Hook, Line & Sinker – Science Fiction Plots

In this week’s Hook, Line, and Sinker I am going to provide three plots centered on the vehicles that are used in anime and science fiction games.

One of the mainstays in science fiction and giant robot stories are the vehicles.  So much so that these spaceships and mecha become characters in the stories that they are part of.  I remember being stunned by the destruction of the Enterprise in Star Trek III.  It is not something you would have thought would have happened in Star Trek. The ship was not only the characters’ way to get from place to place, but it was their home.  Yet you almost never see the vehicles in an RPG campaign used to move the story along.  At best they are used to get from point A to point B and then the adventure begins or continues.

The plots that I am presenting here are not as drastic as leading to the destruction of the campaign’s home base, but ways to get the characters to think about the vehicle less as a tool or weapons platform and more as part of the team.

Idea #1

Hook – There is a race for a government contact for a light freight hauling through the local star systems.  This is a very lucrative contract for whoever wins it.

Line – If the players win the contract it will give them the cover that they need to do whatever other activities that they will be doing during the campaign.  If they character’s ship is supposed to be in an area the local customs agents and military will not give it more than a cursory look.

Sinker – Some smugglers have hidden a bomb on the ship.  If the players do not make a rendezvous with one of their ships during the race and take on board some illegal good to be dropped at the next destination, the ship will be blown up.  However if the players take the time to do this run for the smugglers, they will lose the race.

Idea #2

Hook – The player’s mecha start to malfunction during a mission.  The neural interface is not reacting as quickly as it should.

Line – The metal that the neural interface is made out of has somehow become corrupted.  The reaction speeds for the mecha will continue to deteriorate until eventually the mecha will stop following commands altogether.  Replacements are weeks away and there is an important mission that needs to happen on a specific timetable.

Sinker – There is a source for the ore that the metal is made of on a nearby planet that is occupied by the enemy.  If the players get ore, their mechanics may be able to cobble together some replacement neural interfaces for the mission.  The players must sneak onto the planet without the benefit of the mecha and find enough of the ore to make replacement interfaces without alerting the enemy to their presence.

Idea #3

Hook – There is an engine malfunction that causes the ship to drop out of hyperspace/warp in an uninhabited system.

Line – The players cannot repair the engine without certain parts that they do not have available.  The nearest port is now hundreds of year away at their current top speed and it seems that the system in not an uninhabited as they thought.

Sinker – The system is the home to pirates.  They have a weapon that can knock out the engines of a ship without causing it any damage otherwise.  They are looking to take the ship and its cargo.  They will dispose of the crew to get what they want.

Hook, Line & Sinker – The Darker Side of Being a Superhero

This time in Hook, Line and sinker we will do some more vigilante hero plot lines.  These are ideally suited for Dark Champions, GURPS: Hero, and Mutants & Masterminds campaigns with a darker edge to them but can be used in most other games with a modern setting.

Hook #1

Hook – Museums and private collections are being broken into.

Line – It appears nothing is being stolen in the break into but it appears that the areas that hold items that have occult value are being ransacked.

Sinker – The break-ins are being committed by a cult that is looking for a specific object of power.  Their research has led them to believe that the object is located somewhere in the city but not exactly where.  The object of power is used in rituals to summon a powerful demon.  The cult hopes to force the demon to make them more powerful.  Will the heroes stop them before they can get the object?  If they do not, will they be able to prevent the demon for escaping into the world to cause untold pain and suffering?

Hook #2

Hook – A number of children have disappeared from poor neighborhoods in the city.

Line – The police are baffled by the disappearances and assume the children are runaways until the body of one of them shows up.  He was badly beaten before his death.  To make matters worse an at risk youth that the heroes know (a DNPC if possible) has just disappeared.

Sinker – The children are being taken by a Jekyll and Hyde type villain who believes that he is helping them.  All of the children that have been taken are from broken home or have abusive parents.  Both personalities want to help the children but hate the system that is in place to help the children so they have taken things into their own hands. 

Unfortunately, the conditions that they have created are much worse than anything the children would have found in the system.  The children are being held in cages until they are brainwashed into believing that the villain is working in their best interests.  Add to that the volatile personality of the Hyde side which has already beaten one of the children to death and you have a recipe for disaster.  How will the heroes react when some of the children try to harm them for taking them from their new parent?

Hook #3

Hook – There is a new vigilante in town that has been taking on organized crime.

Line – The vigilante has been taking down drug dealers and prostitution rings but most of the time the evidence that would keep those that lets live off the street goes missing. Also there does not seem to be a drop in the amount of drugs on the streets to match what this new vigilante has taken.

Sinker – The vigilante is actually a super villain looking to start his own organized crime empire. He figures the best way to do that is to take down the competition with the help of the city’s hero and police community and finance his new empire form the old organized crime families.  This will get him an inside track on how the heroes and police fight organized crime and provide him an advantage when he finally changes sides.  Will the heroes figure this out before that or will they inadvertently create their own worst enemy?

Hook, Line & Sinker – Fantasy Role Playing Games

This edition of Hook, Line & Sinker will focus on adventure ideas for fantasy role playing games.  As I came up with them, I was basing them off of my experiences with Dungeons & Dragons, but they are suitable for any fantasy role playing game.

Idea # 1

Hook – The adventurers are sitting in the inn in a town when they hear the story that a medusa has taken up residence in the ruins of a long dead wizard’s home.   A young child who was turned to stone was found in a field close by the swamp where the wizard’s house is.

Line – The town council asks the adventurers to look into the rumors and kill the medusa for them.  They will pay them a small amount of gold to do it.

Sinker – The rumor is not entirely correct.  There is no medusa in the swamp.  The thing that turned the child to stone was a cockatrice.  The wizard kept a flight of 3 of them as pets and for security to keep people away from his home.  Food has grown scarce around the ruins of the wizard’s home so the cockatrice have been looking for food closer to the town.  Make sure to provide the players the ability to turn anybody who has been turned to stone back to flesh by having a few stone to flesh potions available to them.

Idea #2

Hook – The party comes across a caravan that looks like it has just been attacked by bandits.

Line – The caravan indeed has been attacked but the only thing that was taken was the teenage daughter of the local baron on her way to be married.  The caravan master asks for the party’s help in recovering the young woman promising that the baron will reward them for their help.

Sinker – The young woman was not kidnapped by bandits, but was actually taken by the son of another local noble whom she is in love with.  The young man is rescuing his love from a marriage of state that the young woman wants no part of.  The two hope to escape to the lands of a neighboring land and get married themselves.  To complicate matters there has been a feud between the two families that has been going on for generations and their fathers hate one another.  Will the players drag the daughter back to be married to someone she does not love, help the young lovers get away for their own marriage of love, or will there be a Romeo and Juliet ending to the story?

Idea #3

Hook – The apprentice of a wizard who has befriended the players in the past bursts into the party’s camp one night and collapse.

Line – Once the players are able to revive him, the apprentice tells the players that the wizard has been taken captive.  A group of evil wizards need information from the good wizard in order to complete a spell that will cause all magic to stop working in a twenty mile radius.  After the spell is cast no one with magic can enter the area and any one that participates in the ritual will not be affected by the spell and will retain their magical powers and abilities.

Sinker – One of the evil wizards did kidnap the good wizard, but the apprentice is actually working with him.  One of the players has an object that is important to the ritual.  The apprentice’s job is to lead the players into a trap set by the evil wizard and his minions so they can get the object.  If the apprentice can get his hands on the object before then so much the better.