the parking lot. Unaware of the military's intentions, Dr. Baiochhi, Zebbi, Bianca and Johnny tried to sneak their way out of the area while George hid in a nook in a wall to watch. The group was spotted quickly, though the soldiers only told them to clear the area which they were doing anyway.

Zebbi used her fame and womanly ways to try to get information out of one of the truck drivers and distract him enough her her to steal his RoboLabor Unit that had parts Dr. Baiochhi wanted.  The tingling in Zebbi and Johnny's fingers started to spread, and by the time the ambulance came, it had spread all the way up Johnny's arm.

Johnny and several others were taken to the hospital.  Zebbi refused to go.

The group, along with Mr. Sniffles (Bianca's cat) collected blood samples and took them back to Dr. Baiochhi's lab where they made some interesting discoveries.  The substance that came from the fire extinguishers was an extremely complex organic molecule whose atomic weight fluctuated so much that it was impossible to get an accurate reading.  Samples from dead subjects contained a similar molecule with a weight of 3,028, the people that seemed unaffected still had the substance in their blood but with a weight of 3,024.  And those that were tingling like Zebbi had molecules that varied in weight and were much lighter than the others (Zebbi was at 1,016)

Dr. Baiochhi tested the green powder on 100 lab rats with different genetic codes.  None of them died, and one rat acted oddly until the water container poured water all over the cage without anything touching it.  The Doctor terminated all the rats and uploaded all the data he had collected.

Before they could preform any more tests, a huge earthquake shook the ground, and dislodged several items from their shelves, and a minute later, another larger earthquake followed.  The Laboratory building creaked and groaned from the pressure, and they decided to get out.  Buildings fell around them, and then they saw it.  A shiny floating box about 8 feet tall was hovering around the huge terraforming machine.  Johnny left his hiding spot and claimed to call it with his mind, the cube rotated and then floated over to Johnny and the others.