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[PTTG??]

NOTE TO FORUMITES: So I'm running a d20 campaign. I'm writing a campaign document for it, but I haven't run a campaign before. I'd love some feedback.

Asteroid Impact
   d20 Modern Campaign Setting
   
Summary:
   [As read to the players before they create their characters]

   Big things are coming our way, soon. Several months back, there was a minor sensation when astronomers reported the existance of an asteroid labeled 2013 Bruce, a NEO with a 1% chance of striking earth. [Get loaded d100 out and roll a 1...] Later observations showed it to be merely a 0.01% chance of impact at perigee; the 29th of June, 2013.

   But by early April, the odds of impact had increased again, now to 2%. By this point, although there was alarm in the scientific community, it was considered by the public at large that it was just another near miss. After all, Camping was wrong, and the Myans were wrong... After years of dire warnings, a kind of apocolypse exaustion settled over the population.
   
   As the weeks passed, the astronomers occasionally increased the suspected odds of impact. By the end of april, with an estimated 8.4% probability of impact, some US groups argued that a deflection mission should be attempted. The proposal for funding to do so was ultimately canceled after several days of legislative stalling.
   
   An automated French mission launched May 15th managed to orbit 2013 Bruce, but the signal was lost when the satelite attempted to launch a probe at the asteroid.
   
   In the meantime, you've been doing your thing. Life goes on regardless of what is happening above. But you've noticed more tension, everywhere you go. People have been quietly buying guns, canned food, and duct tape. Aside from a few crazies, noone really thinks it's going to hit- but some people are getting ready, just in case.
   
   It's the 18th of May. What are you doing?
   
   [Players introduce their characters and get to describe the way they react to the impending doom- though I will guide them away from things like "I run to the hills as fast as my legs can carry me" and towards non-metagamey actions. See below; part of the campaign design revolves around hecticly fleeing the city, and so initial preparation is rather discouraged. ]

Character design suggestions:
   Your character should not be "yourself"- but can and should be someone you can emphathize with. You are encouraged to design characters that seem outwardly specialized for modern life- I will grant three free skill ranks in a profession of your choice, if you pay for your character's relevant skills [Three for profession: nurse IF you buy medical skills, or profession: lawyer if you get knowledge: law...]. On the other hand, if you make a character who is specifically prepared for disaster, then he will have to start out as a pariah, like most modern survivalists.

   Your characters should all start out in San Fransisco (Other major costal cities may be selected instead- I'm using SF by default purely due to familiarity, but any city of significant size and on the coast should work). They don't need to live there, but try to provide a reason for you to be there and to know the other characters.

Rule Modifications:
   We will track actual cash as well as other tangible currency. This is a deviation from d20 Modern's normal "Purchace DCs". We will also use some rules from the d20 Apocolypse book- mainly scavenging, but I have to find that old book and look through it again. Aside from that, rules are as normal for d20 Modern.
      
Introduction
   [As read to the players when the game actually starts]

   The sky is totally clear, and it's been warm and temporate. The sun is just setting now- you can't see it from here, but the scarlet light glows in the streets. [Sunset on June 28th in SF is at 20:36 (8:36)]
   
   All day long, you've been hearing alarms going off. Mostly car alarms, but a few buildigns have been attacked as well. It started yesterday, when new figures showing a 50% chance of impact were released. The last you heard, the government had been arguing over whether to launch a deflection mission, or to attempt to intercept it with missiles. The five of you are watching TV right now- The news anchor is oddly calm. He reads,

   "... For those of you just joining us, astronomers now say with confidence that the asteroid 2013 Bruce will strike earth in the next day. It will strike at some time between 3:30 PM and 11:30 PM, June 29th. Calm is urged for all-"
   
   He continues speaking, but for a moment you can't hear over a sudden outburst of expletives from the next door apartment, and a few distant screams.
   
   [The party might continue watching, or they may leave. If they stay:]
   
   The reporter explains that, given the strong probability of the asteroid striking the ocean, a tsunami warning has been announced for every point of land within two miles of the coast and below a hundred feet of elevation.
   
   He then reads a statement from the president saying that looters will be shot on sight. The statement also gives the National Guard the authority to claim food and medical supplies in the coming national emergency.
   
   He finally announces that the government is establishing "relocation centers" which will house people displaced by the disaster. As he reads, the camera turns downward and for a moment the video cuts out. When it returns, the video is a test pattern and an ear-piercing screech fills the room.
   
   [The players can learn anything they miss from rumor and if they pass radios elsewhere. They have 19 hours to loot the city, try to run, even to try buying things.]
   
Things needed:
- How the impact and effects will be handled. I'm already sure that it will break apart and strike several places- a couple hits in the pacific, a few on land, one in antarctica, and basically one hit each in the major oceans.

- How long to keep the players in the city... they have to get all the way to high ground before the tsunami hits, but I don't know how long that's going to be or how far they need to get.

- How much combat to subject them to in the beginning. They're going to have only what they can carry or cram in a car (and cars will be tough, since the roads will definitely be clogged)

- How to point them to a long-term goal, or even what long-term goals might be good. I guess I could tell them about some distant sierras hideout they have friends in, or something like that. Or I could just let them wander the ruins after the waves and the quakes and the snowfall.

[nighzmarquls]

Depending on the size of your asteroid fragments this could go several ways.

I suspect that since we only just noticed the damn thing its not this size:

http://youtu.be/-zvCUmeoHpw

also that would be a really short game...

But really I'd say they should have been leaving any coastal regions and heading towards the hills as soon as they heard that it was going down the next day... preferably they should be in Tibet but the Rockies 'might' be safe.

One Fudging rule you could use for fast and dirty stuff is treat the tsunamis as moving at the speed of sound in water...

however depending on energy of impacts you also can get firestorms (not total earth enders like the video but signifigant ignite sections of the atmosphere because enough dust is re-entering the atmosphere.

Combat should be short and dirty... down right nasty between other people just trying to survive but brought together in a panic for a limited resource.

(something as simple as 'room to get through the crowded tunnel or up the stairs would suffice')

Most of the time I think the most impact full antagonists are going to be people JUST like the PCs that are either too panicked or put the PCs in situations where the choice is either they push the guy and his kid out of the way so they can survive... or let them possibly doom them to choking gas... firestorm... or starvation.

hazards from ash probably could come into play... Fire too... I'd avoid the weeny fire rules D20 usually has unless their low level.

Another good fudging rule is a kilometer or some nice round fraction over sea level... Then grab a map and pick a few spots that will be safe.

THEY DO NOT WANT TO BE HIT BY THE TSUNAMI

it will carry away cities at the energies involved... most buildings will not survive the energies of masses of water like that.

if thats combined with firestorms I suspect a lot of ruins will consist of piles of rocks that are dragged towards the sea... smaller stuff is gonna end up washed away.

If their near enough an impact site to hear it you might want to make them take fort saves to avoid permanent deafening.

This is gonna be a tough sell if your party is any where NEAR as much of a bunch of geeks as mine, this is the kind of stuff that will draw people's calculators and wiki binges into the game and your probably going to want to try and get some solid facts that support the encounter lest they pull down game bogging research hell on your table.

[PTTG??]

Thanks for the tips!

The initial 24-hour survival will be a major part of the game, and will involve a LOT of "Do I take this car and leave this family stuck here, or do I keep looking?" I guess you could call it the first act, with the second act being long-distance traveling in the hours following the impact, and the third being survival in the new world.

It occurs to me that while I only have three or four players, I might want to throw in some dependents (either player-controlled or NPC) who would be family members and tagalongs. This would first of all allow the players to have a few people to build an encampment with at some point in the future, but it would give us some reason to slow down a bit when fleeing and even give us potential PC replacements.

Yeah, I'm looking for hard science to build this off of. So far, I've been assuming that Lucifer's Hammer is pretty accurate.

[Capntastic]

What sort of tones are you trying to achieve?  Stark realism, apocalyptic action adventure, etc, could all bring this into entirely different lights.   It also ties into the 'how much combat' question. 

[Vorthon]

If you want to figure out the effects of the impact(s), this is a great resource.

[PTTG??]

What sort of tones are you trying to achieve?  Stark realism, apocalyptic action adventure, etc, could all bring this into entirely different lights.   It also ties into the 'how much combat' question.

While in fine detail, the tone will vary with the Act, it will be more adventure than stark realism. The initial escape will be more stark and will probably feature the most science- what with the actual even happening right then- while the second act will involve the most chaotic, adventure-type action (as they travel, they'll encounter several random events and unique places).

There'll probably be more frequent combat during the first act, but it will be low-impact (they'll generally be well-prepared and be fighting looters, thugs, and desperate survivors) Later on, there'll be fewer and fewer supplies, and the opponents will be hardened bandits and survivors.

Thanks Vorthon, that looks pretty good.

[Enzo]

It's a cool setting. First campaign you're running? One or two suggestions come to mind.

Combat during the escape may be most common, but it will be low-impact (they'll generally be well-prepared and be fighting looters, thugs, and desperate survivors) Later on, there'll be fewer and fewer supplies, and the opponents will be hardened bandits and survivors.

I know you're not planning on making it combat centric, but one of the limitations of the campaign setting, probably the most glaring in my opinion, is the lack of variety in encounters. As you said, desperate survivors, bandits, gangs, etc - which all perform almost exactly the same in a combat situation. So I'd take a fair bit of time coming up with possible encounters that amount to more than "you meet a group of weary bandits on the road, and they attack!" Suggestions:

Variety of type: If you're going for realistic modern, you're mostly limited to human opponents. But natural disasters, extreme weather, and changes in environment can cause animals to act erratically. Encounters with hostile animals would be good for a change, and the impact could be an excuse to make normally docile animals act aggressively, or have animals migrating out of their usual habitat.
Variety of tactics: An otherwise uninteresting encounter with bandits is a lot more engaging if they're setting traps or ambushes, concealing their numbers, using cover or fortifications, flanking the players, etc. Although the enemies are run-of-the-mill, it requires some creative thinking from the players to deal with this kind of stuff effectively.
Variety of motivation: Enemies are great if they're not immediately hostile, or have more interesting motivations than pure survival. Cultists seem like an obvious plot-hook given the apocalyptic scenario, or another group of survivors who pretend to be friendly so that the players let their guard down, or another group who agree to let you live if you don't travel through their territory. It's more satisfying to defeat someone with clear motivations besides desperation, and nice to make combat an avoidable option sometimes.
Variety of terrain: Similar to using tactics, unique terrain can make battles more interesting. A battle against some bandits will play out a lot differently on the edge of a cliff than it would a dense forest, or an abandoned police station. If the enemies are human, they should be smart enough to use terrain to their advantage - forcing your players to as well.

Sure, you've probably thought of some of that already, but it makes a big difference in making things interesting so I thought I'd bring it up. On the subject of making it scientifically accurate, try your best, but don't take any crap from players that try to call you out on inaccuracies. "I'm the DM, this is what happened, deal with it" is always an appropriate response.

[Capntastic]

You should consider meditating on arguably one of Greg Stolze's best contributions to roleplaying:  Six Ways to Stop A Fight.

Somewhere out there is someone who had loving parents, watched clouds on a summer's day, fell in love, lost a friend, is kind to small animals, and knows how to say "please" and "thank you," and yet somehow the two of you are going to end up in a dirty little room with one knife between you and you are going to have to kill that human being.

It's a terrible thing. Not just because he's come to the same realization and wants to survive just as much as you do, meaning he's going to try and puncture your internal organs to set off a cascading trauma effect that ends with you voiding your bowels, dying alone and removed from everything you've ever loved. No, it's a terrible thing because somewhere along the way you could have made a different choice. You could have avoided that knife, that room, and maybe even found some kind of common ground between the two of you. Or at least, you might have divvied up some turf and left each other alone. That would've been a lot smarter, wouldn't it? Even dogs are smart enough to do that. Now you're staring into the eyes of a fellow human and in a couple minutes one of you is going to be vomiting to the rhythm of a fading heartbeat. The survivor is going to remember this night for the rest of his or her life.

Six Ways To Stop A Fight

So before you make a grab for that knife, you should maybe think about a few things. This moment is frozen in time. You can still make better choices.

Surrender. Is your pride really worth a human life? Drop your weapon, put up your hands, and tell them you're ready to cut a deal. You walk, and in exchange you give them something they need. Sidestep the current agenda. Offer them something unrelated to your dispute, and negociate to find a solution.

Disarm. Knife on the table? Throw it out the window. Opponent with a gun? Dodge until he's out of bullets. Deescalate the situation to fists, if possible. You can settle your differences with some brawling and still walk away, plus neither one of you has to face a murder charge or a criminal investigation.

Rechannel. So you have a conflict. Settle it in a smarter way. Arm wrestle, play cards, have a scavenger hunt, a drinking contest, anything that lets you establish a winner and a loser. Smart gamblers bet nothing they aren't willing to lose. Why put your life on the line?

Pass the Buck. Is there somebody more powerful then either one of you who is going to be angry that you two are coming to blows? Pretend you're all in the mafia and you can't just kill each other without kicking your dispute upstairs first. Let that symbolic superior make a decision. You both gain clout for not spilling blood.

Call the Cops. If you've got a grievance against somebody, let the police do your dirty work. File charges. Get a restraining order. Sue him in civil court for wrongful harm. You can beat him down without throwing a punch.

Run Away. The hell with it. Who needs this kind of heat? Blow town, get a job some place else, build a new power base. Is the world really too small for the both of you? It's a big planet out there.

It's very important for 'street level' games, with real people, to not go in guns blazing all the time.   Even in UA, where you can wield some pretty horrifying magickal power (yes it is spelled with a k in that game, yes the game is self aware about it), getting shotgunned in the chest is going to be a game over.

[PTTG??]

All good points. My XP philosophy (insomuch as I have one, given that we did one tiny D&D dungeon for me to try out), is to award points for "defeating" an enemy, which includes more than simply killing it.

[Skyrunner]

Defeating is the only condition for giving out XP. It's supposed to be the standard (and probably says so in most of the RP books I've read), but many players don't know/ignore that.

As for the campaign itself, I'm not sure if you are going to take it that far, but it might be a good long-term plothook to dangle : a disaster bunker that is supposedly out there somewhere. Cliche but perhaps effective. Especially if you add dependents.

There probably would be some groups out there, non-bandit ones.

[PTTG??]

Let's see, there's various armed forces- we could call it "the military", or we could have subdivisions (The crew of the USS George W Bush, a helicopter wing from some place. Things Fall Apart featured a police state emerging from the US centered around FEMA, which I'm a little bit too sane and too optimistic to play convincingly.

[PTTG??]

I'm putting together a set of basic setting notes. Right now I'm working out the first act- leaving the city. I want to let the players figure it out on their own, so I'm mainly trying to figure out how San Fransisco's infrastructure would respond to a mass migration out of the city. I'm betting that the bridges would hold up just fine, up until there's a major accident on one of them, which would slow or stop crossing that bridge, forcing people to move to other bridges... which increases the odds of another failure.

BART and MUNI I'm assuming will switch to single-direction transport and just get as many people across the bay, and ideally to the highest-elevation BART stop they can find. I'm planning on a riot or something shutting down the bart system partway through, though. In case the players decide to walk through the tunnel, does that sound plausible?

Of course, SF is not an island, and southbound routes will probably be very effective ways to escape, but they force you to stick to the coast for a much longer distance. Not sure how that would go, especially since most people fleeing the city would go that way themselves.

OH! Of course! Boats! I keep forgetting about them hijacking a boat. Of course, all the seaworthy boats, and all the seaunworthy boats, will probably already be taken one way or the other. They might find a boat somewhere I guess, but they'll definitely have to earn it. Hmm...

EDIT: The bart tunnel is 6 miles from exit to exit. I could see at least a few people trying to walk under the bay. Some of them might even make it.