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| Allandaros |
 Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:50 pm Post subject: |
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Armed Forces General
Joined: 26 Dec 2003
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I'm not sure I follow wehre you're going with the robo-assassin plot. Specifically, what the heck IS the other TS team doing there, if they're not actually Commies?
Is the RoboAssassin supposed to be a PURGE bot? Or is the other TS team a PURGE cell and their target the Commie RoboAssassin?
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| Rickton |
| Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
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Who knows? Does it matter?
It wouldn't to me, but I guess it would to some people. I guess my outline leans a little to the Zap! side.
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| Vatman22 |
| Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 8:39 pm Post subject: |
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GREEN
Joined: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 127
Service Group: Internal Security
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The business with the robot assassin, Teela-O-MLY and the Playing Field Force Field is too Zap! for this.
I like the idea of different societies fighting with each other to destroy the game first. Put in a couple of societies trying to preserve the game and there should be lots of backstabbing along ideological lines.
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| Rickton |
| Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 9:38 pm Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
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I see your point about the robot, but I fail to see how a Playing Field Force Field is too Zap!
I mean, it just makes sense to me with all the citizens around, and with The Computer's insane paranoia, they'd want to protect the Funball players from any traitors/angry fans/dropped cans of B3.
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| Biggles |
| Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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IntSec Goodwill Ambassador
Joined: 26 Jul 2004
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A couple things we are not doing:
1. No puns or parodies. This is a Classic mission, not Zap.
2. No funball rulebook. While making a few non-sensible rules is good fun, we’re not trying to create the rules to funball. Use rules only for a good joke or to complicate the plot for Troubleshooters.
Elm-R-FUD: I like how the PCs’ new mission is to find the Troubleshooters doing their original mission and bring them back to the briefing room. That’s really inefficient and bureaucratic, so it works well. Also, I really like putting the PCs through dangerous funball drills! But there seems to be too much ‘moving through crowded areas’ in this plot. It boils down to “Get through crowded transbot platform, crowded streets, crowded building, etc.” I think one or two crowd scenes would work, say … the team has 5 minutes to get inside the stadium, but when they arrive, there’s tens of thousands of fans queuing up. Otherwise the gag gets old and loses its punch.
That said, the overall timeline is solid: visit sector with funball championship match, get delayed, reach briefing and get in trouble since “that team” already left, track down other team at funball match, enter stadium, hijinx ensue. I like it.
Vatman: I like the arguing fans and vendors; good foreshadowing of what the mission’s about. I also like how you force players to use specialties: Vehicle Ops, Data Search, etc. I think missions should be more than shooting. One problem is the “break-out and find the other team” angle. I’m not sure if the players will get that—they might spend too much time either sitting around waiting to be terminated (since their clones wouldn’t be put in jail) or calling The Computer or its minions to report the mistake. I think most players would go to the briefing room rather than track down the other team.
Citron: I like the idea of the PCs and the other Troubleshooter team taking the place of both teams. I think there’s great potential in forcing the PCs into playing funball then never telling them the rules—“When you hit the funball with your bat, the refbot blows a whistle. Apparently, you’re being fined 100cr for being onsides within the DMZ. Your team also loses ten points. Game on!”
Rickton: I like the other Troubleshooter team being Commies, and your beginning is a lot like the good parts others wrote above. But the assassin bot is a bit Zap.
Everyone else: Great comments! I'm skipping the secsoc missions for now, because I think we need a solid plot first. Once we get the structure down, we can worry about secsoc missions for the PCs. That doesn't mean you can't post them! Keep it up!
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| Biggles |
| Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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I took bits from posts by Vatman, Citron, Elm-R, and Rickton and created this plot outline. I added the Overview which gives a reason for the teams to play funball, but otherwise this is a summary of your posts. What do you think?
Overview:
Two ULTRAVIOLETs bet on the Tri-Sector Funball Championship: the Slugthowers verses the Stompers. Each UV really wants to win, so in true High Programmer style, they’re fixing the match. Jonothan-U bet on the Slugthrowers to win, so he created a Troubleshooter team of champion funball veterans with the mission to take the place of the Slugthrowers in the match. This is Mission A—make sure Slugthrowers win.
Veronica-U bet on the Stompers to lose, so she created a Troubleshooter team of clumsy, weak losers (a.k.a. the PCs) with the mission to take the place of the Tacnukes in the match. This is Mission B—make sure Stompers lose. (Yes, this is essentially the same bet. Read on.)
The PCs are supposed to be given Mission B, but they miss their briefing. When the funball veterans show up, the briefing officer assumes they’re the PCs and gives them Mission B. That means some of the best funball players ever are supposed to lose. Even if they forgot all their skills and talents, they are too competitive to just lose. Besides, they’re all secret Communist agents, so they’ll win the game just because the mission is to lose the game.
So … the Stompers are supposed to lose but now they’ll try to win, and being veteran players, they'll likely win. This means two UVs will lose lots of credits, and that means bad news for everyone. Gee, who do you think will get the blame for all this?
1: Getting There Is Half The Fun
The PCs are given a mission alert to report to Briefing Room GH-01 in HPD&MC Studio G in JLM Sector. JLM Sector is hosting the Tri-Sector Funball Championship, so it’s really crowded. The PCs don’t reach the briefing until they’re hours late—lots of hijinx and secsoc stuff can happen here. Once there, the room is empty—they need to track down their briefing officer. (Y'all have already wrote lots of great stuff for this episode, so I'll leave this short. You get the idea.)
2: Finding Yourself Is Harder Than It Sounds
When the PCs finally arrive and the briefing officer figures out what happened, the officer realizes he’s screwed. (He knows that the UVs picked the Troubleshooters by name instead of randomly assigning them, so he’s smart enough to know who does what mission is really important.) So he blames the PCs and assigns them a new mission: find the funball veterans and bring them back to the briefing room so the missions can be sorted out properly.
The PCs head out to the funball stadium. Once there, they find the game has just begun. How they find the funball veterans is up the them, but the end result is the same: they’re already on the field as the Stompers. Either the PCs call their briefing officer or he call them for an update—once he realizes the veterans are playing, he gives Mission A to the PCs, and orders them to replace the Slugthrowers and win the match no matter what. (The PCs should have the option to blackmail their officer a bit. Why? Because this makes it they’re fault—they wanted to play funball. When they start screwing up, they’re regret it.)
3: Putting the Fun in Funball
The PCs have to infiltrate the stadium without tickets, get into the locker rooms and overpower the Slugthrowers during halftime. Then, without any knowledge of the rules, they have to take the field and beat the veterans. They can also sabotage the other team, bribe the referees, or whatever.
As the game progresses, they start to lose badly. The GM can mess with the players, introducing obscure rules and whatnot, toying with them by giving them a few points but never letting them figure out the game. The match builds to a climax where the PCs actually win. Just as they’re accepting the Funball Trophy, the real teams emerge from the locker rooms. Let the players figure out how to escape alive.
END
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| Citron-R |
| Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:10 am Post subject: |
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YELLOW
Joined: 08 Dec 2004
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Service Group: PLC
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| Elm-R-FUD wrote: |
FREE ENTERPRISE: Of course, match-fixing should be centralized for this society. Sabotaged equipment can be used, but I also like what Grov had to offer with the NPC Troubleshooter team attempting to throw the match. Same idea, but they're being told to do so by FE. If the Troubleshooters beat them, then everything turns out ok. If they force the other team to win (essentially thowing the match themselves) the Troubleshooters will have some irritated capos to deal with... |
I could see a PC with FE dealing with one large problem: "Oh, yeah, dude, we're supposed to win, but we SUCK at FunBall. Seriously, tell everyone to bet on us to lose. Big money, big money." And then the PCs win, whether they want to or not. Somewhat like the recycling scene in the Service Service Tech Serv mission, regardless of what the PCs do, they start some sort of obscure tactic that ends up scoring them bonus points. |
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| Grov-R-LER |
| Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 10:24 am Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 28 Jul 2005
Posts: 2575
Service Group: Armed Forces
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| Biggles wrote: |
Two ULTRAVIOLETs bet on the Tri-Sector Funball Championship: the Slugthowers verses the Stompers. Each UV really wants to win, so in true High Programmer style, they’re fixing the match. Jonothan-U bet on the Slugthrowers to win, so he created a Troubleshooter team of champion funball veterans with the mission to take the place of the Slugthrowers in the match. This is Mission A—make sure Slugthrowers win.
Veronica-U bet on the Stompers to lose, so she created a Troubleshooter team of clumsy, weak losers (a.k.a. the PCs) with the mission to take the place of the Tacnukes in the match. This is Mission B—make sure Stompers lose. (Yes, this is essentially the same bet. Read on.)
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Firstly, i think the team names (Slugthrowers and Stompers) need to be either more simillar, of very different. If we want the players to confuse which team is which (take over the wrong team?), have the team names sound much alike. If not, have the team names very different. As it is, the names are kinda close, both beginning and ending with S.
Secondly, who the frell are the Tacnukes?
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| Thom |
| Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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GREEN
Joined: 20 Oct 2005
Posts: 1172
Service Group: Technical Services
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| Grov-R-LER wrote: |
| Biggles wrote: |
Two ULTRAVIOLETs bet on the Tri-Sector Funball Championship: the Slugthowers verses the Stompers. Each UV really wants to win, so in true High Programmer style, they’re fixing the match. Jonothan-U bet on the Slugthrowers to win, so he created a Troubleshooter team of champion funball veterans with the mission to take the place of the Slugthrowers in the match. This is Mission A—make sure Slugthrowers win.
Veronica-U bet on the Stompers to lose, so she created a Troubleshooter team of clumsy, weak losers (a.k.a. the PCs) with the mission to take the place of the Tacnukes in the match. This is Mission B—make sure Stompers lose. (Yes, this is essentially the same bet. Read on.)
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Firstly, i think the team names (Slugthrowers and Stompers) need to be either more simillar, of very different. If we want the players to confuse which team is which (take over the wrong team?), have the team names sound much alike. If not, have the team names very different. As it is, the names are kinda close, both beginning and ending with S.
Secondly, who the frell are the Tacnukes? |
Well the Canadian Football League survived many years with two teams (in an 8 team league) called the Rough Riders. I presume Alpha Complex could do the same. You know the Stompers vs. the Stompers.
Imagine the hair pulling out session of FE clones denying any payment on bets because they say that their marks bet on the wrong Stompers. 
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| Adam-R-LON-1 |
| Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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INDIGO
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 3852
Service Group: HPD&MC
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| Grov-R-LER wrote: |
| If we want the players to confuse which team is which (take over the wrong team?), have the team names sound much alike. |
The Slugthrowing Stompers and the Stomping Slugthrowers.
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| Elm-R-FUD |
| Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 9:59 pm Post subject: |
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VIOLET
Joined: 22 Mar 2006
Posts: 2425
Service Group: Armed Forces
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Rather than have them show up right as the game begins, I'd think it be a little more interesting to have them show up beforehand. Not by much (like an hour), but maybe like 15 minutes or so, so they can suffer through last minute training imposed by the coaches, overzealous reporters, FE enforcers making vague threats to random PC's for reasons they don't know why, and...
...the obligitory confusing inspirational speech, of course.
"Remember to duck left at the post if the point man looks like he might shuffle the doxie. On the other hand, if they try to run Frank-G's Forward Reversal after the first callback, you should definitely take the time to Wax the Spinning Scrubot and frizzle the widget if the meter runs long. And don't forget the famous words of Dirk-B-DHE-3: 'If all else fails,'... well, you boys know the rest. Good luck!"
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| Vatman22 |
| Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 6:24 am Post subject: |
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GREEN
Joined: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 127
Service Group: Internal Security
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We're going to need a diagram of a FunBall arena for this mission. But the good thing is that all we have to do is put a big rectangular space in the middle of a building and label it "Playing Floor". Then we slap a bunch of labels on the other rooms and everything is kosher.
Plus we can screw with the architecture in a satiric manner - it's remarkably easy, adds flavor and provides a lot of potential for Troubleshooter demise. There are two one-wide spiral staircases to get 25,000 fans into the nosebleed seats and massive palatial marble staircases to let 50 Violet and Ultraviolet luxury box seat owners into their box seats. The luxury boxes project out very far over the arena to allow the UVs and attendants to look down on the FunBall players as though they're ants. This has the added effect of blocking the highest nosebleed sitters off from the arena - sort of an inversion of the metaphor for the Alpha Complex power structure. We can actually use this by putting the Troubleshooters' team locker room way up in the rafters - "budgetary concerns led to the team's locker and fitness facilities being relocated to a less costly section of the stadium so that the other facilities can be renovated in a more profit-oriented enterprise". As in, turned into a popcorn stand or something.
The stadium-issue Hot Fun and Cold Fun is even more tepid and questionable than usual. It's sold out of rickety fly-specked carts pushed around by huge goons on the creaking floors near the nosebleed seats. The UVs and attendants have access to a variety of real food - authentic Indian takeaway, maybe.
I'm still concerned about there being too much nonsense sports blather in the mission. That joke will wear thin quickly. But we can get around that with Secret Society missions - the Illuminati PC has to arrange the murders of his own team's captain and the opposing team's captain, the Communist PC has to work with his own side's agents to make the Troubleshooters lose without blowing his cover, Free Enterprise wants the opposition's highest-scoring player kneecapped, etc. Then the nonsense rules have a purpose apart from constant Calvinball gibberish. Not only do the players have to beat a team that's much better than them while trying to work with rules they don't understand, they have to arrange murders and specific rules violations without being noticed by the RefBot, 25,000 rowdy hooligans in the cheap seats and 50 of the rich and powerful standing over them like Mr. Burns.
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| Biggles |
| Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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Names of teams can be haggled over later. We should stay focused on the plot structure. The same goes for secsoc mission, unless they are an integral part of the mission's plot.
I agree with Vatman that the confusing sports talk will get old and should not be overdone. I think we should use this talk lightly before the players get on the field, then use it regularly in the short time they spend playing funball. In other words, let players enjoy a 'confusing sports vocabulary' joke here and there to introduce it as a gag. Then it becomes vital to their mission's success, which of course they don't understand.
Player 1: I try to hit the funball with my bat.
GM: (pretends to roll) You hit it. Then the refbot gives you a black card for unsportsmanlike play. The other team snickers at your newbie mistake.
Player 1: What? Earlier, Alpha News Network said the Stompers win because they're so good at hitting the funball. What did I do wrong?
GM: The news never said anything about a bat. Play on!
I agree that the Troubleshooters should show up early enough for a warm-up that leaves them even more confused. Good call, Elm-R.
As for the stadium, let's ignore that until we get to that episode of the mission.
So ... do you all want to go with my outline of combined posts? We can always add stuff later on, but I want your opinion before I make this outline more-or-less official.
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| Rickton |
| Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:32 pm Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
Posts: 1708
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I like the outline. I like the way it combines a lot of ideas from a lot of different people into one glorious whole.
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| Vatman22 |
| Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:39 pm Post subject: |
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GREEN
Joined: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 127
Service Group: Internal Security
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Looks good to me. Especially the ending bit, where the players have to figure out how to escape with their lives. Knowing how most players act, they'll wind up shooting each other in the escape attempt.
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