Need Help Developing An Adventure Idea For This Sunday

[Solomani666]

I need help developing an adventure for this Sunday

Highlights without too much detail:

Fartrader crew in Regina subsector somewhere near but not too far from Boughene.

Steward gets stabbed by a passenger and dies during jump.

Minor missjump at dest and pick up a distress beacon.

Find a fartrader shot to pieces. Trader is used by one of General Products 'trouble shooting' teams on a secret mission for a GP exec who lives in Boughene up port.

Players board ship.
Surviving GP guys may or may not try to take over the players ship. I have not decided yet.

They repelled the boarders and the ship is a mess. some of th GP team are killed.

Cargo includes a human female and a briefcase, both property of the GP exec. Possibly other cargo.

Was thinking about Rigilian Flu vaccine the evec had stashed in his secret wearhouse in some planet. He having orchastrated the outbreak on some nearby system to make a fortune by selling the vaccine.

He and a few other GP execs are running their own crime syndicate as a side business.

So should the team try to take over the players ship and why?

What is in the brief case?
What other cargo?

I want it to be something potentionaly very valuable or damaging to GP. Something the players will debate over retuning to the GP exec or keeping for themselves, but very hard to sell without becoming noticed.

As they leave, another pirate ship arrives.

The girl will most likely stay as a crew member (steward), but if the GP exec finds out about her he will want his 'property' back.

If they return the goods to the exec and keep the girl hidden they will be rewarded and maybe asked to complete whatever mission the other team failed at.


.

 

[AndrewW]

The cargo could be some sort of prototype, perhaps one that doesn't work right and GP doesn't want it known that it isn't working.

 

[Solomani666]

The cargo could be some sort of prototype, perhaps one that doesn't work right and GP doesn't want it known that it isn't working.

Thanks!

It needs to be something more personal to the GP exec or his criminal enterprises, and not something GP would develop, unless it was stolen from a rival corporation.

.

 

[AndrewW]

The prototype is based on designs that the exec 'borrowed' from another corporation.

 

[captrooper]

It needs to be something more personal to the GP exec or his criminal enterprises, and not something GP would develop, unless it was stolen from a rival corporation.

.

Perhaps the case contains data linking the exec to some funds embezzlement he was using to locate and get into an underground psionics organisation, with a view to getting himself some powers...

Your players will now either be drooling or disgusted

Of course, the exec is a fantasist and he has been conned - his 'psionics' contact is a con man, and there is no underground organisation.

Chris

 

[AndrewW]

Of course, the exec is a fantasist and he has been conned - his 'psionics' contact is a con man, and there is no underground organisation.

There is, but the con man wasn't representing them. And now they are out to get the con man and he needs the parties help to avoid them.

 

[far-trader]

Of course, the exec is a fantasist and he has been conned - his 'psionics' contact is a con man, and there is no underground organisation.

There is, but the con man wasn't representing them. And now they are out to get the con man and he needs the parties help to avoid them.

Which is of course another con

Wheels within wheels within wheels...

One could keep this going for quite some time, peeling away layers only to find at the very center of it...

...nothing at all.

 

[alex_greene]

I always try to keep it simple when doing a scenario for a single adventure. Even with a story spread over a couple of sittings, each chapter of the tale (and I'm borrowing from the Storytelling system for the terminology here) is about one specific aspect of the unfolding narrative: e.g. Part 1, the guys meet the Patron, the Patron hires them to knock over a bank, a threat of a complication is hinted at; part 2, the guys do the legwork, case the joint, more of the complication is revealed; part 3, the heist, the complication arises full force, everyone running around, all action and fun, then wrap up the tale and hopefully everybody will have come away with a nice chunk of cash and some tasty gear for their troubles.

In this case, you need to focus on three things - the murder of the steward; investigation of the other ship; the girl.

One, the murder of the steward. Did that happen in plain sight or was it a locked room mystery requiring sleuthwork? Can the characters work out whodunnit, or did they see the killer do the deed and stand there with the bloody knife (or whatever instrument he used) in his hand? Do they work out why the steward died?

Two, the stricken vessel. Entirely unrelated case. Suppose they're not actual employees - they put on uniforms as disguises to get them on board. They are freelance infiltrators - essentially, Travellers like the player characters. They had been hired to bring the ship in, because it had been jacked. They can still bring it in, if they can hire the assistance of the characters' ship - they only need a ton of the ship's power plant fuel, enough to get them to the mainworld, which they will pay for.

They don't know about the girl or the briefcase. Their mission was to bring back the ship.

Three, the girl and the briefcase. She is a diplomat's daughter. The girl was in a hotel room a couple of Jumps back, when the jackers caught her unaware, filled the room with sleeping gas, and brought her aboard. She has been in cold sleep ever since, and they had hoped the Diplomatic Service would pay them handsomely to keep her out of the hands of slavers.

Trouble is, firstly they'd already lined her up for the auction block in a black market location on Boughene; worse, the Service have sent someone to bring both her and the briefcase (a diplomatic pouch) back home, safe and sound.

That's not a pirate ship. It's a privateer, commissioned through side channels by the hostage's mother, the diplomat.

The privateer has no idea who's on whose side. They only know to retrieve the girl, and they may think that everybody - the characters, the steward's murderer, the mercs on the other ship - is in on the kidnapping. They may well believe that the characters are slavers, and that they have just caught the lot of them on the point of handing the cargo over.

So while it looks complicated, it can actually be smoothed over with some fast talking, and the privateer can even offer to tow the stricken ship back to port for a small share of the reward.

And if diplomacy fails, it's running battles throughout the corridors of both ships. Fortunately, the hostage is the daughter of a diplomat ...

 

[Solomani666]

I always try to keep it simple when doing a scenario for a single adventure. Even with a story spread over a couple of sittings, each chapter of the tale (and I'm borrowing from the Storytelling system for the terminology here) is about one specific aspect of the unfolding narrative: e.g. Part 1, the guys meet the Patron, the Patron hires them to knock over a bank, a threat of a complication is hinted at; part 2, the guys do the legwork, case the joint, more of the complication is revealed; part 3, the heist, the complication arises full force, everyone running around, all action and fun, then wrap up the tale and hopefully everybody will have come away with a nice chunk of cash and some tasty gear for their troubles.

In this case, you need to focus on three things - the murder of the steward; investigation of the other ship; the girl.

One, the murder of the steward. Did that happen in plain sight or was it a locked room mystery requiring sleuthwork? Can the characters work out whodunnit, or did they see the killer do the deed and stand there with the bloody knife (or whatever instrument he used) in his hand? Do they work out why the steward died?

Two, the stricken vessel. Entirely unrelated case. Suppose they're not actual employees - they put on uniforms as disguises to get them on board. They are freelance infiltrators - essentially, Travellers like the player characters. They had been hired to bring the ship in, because it had been jacked. They can still bring it in, if they can hire the assistance of the characters' ship - they only need a ton of the ship's power plant fuel, enough to get them to the mainworld, which they will pay for.

They don't know about the girl or the briefcase. Their mission was to bring back the ship.

Three, the girl and the briefcase. She is a diplomat's daughter. The girl was in a hotel room a couple of Jumps back, when the jackers caught her unaware, filled the room with sleeping gas, and brought her aboard. She has been in cold sleep ever since, and they had hoped the Diplomatic Service would pay them handsomely to keep her out of the hands of slavers.

Trouble is, firstly they'd already lined her up for the auction block in a black market location on Boughene; worse, the Service have sent someone to bring both her and the briefcase (a diplomatic pouch) back home, safe and sound.

That's not a pirate ship. It's a privateer, commissioned through side channels by the hostage's mother, the diplomat.

The privateer has no idea who's on whose side. They only know to retrieve the girl, and they may think that everybody - the characters, the steward's murderer, the mercs on the other ship - is in on the kidnapping. They may well believe that the characters are slavers, and that they have just caught the lot of them on the point of handing the cargo over.

So while it looks complicated, it can actually be smoothed over with some fast talking, and the privateer can even offer to tow the stricken ship back to port for a small share of the reward.

And if diplomacy fails, it's running battles throughout the corridors of both ships. Fortunately, the hostage is the daughter of a diplomat ...

Lots of great ideas! Thank you.

 

[Solomani666]

What system within 6 parsecs of Boughene would be best suited tor the pirate attack to occur?

.

 

[Boneguard]

Personally, I would say any system with an asteroid belt or a Gas Giant with many moons and rings -not sure exactly which system would fit the bill best.

This way it makes them harder to be detected as the attack and makes persuit harder.

 

[alex_greene]

I just had a good long look. The non-Red Zoned worlds are boring Imperials, usually bristling with capital ships and fleets of Naval cruisers and destroyers, and the Red Zoned worlds themselves are unsuitable anyway.

There's a world a few parsecs coreward of Boughene, in the sector next door; a Vargr world, Ougzdaelzoerrg (Gvurrdon/Uthe 0410) - but I know very little about it. I can only imagine someone's Scrabble game being short a few letter tiles after they named this world ...

I do know that the mostly Vargr subsector population of Uthe considers piracy a spectator sport and major industry, so ...

Ougzdaelzoerrg B899335-B Lo Ni Va G

It's about J-5 from coreward from Boughene.

 

[Nuclear Fridge Magnet]

And given its low population level, the locals have better things to do than play "interstellar rescue"... :twisted:

The hostage's mother being a diplomat opens up all manner of possible adventures. Maybe she needs a package delivered to an Imperial consul on the quiet, and the players are within range.

Perhaps she suggests that her daughter joins the crew, to keep her away from her political rivals/enemies (who might have set the girl up for slavery in the first place). The players end up acquiring a new enemy in the process - one with connections at the subsector nobility level!