Jonesh
2008-04-09, 06:31 PM
So last weekend's session was played, lead, and found lacking. I was too stressed out to have enough time to prepare properly and felt a bit nervous, thus, my performance was inadequate and my players were lacking in concentration. I therefore decided to have a session the following weekend to compensate and it worked out for everyone. I need some help in deciding what directions to take in the campaign and how to better organize stuff I guess. Also, it's d20 modern / future.
tl;dr the last session was poor, now how do I do to improve this week's session?
campaign background and such (spoilered for length)
HERE HAVE A WALL OF TEXT YOU WILL GET QUITE A FEW :smallbiggrin:
History was written yesterday, but today we make it yet again
It's Christmas Eve 2040 CE. The third World War ended five years ago, fueled by the oil crisis, fanning the flames of social, political and economical unrest already tearing at society's edges. It has left a majority of the world's countries at the edge of ruin as it redrew the maps of the planet. The U.S.A's economy trudges on as more and more economic and political influence falls to corporations and, more shadowy, organizations. The free market hesitates between
Meanwhile, the President's (Bless him, what a swell guy) gets the option to sit in office for as long as he is re-elected (they edited the... 22nd amendment?) and that hinges, of course, on how well he can please the public by cleaning up the mess that Fortress America is in.
tl;dr Think of the setting as a mix of Deus Ex, Akira and Transmetropolitan. Plus a few, nothing as big as those three though.
A dystopian postcyberpunk action movie/techno thriller or something.
What's going on now then?
In Manhattan, New York, a partial lockdown hindering people from entering and leaving the island is in place in order to facilitate the apprehending of criminals and terrorists from "the thousand men-list" (est. 40,000 persons involved in racketeering and other serious crimes). Assisted by cameras, both manned and unmanned "Overwatch" heli-units (courtesy of the MarSec and VersaTech collaboration), reinforcements from other districts and the National Guard, the war on crime is progressing nice.
It is not a war without casualties however.
Just yesterday at Freedom Tower, VersaTech CEO Al-Qadir was kidnapped by terrorist mercenaries at his fundraising party, the terrorists killing dozens and wounding hundreds with gas grenades and sub-machineguns.
By a stroke of luck, Al-Qadir was found earlier today by the police, his prototype nanomachines missing his goldplated cybernetic arm.
Wait, hold on. Who are we talking about here? :smallconfused:
Pedro Ramires (PC). Son of an estate tycoon from Chile, Pedro has had a spoiled childhood but as a result, his father has no respect for Pedro's own abilities. Therefore, Pedro seeks to prove his savvy and skill to his father. His one psychic ability he has might come in handy in a scrap or otherwise, but he has no idea on how to improve his psychic powers. Or who he is going to keep them a secret from... (Charismatic hero to Telepath)
Garret Ward (PC). A ruthless police officer currently being investigated by Internal Affairs for a suspicious death of a suspect during a raid, he is determined to clean up the city and come to terms with his mysterious powers. (Strong hero to Battle Mind)
Martin Hayes (PC). An underground journalist gone P.I., he is curious about the increase in paranormal events, quitting his old job to search for the truth. (Smart hero to Investigator)
Cristopher Cooper (PC). A rookie "Security Expert" from Versatech he is motivated to advance in the firm and escape from his poor uprbringing. (Fast hero to Infiltrator)
Sajid Al-Qadir (PC) Nephew of Versatech's CEO, he's a slacking computer genius, motivated by challenge and new technologies. He's unaffiliated, an Internet mercenary if you will. (Smart hero to something undecided)
Fadi Al-Qadir. CEO of VersaTech. Telepath with a cybernetic arm. Charismatic and intelligent, he has taken VT to the top. Native Iraqi, he met Benson there and they've been friends eversince. Medium-ranking member of the worldwide conspiracy "the Enlightment" (d20Modern, Urban Arcana).
Donald D. Benson. CEO of MarSec. Telepathic war veteran. Deliberate and a good planner, he has kept MarSec on the top, outmaneuvering other arms manufacturers and making a bold push into security technology.
Steven Parker. Benson's right hand man and headhunting opportunist. A former independent adviser, he now works exclusively for MarSec and he has a good shot at a position in the upper management. Jealous of Fadi's close relationship with Benson and loathing Fadi's easy success, he has been secretly hindering VersaTech's nanotechnology research and hired the mercenaries to steal the prototype in Fadi's cybernetic arm. Perhaps with too much selfconfidence, he contacted the PCs via Sajid to find Fadi. He plans to further manipulate such easily deniable assets (e.g. " Take those people away, they're trespassing") to improve his position in MarSec and stall it's proposed acquisition of VersaTech which he believes will only diminish MarSec's market value. His plan hit a bit of a snag as the PCs found Fadi again just a day after the kidnapping. He is desperate for more time... and dangerous. The "Secret Antagonist" to the heroes
Borislav Daskalov. Sociopath New Paradigm mercenary Sergeant. Wanted for crimes against humanity across the Balkans and Africa. Now lives under false names and he has strong ties to the Bratva Mafiya. Cocky to a fault "I've been wanted for 9 years. They'll never catch me". Was seated at the PCs party during the party and made smalltalk, but escaped before his men attacked ofcourse. The "Obvious Antagonist" for the heroes.
And in the shadows...
(Me talking as GM about what has happened :smalltongue:)
The party enjoys the party. It gets crashed. What? The party. Steven Parker instructs Sajid to find appropriate unaffiliated persons and sends an edited guest list to provide info on who's interesting. Among others, the other PCs. They discuss the how and why's etc.
Investigate, sleep, (end session 1) investigate, interrogate (new PC, Pedro!), track, track, bust Mafiya apartment with poor kidnapped Fadi in it. Police arrive and take care of business, while Fadi is clearly missing an arm. Also, he incoherently said it was too late and they had already taken his nanomachines (end session 2).
Pedro is slumming with some homeless when he sees something in the darkness (a psionic alien!), and the air shimmers around him and his new friends. He fails his will save and gets a headache and a blackout for a few rounds.
Wakes up to the hobos apparently arguing. Four of the six bums apparently are quite angry, even enraged (Condemned-style; **** you, **** you, I'll kill you etc.). Brawling, a few KOs and an impressive oratory display (and a Beretta!) cowes the remaining angry hobos. They eventually snap out of it, and can't remember much.They all remember the shimmer before they raged though.
The PCs meet up, and meet with Benson. He thanks them for showing such initiative in saving Fadi (as he heard from his police contacts) the PCs mention Parker and Benson states his intention to give praise to Parker. Blahblah, cue notes to Garret and Pedro, a telepathic message of "I see you have potential" and nothing else. Blahblah, Benson asks the PCs to retrieve Parker's home computer so his technicians can sift through it for Parker's secrets.
"Trust is a scarce commodity. It's just to make him sweat a bit." Benson says (he has some issues with trust, but hey, it's a harsh world).
Cue an uneventful breaking and entering. However, they manage to search Parker's office well and find a mystery data disc. Pedro holds on to it and he and Garret has a bit of a bad feeling (aliens probing Pedro's "psionic fingerprint" like).
At the session's end, they're back on the Staten Island Ferry with the computer and mystery data disc.
Now what do I do? :smallfrown:
(in no order of importance)
Most important to decide is to what the mystery disc is holding for info and that could be quite a lot and important too, since it was hidden.
I have no idea what though... Just something that needs to be hidden but doesn't incriminate Parker much (or perhaps, it doesn't incriminate him at all, maybe it's something personal). I'd like for the PCs to focus on Borislav, the mercenary, and perhaps even work more for Parker.
I'm also thinking I could use Illithids as one race of aliens, specifically the ones encountered so far at least. I like the flavor of them, but I'm not sure if I just couldn't just go with the lizard type aliens I favored before. I just have trouble deciding here, sorry :smalltongue:
I'm also a bit uncertain of which direction to take in this campaign, the player of Garret the police officer says he wants his character to take part in something larger than just corporate business and such, while the player of Martin the renegade reporter/P.I. wants to investigate the paranormal and with alien contact, invasion/usurpation, the worldwide conspiracy of keeping psionics just a weird tale of people bending spoons, a mercenary group's who's bent on overthrowing the old order and the Enlightment's plan of world domination (which includes the mercenary group) checks both of them pretty well I think.
The other players are undecided on what they want from the game in a larger scale except their characters personal motivations. We all intend to play it as an action movie or technothriller.
Still, tips on how to do those things well would be appreciated.
Importantly, I have a hard time to prepare my sessions. Mostly I just think about stuff, do an NPC (or just write down an NPC from one of the books I got or the internet), take (few) notes and brush up a little bit on skills and other rules that you can never study too much.
And then I sort of wing it. It went nice the first two times but last session there was just too much :smallfrown:
I think I need to write better notes (at least some more notes that I can use) but I don't know how.
Thanks a lot for reading through, just by doing that you must have the patience of a deity :smallwink:
I'll look forward to any answers, but, eh, don't feel intimidated that I wrote so much. You could just give me your opinion on one or two things or something :smalltongue:
tl;dr the last session was poor, now how do I do to improve this week's session?
campaign background and such (spoilered for length)
HERE HAVE A WALL OF TEXT YOU WILL GET QUITE A FEW :smallbiggrin:
History was written yesterday, but today we make it yet again
It's Christmas Eve 2040 CE. The third World War ended five years ago, fueled by the oil crisis, fanning the flames of social, political and economical unrest already tearing at society's edges. It has left a majority of the world's countries at the edge of ruin as it redrew the maps of the planet. The U.S.A's economy trudges on as more and more economic and political influence falls to corporations and, more shadowy, organizations. The free market hesitates between
Meanwhile, the President's (Bless him, what a swell guy) gets the option to sit in office for as long as he is re-elected (they edited the... 22nd amendment?) and that hinges, of course, on how well he can please the public by cleaning up the mess that Fortress America is in.
tl;dr Think of the setting as a mix of Deus Ex, Akira and Transmetropolitan. Plus a few, nothing as big as those three though.
A dystopian postcyberpunk action movie/techno thriller or something.
What's going on now then?
In Manhattan, New York, a partial lockdown hindering people from entering and leaving the island is in place in order to facilitate the apprehending of criminals and terrorists from "the thousand men-list" (est. 40,000 persons involved in racketeering and other serious crimes). Assisted by cameras, both manned and unmanned "Overwatch" heli-units (courtesy of the MarSec and VersaTech collaboration), reinforcements from other districts and the National Guard, the war on crime is progressing nice.
It is not a war without casualties however.
Just yesterday at Freedom Tower, VersaTech CEO Al-Qadir was kidnapped by terrorist mercenaries at his fundraising party, the terrorists killing dozens and wounding hundreds with gas grenades and sub-machineguns.
By a stroke of luck, Al-Qadir was found earlier today by the police, his prototype nanomachines missing his goldplated cybernetic arm.
Wait, hold on. Who are we talking about here? :smallconfused:
Pedro Ramires (PC). Son of an estate tycoon from Chile, Pedro has had a spoiled childhood but as a result, his father has no respect for Pedro's own abilities. Therefore, Pedro seeks to prove his savvy and skill to his father. His one psychic ability he has might come in handy in a scrap or otherwise, but he has no idea on how to improve his psychic powers. Or who he is going to keep them a secret from... (Charismatic hero to Telepath)
Garret Ward (PC). A ruthless police officer currently being investigated by Internal Affairs for a suspicious death of a suspect during a raid, he is determined to clean up the city and come to terms with his mysterious powers. (Strong hero to Battle Mind)
Martin Hayes (PC). An underground journalist gone P.I., he is curious about the increase in paranormal events, quitting his old job to search for the truth. (Smart hero to Investigator)
Cristopher Cooper (PC). A rookie "Security Expert" from Versatech he is motivated to advance in the firm and escape from his poor uprbringing. (Fast hero to Infiltrator)
Sajid Al-Qadir (PC) Nephew of Versatech's CEO, he's a slacking computer genius, motivated by challenge and new technologies. He's unaffiliated, an Internet mercenary if you will. (Smart hero to something undecided)
Fadi Al-Qadir. CEO of VersaTech. Telepath with a cybernetic arm. Charismatic and intelligent, he has taken VT to the top. Native Iraqi, he met Benson there and they've been friends eversince. Medium-ranking member of the worldwide conspiracy "the Enlightment" (d20Modern, Urban Arcana).
Donald D. Benson. CEO of MarSec. Telepathic war veteran. Deliberate and a good planner, he has kept MarSec on the top, outmaneuvering other arms manufacturers and making a bold push into security technology.
Steven Parker. Benson's right hand man and headhunting opportunist. A former independent adviser, he now works exclusively for MarSec and he has a good shot at a position in the upper management. Jealous of Fadi's close relationship with Benson and loathing Fadi's easy success, he has been secretly hindering VersaTech's nanotechnology research and hired the mercenaries to steal the prototype in Fadi's cybernetic arm. Perhaps with too much selfconfidence, he contacted the PCs via Sajid to find Fadi. He plans to further manipulate such easily deniable assets (e.g. " Take those people away, they're trespassing") to improve his position in MarSec and stall it's proposed acquisition of VersaTech which he believes will only diminish MarSec's market value. His plan hit a bit of a snag as the PCs found Fadi again just a day after the kidnapping. He is desperate for more time... and dangerous. The "Secret Antagonist" to the heroes
Borislav Daskalov. Sociopath New Paradigm mercenary Sergeant. Wanted for crimes against humanity across the Balkans and Africa. Now lives under false names and he has strong ties to the Bratva Mafiya. Cocky to a fault "I've been wanted for 9 years. They'll never catch me". Was seated at the PCs party during the party and made smalltalk, but escaped before his men attacked ofcourse. The "Obvious Antagonist" for the heroes.
And in the shadows...
(Me talking as GM about what has happened :smalltongue:)
The party enjoys the party. It gets crashed. What? The party. Steven Parker instructs Sajid to find appropriate unaffiliated persons and sends an edited guest list to provide info on who's interesting. Among others, the other PCs. They discuss the how and why's etc.
Investigate, sleep, (end session 1) investigate, interrogate (new PC, Pedro!), track, track, bust Mafiya apartment with poor kidnapped Fadi in it. Police arrive and take care of business, while Fadi is clearly missing an arm. Also, he incoherently said it was too late and they had already taken his nanomachines (end session 2).
Pedro is slumming with some homeless when he sees something in the darkness (a psionic alien!), and the air shimmers around him and his new friends. He fails his will save and gets a headache and a blackout for a few rounds.
Wakes up to the hobos apparently arguing. Four of the six bums apparently are quite angry, even enraged (Condemned-style; **** you, **** you, I'll kill you etc.). Brawling, a few KOs and an impressive oratory display (and a Beretta!) cowes the remaining angry hobos. They eventually snap out of it, and can't remember much.They all remember the shimmer before they raged though.
The PCs meet up, and meet with Benson. He thanks them for showing such initiative in saving Fadi (as he heard from his police contacts) the PCs mention Parker and Benson states his intention to give praise to Parker. Blahblah, cue notes to Garret and Pedro, a telepathic message of "I see you have potential" and nothing else. Blahblah, Benson asks the PCs to retrieve Parker's home computer so his technicians can sift through it for Parker's secrets.
"Trust is a scarce commodity. It's just to make him sweat a bit." Benson says (he has some issues with trust, but hey, it's a harsh world).
Cue an uneventful breaking and entering. However, they manage to search Parker's office well and find a mystery data disc. Pedro holds on to it and he and Garret has a bit of a bad feeling (aliens probing Pedro's "psionic fingerprint" like).
At the session's end, they're back on the Staten Island Ferry with the computer and mystery data disc.
Now what do I do? :smallfrown:
(in no order of importance)
Most important to decide is to what the mystery disc is holding for info and that could be quite a lot and important too, since it was hidden.
I have no idea what though... Just something that needs to be hidden but doesn't incriminate Parker much (or perhaps, it doesn't incriminate him at all, maybe it's something personal). I'd like for the PCs to focus on Borislav, the mercenary, and perhaps even work more for Parker.
I'm also thinking I could use Illithids as one race of aliens, specifically the ones encountered so far at least. I like the flavor of them, but I'm not sure if I just couldn't just go with the lizard type aliens I favored before. I just have trouble deciding here, sorry :smalltongue:
I'm also a bit uncertain of which direction to take in this campaign, the player of Garret the police officer says he wants his character to take part in something larger than just corporate business and such, while the player of Martin the renegade reporter/P.I. wants to investigate the paranormal and with alien contact, invasion/usurpation, the worldwide conspiracy of keeping psionics just a weird tale of people bending spoons, a mercenary group's who's bent on overthrowing the old order and the Enlightment's plan of world domination (which includes the mercenary group) checks both of them pretty well I think.
The other players are undecided on what they want from the game in a larger scale except their characters personal motivations. We all intend to play it as an action movie or technothriller.
Still, tips on how to do those things well would be appreciated.
Importantly, I have a hard time to prepare my sessions. Mostly I just think about stuff, do an NPC (or just write down an NPC from one of the books I got or the internet), take (few) notes and brush up a little bit on skills and other rules that you can never study too much.
And then I sort of wing it. It went nice the first two times but last session there was just too much :smallfrown:
I think I need to write better notes (at least some more notes that I can use) but I don't know how.
Thanks a lot for reading through, just by doing that you must have the patience of a deity :smallwink:
I'll look forward to any answers, but, eh, don't feel intimidated that I wrote so much. You could just give me your opinion on one or two things or something :smalltongue: