The Blank Expanse maybe?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, May 08, 2002 - 08:30 pm: Edit

Hrm, If I counted right, that's 46 provinces, plus the 3 off-map...

By Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Wednesday, May 08, 2002 - 09:18 pm: Edit

Keep in mind that as the game expands and other racial sourcebooks get added, the game won't remain "from the Fed's point of view."

Thus I think that internal divisions should be kept (and named) for all races.

I think that the insets for capital hexes is a wonderful idea, but only ADB can tell us if it's a practical one as well.

By Andrew Harding (Warlock) on Wednesday, May 08, 2002 - 11:14 pm: Edit

How come 80% of Fed territory is named after Nick? Wahhhhh!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 08, 2002 - 11:21 pm: Edit

ooh, and we can name one for Ollie North!

By Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Thursday, May 09, 2002 - 12:40 pm: Edit

I think that some one is having FAR too much fun with this .

By Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Thursday, May 09, 2002 - 02:48 pm: Edit

Lyran Map

I took a few liberties in "filling in the blanks." This is just my take, and not sanctioned in any way.

As it's GeoCities, it may take a day or two for the link to become active, depending on your ISP.

Lyran Map

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Wednesday, July 31, 2002 - 05:09 pm: Edit

I realize I'm a bit late in the discussion, but I wanted to share my views on the adventures:

Of the old PD1 adventures, I've reused all of them at least once, with at least some players in common in the repetitions. I'd like to see at least Graduation Excercise reworked

In a 64pp adventure, I'd like to see about 30-40pp of setting material, a good 10-20p adventure, and 10pp of seeds and random nuggets.

As far as flexible adventure design, I'd suggest taking a look at the "nugget format" used in the old Traveller "Knightfall" or DGP produced "Traveller's Digest".

And I'd never even consider Jurassic world... it sounds like a great 2-3 pager for a module prime, not a good sourcebook, especially with the extant GURPS overlaps.

Yes, I'd buy a map. I used to have a blow-up of the F&E map that I had blown up to 3 feet long. If the cartel information was on it, all the better.

Sean: So far, so good on the lyrans page...

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Wednesday, July 31, 2002 - 11:14 pm: Edit

It's never too late to put in your two cents worth around here, unless the book has gone to press.

By Matthew J. Francois (Francois42) on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 01:59 pm: Edit

I know this topic has been kind of quiet, but I just found an interesting adventure system, and would like to drop in my $0.02 about it.

In AEG's "Spycraft" Roleplaying game, they provide for the GM a few "adventure hooks." Basically, they give a setup, give about three reasons behind the problems, and let the GM do the rest. Later, they also provide details on the various organizations that could be used (that is, they aren't tied to the specific adventure).

For example (in the SFU), it could read something like this (of course, the 'final' version would be more elaborate... maybe):
Adventure Hook: The Murders
A Federation diplomat was recently discovered stabbed to death on Cygus. He was in a seedy warehouse district, and without his personal staff. You have been asked to investigate the murder and determine if any sensitive information was stolen off of his person.

#1: The diplomat was tricked by a Orion Pirate cartel into giving Federation secrets away. When he showed up, however, he put up a fight, but was killed. The players must track the Orions down and recover the datafiles before they disappear.
#2: The diplomat was actually a Klingon double-agent. He was killed by a Federation operative who had discovered his true nature. The players must recover the operative, who is running from a Klingon Dagger Team assigned to the diplomat AND the players (who he thinks are also Klingon agents).
#3: The diplomat had been infected with a mind-inducing drug that is being secretly exported from Cygus. Highly addictive and able to cause a breakdown of higher mental functions, the drug is leading to a rise in the power level of criminal organizations on Cygnus.

Later on, there may be sections that detail the major figures of the Orion cartel, the Klingon Dagger Team, or the Drug Cartel, and these could be used, depending on which option the GM chooses.

Finally, and the thing that makes it pretty cool, is that AEG encourages players and GM's to report "what happened at your table." You can go online to http://www.shadowforcearcher.com and report which option the GM took, and how the adventure played out. Then, later, AEG is going to release a book where the most popular (or at least the coolest) option is printed as a full-blown, follow-the-book, adventure.

There are also plot hooks that DON'T have the three options, and player and GM experiences with those will later determine a set of three or so options for future players and GMs.

I think it would be nifty to do something like this for GPD. How cool would it be to see parts of your adventure against Romulan spies be included in a one-shot-book adventure. It would not only give GMs a great set of plot hooks and ideas, but would also make (like "Spycraft" currently is) GPD an 'interactive' RPG, where the experiences GMs and Players create at their own tables influences the future of the game!

PS: To see all the 'open' plotlines, go to http://www.shadowforcearcher.com and click on "Threat Map"

-Francois
francois@purdue.edu

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 02:08 pm: Edit

I like it. Write up about six of those and send them to me.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 03:58 pm: Edit

Palladium uses somethimg similar in their product's. Called:
Hook
Line
Sinker

The Hook is obviously the lead in for the adventure.
The Line is some of the way's the player's could go about the adventure.
The Sinker is a few tip's on running an adv. set in this particular campaign supplement.

This is a very simplistic explanation. But it is how I tend to start building my adv. when I was GMing.

By Matthew J. Francois (Francois42) on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 06:14 pm: Edit

SVC: Got it.

If anyone has some suggestions but no inclination to write up a whole idea, email me!

-Francois
francois@purdue.edu

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 07:05 pm: Edit

MJF: I sent you an idea somebody had. You can talk to him about which of you would write it up.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 03:12 am: Edit

Matthew: I've been working on something like that, but mostly in terms of the background setting: civilian asteroid mining in the Early Years. haven't gotten to the "hooks" as yet.

The whole idea for the adventure setting books has been to write up a place in detail for GMs to set a campaign in. And then lots of hooks for the GMs to inflict on their players. (very evil grin)

By Matthew J. Francois (Francois42) on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 11:00 am: Edit

Gary:

Yeah, this is similar, but with a bit more interactivity. They almost go hand-in-hand, or might be completely seperate.

The way (in theory, AEG still hasn't had a full production cycle yet for Spycraft) this is supposed to work is as follows:
1.) Release a book. In this book, in addition to material on organizations, equipment, etc., are a set of these "adventure hooks" in the back, as well as a listing of organizations.
2.) Have GM's and players run those hooks and report their plotlines, results, impressions, etc., back.
3.) At the end of the production cycle, release a book that has fully implemented adventures based on what the popular feedback.

Advantages of this system:
1.) Players and GM's feel (correctly) that they are having a definite impact on the direction and flow of the game system itself. Their adventures that they have at their table may end up, in part or in whole, as part of a published adventure.
2.) It gets people trolling around your website as they report games.
3.) A full production cycle (one year) will now relate to ALL types of players and GM's. Those that like to create their own adventures can use the hooks and play out. Those who like pre-published adventures and settings can wait until the end of the year to pick up the book. And both groups can get a similar play experience! (To cover this time, however, AEG has been releasing free one-shot adventures on their website... I expect that to slow or stop once the adventure book comes out)
4.) It is possible to tie in settings to these adventures quite easily. A book detailing a civilian asteroid mining station and the surrounding space could have a set of these "hooks" in it. Later, you could release a book such as "Rocks & Rolls" which would have a set (or maybe just one BIG) adventure set at that same civilian asteroid mining station.

Disadvantages:
1.) GM's and players may not like our options. Or they might just want to create their own adventures. A minor problem, IMO, since the hooks are containined within sourcebooks. But if we wanted to, the sourcebooks could be seperate.

-Francois
francois@purdue.edu

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 02:10 pm: Edit

Reporting back on how their adventures went is something that has been planned for MODULE PRIME since Day 1. We posted that here on the BBS months ago, so they could have gotten the idea from us.

The feature was called Mission Reports or Wire Reports or something similar. They've just taken it a little further, that's all.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 04:37 pm: Edit

And is something FASA had been doing with their Sahdowrun newsletter (Ka*ja??) way back when. And, IIRC, Torg had a similar deal going.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 01:53 am: Edit

And before that, such a response system was planned for Chaosium's Hero Quest, making the feedback oriented RPG 25 years old. Hero Quest and Torg shared an unusual idea that the combined results of all the completed adventures would be used to modify the game universe. Somehow, I doubt the SFU would be amenable to such.

Regards to the AEG idea of printing the favorite adventure seeds as full scale adventures later, I don't like it. The full length adventure won't get played if I ran my own adventure based on the seed.

By Matthew J. Francois (Francois42) on Thursday, October 03, 2002 - 01:31 pm: Edit

Richard: If you run the seed, you don't need the full-scale adventure book (although there will probably be other good stuff in the book, too). But if you're the type of GM who doesn't like to create adventures based off a seed, but rather have a preformatted adventure, you'd say the same thing about the seed.

-Francois
francois@purdue.edu

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Saturday, December 07, 2002 - 01:46 am: Edit

Of course, the challenge is coming up with adventure seeds that will fit a wide variety of character types. Something that a Prime Team would investigate might not interest a merchant crew, and getting Federation Marshals interested in economic gains would be a challenge.

Perhaps fleshing out Mad Jacks Hole (mentioned in GPD) would be a good idea. It's in a strategically interesting area, (opening up military missions), has plenty of economic opportunities both legal and otherwise (either to gain from or to thwart), and a little intrigue may be inserted at the GM's desire.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, December 07, 2002 - 04:08 am: Edit

Actually, I'm working on something for MPA that could be used that way. Assuming SVC doesn't rip the idea to shreds, of course ... Tuesday is GPD day, I should hear something then.

The idea (IMHO, anyway) is to present a new world/setting in each issue of MP. Along with the writeup will be adventure seeds for all of the different types of character parties that may come along.

No more play-once adventures like RESCUE ON ROON or any of the old PD1 adventures.

By William Minsinger (Crusader) on Thursday, December 12, 2002 - 03:08 pm: Edit

MJF: A very similar format is followed by Dream Pod 9 in their Shilouette system games (heavy gear, etc). They include at least 6 hooks in every book, based on the material the book is covering, and each is about a page long. They also include 6 variations and complications for each (basically little two-line blurbs). That's 36 possiable adventure ideas in only 6 pages! I think GPD would benefit from having a similar system. Once I get my hands on GPD, I will be more than happy to write up a few ideas.

-Will

By Anton A. Spletstoser (Asplets) on Saturday, March 01, 2003 - 11:20 pm: Edit

I haven't read every post, but on the topic of adventure hooks, didn't Prime Adventures 1 have a whole section of this stuff for GMs?
OK, just found it, p.22 starts the GM assistant seciton and p.25 has a random roll adventure hook generator.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 07:28 am: Edit

I haven't looked at the GMA section in years, but I do agree that the random adventure generator is worth putting back into print.