[d20 Modern] Tangents: Lucid Dreaming

[JPL]

Work continues on my d20 Modern one-shot extravaganza, using the Tangents sourcebook from Alternity.

Lucid Technologies has a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that a team of Lucid scientists has just had a breakthrough in its research into parallel dimensions. The bad news is that industrial sabotage has apparently sent four Lucid team members to parallel universes with no way to return.

Lucid's parent corporation, Aegis Industries, hastily assembles a rescue team comprised of trusted Aegis employees from a variety of technical, scientific, and military backgrounds:

Elijah Quinn (Chief Warrant Officer, U.S. Army, ret.) spent twenty years in counterintelligence and special operations before joining Aegis as a corporate security specialist. He's Aegis's "man in black" --- discrete, professional, and quietly scary. Str 2 / Ded 2 / Investigator 4 / Special Forces Intelligence Sergeant 4.

Walter Tsang is a xenoengineer, a specialist in the analysis and replication of exotic technologies. Former NSA tech analyst. Aegis sends him because he's the only one who can make sense of the Lucid team's experimental "quantum tunneler." Smart 4 / Techie 4 / Xenoengineer 4.

...and that's all I have so far. I'm waiting to see how many players sign up so I know how specialized the remaining team members need to be. I'm going to have the guy playing Tsang read the first half of Tangents so he can explain in-character the underlying science.

I'd love to throw in a nuclear/biological/chemical expert...an ex-FEMA crisis management Tommy Lee Jones type who's used to taking charge when the worst case scenario becomes a reality. And maybe a "suit"...an executive M.B.A. type [Smart 3 / Charismatic 3 / ?] who also happens to be a West Pointer and combat veteran...he's the guy with the leadership and tactical skills to pull this team together and make this work.

I thought it might be interesting to make this an ad hoc team, pulled away from their day jobs to deal with a situation that no one is really trained to deal with. Their fellow employees are in trouble, the company doesn't want to bring in outsiders, and so...

Work continues. Comments and ideas appreciated.

 

[D20 Addict]

if only My brother and I could our Tangents book! It was our favorite Alternity supplement. We still watch Sliders on a daily basis!

 

[JimAde]

Sounds like a great idea for a Michael Crichton novel. Very cool.

Seems like you have the bases pretty well covered on character types. Depending on what you plan to have happen on the other side, you might want to include a "dirty knuckles" character. Somebody who knows vehicles and mechanical gadgets. If the PCs arrive on foot, they might have to improvise travel. If they bring their own, they'll need somebody to take care of it.

 

[JPL]

Sounds like a great idea for a Michael Crichton novel. Very cool.

Seems like you have the bases pretty well covered on character types. Depending on what you plan to have happen on the other side, you might want to include a "dirty knuckles" character. Somebody who knows vehicles and mechanical gadgets. If the PCs arrive on foot, they might have to improvise travel. If they bring their own, they'll need somebody to take care of it.

I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, this is shaping up to be Crichtonesque. Originally it was more of a pulp thing, but now I'm going to try to ground it a bit more in reality. I was also thinking about "On the Wings of Eagles," the book that tells how Ross Perot sent a team of his employees to rescue some coworkers from Iran.

A physician with military experience is another strong possibility. I'm also toying with some kind of engineer / Navy SEAL, like one of those highly-educated eccentric tough guys who work on oil rigs...or maybe a geophysicist whose hook is the idea that he has survived everywhere on earth, from tundra to desert to jungle. I'll have to check the math and see what works for a 12th-level character...

A player just emailed and volunteered to play the leader. So I guess statting up a leader is my job for the evening...

 

[Cowpie Zombie]

Just out of curiosity, what form is this game going to take? PBP? Table-top? PBeM? Something else?

 

[JPL]

Just out of curiosity, what form is this game going to take? PBP? Table-top? PBeM? Something else?

Six guys, a table, and some dice.

Start at noon, get gyros around six.

[Hopefully just six guys. We tried eight a few weeks back, and it was like herding cats.]

 

[Old Drew Id]

I am not familiar with the Tangents book, but just from a general sci-fi standpoint, I would want one or more of the following:

Demolition Specialist - (always handy)
Linguist - (what if they don't speak English on the other side?)
Sociologist / Archaeologist - (someone who can quickly grasp the workings of a foreign society)

 

[JPL]

I am not familiar with the Tangents book, but just from a general sci-fi standpoint, I would want one or more of the following:

Demolition Specialist - (always handy)
Linguist - (what if they don't speak English on the other side?)
Sociologist / Archaeologist - (someone who can quickly grasp the workings of a foreign society)

Good picks.

The geophysicist/SEAL character should be able to blow up anything that needs blowing up...I statted him up last night as a Strong 6 / Smart 2 / Field Scientist 2 / SEAL 2.

I've thought about a linguist / cryptographer...military intelligence, NSA, maxed out in Decipher Script and Sense Motive [he can read body language and other non-verbal communication] and maybe Computer Use [since that's so strongly tied to language]. In fact...if I made him a little older than the others, around 50, he might be a good team leader.

In the portion of the adventure I'm running, the heroes travel to a parallel world that's like ours except for one factor --- the common cold doesn't exist. When the lost scientist showed up, his case of the sniffles quickly turns into a full-blown plague. By the time the heroes catch up, about two weeks later, he's in CDC custody and martial law has been declared and it's chaos.

So given that scenario, my biochemist/NBC guy will be in his element. The xenoengineer will have some exotic tech to play with [especially once the bad guys show up with guns from a world where WWIII sparked advanced in weapons technology]. The geophysicist will mostly be using his SEAL training and all-around toughness.

Obviously, a doctor could come in handy [and is one of the guys you'd want to bring along for this sort of mission anyway].

While bringing a linguist would make sense, his skills might not be used in this particular world. Still, if he had additional skills in intelligence or computer hacking, he might still make himself useful. If he's also the team leader, he can keep busy with that.

 

[Dirigible]

Six guys, a table, and some dice.

And only one survivor!

This thread brings make memories... I gotta go look at Tangents again. Native American-world, Post Nuclear-world and Demon-world were kinda 'blah',m but man oh man was Cold-world ever great.

 

[JPL]

And only one survivor!

This thread brings make memories... I gotta go look at Tangents again. Native American-world, Post Nuclear-world and Demon-world were kinda 'blah',m but man oh man was Cold-world ever great.

Yeah...if we ever did a followup, I'd be tempted to swap in a different altworld, like Gernsback from GURPS Alternate Earths [Tesla's inventions were successful, so now the world is all Art Deco futuristic --- engineers go to work in flying cars, but they do math with a slide rule].

I had a breakthough yesterday that's made me much happier with the PCs. They're all brothers. Their dad was basically Doc Savage crossed with Benon Quest, and their mom was Emma Peal crossed with Race Bannon. The boys grew up having all sorts of strange adventures around the world.

Now they're all late twenties / early thirties, each established in his own field [scientist, engineer, spy, SpecOp, explorer]. And they probably don't get along that well.

But when Dr. Quirk goes missing in the Lucid Industries incident, the Quirk boys all pull together and challenge the unknown once more...