The Campaign Builder's Guild

I'm considering starting a Cybergeneration game with homebrew setting and rules (it would have to be, most cyberpunk settings are already obsolete.)  One of the reasons for this is the new Tomorrow People series running on the CW, which disappointed me beyond description.  I kinda want to play a game like that but that doesn't suck, and Cybergeneration is what came to mind.

One of the things I want to do from the start is make the Cyberevolved (henceforth abbreviated CbE) a little more powerful to counterbalance the fact that their opposition is the US government + Microsoft + Viacom + Verizon, all with the legal authority of the KGB and the motivations of the SS.  Anyone in such a setting who so much as activated a phone of any kind would be instantly traceable with unmanned tracking drones converging on their locations in seconds and full-on assault teams following minutes later.

Fortunately, the Virtual Front accessory presents a work-around.  In an effort to buff the mind reading Scanner CbE, Virtual Front gives them a new aspect to their power - they can establish a direct linkage between the nano machines in one CbE such that they can convey subvocalized messages to another CbE.  Essentially, a Scanner can set up a link with a group of CbE and thereafter act as a kind of switchboard between them, an untraceable and bug-resistant party line for the, well, party.  I'm not sure if Mike Pondsmith and company realized how important such a power would be - if they did they would definitely have included it in the basic ruleset - but in my setting it'll be straight out of the box.  But I'm considering going a step further.

I'm thinking of making some variation of such a power inherent to *all* of the CbE.  Essentially, if to CbE have skin contact, they can have a conversation using their nano machinery to send/receive messages on a level of detail similar to text transmissions.  This process would have no range - you would need a Scanner for that - but it wouldn't be detectable to anyone not in the link, and it wouldn't be realistically jammable.  Further, a CbE who touched an object or surface would be able to leave a message that would be readable to other CbE, like a nanotech post-it note.  This would be limited to the surface that the CbE touched, which wouldn't be detectable - another CbE would have to touch that exact surface to get the message, and if the surface were cleaned or wiped off the message would be ruined, but it would still permit a range of  interactivity that give the CbE a much needed advantage against the ISA.  

Does anyone think this is overpowered?  Or am I not going far enough?

(The camera zooms in on the exterior of Starfleet Academy where three friends are talking.)

Lukora:  Am I really that surprising?  You really didn't think klingons had scientists?  I bet you think we don't have farmers either.

Colte:  I'm sorry, but it just didn't occur to me.  I don't mean to play into stupid stereotypes, but honestly we never hear about klingon farmers.  Or klingon scientists, for that matter.

Rosaria:  There's a very simple explanation.  Even entire planetary populations have a relatively small number of space travellers.  Whatever organization is responsible for getting people into space will do so according to subtle cultural traditions and procedures that select for a specific type.  The result is that most planets tend to get a reputation for having 'just one hat.'  Mind you, when you take cultural studies, Colte, you'll get over that.  Assuming you pay attention.

Colte:  Oh I will, I promise.  Say... what is the 'hat' of humanity anyway?  Do we have a reputation?

Lukora:  Certainly.  I happen to know that the ferengi sociology community is hotly divided over whether there are any humans, anywhere, who can mind their own business.

Colte:  Yep.  Shoulda seen that coming.

Quote from: Queen of Quiet

Also coming are Ghosts and Possessed (really need a more evocative name for them), but I wanted to put up what I had so far.

The ridden?

I think I neglected to mention it before, Queen of Quiet, so I'll say it now - I really like this setting idea, and your way of expressing it.  It's the kind of thing that makes me want to see more.

Have you ever heard of Nightlife, a PnP RPG that some insist was the inspiration for the World of Darkness?  It's got most of the tropes of the genre - the PCs are monsters, the supernatural is a big secret, underground wars are common - with a massive layer of splatterpunk.  I've always admired the simplicity of it's system, gameplay is all percentile with modifiers based on your character traits and skills.  What system were you thinking of using with this setting?

I have a suggestion.  Split the difference.

No game I know of has set an 'occult underground' campaign in a World of the Rending Masquerade, but really that makes a lot of sense.  Up until the mid-20th century supernatural creatures could keep themselves a secret by killing any credible witnesses they couldn't intimidate, and it also makes sense that as of the '70s and '80s such creatures would try to makes themselves part of emergent technological industries in a way that would permit them to control information access on a large scale, but it seems inevitable that such a policy would eventually fail. 

So consider making the setting about that failure.  I live in Savannah, GA, widely touted as the Most Haunted City in America, and I have a number of contacts with the local tourism industry.  How might that industry change if the local ghosts held a meeting and said, 'You know what?  We could have some real fun with this.' and started posing for pictures?  How might the Catholic Church handle it if some bishops held a press conference in the Vatican and announced that it was unfair not to tell people that they had been vampires for decades?  What if a pro wrestler stood up in the ring after pinning his opponent and turned into a bear before leaving the arena?  ...or before the match started, whatever might have the more amusing result...

I can easily imagine the Libertarian candidate fielding a question about whether his party is a front for the Fairie Queene by saying 'What if we are?  We pay taxes too!'

I know, I'm somewhat losing the Punk ethos, but that general concept doesn't stress my suspension of disbelief the way the various 'it's all a well-kept secret' settings do.  And as for True Blood and Anita Blake, there's something kind of staid about them.  It's like we enter the setting with all the disbelief kind of settled down, and the resulting traditions already entrenched.  You can tell some good stories there, but we never get to see the Crazytime before that.  And seriously, there should be some Crazytime.

My two cents.

Maybe something simpler.  How about Well Weaving?

One of the coolest sounding openings I read somewhere and never used, but I might use it in some form someday.  It has never been far from my mind.  An evil cabal hopes to resurrect the long-dead team of warriors who will serve as their fighting arm, but the crypt the warriors were laid to rest in was destroyed, moved, and otherwise left in a confusing state.  The remains they find and use for the resurrection ritual turn out to be those of the PCs...

It's been a while, and I finally dropped back in to resurrect the thread and maybe rejoin the guild on an active basis.  I like what I've seen in the - years, isn't it? - since I left, and if anyone wants to bring more flesh-eating fun into this mess, feel free.  Survivorman in particular seems to be tuned in, if he's still here and posting.

As for calling orcs goblins, good idea but no.  'Orcs' and 'goblinoids' are two distinct peoples in this setting.  Orcs being a race of, well, grunts, and goblin-kind being an old and far more complex race descended from faerie-kind.  Otherwise, I would frankly jump at that suggestion like a shot.

'Trollocs.'  Okay Eladris, I'll see your Trollocs and raise you this one...

I have at last thought of a good scholastic term for the general category of Dire beasts and humanoids.

Aggrozooics.

Okay, I'm back and kind of awake.  So far so good - I see the various posters points about different speakers using different terms ('dire,' for example, could easily be a technical term for a creature who has been modified by magic to be tougher, uglier and meaner than its parents, while the actual dire humans might refer to themselves as kesht and other dire creatures as tough meat.)

On the other hand, 'dire' might be better reserved as a slang or informal term with something more euphonious for technical reference.  Maybe something draconic - dragons came up with the 'Dire Transformation' in the first place...

This at least has me going again.  Thanks to everyone who has posted!

Point taken.  And that was kind of my problem - there are a lot of 'folk' out there.  But something dire seems so appropriate, so obvious, so right...  maybe dropping the whole term dire is the way to go, for anything.  I mean, what does one make of the long neglected dire corby from the original Fiend Folio?  What, does that mean there is a regular corby around?

...okay, that last couple of sentences strongly implies, upon rereading, that I need to go to bed.  Later, folk.

Hi folks.  Been a while since I posted, but then it's been a while since I played too.

I've been keeping up with things, kind of, and trying to write.  Short stories, building up to a novel.  It's slow going, and I just hit a speedbump.

For years people have been talking about the fact that halflings don't seem to have a name of their own.  (There are various setting-specific names, but that is really beside the point.  In fact, that kind of makes my point.)

Perversely, WotC has, in the course of building fluff for 4e, given the elves a new name but not halflings.  Okeydokey, whatever.

The point is, halflings are not really the most egregious example of a misnamed race in D&D.  

I'm talking about orcs.  Yes, orcs.  See, before Tolkien, the word 'orc' was hardly ever used - it's so Tolkien specific it's almost legally actionable.  'Hobbit' is actionable, hence the fact that it is almost never used in game settings that aren't Middle Earth.  But 'orc' slips by because it seems it is a word independent of Tolkien.

But I don't much care for it.  So I'm changing it.  From now on, the creatures described under the Orc entry in the Monster Manual will not be called 'orcs' in Ferakoss or any other writing of my creation.

My alternate name is Dire Folk, derived from the fact that orcs are to humans as dire beasts are to regular beasts.  But here's the problem - it has been pointed out to me that 'dire folk' might lead to confusion with 'shire folk,' which would give entirely the wrong impression.

My rebuttal is that there is no Shire in Ferakoss, so such confusion shouldn't be a problem.  But I have to admit, I'm playing to the kind of audience who might be confused that way.

What do you think? Any thoughts or reflections?  Criticisms?  Rants?  Death threats?  (Ordinarily I wouldn't be asking for those, but considering the subject matter I figured we might as well get them out of the way.)  Any comments will be appreciated.

In literal terms, the question 'What is a dragon' has a specific answer depending on the context.  In metaphorical terms, however, it seems clear that a dragon is a symbol of power transcending human understanding and unconcerned with human interests.  This distinguishes the tropes of dragon and angel - an angel, for whatever reason, has an interest in human happiness and achievement (a negative interest in the case of fallen angels) whereas a dragon doesn't find humans terribly important.  Might find them tasty, though...

Bottom line, a dragon is a pre-Lovecraft Cthulhu.

Raelifin, you are loved.  And yes, that's a fine example of a spider-folk race.  But for my money, one of the coolest kind of spiders are the jumping spiders - you know, the ones that are fast.  Still, I wouldn't have thought of those 'behavioral' penalties.  Makes perfect sense...  hmm...