Sunday Nonsense: Elevator Pitches

[Reynard]

So just for fun: Make an elevator pitch for an adventure or campaign, and let other posters decide what rules system you should use for it.

The Pitch:
The characters are all people that ended up in a cryonic facility for some terminal disease, along with thousands of others. They wake up when the facility starts to go critical and break down and find that the vast majority of the other "customers" have either been transformed into flesh eating mutants cracking open cryonic pods for a meal, or having been one of those meals. The PCs are among the very few survivors whose mutations turn out positive. Now the PCs must escape to the surface (only to find a post apocalyptic future -- but that's a different adventure).

NOTE: I actually ran this at a convention and it went swimmingly.

 

[payn]

Sounds like the movie Pandorum. Id likely use the Alien RPG for the right cinematic horror feel or perhaps Call of Cthulhu for the sanity aspect.

The Pitch:
A thousand years ago there was a capitol city that encompassed all the ancestries and kin of the world. There was a cataclysmic event that forced many to flee, others to perish, and even more to suffer a fate worse than death. Now, the region around the century old ruin is desecrated and anything that dies in this area is resurrected as undead. For the last century, most kin have stuck to their own communities. Not out of sense of hostility, but a sense of superstition that co-existence is detrimental to survival. With time, the superstition of a repeat event has started to fade. A new blooming city has erected on the out skirts of the former capital. New sense of wonder exists for those who can shrug of superstition and tradition and make a new life here. Also, many a scholar (and thief) are eager to journey into the desecrated cursed lands to reclaim knowledge and treasures long lost.

 

[Professor Murder]

The Pitch:
Swansgrave. Think Hogwarts set in Lovecraft Country. Five houses. Elder Alien Gods. Training wizards to fight for reality against the Outer Dark.
I ran already with Fate, with mixed results.

 

[Reynard]

The Pitch:
Swansgrave. Think Hogwarts set in Lovecraft Country. Five houses. Elder Alien Gods. Training wizards to fight for reality against the Outer Dark.
I ran already with Fate, with mixed results.

FATE does seem like a good fit. What was the weak part in using FATE?

Another interesting option might be a Deadlands hack with a focus on magic. You can reflavor the huckster rules to just reflect the insanity of trying to control such alien forces.

 

[Professor Murder]

FATE does seem like a good fit. What was the weak part in using FATE?

Another interesting option might be a Deadlands hack with a focus on magic. You can reflavor the huckster rules to just reflect the insanity of trying to control such alien forces.

It could have been just me as the GM. Fate may not be my forte.

 

[GreyLord]

You go to a town council meeting where they are discussing raising taxes on property and instituting laws which punish those who do not mow their lawns with heavy fines and finally confiscating their property.

You, the hero, want to stop this from happening.

The Mayor and two of the five town council are doing this specifically to target those on the sides of their property. They want to have the town confiscate their neighbors property and then be able to buy it for themselves. The laws will affect the rest of the town, but the council is only focusing on these properties for present.

Killing anyone will results in your arrest and going to jail for murder. You need to win this by political diplomacy.

 

[payn]

You go to a town council meeting where they are discussing raising taxes on property and instituting laws which punish those who do not mow their lawns with heavy fines and finally confiscating their property.

You, the hero, want to stop this from happening.

The Mayor and two of the five town council are doing this specifically to target those on the sides of their property. They want to have the town confiscate their neighbors property and then be able to buy it for themselves. The laws will affect the rest of the town, but the council is only focusing on these properties for present.

Killing anyone will results in your arrest and going to jail for murder. You need to win this by political diplomacy.

When does killing anyone to resolve a property issue not send you to jail for murder?

 

[GreyLord]

When does killing anyone to resolve a property issue not send you to jail for murder?

I see killing people for property happening a LOT in D&D games.

 

[payn]

I see killing people for property happening a LOT in D&D games.

I dont see HOA disagreements and property politics coming up in D&D games. I dont see it coming up in any TTRPG lol.

 

[Reynard]

You go to a town council meeting where they are discussing raising taxes on property and instituting laws which punish those who do not mow their lawns with heavy fines and finally confiscating their property.

You, the hero, want to stop this from happening.

The Mayor and two of the five town council are doing this specifically to target those on the sides of their property. They want to have the town confiscate their neighbors property and then be able to buy it for themselves. The laws will affect the rest of the town, but the council is only focusing on these properties for present.

Killing anyone will results in your arrest and going to jail for murder. You need to win this by political diplomacy.

I guess you need a game with a robust "social conflict" system, but I don't know of any. Alternatively you need a super light system that only exists to resolve loggerheads with the flip of a coin.