Seeking Numenera/The Strange campaign ideas

[Dannyalcatraz]

Good stuff, good stuff!

I actually have that Space:1889 adventure- I'm a huge fan of the game.

And as for those 2 shows, in each one, the central character is a police officer who is mortally injured and then awakes in an earlier era as a police officer...uncertain if they're dreaming or if they really have been yanked back in time. Excellent Sci-Fi stuff!

 

[neobolts]

If you use the Ninth World setting, you could plop these amnesia-Daleks into the world in a Shangra-la of sorts. Maybe they are imprisoned with some sort of psychic being/device that suppresses their naturally twisted mindset. Maybe that suppression starts to fail, so their jailers (whoever is going to execute them???) plan to kill them instead now. The various factions and nations of the Ninth World would get involved, adding a fun layer of intrigue and politics.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's a good contemporary option. Thanks!

 

[TarionzCousin]

To me, the biggest appeal of the Strange campaign setting is its ability to use different "worlds." You could have a plot that meandered through Sherlock Holmes, Tolkien, Cthulhu, and back to Earth.

If that's part of your plan, I recommend using the Strange. Heck, you could make Numenera one of the "worlds."

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To me, the biggest appeal of the Strange campaign setting is its ability to use different "worlds." You could have a plot that meandered through Sherlock Holmes, Tolkien, Cthulhu, and back to Earth.

Good point.

Hmmm...how could I use those other "worlds" as more than just a source of background materials for the PCs? Perhaps my hidden antagonists have had their dirty little fingers in the metaphorical pies of multiple realities...

 

[Morrus]

To me, the biggest appeal of the Strange campaign setting is its ability to use different "worlds."

Is there an RPG which can't do that?

 

[TarionzCousin]

Is there an RPG which can't do that?

Yes and no. Some people don't like sci fi in their fantasy. Some people don't want to mix modern with futuristic or pre-20th century. I would guess that most D&D games don't include Sherlock Holmes' London.

Not every RPG is built to handle the genre-shifts, unlike What's OLD is NEW.

 

[Dark Kain]

Good point.

Hmmm...how could I use those other "worlds" as more than just a source of background materials for the PCs? Perhaps my hidden antagonists have had their dirty little fingers in the metaphorical pies of multiple realities...

You could easily use professor Moriarty from the corebook as the base of your antagonist(s): in The Strange he is basically designed to be a multidimension kingpin.

Another idea could be that the begs you are talking about in the opening post are unaware of their past crimes because they did something that badly affected other recursions or maybe they caused a major problem on Earth. It could also be a severe crime by the Estate standards, so the Estate agents are either permissive or even supportive of those seeking vengeance.

Or maybe it was an ancient multiple-worlds-shattering disaster (maybe someone tried controlling a planetovore and failed?) that ended with the refugees of several recursions settling on the home recursion of their own enemies.
Of course most of the begs wouldn't know a thing, since their home recursion was unaffected, only those with a connection with the Strange could understand and rationalize the situation. (you could set the spark to less than 1% to have a very small group of "illuminati" actually in the known)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Or maybe it was an ancient multiple-worlds-shattering disaster (maybe someone tried controlling a planetovore and failed?) that ended with the refugees of several recursions settling on the home recursion of their own enemies.

Hmmm...

In his book Imajica, Clive Barker kind of took a multidimensional reality and redefined the Christian concept of "The Fall" to being the story of how our reality became cut off from all others- kind of like how in C.S. Lewis' Perelandra books, Earth had become cut off from the other planets in the solar system.

In Barker's story, each of the major religious figures of history- Krishna, Buddha, Jesus- were "sorcerers" who tried to reunify the planes and seal that rift, each failing in his own way. The plot of the novel revolves around the rise of a new sorcerer trying to succeed where the others had failed.

That kind of storyline could work with what you suggested there, with the various realities being created by some past, vast disaster of created by my antagonists. This could be the source of the deep enmity between the (unknowing) BBEGs and those who hunt them.

And while it wouldn't necessarily have to be a campaign goal- heck, it might not even be desirable...or possible- trying to reunify the realities could be a character goal.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

- Is the world of Numenera just another recursion within the Strange, albeit a truly massive one?

- Is everything within the Strange - including our own Earth - just a simulation on a massive Numenera artifact?

Or both? The Ninth World is a recursion, and the Strange is a simulation within it. Worlds inside worlds, endlessly.