Hey gang,
I know this isn't D&D related, but it's the same basic system, and only uses a very few variant rules.
It's set in 2050, but quite a bit has happened to change the world. I can post the actual history if you're interested (it's somewhat long and imagines the worst of possibilities taking place), but that's a sideline. The campaign focuses on a group of gang members who are all fanatics of "The Crow" movie series, with their (NPC) leader looking incredibly like Brandon Lee (just to make life entertaining).
Now, if you're not interested in The Crow, you can ignore that, since this is dealing with potential storylines, rather than issues directly relating to their background - that can and will come into play as they grow in power and levels, but not until much later. The game starts at level 2 (so they can have a bit of variety and a few more HP).
First set of adventures involve securing a regular food supply. Up until the campaign begins, the group has been hanging out in an abandoned Victorian-style house in a low-class district of Los Angeles. They've been making ends meet, but only just, and their leader decides it's time to do something about it. He picks the characters (plus a few helpful NPCs) to be the force-majeur behind the gang's growth and off they go.
First adventure - break into a grocery store not far from home and loot it. If they're intelligent, they'll only take what they need, so no one will notice. They'll also repair any damage they do breaking in. I have a number of failsafes if they're stupid, including the owner hiring some local thugs to watch the place, with a security guard or two if the thugs are taken out/intimidated and eventually police watching the place. Naturally, if it gets too hot, the group can go hunting for another store (but if the situation recurs, the police will be watching for it, with their interference coming quicker and quicker each time).
Second adventure - once the team has a regular food supply, the leader points them toward a drug house on the street where he says he wants them to deal with a drug dealer who is making the street unsafe. The party can either kill him or intimidate him, either of which brings in his backers (another gang), who either return to the house with him or bring in a replacement and then stick around. The party can attack, run them off, resulting in an assault on the party's base of operations, which if held off, allows them to pick up what weapons were used against them (they'll start with low-threat weapons) and then hit the other gang's headquarters (which will not be prepared if the party immediately heads there, but will if they stop to rest). Here, they run into their first recurring villain - in the form of the other gang's leader, who escapes during the fighting.
At this point, I'm assuming the party will likely be around 4th level, having taken out the various gangers, drug lords and security devices at the grocery store.
Once they've defeated the other gang, other gangs in the area will recognize them as an up-and-coming power, allowing me to incorporate a few more Diplomacy-centered situations where they negotiate for safe passage, create alliances and eventually, start to declare war on the other gangs in the area. If they are smart, they can negotiate a peaceful situation and no war has to happen.
If that happens (and I can always dream, can't I?), I have plans to start incorporating dark corporations doing darker things to innocents to get "The Crows" in them all riled up. At this point, I hope to introduce the "Shadow Chaser's" situation via another NPC (who is a Hedge Wizard no one really believes can do anything but has been protecting them all along).
I'm curious (and somewhat at a loss for ideas) - at this point, what would YOU do, given the situation as described?
Syrinx
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I'm game.
I don't have D20 Modern, but I get the jist of it.
Q's:
how much magic?
what monsters used? (I.E. vampires okay but bugbears and ogres are out--that sort of thing). Outsiders?
what's the tech level/availability?
Is crazy superscience tech in existence (like Reed Richards makes)?
Generally, what is human society like? I don't need a total history lesson--just Johnny Mnemonic or Road Warrior--that sort of thing.
Hey Heath, thanks!
Monsters - The d20 manual comes with a variety of monsters, ranging from your tried and true zombies and skeletons (FAR more interesting if there's no pesky cleric around and even moreso if you incorporate the Weaknesses idea from the book - the suggestion is to have coins in their eyes, which until they've been removed, allow the skeletons to reform after only a few combat rounds - researching the skeletons later will allow the party to blast them into oblivion and then take out the coins to make sure they don't come back). The Flesh Golem is in there (chemically-created monster), Displacer Beasts, Primordial Ooze (which is a unique idea apparently stolen from the quote from "Big Trouble in Little China" about "Black Blood of the Earth!", Medusas (though I'd use them rarely), Minotaurs (genetic mutations easily explain this), Yuan-Ti as pre-existing lizardmen who once ruled the world a'la the story in Neverwinter Nights... Vampires exist and I'm likely going to straight-up rip-off the new Blade TV series on Spike, I like it so much.
In other words, a lot of things from D&D can be imported, but the concept of Shadow Chasers is that the fantasy monsters DO exist, but are hidden behind a Veil that most unaware people cannot see through. Those awakened to the real state of the world are thrown into a war to keep the monsters from obliterating the "real world" and using it as a food source.
The important thing to emphasize is the horror aspect of any monster encountered. If it is an Ogre, there should be a horrific aspect to it. It eats homeless people and leaves their remains to be found by anyone passing, leading the real world to think there's some sort of sick serial killer around... That sort of thing. The real world has to have a reason to discount it. If it's blatant, then it's not Shadow Chasers. The heroes, on the other hand, know something is up and can snoop onto the scene and solve it while the cops stand around shaking their head...
Technology -
Today, plus. Medical technology kicks ass (it has to, in order to keep the heroes moving and kicking), weapons are pretty much the same as today (I'm considering sliver/Gauss guns and actual laser weapons as prototypes in military labs for when they get up there in power and start to take on Aliens-From-Another-World just to make it outrageous). Computer tech is what you see on TechTV, but everywhere - computers are all over the place - roll-up screens, keyboards that are displayed in mid-air from your wristwatch or some other location, holographs... The Aero-Vehicle (AV) of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 (which is basically a Harrier shaped like a car with four nacelles where the wheels would be) exists, but is usually only owned by the mega-corporations...
Genetic technology allows for freakish things (like the Displacer Beasts - a subject escaped from a military lab, maybe?) but also allows people who want to mesh their genes with animals to become Moreau's...
Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, modern day all mashed together, with a focus on the small-scale until the party gets high enough in levels to potentially take on the mega-corporations who do all this nasty wetwork behind the scenes, making monsters.
Eventually, it will be found that the major corporation the party ends up working against is run by Yuan-Ti Truebloods who worship a demonic deity, but that's WAY down the road. For now, it's day-to-day life, but I want to bash around a way to incorporate the Shadow into the game bit-by-bit...
Syrinx
My advice would be to just keep track of everyone the party has killed/ticked off/rescued/inspired/snubbed. At around that point of the campaign start bring back some of the things that seemed petty at first level but now they realise that the kid they saved was actually the son of some corporate head honcho and they now have some leverage. Basically have some overarching ideas but let the game itself fill in the detials.
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Have a dead ringer for Top Dollar show up somewhere they frequent in public--like a fern bar or a mall--where if they go to blastin' the law will come down on them. If they call his bluff, he doesn't know what they're talking about; what's "The Crow?" I don't watch movies...
He shows up again and again, then turns into the gang leader they thrashed, then into a tiger-headed humanoid, and tries to extort them. He's really a doppelganger, trying to pose as a more dangerous rakshasa. He might need some bulletproof vest, though...I'd maybe shoot him.
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When the group takes out the gang, all the other gangs will want to know if they are tough. Any sign of weakness and another gang will move in on their turf.
Whoever the distributor is will also want to know if things are going to be business as usual or not. The pc's will have to go have a talk with whatever kingpin the previous gang was working under and paying tribute to.
Whatever agency that passes for civil authority in the region will also want to know everything about the players' group. For instance, good cops will want to know what kind of criminals they will potentially be having problems with now.
And whoever the gang was supplying will want to know where to go to get their product.
I.E. there will be a time of hardship and turmoil during which the pecking order will be reestablished. Everyone will be jockeying for position until such time.
Moreau's--how bout some part-mongoose Moreaus, custom made Yuan-ti hunter killers?
And of course, the Yuan-ti are breeding Ti-khana psionic albino alligator men in the sewers beneath the city.
Just a few brainstorms.
Great Idea, I ran a campaign like this a couple of days back, it was a lot of fun. Just a note if this is your first modern campaign (do your research, ships, planes, trucks and guns) you really need to know about the modern world, and if you get the chance pick up weapons locker, as the name suggests it is a big book of guns (it includes almost every firearm used since 1946) and is a great help for adding verity to characters. not every thug should have the same colt .45 and ak-47.
With gang life being the focus of your campaign make sure you got alot of buildings and specific inhabitent. Maybe read up on urban warfare tactics so the streetfighting seems logical. If this is your players first game. inform them that its easy to die at low-level. (really easy, weapons that do twice your health at max beginig readly availble)
good hunting
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Garden gnomes--arranged around a house/building/ in strange geometric patterns.
And-here's the kicker-they don't detect as magic, evil, or anything. Because they're.....garden gnomes.
See if it freaks anybody out, I don't know.
(Red herring).
I was thinking also--a swarm of fiendish smileys could come pouring out of a computer screen.
*snicker*
I like the garden gnomes. I'll have them outside some old lady's house (she just really likes them). ^_^
One of my players has Urban Arcana and the Weapons Locker and will be lending it to me. For now, the team will start off with knives and batons and perhaps a gun or two. They'll pick up the crap the baddies drop at first until they have enough money to go get some real weapons.
Villains will start with the Pathfinder (.22 revolver doing 2d4 damage), move up to the TEC-9 (2d6 machine pistol) and eventually have AK-47 rifles (2d8) as the adventure progresses. A variety of weapons will be available for purchase, but these are the (fairly) standard "bad guy" weapons out on the street, so work quite well as "Treasure" for modern characters. Bullets, on the other hand, won't be so easy to find...
Any ideas you come up with, good or bad, goofy or serious - feel free to throw them in here. If I like it, I'll throw it into the game. Monster suggestions, situations to put the party in, villains you'd use... all that is up for grabs here. I'm curious to see what ideas you guys have for this sort of thing.
Syrinx
I've run a similar campaign for about a yearish, and have found some of these to be indispensible
firstly
http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/missions/downloads/index.shtml
very freeform and quick to run, nearly as high tech as you want them to be.
Secondly remember that modern is the communication age. On a transport job, a member of law enforcement, and local news got wind of what was going on, and contacted the runners to try to buy the cargo (I can't even remember what it was) they killed and looted them both, took the law officers stuff , and the equipment out of the news van. little did they know that the van, and the officers badge had GPS's in them, when they fenced the gear, they lost thier fence, which upset the local crime community, so they had the syndicates, the law, and a team of mercs actively hunting them till they left town, and even after.
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I just picked up 138 yesterday, so I haven't been able to sniff through it all, but I think Urban Decay and The Weavers would both roll over real good for a modern game conversion.
I used to convert Dungeon adventures all the time for Rifts, back in the day. There was one called Umbra, and I made Rifts London into Sigil for my needs.
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for weapons don't forget pipes, chains, machete, hammers...all are very easy to come by...
are the PCs(or the gang as a whole)going to start off with access to vehicles...
as far as ideas...ever see "Warriors"
what you have already seems cool, and makes me pine for the days of playing cyberpunk and shadowrun
have you concidered a chthulian twist to things, using the shadow chasers ideas working truely terrifying creatures into the world shouldn't be to hard...
Game on
Director of Sales
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imagine if you will a campaign based on "Day of the living dead"
Remember that the most terrifying aspect of Zombies is their "viral" nature.
Perhaps some dark corporation is using the PCs' neighborhood as a testing ground for some sort of "Zombie-virus" (think 28 Days Later). It is up to the PCs to discover that (1) it is a disease, (2) there is a cure and (3) where to find said cure... all without being infected themselves or having to kill a zombified loved one.
The plague should start slow... perhaps one or two of the rival gang members seem a little strange. Then random encounters with strangers who seem somewhat monstrous and act like animals. Then you can pull out the big reveal with an NPC (that the PCs know and care about, of course) that breaks with the full fledged plague and starts attacking the PCs. If you run a dark game (which, with the "Crow" theme, I assume you do), try using a child as the big reveal. i.e. a loved one who instantly becomes a bloodthirsty enemy that the PCs could easily kill but they don't want to.
You can tie the villain gang leader in by making him the street level contact to the corp (who, of course, designed the disease and is testing it to make sure that they will make a pretty penny by selling the cure to the super-rich in Third-World countries).
...or something like that.
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tying the gang leader to the zombie infection could even come in the form of using the drugs that their selling to distribute the iniitial virus...
the zombie infection could even be a test bed for a new military viral weapon(yes I know it's against international treaty)...
for a truly horrific scene, have it happening everywhere, and the creators have lost all control, leaving only a very small portion of the worlds populace uninfected: ala"The Stand", then when all hope is lost reveal it to be a profetic dream by one of the more "sensitive" characters.. if you use this senario, it probably shouldn't take more than one or maybe two sessions depending on how much time you have.. my thought would be to allow the characters to be overwhelmed in the end, thats when you do the big reviel
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DEFINITELY pick up the Zombie Survival Guide.
it's the book that made me change my mind about a shotgun, in favor of a 9mm carbine.
lessee here, d20 modern ideas:
the food/water around the area has become contaminated. (slow acting poison/virus) a large, reputable drug company is behind it, as a project to both clear out land for easy acquisition and a little RnD on their new bio-weapons.
the aforementioned lvl 2 zombie outbreak. the PC's must quell it, flee from it, or somehow survive the 4 weeks it'll take for the last of them to starve out.
animals in the area have become vicious and are attacking their owners/passerby. the police are baffled and the animal control people are COMPLETELY overworked, what with all the dogs/cats/rats/squirrels/pigeons that have gone bonkers. the cause: an evil druid has gained immense power through some artifact/ritual/pact, and is turning the animals of the city on the people.
rival spirits are trying to take over the turf the PC's and THEIR rivals are going for. one's a nasty spirit of decay and entropy, all about rot and chaos. the other's a spirit of Man, looking to increase the population of people and get some puppets of it's own to wipe out the enemy.
rival gangs have started going missing. when the locals/other gangers have tried to scavenge their stuff, they ALSO go missing/insane. someone's been playing with the insect spirits, and they're making a hive RIGHT under the city.
a vigilant is out and about, ferociously attacking and deliberately crippling even petty criminals. the police are baffled, as he constantly stays one step ahead of them. they put out a general contract on his whereabouts. the twist - he's a revenant, looking for justice on someone, but he's gotten confused. its up to the PC's to help him or hunt him down.
thats all i got right now, will try to keep some new ideas coming outta this rusty brain box o' mine
the hamster