Characters starting as prisoners.

[AndrewW]

Prison Planet got me thinking about something. Anyone ever had a campaign that started out with the player characters as prisoners?

This wouldn't have to mean they are career criminals. Say could have run afoul of some obscure law on a world. Got tangled up in events beyond their control.

Could be a way for the characters to meet up. "Yeah, I met my army buddy over there in prison." Nice topic starter.

 

[Dietrich hault-Rauln]

A mate of mine ran several versions of this starter over the years:
- Your ship crashes half way round the Low Tech planet from the Class D starport. You set out on foot.
- The Lowberth capsule opens and you sit up. You suddenly realise that you can't remember your name nor why you're in the Lowberth.
- You wake up. Sunlight is streaming through the small, high window. It makes a pattern of light and shadow on the wall, just like a set of prison bars ....

This was often a way of removing all the high tech widgitry and ironmongery that teen-age Traveller players insist on tooling their starting characters up with :twisted: and was also an interesting way of starting off a one-off or convention game where there was no conceivable reason for the characters to actually get together, and no-one was particularly interested in roleplaying the meet-up. Sorta-like 'lifeboat from the Titanic', or 'Survivor: Gabon' :lol:

 

[Stattick]

Farscape

 

[rust]

Anyone ever had a campaign that started out with the player characters as prisoners?

We did not start the campaign that way, but in one of the "sub-campaigns"
the characters are members of a "road gang", volunteered for hard work
(mining, construction, terraforming ...) on a remote hostile colony planet
to have their sentences reduced, and with the option to stay as colonists
with cleaned papers once their time has been done.

 

[Raalle]

Here's an idea: Maybe the players are a crack commando unit sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit....

Plenty of story possibilities there, I think. :wink:

 

[Dave Chase]

Or they are military criminal offered a chance to do 1 more mission that if they live they will be allowed their freedom (Green Beret).

Dave Chase

 

[Gee4orce]

Isn't this how Blakes 7 started out ?

 

[IanBruntlett]

Prison Planet got me thinking about something. Anyone ever had a campaign that started out with the player characters as prisoners?

That's exactly what I did on Thursday, using "Prison Planet". It went well - for various reasons I was short of time and the text was OK. It had plenty of material in which to run adventures.

I went into Newcastle today to buy "Beltstrike". I intend to run that after "Prison Planet".

HTH


Ian

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Isn't this how Blakes 7 started out ?

Oh yes....

My forthcoming game has both players starting out in a prison transport. One is a smuggler who has been in a Solomani gulag for the past 4 years, the other is a SolSec agent going undercover as himself (that is, he is disavowed by SolSec and imprisoned, but actually on a super secret mission). He is to break out player one and then hide up with player one's old criminal associates and hopefully get a job with them.

Not exactly B7, but there is also a murderously ambitious Party commissioner who wears low cut ball gowns and a prissily arrogant super computer that, if they get that far, and ask the right questions, can tell them exactly what's going on (which, inevitably, involves Hivers...).

Each player will have a secret agenda unbeknownst to the other, and we will each have laptops to send secret messages to each other. And if they end up trying to kill each other that just adds to the fun!

Escaping and stealing the prison transport lets the game start with a bang and also gives the players moral conundrums immediately, as they'll have to decide what to do with the crew and other prisoners.

 

[AndrewW]

Here's an idea: Maybe the players are a crack commando unit sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit....

Plenty of story possibilities there, I think. :wink:

Actually I had thought of that particular item before I even started the thread.

 

[AndrewW]

That's exactly what I did on Thursday, using "Prison Planet". It went well - for various reasons I was short of time and the text was OK. It had plenty of material in which to run adventures.

I agree should be able to get a few sessions out of Prison Planet.

I went into Newcastle today to buy "Beltstrike". I intend to run that after "Prison Planet".

Hey, that's going out of order you must be cheating.

 

[IanBruntlett]

Hey, that's going out of order you must be cheating.

That's just the way it worked out - I got Prison Planet before I got Beltstrike!

Am going back to studying Beltstrike to see how easily I can adapt it to my campaign.

 

[AndrewW]

Hey, that's going out of order you must be cheating.

That's just the way it worked out - I got Prison Planet before I got Beltstrike!

Same here actually... Got Prison Planet but don't have Beltstrike.

 

[Paladin]

I started 3 new players marooned in an escape pod with near nothing, which is almost as good as prison. They were picked up by the rest of the PCs in the group and set off to recover the pirated vessel of the marooned crew.