Lysander said:
Recently, my players have been itching to play themselves in some sort of modern game as a change of pace (and, perhaps, to improve roleplaying); do you think this sort of thing could work with SoC? I imagine I could concoct some initial hook, but is the rest of the campaign survivable for "regular joes," even heroic incarnations thereof?
In short, is there enough opportunity for "mundanes" to grow into the epic heroes of the endgame? If there is, it certainly sounds like a blast, and I think my players would get a kick out of the ride.
Absolutely! It would be a blast, and here's how I'd do it:
Rule Zero: Don't tell them what they're going to be playing.
Now, when you sit down to play, make each player decide the
ranking of each of his own attributes-- not actual numbers, just have them order them from top to bottom in order of what they think their highest attribute would be to their lowest.
Hopefully you've got a couple of jocks or veterans in your group otherwise you could end up with a lot of pudgy smart heroes.
Once the players have ranked themselves, assign them the Elite array in the order they laid out for themselves: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.
This eliminates any argument over whether "I think I have a 13 Charisma!" "No way, Joe, you're a 12 at best!" and makes sure everybody is on the same playing field.
Let them take whatever class they want. Grim Tales has very flexible skill choices, too, so let them pick their own skills according to GT.
For starting gear, I'd let them start with anything they want, within reason. Certainly any kind of K-Mart scale firepower they want-- any kind of hunting gear, really.
As for hooking them into the adventure, you could pitch the idea of a "hunting trip gone bad," which will probably lead them to think they're in some kind of Horror game-- which is fine! Have them stumble across the archaelogist's encampment and just go from there.
Slavelords is absolutely a 1st (mundane) through 20th (epic hero) kind of campaign-- and Grim Tales in general is set up so that characters tend to survive more through wits and roleplaying (ok, and action dice...) than combat and magic, anyway.
Once the players are caught and "marooned" on Cydonia, they'll have access to all the resources they need to finish the campaign. (Not that I'd throw away those Motorola walkie-talkies they brought along...)
I think your players will take to it like fish to water.
Frankly, I'm jealous of your game... sounds like it will be a blast...
Wulf
I would like to see it though so save a few pages in the next publication.
