The vomit-inducing lurch of teleportation finishes and the five of you are deposited onto a cold metal floor. As you look up from the breakfast you've left in a steaming pool in front of you, you're blinded by an explosion of light from a line of spotlights beaming down at you. Holding your hands and/or other appendages to shield your eyes, you realize you're in a vast, white-walled chamber, and the thrumming of the floor suggests on a spaceship.
A moment later a pair of doors on an elevated balcony above the line of spotlights open with a hiss and someone enters. You take in an enormous moustache, a military cap and uniform, all on a man of such wide-shouldered, stout proportions it seems impossible for him to have fitted through the door. Then he speaks, or booms, rather:
'Well! Welcome, rookies, to the Lux Aeterna, finest ship in the galaxy! Now, you might have some questions - like 'where am I?' or 'why did you suddenly abduct me from my peaceful home planet?' - but let me ask you something first! ARE YOU READY? TO JOIN THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE? AND HEROISM? I'm General Tullion, and I'm offering you a once-in-a-lifetime chance to become one of the greatest, the most beloved, the most famous, the undoubtedly most dangerous HEROES IN! THE! GALAXY! Uh, one of those things, at least.
'Now, getting you here wasn't cheap, so before you ask, no, you can't actually say no. Also, no, there's no portion of galactic law that justifies our ruthless, arbitrary shanghaing of you for the job. No, you can't go home. Ever. But! Don't be so negative about it. I'll tell you what's in it for you! While on the job, you'll make your mark, your fortune, your legacy, on this galaxy! You'll see new places and meet new people! Travel all known space, and a bit of unknown too! You'll experience things that'll blow your mind! And those of your enemies. I'm talking about - Guns! Cash! And Glory! So, don't keep me in suspense any longer! What do you say!'***
This is an RTD, a Random-Generated Scifi Rampage for Guns, Cash and Glory, set in a galaxy far in the future, where shooting things, blowing them up, driving over them, and other kinds of wholly irresponsible lifestyle choices are the words of the day. You are a crack team of would-be heroes in the service of the Justice Corps, an independent, much-maligned organization dedicated to doing good and administering justice without any actual ethics or moral consideration. You'll be making a mess of hotspots around the galaxy with a never-ending arsenal of guns, vehicles, drugs, and, of course, enemies, all randomly generated by me and Fniff's Excellent Random Generators.
Of course, random generation is not without risks. You might end up with the Gun of the Apocalypse, the Death of All Things, but you're just as likely to get a garishly-colored toy gun with no real benefits to arm yourself with, or a soul-stealing artifact from a past age. So be prepared for anything!
This is a co-operative game in the loosest sense. Killing your friends and stealing their loot is acceptabe, though regrettable for them. And as for your heroic missions - there's no damage like collateral damage. This is a light-hearted game (of immense brutality), inspired by things like the Ratchet and Clank series and various light adventure/space opera scifi like Guardians of the Galaxy.
Fniff's generators are genius for firing the imagination. For this game, I'll mainly take Drugs, Weapons and Enemies, but also randomize whatever I feel appropriate. If we take a Weapon, for example, I roll a 1-20 list of weapon types first. Let's say we get a 6, that's a [SMG]. Now we roll for number of Effects, 1-4; [2], Two Effects.
I then roll for Effects on an enormous 361-long list of descriptive words such as 'Old', 'Robotic', 'Wolf' or 'Post-Apocalyptic', in this case, [Reconstruction] and [Talkative]. I then come up with what this weapon could be - maybe it's a healer's/repairer's tool with a very chatty AI, in this case, or an SMG patched together from various broken parts which fires supercharged sonic sound clips at targets.
After I've come up with the concept, I assign (in some cases, roll) damage/effects and traits and throw the weapon into the game. This all is, as you can imagine, enormous fun for me. With drugs or vehicles or whatever, the process is slightly different, but the Effects list forms the backbone of any generator.
A word of warning: if you go to Fniff's generator page to play with them yourself, the discussion might contain some spoilers and unfiltered thoughts by me for things generated for this game. Still, they're so much fun oh my god go look. If you're not a player and generate something amazing you'd want in the game, you can PM me it and I'll see if I can get it in.
Things will generally run on a quite basic RTD system. The base 1d6 is in use for most actions, with overshoots and crit fails. Combat runs with Combat Rolls (attempting to attack), To Hit rolls (a 1 is a critical hit, a 3 a glancing hit), and HP. There are many modifiers that may affect combat, and creative/tactical fighting on the battlefield is encouraged.
1. Evil Roy - Harry Baldman
2. Speaks - Toaster
3. Crit - NAV
4. London Tanner - Ruludos
5. Erin Strand - Twinwolf
Waitlist1. Vi - Kevak
2. Ogdo - DoctorMcTaalik
3. Avery Protagoniste - Hiddenleafguy
4. Loa - ATHATH
5. Ard Nog - The Moonlit Shadow
6. 'Bob' - Salsacookies
7. Sexy Sid - Generally me
8. ?? - Yoink
9. John Johnson - Person
10. Brawn the Bodyguard - SaberToothTiger
11. Vissilik VARR-6 - IronyOwl
12. Linton Rayner - AzyWng
The Heroic Dead1. Vissilik - IronyOwl (Killed by Captain of Nazi airship after dooming it on a collision course of certain doom.)
Name: What shall I call you?
Gender: Anything goes, as long as the narrative knows what to call you.
Description (optional): Should you want to provide some description. It's a big galaxy, and you could be some kind of alien - as long as you have appendages to use weapons with.
There we go! Ask any questions that might pop into yer head.
Author
Topic: Guns, Cash, and Glory: A Random-Generated Scifi Rampage [Mission II!] (Read 56853 times)