Greatest Hits #27 - Spirit of '77 Adventure Seeds

I almost ran one of these over Thanksgiving but we decided to go another way - regardless, I still like these ideas ...

I was doodling a bit the other day and started coming up with one-liners I thought would make a good title for an adventure for Spirit of '77. These are in no particular order and may of them are clearly mixing some familiar things:

• Land of the Lost Saucer
• Space: 1977
• The Outlaw Mary Tyler Moore
• Interstate '77
• Cloned to Run
• Schoolhouse Rockets
• The Poseidon Inferno
• Any Which Way You Can Lose
• Capricorn Dos
• How the West was Run
• The Galileo '77
• The Shiner Syndrome
• Kotter vs. Kotter
• May the Magnum Force Be With You
• The Computer Wore Racing Slicks

Now those alone might be enough to start your wheels turning, but here's what I came up with for them as I thought through it a little more. I may have individual entries on them down the road when the final rules come out.

• "The Computer Wore Racing Slicks" - The world's first intelligent car is being tested - then it takes off! The PC's are hired to secretly (SECRETLY!) bring it back "alive". The car appears to have an agenda of its own and there may be more going on than simple advanced electronics. There are also other parties interested in acquiring the vehicle for themselves, some far less scrupulous than the party.

• "Land of the Lost Saucer" - An old friend of one of the PC's, a crazy scientist, has been working on a wrecked alien spacecraft and its robotic crew. When terrorists interrupt his first attempt to power up the craft, the crew takes a journey to ... somewhere else. Somewhere with dinosaurs, furry humanoids, scaly humanoids, and strange crystal-filled pylons.

• "Space: 1977" -  Organized crime has taken a crew of NASA astronauts hostage. They are the only ones trained to fly a new experimental spacecraft and with the launch only days away the agency needs them back, pronto! One of them may have escaped - and is now hiding on the tour bus of a famous rock band.

• "The Galileo '77" - a massive, high-tech airship named "Galileo" is taking its maiden voyage from LA to Honolulu and the PC's are invited. While on board they get to know the other members of the inaugural passenger list and everything seems fine until a storm and a series of equipment failures force the airship down onto a strange island filled with strange, savage inhabitants. Can the PC's keep the peace? Can they get everyone working together to repair the craft? Can they protect everyone from the savage inhabitants?

• "The Outlaw Mary Tyler Moore" - An old reporter friend of the PC's shows up on the FBI's ten most wanted list. Has this once happy big city girl gone rogue and fallen in with kidnappers? Is it case of stockholm syndrome? Or is there more to this than meets the eye? 

• "Interstate '77" - in a nod to the wonderful 90's PC game Interstate 76 the team crosses paths with Groove Champion and Taurus for some automotive mayhem out west.

• "Cloned to Run" - a new criminal gang is causing trouble back east and when the PC's intervene and get a chance to remove some perpetrators' helmets it turns out they are identical! A science experiment gone wrong falls into the hands of organized crime and it's up to our heroes to clean up the mess.

• "Schoolhouse Rockets" - A high school auto shop class in the inner city has become affiliated with a powerful local gang. When the PC's intervene to save a kid brother, the gangs don't take it well. Lessons are learned and extreme property damage is inflicted. An ABC Afterschool special produced by Michael Bay.

• The Poseidonworld Inferno - The PCs are on vacation at a massive underwater resort which suffers a few problems when a nearby underwater volcano erupts. Also, why is the robotic waiter looking at us that way?

• "Every Which Way You Can Lose" - Clyde the Yeti has escaped and taken up with a trucker and part-time brawler out west. Add in a animal activists, corporate repo men, vengeful motorcycle gang, a legend ready to retire, and some rival girlfriends and things get complicated quick. (PC hooks include contact by the biologist or being old friends of the trucker) Lots of room for a sequel too.

• "Capricorn Dos" - A fringe reporter friend of the PC's has photographic evidence that an astronaut who supposedly dies in an accident years ago is actually alive and living in Mexico. He wants the PCs to head south of the border and find out what's going on.

• "The Shiner Syndrome" - In the wake of widespread reports about the appalling conditions of the big corporate breweries the best little brewery in Texas is trying to expand -  but the Big Beer Companies are trying to buy them out (to water them down like any other corporate beer) and the PC's are called in to help out and deliver a special shipment to a potential benefactor across the country.

• Kotter vs. Kotter (double sequel) - A high school teacher meets himself walking into class one morning. A science prodigy with a thing for the teacher's wife accidentally clones the teacher instead. Ties back to "Schoolhouse Rockets" and "Cloned to Run"

• "May the Magnum Force Be With You" - San Francisco's greatest inspector runs thinks he's investigating a series of grisly killings but this time the perps are Not From Around Here and this time the .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, may not be enough.

• How the West was Run - A greatest hits adventure as all of the notable NPC's from all of the other adventures - and some new ones - come together for a "friendly" race across the country. A big "season finale" adventure that's going to take multiple sessions to complete. It should also lay the groundwork for some future encounters too. Featuring:
• The Car from Computer Wore Racing Slicks 
• The Mad Scientist from Land of the Lost Saucer who shows up in an unusual prototype
• Groove Champion and Taurus
• The High School crew from "Schoolhouse Rockets" has an entry - possibly the cloned teacher from K vs, K
• The main NPC from EWWYCL (and Clyde?). The motorcycle gang will probably show up somewhere along the way too. 
• Reformed bad guy from Shiner Syndrome shows up as another driver
• Outlaw Mary could be an entry
• A famous Russian race driver
• A British secret service agent

Day 29: What has been the best-run RPG Kickstarter you have backed?

As of today I have been a part of about 30 Kickstarters and about 20 of those have been related to tabletop RPG's. I have received the promised rewards on every single one of them other than the most recent ones and even on those I may have a PDF already while we wait for books to print.

Most of them have been fun and interesting. the M&M 10th anniversary run was cool and the RQ2 KS turned up a lot of old material and released it as PDFs.

There are two that stand out however:

Spirit of '77 had a tone that stood out right from the beginning. The concept, the video updates, and the follow-up and delivery were all top notch. That was a really great job.

The other one is a company, not one particular KS. Pinnacle, the Savage Worlds guys, has done a consistently excellent job with Kickstarters. I've been a part of Weird Wars Rome, Deadlands: Stone and a Hard Place, Deadlands: Good Intentions, and Rifts Savage Worlds and every one of them has come thru with everything promised, no surprises, and pretty much on time. I like their game, I like their settings, and I like the way they handle their business. For a smaller company they have a damned impressive track record and I'm interested in anything and everything they do in the future.
 

RPGaDay - Day 3 - Favorite New Game of the Last 12 Months

Easy:

This one is going to show up a lot in the "new" entries this month. Still haven't run it (sigh) but sometimes you can just tell. Check out the videos on the kickstarter site for an idea.

My other posts on it are here.

Spirit of 77 - in Hardcopy!

The hardcopy books from the Kickstarter arrived this week and they look good. They are digest-sized, more like the Savage World books have become of late. I am a fan of PDFs, but there's still something about holding the book in your hand that feels good. It seemed particularly appropriate to post them up for Throwback Thursday.

Now to find time to read them ...

Back to Action!

Things are settling down a bit so I thought it was time to catch up with some new arrivals.

First the final PDF of Spirit of 77 came through last week - now to read it! I am looking forward to this and already have some thoughts on a limited series (noted here) that might even allow me to run it semi-regularly. Also:

The supplementary material PDF came though too. man I love that cover!

Then today, some other stuff came:

Like everything else about this game it's done with coolness and style and completely in the spirit of the theme. Just passing this stuff around the table will help set the mood bigtime.


Last week also brought the PDF of Feng Shui 2E:

Now I've never been able to talk a group into playing FS but with a new edition, why not try again? I need to read it and brush up on the changes first but I think a one-shot is possible this summer. I usually pitch it as "the game you would use to run Big Trouble in Little China" and that should be enough to get that far at least.

A few weeks back I added this to the collection:

Partly because I'm in a Star Wars kind of mood what with the trailer and all, and partly because I want to see how FFG's funky dice based rules are really working. I liked d6 , I liked Saga, might as well give this a whirl, especially since the build-up to the next movie might finally push some of the crew over the top in wanting to play a Star Wars game. I picked up the starter set too so we have some pre-made characters and adventures to expedite things if we need them.

The main focus is still the Pathfinder campaign and given our limited time right now anything else is a bonus, but I suspect we will at least get in a try-out session with most of these before 2015 is over.

Spirit of '77 Adventure Seeds

I was doodling a bit the other day and started coming up with one-liners I thought would make a good title for an adventure for Spirit of '77. These are in no particular order and may of them are clearly mixing some familiar things:

• Land of the Lost Saucer
• Space: 1977
• The Outlaw Mary Tyler Moore
• Interstate '77
• Cloned to Run
• Schoolhouse Rockets
• The Poseidon Inferno
• Any Which Way You Can Lose
• Capricorn Dos
• How the West was Run
• The Galileo '77
• The Shiner Syndrome
• Kotter vs. Kotter
• May the Magnum Force Be With You
• The Computer Wore Racing Slicks

Now those alone might be enough to start your wheels turning, but here's what I came up with for them as I thought through it a little more. I may have individual entries on them down the road when the final rules come out.

• "The Computer Wore Racing Slicks" - The world's first intelligent car is being tested - then it takes off! The PC's are hired to secretly (SECRETLY!) bring it back "alive". The car appears to have an agenda of its own and there may be more going on than simple advanced electronics. There are also other parties interested in acquiring the vehicle for themselves, some far less scrupulous than the party.

• "Land of the Lost Saucer" - An old friend of one of the PC's, a crazy scientist, has been working on a wrecked alien spacecraft and its robotic crew. When terrorists interrupt his first attempt to power up the craft, the crew takes a journey to ... somewhere else. Somewhere with dinosaurs, furry humanoids, scaly humanoids, and strange crystal-filled pylons.

• "Space: 1977" -  Organized crime has taken a crew of NASA astronauts hostage. They are the only ones trained to fly a new experimental spacecraft and with the launch only days away the agency needs them back, pronto! One of them may have escaped - and is now hiding on the tour bus of a famous rock band.

• "The Galileo '77" - a massive, high-tech airship named "Galileo" is taking its maiden voyage from LA to Honolulu and the PC's are invited. While on board they get to know the other members of the inaugural passenger list and everything seems fine until a storm and a series of equipment failures force the airship down onto a strange island filled with strange, savage inhabitants. Can the PC's keep the peace? Can they get everyone working together to repair the craft? Can they protect everyone from the savage inhabitants?

• "The Outlaw Mary Tyler Moore" - An old reporter friend of the PC's shows up on the FBI's ten most wanted list. Has this once happy big city girl gone rogue and fallen in with kidnappers? Is it case of stockholm syndrome? Or is there more to this than meets the eye? 

• "Interstate '77" - in a nod to the wonderful 90's PC game Interstate 76 the team crosses paths with Groove Champion and Taurus for some automotive mayhem out west.

• "Cloned to Run" - a new criminal gang is causing trouble back east and when the PC's intervene and get a chance to remove some perpetrators' helmets it turns out they are identical! A science experiment gone wrong falls into the hands of organized crime and it's up to our heroes to clean up the mess.

• "Schoolhouse Rockets" - A high school auto shop class in the inner city has become affiliated with a powerful local gang. When the PC's intervene to save a kid brother, the gangs don't take it well. Lessons are learned and extreme property damage is inflicted. An ABC Afterschool special produced by Michael Bay.

• The Poseidonworld Inferno - The PCs are on vacation at a massive underwater resort which suffers a few problems when a nearby underwater volcano erupts. Also, why is the robotic waiter looking at us that way?

• "Every Which Way You Can Lose" - Clyde the Yeti has escaped and taken up with a trucker and part-time brawler out west. Add in a animal activists, corporate repo men, vengeful motorcycle gang, a legend ready to retire, and some rival girlfriends and things get complicated quick. (PC hooks include contact by the biologist or being old friends of the trucker) Lots of room for a sequel too.

• "Capricorn Dos" - A fringe reporter friend of the PC's has photographic evidence that an astronaut who supposedly dies in an accident years ago is actually alive and living in Mexico. He wants the PCs to head south of the border and find out what's going on.

• "The Shiner Syndrome" - In the wake of widespread reports about the appalling conditions of the big corporate breweries the best little brewery in Texas is trying to expand -  but the Big Beer Companies are trying to buy them out (to water them down like any other corporate beer) and the PC's are called in to help out and deliver a special shipment to a potential benefactor across the country.

• Kotter vs. Kotter (double sequel) - A high school teacher meets himself walking into class one morning. A science prodigy with a thing for the teacher's wife accidentally clones the teacher instead. Ties back to "Schoolhouse Rockets" and "Cloned to Run"

• "May the Magnum Force Be With You" - San Francisco's greatest inspector runs thinks he's investigating a series of grisly killings but this time the perps are Not From Around Here and this time the .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, may not be enough.

• How the West was Run - A greatest hits adventure as all of the notable NPC's from all of the other adventures - and some new ones - come together for a "friendly" race across the country. A big "season finale" adventure that's going to take multiple sessions to complete. It should also lay the groundwork for some future encounters too. Featuring:
• The Car from Computer Wore Racing Slicks 
• The Mad Scientist from Land of the Lost Saucer who shows up in an unusual prototype
• Groove Champion and Taurus
• The High School crew from "Schoolhouse Rockets" has an entry - possibly the cloned teacher from K vs, K
• The main NPC from EWWYCL (and Clyde?). The motorcycle gang will probably show up somewhere along the way too. 
• Reformed bad guy from Shiner Syndrome shows up as another driver
• Outlaw Mary could be an entry
• A famous Russian race driver
• A British secret service agent

Spirit of 77 - Game & Kickstarter

I had a post last week about some other RPG Kickstarters but for this one I wanted to showcase it solo.

Kickstarter is here.

I really like this one. The overall approach from the style of writing to the look of the game to the kickstarter video - take a look at it - is just really well done. The Atari cover on the extra book just kills me. They mention everything from the Dukes of Hazard to the Six Million Dollar Man to Smokey and the Bandit and Columbo as influences. It looks like a lot of fun.

I downloaded the sample adventure which has quite a bit of rules material as well, enough to run a game, and it's pretty interesting. It's more in the FATE/Marvel Heroic school of design than Hero or Pathfinder, but there are still dice to be rolled, fights to be had, and things to be jumped over in cars. I don't know how quickly we will be trying it out. It's set on a cruise ship where interesting things start to happen. Among the sample characters is the "captain of the Texas Tornados cheerleaders" and I have to say I cannot recall the last time I saw something like that presented as a viable character choice in an RPG. They also note that down the road they will be doing conversion rules for FATE and Savage Worlds too if that floats your boat.

Anyway, I think it's cool and there are still a few days left to jump in if you're interested too.