An Amoral Campain Idea

[Shadowrun Man]

I got the D20 Modern PHB and it is not as bad as I first thought. But to get to the point of this thread, I was planning on running an amoral game setting, you know like if you kill a innocent person on the street nobody really cares onless it is them, one of those settings. How would you run something like that using a book that encourages hero saves the innocent style game. I don't know, maybe it's just the shadowrun influences crossing over, but I have always really played like this even in D&D where I was supposed to be a hero. Here are some of the ideas that I came up with, they are listed below:

Hired to commet wetwork (assination)
Take a Corp exect hostage for another corporation
A stucture hit (Demolitions)
A bunch of sociopathic gangers that have nothing better to do then terrorize the local citizenry.

Now I don't want any flaming, I am being serious about this idea, I repeat, I am serious about this idea. So don't think I am trolling. So any suggestion would be helpful in the design of my campaign setting.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, the important question is: What are the motives of the "heroes" (PCs")? If it is only money, (which is usual in an amoral campaign), the campaign might be short, since you can easily become rich if you are are cruel and don`t care for other ones.
Or do they want revenge?
Do they want to conquer the world?
Are they even evil for evils sake and do they steal little children their sweet just for their cries?

I think for a succesful "amoral" campaign, you need a better motivation than greed, because it won`t make the campaign interesting (robbing banks each adventure?). There should be "greater goals", even if they are foul and corrupted.
(The motivation is also a problem for long term Shadowrun gaming, and it often limits the possible adventures)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[s/LaSH]

I just got done reading a swanky-looking hardcover of the 'new' X-Force team (called 'Famous, Mutant and Mortal'). Now THAT has amorality coming out its ears. Basically, it's the X-Men only with corporate sponsors and a camera. They're superstars, they get higher ratings with higher bodycounts, and every so often a team member gets their guts blown out. I have a feeling it's going to stay with me for a long time.

Anyway, the idea of 'heros' out to make a buck by being cool is something you might want to consider. It means a high profile, and it very probably means that whoever's coordinating your sponsorship is going to have some neat ideas - sorry, suggestions - about how your intra-group relationships should pan out.

If that's any help.

 

[beverson]

Some friends and I are starting a d20 Modern campaing we're calling "Heist". It's based in Las Vegas and the PC's are all "less than honest" citizens with some form of criminal ties. The idea is to do "jobs" for ourselves or others in the vein of Ocean's 11, but not necessarily casino robberies. This type of thing harkens back to the Shadowrun mentality somewhat. The PC's we've got are
a Charismatic/Infiltrator who's a thief (go figure), a Fast/Gunslinger for firepower, a Smart/Charismatic/Techie for research and gadgets, and Charismatic/Hustler who's a compulsive gambler (ala the new series "Lucky"). The Hustler is an advanced class we came up with specially for this campaign.

With an idea similar to this, it's not hard to do several levels of amorality.

 

[Henry]

Read up specifically on the "Allegiances" section of d20 Modern. You can have no allegiance, an allegiance to whatever group or groups they belong to, or an allegiance to an ideal (getting rich quickly, killing the person who harmed a family member, allegiance to the Mafia, etc.)

 

[Shadowrun Man]

I more likely will come up plot along the way, not a really planned out campaign but will have a goal none the less. I still need to flesh out the main goal though, but the rest I am going to come up with from session to session, I know most don't do it this way but I find this to be a good way for "Fun" gaming, this what I have done in most of the shadowrun games I have GM for. Besides the fun factor, it keeps the plot open for unexpected events you player throw into the game, for example killing the Jhonson (peson hired to hire the group, have to keep are hands clean, don't need he authorities find out who hired them) or the don or someting in that context. How many games have been ruined because the plot was destroyed by the players.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Most important: Let the players know that it is an amoral campaign ahead of time.
Our DM started a D20M campaign but didn't have much of a story thought out ahead of time. As a result he told us to create our PCs, but wouldn't tell us what kind of campaign we were playing, other than that there would be no magic.

Anyway, I created my PC as an "Average Joe". He customizes cars for a living, basically he's a mechanic (Fast/Smart, Blue Collar). He also happens to be a normal, good, law-abiding citizen. Then I find out that our campaigns will consist of acting as hitmen, being hired to kill innocent people, that sort of thing. His campaign is so linear that it doesn't really give us the choice of doing any missions but the ones he has sent us on.

The other PCs include an actor in martial arts movies (Fast, celebrity), a guy who was kicked out of the military after training for some reason (Strong, military), a college professor/lecher (Smart, academic) and a hitman (Smart/Fast, criminal). With the exception of the hitman none of the PCs are "evil", or even criminal.

The celebrity and the military guy are played by younger players who have a harder time (or they aren't trying) roleplaying their PCs. This means that they tend to shuffle their feet and twiddle their thumbs until the DM forces them to do something, or one of the older players' PCs gives them a job to do. On the few occassions they think up their own plans... Well the results are frightening to all but the most heavily-medicated catatonics. These two are equally at home being evil or good, because they don't really get into their characters, nor do they particularly care to. Their PCs have no personalities of their own.

Since my PC is essentially good, I often try to worm my way out of our missions, the hitman tries to complete them as told to, and a battle of wills ensues. Whoever seems more confident in his plan essentially captures the "votes" of the younger players and "wins". Since the Hitman's player is neither confident, nor as familiar with the rules as I am, I can usually sway things my way. As a result we have failed to complete any of the jobs we were hired to do except one, because it involved being hired by some Yakuza to kill a rival gang leader. My PC had no qualms about offing a murderer and so we had no problems. My PC was nearly killed though and when we left off there was a sword cane stuck in him, so who knows what will happen.

Our first job was to rob a member of the russian mafia for a member of another crime family. We failed that one because the DM had planned for us to fail, and then railroaded us to that end.
We fled the state and got another job in California. A man, who we later discovered was selling drugs, had hired a man and woman to *ahem* perform for his viewing pleasure and then he killed the man. When we arrived at his house we discovered that the job was to dispose of the body and kill the woman, who was still alive. My PC was horrified by this, and despite almost being thwarted by some Police that inexplicably dropped by, and a group of heavily armed SWAT team look-alikes that stopped by for drugs and almost killed everyone, managed to form a plan to kill the guy that hired us and free the woman without her turning us in. It worked and we failed job number two.

Anyway, I've rambled too much already.
Just make sure the players know what the campaign is going to be like before they make their PCs. Having at least a general idea about what the campaigns "story" will be is also helpful. Nothing makes a game go flat quicker than a DM that has no clue what the story is.