d20 Modern one-shots I want to run

[JPL]

Haven't done one of these in a while...

1. Ninja Force
Sort of a "Team Snake-Eyes" thing...15th level characters in a covert ops team combining modern commando training with ancient ninja hoo-hah.

2. Ninja Family*
Instead of a profession team, make it an extended Japanese-American family. Grandpa was a genuine ninja master. Everyone is a civilian rather than some sort of professional ninja...but when a family member gets into some real trouble (the Yakuza? A rival clan from the Old Country?), the rest of the family has to use the skills they learned from childhood. Wouldn't have to be ninja...you could make it a Chinese kung fu family, or a French savate family, or a family of pro wrestlers....

3. KUMITE!
Aw, yeah. For a twist, make this a period piece --- Victorian, or pulp era, or 1970s.

4. Lost World
Throw Doyle's "The Lost World," Burrough's hollow earth stuff, some of that crazy Theosophist Lemurian stuff, and Disney's "Atlantis: The Lost Continent" into the hopper.

* Families work great for one-shots. Everyone understands sibling dynamics and jumps right into character. A family of pulp adventurers, a family of professional daredevils, a family of vampire hunters, a family of bounty hunters...it all works. You have a built-in hook --- something threatens another member of the family. You can roleplay old relationships...but at the same time, this isn't necessarily a group that adventures together all the time, so players don't have to fake any sort of well-honed teamwork.


What about the rest of you? Anything you have brewing?

 

[Stormborn]

I always have more game ideas than I know what to do with. You specifically asked for 20 M stuff and I am in a Halloween mood so:

* Gothic Monster Hunters: Van Helsing (the movie not the anime) + Ravenloft with d20 M characters as agents of a Secret Society fighting the good fight against the forces of darkness. I see a bookish priest, a hardened hunter, a mage trying to apply "reason" to magic but tempted by the darkness, and a gypsy rogue whose family was wiped out by werewolves.

*Fables: Inspired by the DC/Vertigo series but not neccesarily set in that continuity. This game would feature PCs inspired by the creatures of myth and legend. Probablly with an idea that the "good" fables have to protect humanity from the "bad" fables. Featuring a Red Riding Hood whose a werewolf hunter (and possibly part werewolf herself), an inordinately lucky and charismatic Jack Giantkiller, a Snowwhite who had inherited her step mother's inclination for the dark arts, and possibly a warforged Pinnochio -once again wooden but this time a grown man. Their foe could be Baba Yaga, now working with the Russian Mafia to organize a child slavery ring.

*Ghost Breakers: 1930s supernatural investigators with Edison designed ghost detection and trapping gear investigate a haunted estate.

*Order of the Emerald Delta: A return one - shot for me in which the PCs are agents of the crown in the American Commonwealth, sworn to uphold the will of the Immortal Queen Vicotria and her Seelie Court allies while fighting succesionist and Unseelie fey and their human warlock allies.

*Darkness Overdrive: In the far future while the Terran Hegemony prepares for a celebration honoring a rare celstial event a small expedition has discovered the ruins of an ancient tomb that may be connected with the Hegemony's ruling party. Too late they realize that the stars are right, and they have been manipulated into unsealing something mankind was not meant to know.

Oh, I could go on.

 

[JPL]

oh, hell yes.

Add Ghost Breakers to my list...I might move it back to the 1890s. I have a GURPS book in which Ken Hite writes a real nice overview of the ghost-breaker genre...

 

[Pielorinho]

My brother's bachelor party is coming up, and I'm running a game. Dan and Luke, stop reading now!

It's 1930s pulp action, involving HOllywood types--the actor swashbuckler, the bodyguard, the propsman, etc. It's going to involve a Satanic undead ex-priest, a bunch of zombie pirates, giant robots, and a deserted island. I think it should be fun.

The idea of using families as characters for a one-shot is sheer brilliance; I'll definitely be yoinking that for my next one!

Daniel

 

[JPL]

The idea of using families as characters for a one-shot is sheer brilliance; I'll definitely be yoinking that for my next one!

Daniel

I don't know about brilliant, but it seems to work for me.

All my group has time for is occassional one-shots. A couple years back, I did a d20 Modern adventure revolving around a group of brothers raised by a Benton Quest / Doc Savage type who reunited to save Dad from a parallel dimension, and I really felt like we hit the ground running as far as characterization and roleplaying.

In fact...I might just do a follow-up with the next generation of the Quirk family, maybe focusing on the adopted kids of one of the brothers, scientist Nathan Quirk, M.D., Ph.D....maybe each one is an adventurer/scientist specialized in a different field of adventure / science....


That pulp Hollywood one-shot sounds awesome, too.

 

[Committed Hero]

Hunting dinosaurs on Jurassic Park is always high on my one-shot list.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What about dinosaurs hunting humans on Jurrasic Park?

The family thing is good- think Swiss Family Robinson or Land of the Lost.

 

[Hypersmurf]

... or a family of pro wrestlers....

Los Hermanos Numeros!

Brothers - the Devil has built a Robot!

-Hyp.