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First Game Plot Idea, thoughts?

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Wed, 2011-04-20 23:11
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InsidiousAlgorythm InsidiousAlgorythm's picture
First Game Plot Idea, thoughts?
Running a pickup game tomorrow night and didn't have a whole lot of time to write up a game, I plan on running glory, but not until later. Here goes... The characters (Two) begin the game in a small room, effectively strapped down. The background at this stage is that they were previously hired to reclaim something stolen from the original owner and ended up in the property of Ben Berzon. Berzon is yet another well off hyper-elite asshole who happened to escape the fall through chance and violence. Berzon now controls some major mining operations (Thanks to his marriage) through out the system and is currently living on Mars. Berzon is not a nice guy, he's a murderer, a sadist and a fall profiteer who made a great deal of money by extorting escapees during the fall. Unknown by anyone but him and his fork is that during the madness of the Fall he air-locked an entire family for not paying up. A few years ago he married into a substantial fortune and now has considerable power and money to play with. His current wife is blissfully ignorant of his true nature, but her daughter (15 at the time of this story) is beginning to see through Berzons facade. Six months ago, Berzon and his "business" partner, ignored the Titan Quarantine and found a Titan artifact, in the form of a healing vat. Berzon decided he didn't want to share the device and attempted to kill his partner. In the ensuing scuffle Berzon was gravely wounded. His partner escaped and fled Mars for Luna (Where the characters were hired to reclaim the vat) Problem is, the vat isn't only a healing vat, but an Exsurgent device. The vat healed Berzon within hours and was quickly put in storage. The Vat This particular healing vat contains an exsurgent variant dubbed "Evil Twin" which recreates/clones anyone put into it, without actually infecting the original person. Evil Twin exaggerates negative personality traits and reverses some negative morph traits, but only works in the twins favor and does not work on synthmorphs. If Berzon is a horrible person, Berzon II is truly evil. B2 has kidnapped the daughter and stolen the vat as well as a small freighter and gone into hiding, killing, copying, and raping his way to where ever it is he is planning on going. B2 has already copied the daughter and keeps the original alive for his own twisted purposes (This is a game of horror). Berzon has no idea that the kidnapper is a copy of himself. This is where the players come in, having been captured during the attempted theft, both are sleeved and awakened (3 months later) in the same (fury) morphs they arrived in, but with the backup functions of their cortical stacks disabled. Thats all I have at the moment, any ideas?
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Thu, 2011-04-21 07:01
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: First Game Plot Idea, thoughts?
Fun! My main issue is the evil of the evil twins. While I can see an exsurgent copy being much nastier than the original, I doubt it will be more evil in the conventional sense. Sure, it might rape and kill and jaywalk, but it doesn't do it for the same reasons an evil person would: it is driven by alien urges and goals, maybe even following its own blue and orange morality. So while tracking down B2 at first seems to involve finding a truly evil character, the evidence ought to gradually become more weird and unsettling. Why does B2 take the pancreas of his victims as souvenirs? Why all the constant references to children's rhymes cross-referenced with stock market reports - and the rape of anybody who doesn't "get" it? How come he can so consistently avoid being caught on camera or surveillance while doing overtly insane crimes - crimes that seem almost tailormade to get rep networks and political alliances to fray? One important question is whether B2 is leaving Luna or staying on it. Bringing the vat to new Mumbai to 'heal' something damaged might be a good target, and suggest a fine showdown in the ruins. Another path might be between the decrepit and derelict habitats of nearby space, slowly approaching the Earth interdiction zone. B2 is accumulating equipment to build a big antenna array, raw material for the vat (i.e. people) and plans to help some "friends" from below upload into space past the interdiction zone. Another twist: certain parties (maybe Ozma, maybe Firewall) are quietly watching, allowing B1 to gather enough rope to hang himself. If the PCs succeed, they might be offered a job.
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Extropian
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Thu, 2011-04-21 09:32
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: First Game Plot Idea, thoughts?
It sounds like a good, classic plot. Most groups will enjoy it. It has a bad bad guy, a dangerous artifact, a damsel, and plenty of mooks. I would always recommend adding twists, though. Remember that there are many parties who would be involved; competing hypercorps (and Berzon's own corporate underlings), Consortium politicians, Ozma, Firewall, anarchists and so on, not to mention his own backup insurance security group when his brainscan fails to check out. If this device actualyl gave some clear advantages to the user, then you would have people trying to get it to use it for their own selfish ends - that puts the PCs on the clock, since they have to get it before the other guy does (and they may have to make a choice - save the beautiful daughter before she's destroyed, or secure the device before its stolen). I would recommend altering the device a bit. Don't make it exsurgent if you can help it, that card is overdone. And make sure the device confers some actual advantages to the user. In fact, i would recommend you use the device Aremanterous described (and was too modest to suggest here): http://www.eclipsephase.com/atm-automated-transcendence-machine It would fit beautifully in your plot, and gives you hooks to really make things difficult later in the campaign (when there's not one evil twin, but an army of them).
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Thu, 2011-04-21 10:04
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: First Game Plot Idea, thoughts?
And the wife, is she really so oblivious as she pretends? Maybe she has had her own reasons to put up with her loutish husband, but now he has outlived his usefulness...
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Thu, 2011-04-21 10:24
InsidiousAlgorythm InsidiousAlgorythm's picture
Re: First Game Plot Idea, thoughts?
Awesome! Thanks, I needed another perspective, and I agree that the twins aren't evil in a classical sense, but are nasty. The twins play on the subconscious desires/thoughts of the original only because they are copies. It seems that B2s crimes will be a good way to track him, even if he remains off surveillance, there will be bodies left behind. Anyone B2 copies is immediately killed and torn open to harvest various organs. (this could just be a holdover from B1s own thoughts or it could be he needs these organs for some other nefarious, but as yet unknown, purpose) The twins (normally) will want to destroy the originals life and the life of his family/alliances, but unfortunately for B2 he didn't get a chance to kill Berzon before he left.
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One important question is whether B2 is leaving Luna or staying on it. Bringing the vat to new Mumbai to 'heal' something damaged might be a good target, and suggest a fine showdown in the ruins. Another path might be between the decrepit and derelict habitats of nearby space, slowly approaching the Earth interdiction zone. B2 is accumulating equipment to build a big antenna array, raw material for the vat (i.e. people) and plans to help some "friends" from below upload into space past the interdiction zone.
Fantastic! I imagine that B2 will travel from Mars to Luna with the Vat and his new allies. Berzons step daughter is being brought along to provide a body for whatever creation he intends on awakening. I imagine his path will take him from the TQZ on Mars to New Mumbai to gather the needed hardware and then to a derelict habitat orbiting Earth. where the PCs will hopefully catch him before he succeeds.
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Thu, 2011-04-21 10:56
InsidiousAlgorythm InsidiousAlgorythm's picture
Re: First Game Plot Idea, thoughts?
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
It sounds like a good, classic plot. Most groups will enjoy it. It has a bad bad guy, a dangerous artifact, a damsel, and plenty of mooks.
Thanks! I didn't have a chance to really write anything out, at least not as much as I would have liked, between work and our newborn...
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
I would always recommend adding twists, though. Remember that there are many parties who would be involved; competing hypercorps (and Berzon's own corporate underlings), Consortium politicians, Ozma, Firewall, anarchists and so on, not to mention his own backup insurance security group when his brainscan fails to check out. If this device actually gave some clear advantages to the user, then you would have people trying to get it to use it for their own selfish ends - that puts the PCs on the clock, since they have to get it before the other guy does (and they may have to make a choice - save the beautiful daughter before she's destroyed, or secure the device before its stolen).
I would love to add all of this in, especially Ozma and the PC trying to get their hands on the device as well as anyone else who may have seen or heard of it. At this point though B2 is keeping the item pretty much secret. I may however have the Vat vanish for some time, perhaps it was hidden on one of Berzons many mining facilities. Mind you, this is supposed to be a one shot game that I didn't know about until late last night, but I would like to make an ongoing enemy of both Berzon and his Twin, so I may keep elements of this plot on the back burner, I love these ideas. Thanks for the help guys.
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
I would recommend altering the device a bit. Don't make it exsurgent if you can help it, that card is overdone. And make sure the device confers some actual advantages to the user. In fact, i would recommend you use the device Aremanterous described (and was too modest to suggest here): http://www.eclipsephase.com/atm-automated-transcendence-machine It would fit beautifully in your plot, and gives you hooks to really make things difficult later in the campaign (when there's not one evil twin, but an army of them).
The Exsurgent card is somewhat overplayed perhaps, but this will be a first EP game for all three of us and the first time I've actually RP'd/gamed in over 12 years! I agree the vat should confer some bonus to the Twin, but not to the Original. (Unless of course the two forks were somehow merged) Psi powers perhaps? (Boring to some I agree, but I haven't had a chance to play with them yet) As an aside I love the ATM idea, and may even add this in as one of the many items B2 is attempting to acquire for his overall scheme.
Arenamontanus wrote:
And the wife, is she really so oblivious as she pretends? Maybe she has had her own reasons to put up with her loutish husband, but now he has outlived his usefulness...
Of course she's not, but she is unaware of his past actions, so he might be an asshole, but at least he's a good provider. (Seems a lot of women I know get caught up in this) Thinking about it a little more though, maybe B2 did actually kill Berzon and his wife is actually the person who releases the characters and asks them to hunt Berzon down...
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Thu, 2011-04-21 11:11
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: First Game Plot Idea, thoughts?
InsidiousAlgorythm wrote:
Thinking about it a little more though, maybe B2 did actually kill Berzon and his wife is actually the person who releases the characters and asks them to hunt Berzon down...
The wife might even be pretending to be Berzon: she has access to many of his files, and when the newly widowed lady finds out that that he got a bunch of captured nosy agents on ice and a nearby spare morph, she pretends to be him. Why? To avoid any risk of the PCs coming after *her* - they are dangerous people. Besides, she is now deliberately slowing down the restoration of her husband from backup, awaiting the outcome of this and other schemes. If things go suitably bad he might take the blame and get ego-erased by the authorities, and (thanks to the prenup) she would stand to inherit quite a lot... I see a theme of backups and nefarious versions of people coming up in this story. It might not just be the vat that keeps making evil twins.
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Extropian
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Thu, 2011-04-21 11:26
InsidiousAlgorythm InsidiousAlgorythm's picture
Re: First Game Plot Idea, thoughts?
Arenamontanus wrote:
InsidiousAlgorythm wrote:
Thinking about it a little more though, maybe B2 did actually kill Berzon and his wife is actually the person who releases the characters and asks them to hunt Berzon down...
The wife might even be pretending to be Berzon: she has access to many of his files, and when the newly widowed lady finds out that that he got a bunch of captured nosy agents on ice and a nearby spare morph, she pretends to be him. Why? To avoid any risk of the PCs coming after *her* - they are dangerous people. Besides, she is now deliberately slowing down the restoration of her husband from backup, awaiting the outcome of this and other schemes. If things go suitably bad he might take the blame and get ego-erased by the authorities, and (thanks to the prenup) she would stand to inherit quite a lot... I see a theme of backups and nefarious versions of people coming up in this story. It might not just be the vat that keeps making evil twins.
Even better!! Not to mention the original employer showing up somewhere in this.
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Thu, 2011-04-21 12:45
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: First Game Plot Idea, thoughts?
InsidiousAlgorythm wrote:
Thanks! I didn't have a chance to really write anything out, at least not as much as I would have liked, between work and our newborn...
Holy smokes, dude ... newborn? 12 years since your last game? First time running EP? Never mind my previous comments, run it simpler! Say ... just ... put a dragon in a habitat, make up all the numbers as you go along and call it a day. You are a far braver man than I ...
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I would love to add all of this in, especially Ozma and the PC trying to get their hands on the device as well as anyone else who may have seen or heard of it. At this point though B2 is keeping the item pretty much secret.
'pretty much secret' is not secret. As they say, the only secure computer is one in a black hole. If things are happening, there's a way to find out about it, and when you're dealing with X-Files/CIA hybrids from the future, they're REALLY GOOD at finding stuff like this out. You don't even need to explain HOW they know, they just know (if you want them to, of course). Meanwhile, WHAT they know can be altered. For instance, Ozma can have information suggesting Berzon is using an awesome AGI or has a brain-washing tool, or is arranging a political revolution, and they can muck about based on this completely false pretense. This is especially good as a dynamic element. The PCs get some clues, sit on it, and get completely sidetracked. Suddenly, OZMA! and they have clues suggesting they're going to location X to hit Berzon for reason Y. It gives you a lot of flexibility if the game seems in danger of stalling or jumping off the rails.
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I agree the vat should confer some bonus to the Twin, but not to the Original.
Probably (barring, as you pointed out, merging and reforking, and assuming the original survives). If you find later on that you want the original to be pumped up, it's not too hard to justify that, but I doubt you'll want to go there.
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As an aside I love the ATM idea, and may even add this in as one of the many items B2 is attempting to acquire for his overall scheme.
Or build? There's nothing stopping an evil genius from assembling it himself (and in fact, that could be part of how the exsurgent virus reproduces - it makes the evil twin make more evil twin machines).
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Thinking about it a little more though, maybe B2 did actually kill Berzon and his wife is actually the person who releases the characters and asks them to hunt Berzon down...
This is a dangerous position for her. You're right, many people want to enjoy the pleasures of wealth without the difficulties of keeping it. If wife kills Berzon clone, she either needs to ensure they get the necessary evidence so she can bring Berzon back from backup, or she needs to have her own puppet in place to assume that role and continue providing. This would put limitations on what she'll let the PCs do, and more importantly, on what she's willing to tell them. If Berzon is a bad guy, she doesn't want to tell her hirelings that her plan is to bring him back.
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