Author Topic: Rolemaster to spacemaster idea: looking for thoughts...  (Read 1722 times)

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Offline Ginger McMurray

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Rolemaster to spacemaster idea: looking for thoughts...
« on: February 06, 2020, 03:03:58 PM »
I've been toying with an idea lately. It builds upon something another person talked about over in the RM forum.

What if the PCs are PCs in a Rolemaster campaign get to the end of the campaign and the world turns into a celebration. They've won! They've been inside a virtual reality full-mental simulation all along. Part of the experience is false memory implantation and consciousness suppression so you don't know until you wake up, either through death or beating the game.

There would be some sort of trouble in the real world, of course. There's all sorts of things to do there:
  • Some psionic players have flipped out in the game and their subconscious is manifesting powers in the real world.
  • AI gone berserk and thinks the game is real.
  • Pleasure world they're on is on a collision course with something.
  • The game is a cover for some other nefarious activity
  • One of more of them experiences problems with the memory restoration and thinks they've been transported to a new world rather than woke up in it.
  • The list goes on and on
No pre-written adventure survives contact with the GM.

Offline Thot

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Re: Rolemaster to spacemaster idea: looking for thoughts...
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2020, 03:15:29 PM »
I like this idea, but there is a danger of devalueing the fantasy campaign after the fact. I'd rather do it the other way round: The SpaceMaster characters have to go into the VR to solve a mystery, get an information from a contact, etc., in order to solve the SpaceMaster-universe stuff.

Offline RandalThor

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Re: Rolemaster to spacemaster idea: looking for thoughts...
« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2020, 11:32:43 PM »
I was working on something similar, but because I really don't like the VR stuff, I made it real. (Though I did once use VR as a way to switch games, when we went from Gamma World to Shadow Run. The SR characters just unplugged from the fresh new Post Apocalyptic VR game they had been playing.)

The PCs all started out as villagers when a group of adventures arrive seeking, what else?, adventure. Through the course of that adventure, the PCs get swept up and it turns out that one of the adventurers isn't what they seem (though, in reality, none of them are), but a rebel of the interstellar empire that controls the planet. They find out that they are all genetically created people used as villagers for a type of pleasure world. Each time a new group of "adventurers" (read: rich theme park goers) comes along, they get mentally reprogrammed for their specific roles. That way they never remember their previous lives. (Small glitches do happen, and if they get too much the programmers just dump that individual and make another one.) Now, this rebel has a program to wake them all up, free their minds and let them remember at least some of their past.

The campaign would go from a fantasy adventure to a fantasy rebellion to, well, multiple genres are possible as there is more than a fantasy theme park on that world. So, cyberpunk, steampunk, all-the-punks, as well as other genres would be possible, until you could have a group made up of characters from different genres working together. (If you so chose.) Ultimately, it would go to a Star Wars-like sci-fi rebellion campaign. The game never got off the ground because I could never find people to play Rolemaster/Spacemaster.

My suggestion: Make it all real.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Scratch that. Power attracts the corruptible.

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Offline Ginger McMurray

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Re: Rolemaster to spacemaster idea: looking for thoughts...
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2020, 05:45:09 PM »
I like it! How did you work in magic?
No pre-written adventure survives contact with the GM.

Offline RandalThor

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Re: Rolemaster to spacemaster idea: looking for thoughts...
« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2020, 09:35:32 PM »
I like it! How did you work in magic?
Arthur C. Clarke basically. Though I wasn't planning on having it a magic heavy campaign, so the various high-tech devices would be able to handle it. Just look at the stuff in Spacemaster and make connections, most of the things could be done with existing technology. It does mean that all of the "locals" would likely be not only genetically built, but also cybernetically enhanced. But, once off-world, the "magic" was limited to the items one could carry because they wouldn't have the stuff that was built into the world. By that time, the characters would be in the habit of using more technology because they would have been exposed to it as the campaign went on.

Take summoning, for example. On the world it was handled by teleportation tech combined with the genetic tech of building what ever was summoned. I would assume there would be a stock of such things already waiting to be activated and teleported when "summoned" by a character or npc. Within them could be some type of control mechanism that makes them act in accordance to the spell and what-not. Later on in the Fantasy Rebel part of the campaign, they could even be a source of new characters, opponents, and/or turned to work for the rebels. Imagine the shock when an Ordainer shows up and begins to lay waste to a building full of technicians, and Ordainer with the mind of a teenage human. But basically, I have hard time thinking of a spell that couldn't be done with a "sufficiently advanced technology."

For purposes of the campaign, I was looking at the rebels not only wanting to free these clones, but also turn them into an army. Because they were used the way they were, they were made without the same restrictions placed on the general populous about genetic alteration. The empire did not want a powerful population as they would have been hard to control, so they placed a lot of restrictions on what civilians could do. Of course, they did not abide by those same restrictions, which is why their military forces were so tough, they were basically built to be stronger, faster, generally more physically capable than civilians. Think the Space Marines from Warhammer 40k, but not quite so built up. So, the rebels, needing an army of physically tough warriors of their own, went to Game World (working title) to get one.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Scratch that. Power attracts the corruptible.

Rules should not replace the brain and thinking.

Offline katastrophe

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Re: Rolemaster to spacemaster idea: looking for thoughts...
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2020, 09:10:10 AM »
I ran a conceptually similar campaign long ago. Essentially space travelers ended up stranded on the fantasy world. They initially had a tech advantage over the people there but soon found out the power of magic and plethora of monsters and dwindling tech resources forced them to adapt. Some of their psi abilities were similar to magic and eventually most of them learned rote magic spell lists. They also had to adapt and learn how to fight with weapons that were available on the world.

The world was basically like Shadow World where there was an ancient civilization that had a mix of tech and magic. Therefore there existed a great deal of ancient tech, much of it in ancient temples or city ruins from the time that was. What really made the characters unique was the mix of tech and eventual development of magic. They were long lived but not immortal. They didn’t initially have magical healing but they did have nano tech on their ship which could heal but those resources were finite. Mainly the advantage they had as the campaign proceeded was their ability to actually use the ancient tech they found along the way, some of which were just items sitting on someone’s shelf or in a church or worshipped etc.

The campaign essentially had 3 parts.

Year 1. The crash. Getting adjusted to the reality that there’s no easy answer to leaving the planet. Understanding that the mechanics, if you want to get home, best be kept alive or they’ll never fix the ship. Coming to grips with their need to adapt to survive, developing trade, keeping their nature hidden (most folks saw their tech as strange magic). Finding out that there was some tech on the planet that could be used to possibly get them home and investigating a possibility of going home.

Year 2. They were resigned to the fact they were going to be stuck there for a while and had developed some relationships, knowledge of the world and basic skills needed to survive on the world. They became basic adventurers with vastly depleted tech resources but they’d started developing magical ability to supplement their psi and found both a few tech and magical items. They essentially ended up going on a quest and interfering in some plans for some very powerful mages. The year ended with them being players in some crazy political machinations and plays for power. Getting home was less important to them as much as developing their place in the world. The last adventure ended with them being hunted by a cult of crazy elementalists trying to bring the elemental planar gods to the world. There was a warped interpretation of a prophecy that had been hinted at throughout the year beginning with the last couple of adventures in year 1 about strangers with a god machine that could breach the planes.

Year 3. They had at this point abandoned going home. They were going to build their own kingdom. A couple characters had married and started families. They’d made enemies and friends. Bought land and earned titles like knighthood. They had decided they were gonna be stuck here and made the most of it. We kinda put down there and hadn’t finished what I planned for year 3.

Offline yammahoper

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Re: Rolemaster to spacemaster idea: looking for thoughts...
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2020, 06:56:36 PM »
Type V Demons are from a high tech Universe/Pale. Introducing Spacemaster technologies is easy through them. I've used them in my games since Spacemaster came out. They blend well looking for lost techs and magics, even running raids.

RMSS mixes well with SM:P.
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