 January 29, 2012 - 12:03am | Guilty pleasures, movie thread had me thinking about Logan's Run and Damnation Alley. And I got a half baked campaign idea. Frontier races are long lived. Imagine an exploration expedition stuck on a planet for 75the or 100 years when they finally are able to fix their ship and return to the frontier. Things have changed. War pestilence and collapse of civilization. On one planet they find domed cities where no one is allowed to live over a certain age due to resource scarcity (Logan's Run). On another planet its Mad Max and Road Warrior sorts of conditions. More or less each planet is re-imagined as a classic post apocalypse movie. PC's are trying to find some form of civilization to get back to and each module is simply exploring a new planet in the frontier looking for supplies and information about what happened and dealing with the inhabitants that more often then not don't wish them well. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 29, 2012 - 12:10am | Naturally enough you'd want to show changes in technology so the PC's might have a restricted equipment list, possibly very limited equipment list after 100 years. You'd want to raid any game you could find for its tech manual even allowing for some really futuristic artifact like tech- could even get a little Gamma World ish on this point. Weird alien artifacts and such. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 29, 2012 - 12:39am | Jedion, do you remember a show from the early 80's called ARK II. It was about a group of young scientists who set out from some utopian group to help out in post apocolyptic America. For a kids show it had some good ideas. Maybe, your PC group could be from a planet that was isolated, but has civilization, and the PC's are going around the Frontier trying to help rebuild the Frontier life. Say, after a larger widespread version of the Blue Plague? It could include all sorts of post apocolyptic civilizations. |
January 29, 2012 - 6:24am | I dont remember Ark2, have to look it up, but Logan's run works from the same model, Logan leaves civilization to wander the waste land. I'd prefer to have the PC's returning to the Frontier and trying to learn what happened. Societies servicing in the Frontier would have some memory of what happened. In this way one part of the PC's mission is to learn what happened which will require talking to NPCs. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 29, 2012 - 9:37am | Couple of more thoughts: Rome wasn't built in a day and neither did it fall in a day. Same with the Frontier. Make it a variety of causes that brought the Frontier civilization down. 1. War with the sathar- it was crushing and crippling and left several planets devestated, populations depleted and economies crippled. 2. Plague and Pestilence: germ warefare? or did the effects of war allow for a bug to escape a lab? Perhaps both are true and more than one "bug" is active though each are in different places. 3. Radical nut jobs, facist and cult leaders use the turmoil of war to rise to positions of power and do what what they do which leads to death and in fighting Treatment of Planets: A. Some few planets have small sathar presence- the worms were also exhausted by the war but perhaps a general on the ground, who was abandoned by the sathar fleet has organized and established a society with sathar on top and the core four races as slaves on the bottom. B. Some planets have seen a break down of society and look like Road Warrior/Mad Max decimated populations picking over the scraps C.Some planets still have some semblence of government, if only in a few small city states, that have chosen to limit personal freedoms for the greater good and have embarked on some radical social engineering aka Logan's Runs D. Some planets have become plague planets, perhaps one has your classic zombies, ala I Am Legend or Millenium Man. E. Perhaps some are totally deviod of life and only machines remain. Wallie, mechanons, F. Perhaps there is a utopia society out there but with a dark underside (really just another verion of C.) Player's Mission I. Piece together what happened II. Obtain supplies and equipment to keep flying III. Find a place to shelter in and become a part of (ie locate a place that represents enough civilization that they can have a hope for the future) IV. Try to bring civilization back from the edge and heal its wounds I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 30, 2012 - 3:41am | One question why does it have to be a different planet for each setting? Scale comes into effect here. Metamorphesus Alpha has each setting in a different dome for each setting aboard the huge spaceship. Each of those settings could be located on the same world the PCs visited. Going planet to planet might not be needed especially since fuel for the ship would be a problem constantly visiting low tech worlds. Oh by the way in the show Ark II they used the same vehicle from Damnation Alley as there home base. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
January 30, 2012 - 3:42am | Oh and there is the Plague World project here for some other ideas. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
January 30, 2012 - 6:11am | One question why does it have to be a different planet for each setting? Scale comes into effect here. Metamorphesus Alpha has each setting in a different dome for each setting aboard the huge spaceship. Each of those settings could be located on the same world the PCs visited. Going planet to planet might not be needed especially since fuel for the ship would be a problem constantly visiting low tech worlds.
That I think I remember, seeing the vehicle reused but can't remember the show. Wonder where that vehicle is today?Oh by the way in the show Ark II they used the same vehicle from Damnation Alley as there home base. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 30, 2012 - 6:23am | Visiting new planets simply makes it episodic. As to fuel you just allow for them to find a depot of wrecked ships etc. If the whole frontier has crashed as a civilization and part of the mission is to figure out what happened then it will require visiting a portion of the frontier. This might work best as a big ship campaign with a space fleet frigate trapped in some plot device of a space anomaly for the required time. The captain would be an npc and the PC's the officers. For them they left the Frontier just yesterday and now find it in ruins. One asset would be that the captain's computer has locations for secret depots established after SW2 so they can get resupply and fuel. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 30, 2012 - 11:33am | Here's another twist on your idea - what if, instead of returning to the Frontier, your adventurers were returning to the homeworlds? What happened to them? Why were they cut off from the Frontier however long ago? What remains? Perhaps some organization has finally found charts showing where the homeworlds were (I can't remember in Star Frontiers exactly what happened to the homeworlds of the various primary races, but I think it was left un-told) or clues to how to get back to the homeworlds of various races. On the way, they stumble across worlds who have lost their civilization and technology and even the homeworlds might have done so (probably, actually). One last thought: Planet of the Apes (original - not the new ones). Call of Cthulhu RPG Journals: http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blogs/2951 Other journals: http://forum.abyssalgaming.com/blog/7-maxs-blog/ http://www.penandpapergames.com/forums/blog.php/8662 |
January 30, 2012 - 2:00pm | Last I saw the Damnation Alley truck it was being used for other movies and constantly rebuilt. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
January 30, 2012 - 3:01pm | Last I saw the Damnation Alley truck it was being used for other movies and constantly rebuilt.
You too could be a geek red neck by parking the damnation Alley truck, instead of an RV, in your yard and never moving it. :)I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 30, 2012 - 7:44pm | That Damnation Alley/ArkII truck nose was reused or taken from, I cannot remember which, and used as the nose piece on a space ship in the TV series Jason of Star Command, FYI. Not nly would Space Fleet leave caches of stuff places, so would Mega Corps. There could be Mega Corp research facilities scattered across the Frontier. Maybe the captain would have some secret file one some, or clues could be obtained from planets that are explored? |
January 30, 2012 - 8:33pm | @Karxan: good observation about the mega corps and any mega corp secret facility may not be so keen to cooperate with little lost Space Fleet Frigate either. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 30, 2012 - 11:18pm | For inspiration on the whole "fading stellar empire" theme, The Last Legion series by Chris Bunch was pretty good. First half was probably better, I thought it ended up a little cheesy or formula driven toward the end. ARK II, heheh, was just watching some of those episodes on dvd the other day. |
January 31, 2012 - 5:29am | Now that I think of it, the company who built the Damnation Alley truck also built the cars for Death Race 2000 (The original with Carradine and Stallone). Maybe the Laco Run race could be like that one. How abandoned a secret facility is would depend on how fast it was abandoned. Zombies running amok might mean it everything is still there. An economic collaspe might mean alot was stripped out like copper thieves do. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 February 2, 2012 - 9:31am | Sounds like Planet of the Apes on a grand scale. Perhaps they could run into a world that is run by some recent addition to the sapient family. It wouldn't take but a couple of generations for a society to technologically devolve. Imagine that our currently economy here hasn't even begun to get bad, despite how much it already sucks. Imagine that over the next 15 years unemployment continues to grow. College degree's aren't worth the paper they are printed on. There is no money to send kids to college. Many drop out of grade school just to be able to find food and such. Crime as a result to unemployment sky rockets. Now you have a generation of 'citizens' without education, but more importantly without dreams, hope and motivation to improve the standard of living. Every subsequent generation will be even worse than the preceding and eventually all those with the knowledge will have died off. All this may seem to be a over-dramatic, drawn out death, but don't forget the crime, chaos and civil war that will ensue under these conditions. Realistically, it's not so far fetched. After all, look at the French.  |
February 2, 2012 - 8:50pm | @ Inigo, You are correct that it does not take more than a couple of generations for a society to deevolve. The Aztecs were declining but they went fast at the end. There are lots of examples in history of this happening. But modern society has, I belive a unique technical disadvantage that the past societies did not. It is the social network, and the electronic economy. If we lost power on this planet in a major percentage of areas, we would have a breakdown unheard of with the cultures of the past. In Golden Eye, James Bond, the bad guys were trying to emp the international banking system to cover their tracks after they stole money. Even in movies people understand how fragile. or tied into electricity, we are. The same thing could happen on a Frontier world and where would that leave them? |
February 3, 2012 - 6:07am | The larger city the worse the loss of power would be BUT the smaller towns out in the outlying areas may be able to do better since they would be able to pull together as a community better. It would take a supreme leader to pull a few thousand beings together in an area where no food growing capabilities exist. In a community of a few hundred which already grows food they could switch from robotic to manual labor a little quicker. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 February 3, 2012 - 9:56am | Just throwing my two cents in here, but anyone interested in this kind of setting, might be interested in Traveller: The New Era campaign setting. In that setting a virus spread throughout the Imperium and all the computer controlled tech turned against the people, causing the collapse of the stellar empire. The setting starts years later with the survivors of this war starting to rebuild their shattered worlds. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
February 3, 2012 - 9:03pm | Yes mining The New Era can be useful. Of course I do believe The New Era is what killed the Traveller series and is now only recovering somewhat. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
February 4, 2012 - 10:04am | Every winter (in the town I just moved away from) we would lose power anywhere from a day to a week. With my battery powered radio I would listen to all the callers to Louisville radio station cry and complain about no food, no heat, no television... Then I'd hear these old folks calling in telling how they were having the time of their lives playing checkers, heating with a wood burning stove or fireplace and heating up beans and coffee at the same time. @Karxan You have to remember that it takes people and training as well as money to keep the grid up and the satellites functioning. As society declines, you would have less of all these things. Unfortunately, these younger generations seem only capable of taking their own way, not making it. I don't hold much hope if such a disaster were to occur. |
February 4, 2012 - 10:21am | My original idea was a more gamma world like setting with the PC's wandering around trying to survive and figure out what happened. However, you could also do this with some surviving shreds of authority and power. A space Fleet admiral with a bit of a fleet left becomes a military dictator over a hand full of worlds - many people are willing to trade liberties for peace, safety and a full stomachs. In another area a pirate band becomes the local power, on one world you get a rag tag army like in the movie The Postman. Etc. The situation gets interesting when the PC's ship gets an invitation it can't refuse to join the new space fleet and admiral dictator wants to put personnel he can trust aboard. Then they find out that the duly elected President of the UPF was arrested and baulked by the admiral. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 4, 2012 - 7:46pm | @Jed look into the Altered Earth setting. It has more of a Judge Dredd type of Mega City combined with mutants and robots. High tech and low tech combined. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
January 2, 2016 - 4:32am | https://www.google.com/search?q=damnation+alley&client=ms-android-verizon&prmd=visn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjb-sasn...
Deck plan for the Landmaster I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
