d20 Modern campaign idea: Sam Spade vs. Fu Manchu, Ming the Merciless, and Cthuhlu

J

JPL

Adventurer
Just listening to my Royal Crown Revue CD and I had an idea...

1. Tell the players I'm running a thirties gangster noir sort of game. Assign "The Maltese Falcon" as viewing. Have them roll up gumshoes and tough guys.

2. Start the first adventure with the usual hard-boiled scenario ---dame walks into the office with a sad story...

3. The players gradually realize that they aren't in a gangster movie --- they're in a Doc Savage novel. Crazy crap starts a-happenin'. Instead of a couple of mooks busting in with tommy guns, a couple of si-fan assassins bust in with swords. Or a couple of Ming's boys bust in with death rays.

4. For the purposes of an ongoing campaign, every adventure could cross over from hard-boiled noir to another pulp genre --- Weird Menace, Horror, Sci-Fi, Western, Lost World, etc. The PCs don't have any super-scientists or millionaire crimefighters among them --- they are not ideally equipped for this sort of weirdness. But they manage...

"I don't care if you're a big shot on Mars --- you come to my city lookin' for trouble, and me and my boys are gonna give it to you..."
 

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sounds like fun!

"Fu Manchu, when you're slapped, you'll take it and like it." :D

but what does this have to do with Royal Crown Revue?
 

Because they play "gangster bop" --- songs about tough guys and lowlifes and violence and dames.

And fedoras.

It's theme music, man. It's like Pulp Swing.
 

JPL said:
It's theme music, man. It's like Pulp Swing.
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what a great way to describe a style of music! :D

JPL said:
a couple of Ming's boys bust in with death rays
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Ming's boy: Keep on riding me and they're gonna be picking Gamma Death Darts out of your liver.

Hero: The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter



i've been keen on this era/style of play for a long time. unfortunately, i know it would never work with my group...
 

Mr Fidgit said:

what a great way to describe a style of music!
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Why, thanks.

I played tenor and bari sax with an R&B band for a long time. One of my dream projects was to record an album of "pulp swing" --- very aggressive and extroverted small group jazz, with tunes from the thirties and forties.

"Two-Fisted Tenor" was the name of the project.

Too bad I never had the jazz chops to pull it off...woulda been sweet...

It's tough finding RPGers OR musicians who would get involved with a fringe project such as this.

But my old guitar player and I have been talking about getting a folk band together and singing songs inspired by Tolkein...
 


JPL said:
But my old guitar player and I have been talking about getting a folk band together and singing songs inspired by Tolkein...
Click to expand...

That gave me an idea. The Lord of the Rings as a hard-boiled detective story.

It's 30s Chicago. A big name gang boss sends a rep to the party's offices. The boss needs people to find a small time mook who happens to have something of value. A ring. An old family heirloom of great sentimental value.

Of course, the "mook" is more than he seems. The ring is more than it seems, and there is somebody behind the gang boss, and somebody behind him.

Before the players know it, their PCs are involved in a plot to conquer the world.

The elves are Feds, the dwarfs are blue collar workers, and the hobbits are small shop owners etc. Naturally, the orcs are gangsters and other such lowlifes. The wizards get to be college professors, one of whom (Saruman) has succumbed to the temptations of illicit gain.

Dashiell Hammet's The Lord of the Rings.
 


mythusmage said:


That gave me an idea. The Lord of the Rings as a hard-boiled detective story.

It's 30s Chicago. A big name gang boss sends a rep to the party's offices. The boss needs people to find a small time mook who happens to have something of value. A ring. An old family heirloom of great sentimental value.

Of course, the "mook" is more than he seems. The ring is more than it seems, and there is somebody behind the gang boss, and somebody behind him.

Before the players know it, their PCs are involved in a plot to conquer the world.

The elves are Feds, the dwarfs are blue collar workers, and the hobbits are small shop owners etc. Naturally, the orcs are gangsters and other such lowlifes. The wizards get to be college professors, one of whom (Saruman) has succumbed to the temptations of illicit gain.

Dashiell Hammet's The Lord of the Rings.
Click to expand...

Yep, that'd work mighty nice.

I wonder...howzabout Urban Arcana set in the Pulp Era?

Do the same setup as in my first post --- don't let the players know that they'll be playing anything but a straightahead gritty noir.

But that dame in the office is an elfin princess, and those mooks just might be hobgoblins...

Kinda like Aarron Allston's Doc Sidthe books, actually.

So what happens next when the cynical world-weary Depression era private dick realizes that there are unicorns in Central Park?
 

To make it even more effective, use only the plot line from Lord of the Rings. "Frodo" is a small time shopkeep, heir of a fellow who once made a trip to New York, and has now disappeared.

"Bilbo", the fellow in question, is now the permanent house guest of a Professor "Elrond", who feels responsible in part for "Bilbo" coming down with a debilitating tropical disease in the New York trip.

"Elrond" and Professor "Gandalf" are keeping "Bilbo" safe, and "Gandalf" has left an old ring with "Frodo" for safe keeping. But Professor "Saruman" has traced the ring's travels to New York, and is close to learning who won the ring in the crap game where "Gollum" lost it.

"Saruman" has contacts in the underworld, and has hired one of them to send people out looking for the ring. "Frodo's" neighbors have been approached, and some have blabbed. Once "Saruman" learns that "Frodo" may have something of interest to him, he'll send people to see about purchasing the ring. Or, if that doesn't work, stealing it.

I think you can fill in the rest.

The trick is to play it straight. No fantasy elements. None. Play it as a straight forward 30's hardboiled detective story. You can put in hints and clues, but do not say things about the supporting characters straight out. In other words, don't call "Gandalf" Gandalf. Call him Professor Whelman and note that he seems to be a man of great age and sagacity. "Saruman" then becomes Professor Harris, and is described as a driven man, always searching for the least scrap of knowledge, the tiniest edge over his fellow man.

Your players will have to work harder to get the joke, but when they do...

How would the detective story writers of the 30s have handled the plot of The Lord of the Rings? Answer that question and you should have one hell of an adventure.:)
 

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