Topic: Good SM2 Adventures?

[markc]

 I just picked up all the SM2 adventures in the ICE store and was wondering if their are any of the other adventures that are very good, and I should be looking for them?

thanks
MDC

[Allen]

Well... I personally have rarely played, and have never run, 'canned' adventures wether it's fatnasy or any other genre. Nothing against them, they just never came up.
My suggestion would be to read through all that you've got and then come up with your own universe.

My thought has always been to bring something to the table that no one has really seen or played before. there shoud be a feeling of familiarity so the player gets a sense of comfort, but signifigantly differeing so that they stay on thier toes.

And since I know a couple of guys from my group at least read the boards now and then, all I'm gonna say is that I've been watching some really screwed up movies lately so thier in for a wild ride!

not sure if this really helped or not, but there ya go.

Allen

[markc]

Allen,
 Thanks it did a little. In the past I have used Traveller adventures for my space game or modified "now" or fatasy adventures.

 BTW, I think it was our 2nd or 3rd game and I opened up Tome of Horrors like they were going to be going threw it and everyone freeked out. After leting them vent for a while I gave up the joke. But it worked very well.

MDC

[Hawkwind]

The old Space Opera game from FGU had a lot of adventures published. They vary in quality, but some of them are pretty good. You'd pretty much have to just take the plot and build up the adventure in SM, as its a very different game system from Space Opera.

Hawk

[markc]

 WoW I have not seen any of the Space Opera adventures. I have the books somewhere and I liked the game so much I picked up the books on PDF. I will have to see if I can get them on PDF.
Thanks
MDC

[Allen]

Glad I could help if just a little bit..

and that's hilarious! will have to keep that one in mind... muhahahahaha!   

Allen,
 Thanks it did a little. In the past I have used Traveller adventures for my space game or modified "now" or fatasy adventures.

 BTW, I think it was our 2nd or 3rd game and I opened up Tome of Horrors like they were going to be going threw it and everyone freeked out. After leting them vent for a while I gave up the joke. But it worked very well.

MDC

[Hawkwind]

Well, I may have exaggerated slightly when I said LOTS of adventures - I have a lot of Space Opera books on my shelves, but it turns out most of them are star atlases and spacecraft compendiums 

I do have three Space Opera adventures though - Vault of the Ni'er Queyon (product number 7113), Fasolt in Peril (7114), and Operation Peregrine: The Quanchiovt Conspiracy (7128). The first two were written in 1982 and the last in 1983.

Its been a long, long time since I ran Space Opera, but I recall that I used the Vault of the Ni'er Queyon to start the campaign.

There are three others on DriveThruRPG - Agents of Rebellion, Martigan Belt, and Casino Galactica.

And according to this page - http://www.dancha.com/gaming/so_coll.html - there were a total of 10 adventures published - the 6 listed above and Probe NGC 8436, Alien Base, Incedus III, and Rowsion II.

Hope this helps you in your quest 

Hawk

[markc]

Hawkwind,
 Thanks I went up and looked at DTRPG and saw the adventures there. When I find some disposable income I might pick them up as having a few more space adventues in the old pocket is not bad.

MDC

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Look in the Guild Companion archives (use our on-site search with codewords):
The Pyramids of Luyten
Crash and Burn
Andaris Research Station

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[markc]

Thanks all.

MDC

[Sekin]

If you use ready-made adventures you run the risk that they hardly give you a new type of plot. It is mostly background information, interesting places etc. That is cool, obviously, but they might just turn out to be one adventure more you gotta have to get through...  (This was not supposed to sound rude or anything...)

However, I would really like to recommend you to take a look at the British Islands Travel (BIT) supplements "101". I love the concept. They got "101 Cargos", "...Governments", "...Travellers", "...Religions", "...Rendezvous" (Bar Encounters), "...Patrons" (The kind of guys, an adventure usually starts with), "...Corporations", "...Lifeforms", "...Starcrews" and the most generic but greatest "101 PLOTS". Maybe some of them have been published by/for GURPS. Traveller Classic Supplement 6, 76 Patrons is something similar, or even the original idea.

Another great source for plot ideas is Lisa J. Steele's "Mysteries" for GURPS 4th Edition. She explains how to run a Crime adventure... She gave me great insights on what to do and what to avoid, mentioning the short term memory of the players and stressing to keep things simple. One of her referrals is S.S. Van Dine. He wrote 20 rules for writing detective stories. Though the book is directed to Crime Adventures, it is an awesome source for every GM. (Just do not tell your players about those tricks.) 

A-aaand another generic but gracious source would be S. John Ross' "The Big List of RPG Plots".

In general, I like to get inspired by the material for GURPS and Traveller.

Well, well...

[markc]

Sekin,
 Thanks, as you pointed out I generally use the broad design of the adventures and put it into my campaign world. For example I do not use the traveller races but I did use the idea of Milenu 0 in that an emporer was again on a throne and was sending ships out to scout the lost worlds and report back. I used the idea from Warhammer 40k in which some rare stones, think very rare diamonds in which they only had found 8 or so during all the centures of space exploration, were wanted by the emporer. But it was also found out that the emporor thought he would gain untold power from posessing 12 stones. The PC's found out that some thought that some creature lived in the stones and had a better chance of contolling a subject depending on how many stones the person held. And when someone had 12 the spirit of the stones would push out the soul of the person who had collected them. BTW past emporer'e had created a crown and placed the found stones in them.
 I think you can see that I used a fair amount of stuff from others to create something I hope was unique and new but allowed me to use some material so I would not have to flesh out everything from scrach. Especially worlds in the universe, traveller milenu 0 helped in that effect a great deal. I also took some of the ideas for character creation from traveller in that I required a Pc to make danger rolls for each TP they took like in traveller character creation but I based part of the roll on info from my unverse as well as a random roll just to see if they encountered more or less danger in the TP than normal.

Thanks
MDC 

[Sekin]

I think you can see that I used a fair amount of stuff from others to create something I hope was unique and new but allowed me to use some material so I would not have to flesh out everything from scrach. Especially worlds in the universe, traveller milenu 0 helped in that effect a great deal. I also took some of the ideas for character creation from traveller in that I required a Pc to make danger rolls for each TP they took like in traveller character creation but I based part of the roll on info from my unverse as well as a random roll just to see if they encountered more or less danger in the TP than normal.

  Well, actually I was not referring (at all) to the MATERIAL but rather to the structure of the plot. I am sure, you do your homework. BUT usually, we think we have to always give our players new VISUAL input for their imagination (which is great without a doubt). However, I think, that it is the PLOT or, especially, the TWIST of the PLOT (the FORM or structure of the adventure if you want so) that gives the spectacle (all the raw material we usually rummage for in all the RPGs we know) a whole new meaning, and creates this NEW adventure, we and especially our players are looking for.

 Hope, I did not overshoot the mark here..., markc?!! 

[Sekin]

And those books I mentioned really do just that. They give you a great formal structure (PLOTS and all kinds of TWISTS), to which you only have to apply your raw material from all the stuff you have read and bought.

[markc]

Hope, I did not overshoot the mark here..., markc?!! 

 Not in any way. I agree that looking at adventures as mini-stories is a good idea and now that I am older I tend to do that also. Also I have been playing in a WoD Mage game and in that system you do think of adventuring as parts in a movie, book or play. Or at least that is the angle they put forth in their books.

 I can say that I also like the way Cuthulu books are layed out. In general they have a series of 7 linked adventures with a grand design. Now I can say that a party of mine has never reached the seventh part or even the fith part as insanity has griped the gruop or they have disolved into a puddle of goo by then. But I do like there epic thinking and design. You can also see this epic design IMO in Warhammer FRP in The ememy within campaign which I picked up back in the mid 80's.

Thanks
MDC