Discussing an idea for a Game

[Hopeless]

Been reading a thread over at en world and it got me wondering.

Think Independence Day, a massive ship moves into orbit causing commotion down on the modern day world below.

It launches a number of craft that eventually hovers over most of the capital cities of the world and then just as it seems they're about to launch an unprovoked attack several unknown warships and perhaps even a space station decloak and blow them and their mothership out of the sky...

Once the fight is over these unknown spacecraft seemingly disappear leaving the world below to recover from the sudden holocaust because although they stopped the attackers the alien invaders' ships crashland on the world below causing alot of damage and the world is still reeling from the revelation that not only is there intelligent life out there but at least some of it is intentionally hostile with most the regular folk unaware that this cut short alien invasion was the result of another species intervening and they may very well still be out there somewhere perhap even walking alongside the rest of the race who calls this world home...

So I wanted to ask your opinions on this?

 

[CosmicGamer]

Sorry but I don't quite understand what the game plot is. For me, this sounds more like a setting idea.

I don't even know who the characters are supposed to be. The race that tried to attack? The race that took out the attackers? The 3rd party manipulative race? The locals?

There is nothing wrong with this as a start. Not much else to comment on.

 

[Hopeless]

Sorry but I don't quite understand what the game plot is. For me, this sounds more like a setting idea.

I don't even know who the characters are supposed to be. The race that tried to attack? The race that took out the attackers? The 3rd party manipulative race? The locals?

There is nothing wrong with this as a start. Not much else to comment on.

Okay so I would be better off making a more personal description of the events that unfold from the perception of a generic PC?

Something like...

You wake up to the sounds of commotion outside.
Peering out of the window you at first see nothing then notice people outside who appear to be looking up at something behind your house.
Getting up you walk out of your room and head to the back pulling back a curtain to stare outside.
It appears quite normal yet unusually dark given it was quite light out front and thats when it hits you that what you assumed was clouds is actually some kind of immensely large object hovering over what you assume must be London.
Quickly turning on the radio results in quite a bit of static making you turn on the telly hoping that has better reception but is almost as bad as briefly it settles down enough for you to hear the news.
"Sometime last night an unidentified object first thought to be an asteroid passed by the moon and has taken up orbit at whats believed to be a lagrange point mirroring the moon. Shortly after the prime minister announced that there appeared to be no danger a cluster of smaller object detached from the suspected planetoid and have maneuvered above most of the world's capital cities."
Shaking your head you turn off the telly and thinking for a moment decide to have a wash and get dressed.
Its shortly after you finish dressing that an awful explosion rocks the house and sends you sprawling.
Getting back up you rush to the nearest window which is now shattered, fortunately the curtain prevented it showering the interior of the room but its now raining outside some of which appears to be flaming debris and where London was is a huge column of smoke as a myriad of fires dot the horizon.
"Oh h**l who shot first?!" you babble as you rush back downstairs.
The telly doesn't work but the radio does as an emergency broadcasts covers all of the stations telling people to stay in.
"Like h**l!" you shake your head and grabbing a jacket head out to make sure the neighbourhood is okay you certainly don't want your house burning down because the fire brigade has their hands full with whatever blew up over London...

(Yes needs more work! :twisted: )

 

[CosmicGamer]

Okay so I would be better off making a more personal description of the events that unfold from the perception of a generic PC?

I like that. I like it as a story but don't like the puppeteering of the character. The GM shouldn't speak for them

"Oh h**l who shot first?!" you babble as you rush back downstairs.

or act for them or make decisions for them.

Shaking your head you turn off the telly and thinking for a moment decide to have a wash and get dressed.

Perhaps tell the initial story from the perspective of a neighbor (*a) or one of the NPC's you know that the characters will be encountering(*b).

Decide at what point the game starts and the characters take over. Will it be during the attack? After? When someone knocks at the door and it's (*a) the neighbor "Turn on your TV. You're not going to believe this sh17!" (*b) a out of breath military messenger with an urgent dispatch?

Once you decide this, you know how much of an introduction story to write and when the game starts and gets turned over to the players.

(Yes needs more work! :twisted: )

wip, that's fine...

 

[Hopeless]

Okay so I would be better off making a more personal description of the events that unfold from the perception of a generic PC?

I like that. I like it as a story but don't like the puppeteering of the character. The GM shouldn't speak for them

"Oh h**l who shot first?!" you babble as you rush back downstairs.

or act for them or make decisions for them.

Shaking your head you turn off the telly and thinking for a moment decide to have a wash and get dressed.

Perhaps tell the initial story from the perspective of a neighbor (*a) or one of the NPC's you know that the characters will be encountering(*b).

Decide at what point the game starts and the characters take over. Will it be during the attack? After? When someone knocks at the door and it's (*a) the neighbor "Turn on your TV. You're not going to believe this sh17!" (*b) a out of breath military messenger with an urgent dispatch?

Once you decide this, you know how much of an introduction story to write and when the game starts and gets turned over to the players.

(Yes needs more work! :twisted: )

wip, that's fine...

Okay maybe make that part of the opening of the game.
Have them be part of the same group from the start perhaps and then see how they react when the action unfolds before them?

Hmm, makes me wonder if there's a clip of Independence Day right at the start from the view of Will Smith's character to act as the opener at least give them as a visual opening scene to work from...

 

[Captain Jonah]

Well let’s see.

Total panic. Martial law to stave off the collapse of governments from the chaos.
Huge alien ships above the cities proving aliens exist, those government cover-ups are useless now. The culture shock of alien existence, the problems with humanity suddenly being revealed as backward savages by those huge alien SPACESHIPS!

Most religions going in to spasms and schisms as they try to grapple with the whole non humans/Gods image ideas. New religions forming on the spot.

Yet another alien race decloaking and blowing the crap out of the first lot. Hey humans there are now two hyper advanced Alien races out there fighting each other and we are ants looking up and the noise and flashes of light.

The wreckage of those huge alien ships crashing to the ground in our cities, well thats the price of housing in London dropped like a stone. The loss of infrastructure, industry, communications, road and rail networks, leadership etc that would come from much of London being under an Alien war.
So panic, chaos, mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together. End of the world.

Morning after the end of the world.

The skies black with smoke and ash. That terrible hollow feeling inside the survivors. The odd sound of emergency sirens racing here or there. Phones out since the towers and exchanges are destroyed of off line, rush on the shops as everyone tries to grab food and fuel. Friends or neighbours banding together. Mobs looting and rioting for some reason or no reason.

Troops arriving after a while trying to maintain order but ending up securing nothing more than a few main routes and key locations like hospitals. It would take days to bring in enough troops to restore even limited order to an area the size of London. Even areas spared the destruction would erupt in panic and looting.

A week passes.

Half the UKs armed forces are now on the streets of London round the clock. TV and radio is back along with mobiles outside of the main impact area. The banks would be limiting withdraws, shops would have limited stores. Worldwide the economy would be heading straight down, markets heavily depressed, world trade a fraction of its levels before the event.

The impact site is now an armed camp, troops shoot on sight anyone trying to get in, or OUT. Have they found survivors, rumours say troops are fighting something alien and terrible within the wreckage. How much is a piece of the hull worth to those brave enough to sneak in. Or maybe a half intact item of alien tech. UK scientists and engineers are all over the place. Heavily armed convoys enter and depart the wreck site under steady media attention then vanish into nearby military bases.

A month passes.

The world economy is now in a depression, The loss of leadership and economy caused by the damage is extensive. Massive unemployment combined with the cultural shock of “The Event” leaves martial law in place across the western world. Elsewhere governments have collapsed totally or lost control of much of their countries. Middle eastern oil is available in very limited quantities and then only when escorted by warships. Petrol is rationed or simply not available. Imported food is slowly beginning to return but many can no longer afford the cost.

So then what?

Every government is going to be doing everything they can to grab every bit of alien tech they can from the wreckage. Every method of communication will have been tried to reach the other aliens. Humanity has found itself at the very bottom of the ladder suddenly and once the panic fades a little the effort is going to be on to grab that tech.

Either alien race could easily wipe out humanity and we could do nothing in return. What is going on. The first race that had ships over the major capitals, was that an attack or where they ambassadors come to meet us in great ceremony. The second race, are they friends or just here to kill the first race. Why do they have a cloaked space station here, if they are friendly why are they keeping hidden. If they do not want to interfere with primitive humanity why are they here with warships and such a huge station.

Are they both hostile to us but consider us so insignificant that they cannot be bothered to wipe us out or do they want us alive for some reason. Do we taste good to them, do they want slaves to strip mine our world for their wars.

Where do the players fit in? Are they working for the government investigating what happened? Are they working for a corporation secretly doing the same? Are they friends trying to uncover the truth? Are they agents of one power or the other?

Welcome to the days after the end of the world as we know it, do you feel fine?

 

[Hopeless]

Oh my word, mind if I use at least some of that as a part of the aftermath of the introductory adventure?

So I could either go the Stargate route and eventually reveal the other fleet is actually human and the result of decades of secretive work that was forced to go "public" because they identified the new arrival as a threat...

That would be easier than revealing there's another alien race out there thats kept quiet all those years since Roswell because they're guarding a protected system ala the Asgard...

It would be ever so easy to name them SHADO and then consider whether they'd actually go public or remain hidden because there are far worse threats out there! :shock:

Still Defiance is due out in a week or two that might provide a bit of inspiration... i wonder if I go the route of having the game time skip say 5 to 10 years or longer later to allow the world to stabilise a bit?

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Another idea for an intro situation might be to do an an alien interaction before or during the big attack. Something similar to that "Signs" movie with Mel Gibson. Perhaps during the attack the alien force makes landings in rural or remote areas to find local humans to interact/invade/eat/party with/etc.

As a GM, the remoteness of the locale can provide greater control over the situation. For that, at the least you will need to design your "landing party" on a more personal level.

 

[Captain Jonah]

There they were, the day before “The Event”. A group of friends who had known each other since school. They had gone their separate ways since then, some had served in the military, one was now a doctor, another a well regarded scientist.

But they still kept in touch with each other and got together from time to time.

This time it was a birthday party. All of them found themselves able to attend, the first time they had all been together in years and so they had gathered at the old farmhouse one of them had recently inherited for a weekend of birthday party fun and a day of foot ball games, computer games and maybe an RPG like the ones they played at lunch time back when they were at school.

Then came the news. They sat round the TV as the sun set, watching the Alien ships slowly descend through the atmosphere above the capital. What was happening, the fear and wonder in the voices of the reporters was clear.

Outside a storm was starting. The wind was building up, buffeting the windows and whistling under the old farmhouse doors. Oddly there was no rain but maybe that would come later. There was lightning though, or at least those flashes that could be seen through the curtains looked like lightning. No one could hear any thunder though. Still who could tear themselves away from the TV to look outside at a bit of odd weather?

 

[Dave Chase]

If I remember correctly the video game for Independence Day was set after the mother ship was destroyed and now you have to clean up the remaining aliens on the planet and gather up tech and knowledge about the aliens, their weapons and ships.

Check out the movie Darkest Hour for a similar premise that you have in the OP.

Dave Chase

 

[Hopeless]

If I remember correctly the video game for Independence Day was set after the mother ship was destroyed and now you have to clean up the remaining aliens on the planet and gather up tech and knowledge about the aliens, their weapons and ships.
Check out the movie Darkest Hour for a similar premise that you have in the OP.
Dave Chase

Never played the game, am curious about the movie though!

Lets assume the game starts after the introduction.

You have your player characters set in a world where civilisation has all but crumbled its grown to the stage where the nations are either undergoing civil war or for example in the UK the spaceship blew apart above the capital effectively covering the entire capital with debris and whilst Scotland and Wales have declared themselves independent a makeshift government rules from various cities say Colchester and maybe Manchester (examples only).

Work is scarce the one resource readily available is scavenging remains from London's ruins hoping to find valuable technology and maybe answers to questions the regular folk have...

Who did those ships belong to?

What were they doing?

Why did they blow up?

What else is out there?

And what's going to happen next?

How do you see this handled elsewhere?

 

[Golan2072]

I once had an idea similar to that, but as a post-apocalyptic setting. The aliens came with their big, maybe 100Kdton planetoid mothership, unloaded smaller craft and proceeded to invade. Humanity fought back with its TL8 nuclear missiles (AKA modified ICBMs), firing the whole stockpile at the mothership and destroying half of it, bringing the other half crashing on Earth and causing massive ecological damage from the impact. So the human survivors have to deal with impact winter, devastation by the impact - and the remaining aliens with their smaller ships but no mothership, jump drive or central command. This works even better if the aliens lack jump drives and the earthlings have just destroyed their generation/sleeper ship, so no reinforcements for the aliens for many years to come.

An alternative is to do your setting the Roadside Picnic way - alien spaceships full of alien tech have crashed in central London and also polluted the area with alien radioactives/anomalies/alien flora and fauna (maybe causing anomalies from the ship's failing FTL drive). The Army sets up a cordon and sends in teams from time to time, many of which do not return. However, underworld elements - Stalkers - sneak into the exclusion zone to brave its dangers and try and steal highly valuable alien tech to sell on the black market. The PCs are these Stalkers!