Suggestions Needed for Memorial Day One Shot

[Flynn]

Good day, All,

In an effort to expose other gamers to the D20 Modern rules, I'm preparing to run a Shadow Chaser style One Shot this weekend, based on the concept of characters returning to their 10th Year High School Reunion to find that all is not as it seems. I definitely want to include a Cthulhu-esque feel to the final encounter, but am having some problems coming up with the overall concept of the 4 hour adventure.

I know you guys are pretty creative and that you often have some great suggestions, so I was wondering if you guys might suggest some basic plot ideas for this theme. The ones I've come up with so far as simple, but not really inspired:

* The coach hasn't lost a game since he's come to the school, because he deals with Dark Powers.

* A vampire has recently started to create a covey of spawn among the local High School graduates, and a werewolf, his mortal enemy, comes to town for the Reunion. The Reunion gets caught in the crossfire.

What kind of things would you suggest for this first-time D20 Modern GM?

Thanks in advance,
Flynn

 

[Masada]

A short one shot has to be straight forward, simple and action packed. For a high school reunion type thing, the PC should have a basis for knowing each other and coming together for the adventure. While I pondered this idea popped out...

When we left Smallsville we thought the thing we buried behind the great oak stump was dead. But now, 10 years later, something is wrong. The town has become darker. People have slowly been disappearing. We didn't know--we didn't want to know. All of us fled after it happened.

But then the invitation arrived. A simple 10 year high school reunion. I nearly discarded it, but I felt obligated to at least read the small token of my home that I--that we--had abandoned.

But it's still there.

The card looked like it had been lifted right from the old pep rally posters--even with cutsy flowers and ribbons drawn on it. At then I read the last line and my heart stopped.

"Approved by the Reunion President: Carrie Wilkes"

Carrie was dead. Carrie died that night. That night we all fled.

I called all the others. They all got the same card. Carrie was inviting us home. It's been 10 years... It's time to finish what we started.

 

[Prest0]

You could always pull a bait and switch. Get them into town thinking it's about the reunion (the old friends could meet up beforehand), then hit them with weird stuff going on in town. Unfortunately, you can't lay much groundwork in four hours, so it's going to have to be a pretty simple adventure. Not much in the way of twists and turns, or you'll never finish. Hopefully that four hours doesn't include character creation. Especially since you'll be spending an indordinate amout of time explaining what the modern feats and skills do during this introductory game. Would they be open to playing pregenerated characters? That would give you a lot more time to devote to playing.

As far as adventure ideas are concerned here are a few:

-The old "in" crowd is using the reunion as a way of recruiting new members into their cult.
-The kid everyone used to pick on has decided it's payback time. The punch is spiked, and he plans on sacrificing all his old classmates to a blood demon.
-A select few students don't seem to have aged a day since high school. But they sure are pale...
-The boy's bathroom is haunted by the ghost of a classmate who committed suicide their senior year. With all his classmates gathered together, the spirit tries to communicate with the living about the real cause of his death.

Hope that helps. (I liked your idea about the coach, too.) You might also want to check out our Pinebox campaign setting, since it's free and you might be able to mine it for other ideas. You might also download issue 3 of our free company newsletter, the Journal of American Paranormal Research, which has a free adventure that would make a good "bait and switch" for your reunion group.

Good luck, and let us know how your adventure goes. Hopefully you'll convert some new players to the fun of d20 Modern!

 

[Captain Tagon]

To cut down on prep time for the players you could consider doing what Jon Ron did for his "Drunk Southern Girls" story hour and prepare characters for the players beforehand. Do it so that each one is playing something of a gamified version of themself. Jon Ron swears by this and that it made his players play a lot more catious when it was themself getting attacked by zombies and not some random guy they had made up.