[Games] Brainstorming for the Long 15
FALLOUT: THE LONG 15
I've been looking at Google Maps for a cluster of roads that I'm thinking of using as the (heavily fictionalized) location for my "Long 15" scenario for Necronomicon. I'm also thinking of using it as an introduction to the "Fallout" setting for my regular player group -- first as a "one-shot" scenario (playtest for the convention) ... but then as a sort of "introduction but with a long interlude first" for an eventual campaign.
The thing is, I'm sort of obliged to run a long Iron Kingdoms campaign set on the high seas first. And at SOME point, people are expecting me to run a Star Wars Rebellion campaign. But Savage Worlds is a much easier game system for me to wrap my brain around ... and Fallout has been more inspiring for my creativity. The new Star Wars movie -- as happy as I was to see it -- just didn't really INSPIRE me at all ... not remotely the way in which the much-loathed prequel movies did, that is. (Desert planet? Been there, done that. Millennium Falcon? I remember that. Oh, ANOTHER Death Star, only bigger? And it goes boom at the end? YAWN. And instead of the Rebellion, it's the Resistance, and instead of the Empire, it's the First Order, and there's a Republic ... at least until it gets blown up by a weapon launched from clear across the galaxy, in such a way that somehow you can be watching from light-years away and SEE it happen in real-time and ... ARRRRRGH! About the only "gee, cool, I'd like to do something with that moment" would be when that "Riot Stormtrooper" whipped out an arm-mounted weapon that could block a lightsaber ... but even then, why didn't he just stick to his rifle, and SHOOT the guy, and hold up his shield if he was afraid of bolts being bounced back? But ... argh. I DIGRESS.)
Miniatures Representation & References:
For miniatures representation, a lot of this, admittedly, is going to be a bit "theater-of-the-mind." I think I might try to put down some sort of road-map reference, if I can manage to make it look period-appropriate somehow (i.e., NOT just a printed-off section from Google Maps, like I relied upon for the zombie apocalypse campaigns). Maybe a bogus "Red Rocket" or "Poseidon Fuels" (fictitious Fallout energy companies) "travelers' road map" meant to evoke the feel of the maps that were available at gas stations back in the day.
A nice touch to communicate the "cold war" vibe and ever-present nuclear threat would be to have the map helpfully note bomb shelters along the route. (I wonder if Vault-Tec had any provision for customers who might be traveling when the bombs struck? Maybe a traveler who'd already been admitted into the Vault program could have the hope of being on "standby" at a Vault along the way, just in case there was an opening? Of course things would get ugly if there WASN'T.) If I have an excuse to mark Vault-Tec vaults along the way, I could also have an excuse to have a smiling thumbs-up Vault Boy on the map to further "Fallout-brand" the map.
Locations of Pulowski Preservation Shelters along the way would be morbidly amusing as well. It wouldn't make sense if it's a Vault-Tec branded map, as Pulowski is arguably a "competitor," but if the map is provided by some service station, it'd make more sense to have branding from various companies reflected on the map. For reference, the "Pulowski Preservation Shelters" are something of a profiteering scheme -- they're "temporary" shelters that are little more than a big cylinder that you deposit money into in order to be let inside. It has an oxygen supply, but indications are that the radiation shielding was negligible (that is, it provides no protection against radiation from outside the shelter, such as rad storms or mini-nukes), though it at least provides some blast protection. Anyway, I can just envision something like rest stops that advertise Jumbo-Sized Pulowski Preservation Shelters -- big enough to provide nuclear protection on a BUDGET, for the whole family! ;)
For vehicular combat, once there's a chase going on, I plan on using something on the table to represent a stretch of multi-lane highway (even though the "actual" road will be curving quite a bit), with something to represent the Nuka-Cola truck in the middle, at N scale (or "Micro Machines" scale, or somewhere thereabouts). I might use some Girder-and-Panel and Platformer construction set pieces to make an elevated super-highway for the "cloverleaf" and "mountain pass" segments -- for parts where it's clear that if anyone has hijacked a vehicle and is trying to keep up with the road battle, going off-road is NOT a viable option.
For other vehicles (and the occasional wreck), I plan on using little plastic pieces from the old Milton Bradley "Thunder Road" board game (little plastic "Mad Max" style cars), a few customized Micro Machines (or knock-offs) -- especially the ones designed to look like old 1950s-1960s cars -- and then a few Mechwarrior Clix motorcycles (since they're about the right scale, and small enough that we don't have to worry about whether they're "retro-styled"). I toyed with the idea of grabbing a few Mad-Max-ish "Dropzone" trucks at Miniature Market when they posted a "back to school" sale, but at that price, those sold out pretty quickly (and they're too pricey for me to justify getting them at retail). For mood-setting scenery, I'm thinking of putting up some Fallout-themed billboards along the side of the road and occasionally cycling them out -- and, if I'm really ambitious, maybe some miscellaneous bits of wreckage, such as a retro-futuristic diner, gas station, etc., that I may keep using over again in the more urban areas because, hey, it's a franchise. Once the chase gets into the mountains (at the point where I-15 merges with I-215 Barstow Freeway), I'll have a few foam "mountainside" pieces to stick to either side, to (I hope) give a hint at the changing terrain.
To keep track of the PCs, since I assume most of them will be on the truck for the action, I plan on having a model of the truck off to one side of the "mini-map," and to position minis on or around the truck (as PCs might be hopping up on top, or hanging onto the sides). I will likely need a separate card/tile to represent the interior.
I may have a couple of "generic" markers to represent other vehicles that might get close enough for combatants to be hopping over to engage in melee. It would be quite a challenge to try to have every possible vehicle represented both in O and N scale. Actually, I probably won't be representing other vehicles in "skirmish" scale (i.e., 32mm scale) except via tiles to use in the event that some crazy PC leaps over to another vehicle to attempt to take it over and/or engage the crew in melee. If I don't have to lug around a bunch of O-scale "road warrior" cars (but I can just represent them at "Micro Machine" scale instead), that should lighten my load considerably.
I may try to have a few "flash card" illustrations of scenes, if I can find some suitable images (or somehow overcome my artist block and sketch something). E.g., an image of a big tangled cloverleaf-of-the-future (with indications of battle going on) might be interesting, but that's probably a tall order. Maybe I could so some sloppy Photoshop work and get the idea across.
Back to the Scenario -- The Tangle, and the T-Wrecks:
Okay, so in the Fallout universe, most of California is now the "New California Republic," a loose confederacy of survivor settlements (some associated with "Vaults," but most not), with a lot of wasteland in between and hence ongoing problems with "raiders," "super mutants," "ghouls," giant radioactive cockroaches and scorpions and mole rats and geckos and whatnot, and then the occasional homicidal robot (because when a robot is going to break down, of COURSE the first thing that's going to happen is that it's going to try to kill everyone, and OF COURSE if you're going to build a friendly housekeeper robot, you're going to equip him with "tools" like a buzzsaw -- for hedge trimming? -- and a flamethrower -- for cooking? -- because this is the Fallout universe ;) ).
Most of the travel is done on foot. Sadly, there are no horses (it says so in the "Fallout Bible" used for internal design purposes). Instead, most trade happens via caravans with "pack brahmins" (mutant two-headed cows), either loaded up with bags and boxes and other junk on their backs, or else pulling wagons (often made from the back end of a pickup truck), or possibly both. However, in Fallout 2, you could actually DRIVE around, in a "Highwayman" car, and there are various references in the series that seem to suggest that -- even if you're not allowed to drive them or see them in action in-game -- various factions have actually managed to get large numbers of vehicles working again. (E.g., in "New Vegas," the NCR moves into McCarran Airport and sets up a military base there, and they have a score of army trucks that they apparently drove there in order to transport all the gear and troops. There are also places where it SEEMS as if NPCs have parked a motorcycle near where they're camping, and/or have attempted maintenance on said vehicle. I'm not really sure if the intact airplanes at McCarran were supposed to be functional as well, but there's a point where they fly in one functional "Vertibird" with the NCR president.)
Well, the premise of Long-15 (the nickname for the stretch of Interstate 15 that leads from the NCR to New Vegas) is that the PCs are on an automated Nuka-Cola delivery truck that changes its schedule and starts barreling down the remains of Route 66 (specifically, where I-15 is part of it) on what was "The Superhighway of the Future" ... and along the way, various automated services start waking up in response to the truck's transponder, road-raiders join chase, feral ghouls leap down from overpasses, and other such mayhem.
I've been looking at Google Maps for an idea of the actual terrain, or what sort of timing would be reasonable between various landmarks. As I have only seen little bits and pieces of California as part of my work (not counting a bus trip in the late 1980s), I really don't know the area. My planned course starts the action on State Road 210 (Foothill Freeway) with the truck barreling toward a massive cloverleaf junction (even more twisty and complicated than it is in real life, because this is FALLOUT) that is known as "The Tangle." The first challenge is that there is an ongoing firefight between forces of the NCR and various heavily-armed super mutants holed up within the Tangle. So, cue various munitions being lobbed about, and some super mutants deciding to train their heavy weapons (laser gatlings, missile launchers, etc.) on the truck barreling toward them.
Eventually, a gang of motorized Super Mutants gives chase: the T-Wrecks gang*, a bunch of oversized mutants who are so large, they are sticking out of the tops of their rusty, spiky, scrappy hot-rods, and operating stick shifts that stick all the way out ... with what I hope will be obvious references to Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's "Rat Fink" and "Monster Hot Rod" art when the players see the minis. (If I can fit in some illustrations, I'll do so, but I still seem to have a bit of a mental block when it comes to sketching anything. If I have to do so as part of WORK, I can somehow force myself, but it's ... hard to describe. I guess I've gotten myself into a mode where it somehow seems more natural to start putting together bits of epoxy putty or carving some plastic or assembling bits to make something rather than attempting to depict it in 2D.)
(* I started drawing an Ed-Roth style picture of "T-Wrecks," a car-driving dinosaur character "invented" by my niece. I hope to finish that one up and use it as a mascot for the gang, portraying it as billboard graffiti, a "flash card" illustration, etc.)
If any Chaotic-Stupid PCs decide to lob fire at the NCR troops, then I suppose there might be some return fire, but I don't see much reason for them to have any vehicles to join the chase. (I'm reluctant to kitbash anything special for such an eventuality -- especially since it's something that would only come into play if there are some really dumb PC antics -- and it'd be a lot nicer on the other, possibly more-sane heroes if any consequences of ONE crazy in the group don't come to punish the WHOLE of them so early on in the game.)
The main challenge here would be trying to engage the T-Wrecks -- either directly by attacking the super mutant drivers, or simply trying to put their hot rods out of commission by (for instance) aiming for the tires, or trying to blow up wrecks nearby (a detonating fusion engine has a blast equivalent to a "mini-nuke" weapon going off), or somehow trying to use the environment and good timing to knock obstacles into their way. (Since this is being done during a high-speed chase, explosives are likely to be involved, as that would likely be the quickest way to move a wreck into or out of someone's way on a road, when you have no control over the steering of the vehicle you're riding. ;) )
I'd have a cap for this scenario -- i.e., it's only going to last for up to X rounds, and after that, as long as the truck is still intact, any remaining T-Wrecks hot rods will break off pursuit, because they don't want to abandon their base in the Tangle. Otherwise, it might be possible to drag this on painfully if we reach a stalemate (e.g., the PCs don't have the ranged capability of threatening the T-Wrecks, and the T-Wrecks just don't seem to be having much luck of the dice to engage the PCs effectively).
I-15:
Okay, so after this, there should be some time until the vehicle reaches the NEXT cloverleaf: about 8 minutes, assuming an average speed of 60 mph. (Yeah, it's a post-apocalyptic road, but there might still be construction robots who keep the roads at least semi-intact, and this truck is something of a TANK, with some sort of futuristic "computer-aided variable suspension" that lets the wheels bounce and jostle around considerably while keeping the precious Nuka-Cola cargo from shattering. Or, hand-waviness. I want a road chase.)
According to Google Maps, it's a total of 1 hour, 6 min from the "Tangle" to Barstow (which in-universe is the former name of the big trading settlement "now" known as the Hub -- and my planned end-point for the scenario). Really, I could make that hour pass however quickly or slowly I please, to a certain extent, because I can always "fast-forward" to the next interesting point. Near the point where I-15 northbound joins with I-215, the road turns a little toward the west, and goes into the mountains. In the Fallout universe, when roads go into the mountains, the solution seems to be to have very, very elevated highways, sometimes double-decked (or more), rather than suffering the troubles of twisty mountain roads.
Within this span, I've got a jumble of encounter/complication ideas that could be rearranged in various ways. (So, it wouldn't by any means be in this order.)
Brahmin Crossing:
- Undeath From Above: At the cloverleaf at the I-15/I-215 junction, I plan on having a bunch of feral ghouls (not technically "undead," but they sure seem like it!) leaping from an overpass, with some of them landing on top of the truck, and some of them going "SPLUT!" on the freeway. More of a danger from them than the threat of them eating the PCs would probably be that they can inflict radiation damage with a slam or bite in addition to regular damage.
For this, all I really need are a few "ghouls" (zombies/undead) as minis. Pretty simple. I might also include a "glowing one" (like a ghoul, but glowing green -- and I have at least one HorrorClix mini that'd work for this) as the leader of the pack, and also the greater individual threat. - Road Raiders: At some point, there just have to be crazed lunatics with mohawks and whatnot in makeshift vehicles with bolted-on "armor" and spikes who come chasing after the truck. In fact, this just might be a recurring thing throughout the whole chase/adventure. Among the things they might do:
1) Ram and Board: Vehicles try to sideswipe, pass and slow down, or get behind and speed up, and then some crazy leaps across to try to board and "take control of" the truck. (They don't realize there's no driver, per se, but they'll engage anyone they encounter.)
2) Emergency Services: Raiders come up with a fire engine and turn on the alarm ... and the Nuka-Cola truck actually starts to slow down and to pull to the side to let it pass! PCs can thwart this by shooting out the alarm on the fire truck, or else they're going to get swarmed by raiders all at once. Otherwise, the fire truck ends up using the ladder on the back for some crazy raiders to attempt a boarding action by swinging around and leaping on. (Not all of them necessarily make it.)
3) Obvious Trap: A bus with "Swedish Bikini Team" painted on the side pulls up, and some (relatively) pretty face attempts to ask directions, persuade the truck to pull over, etc. Of course, the PCs CAN'T pull over, but the whole situation should be obviously a "trap," anyway. Assuming the PCs do the obvious thing and they just don't fall for it, the bus eventually pulls away and as a punchline, maybe the OTHER side is painted up with something different like ... hmm. What exactly? "FREE CHEMS AND BEER?"
I suppose it could be something where they can't actually get a clear look at the "gorgeous Swedish Bikini Team" -- perhaps they can only be seen in silhouette -- but at some point there's a reveal that the girls are GHOULS (and while they haven't all gone feral, per se, they HAVE given into that desire for eating non-ghoulified human flesh). If I went this route, then for the food truck I'd go with robots rather than ghouls, or else I think the cannibal-ghoul quotient might be a bit over the top. - Turbo Car Wash: After some sort of MESS happens on the truck (maybe some splattered ghouls?), the Nuka-Cola truck triggers a request to a still-functioning (but dormant for 200 years) mobile gantry car wash. This might work best on the elevated superhighway segment in the mountains, with the idea that there's some sort of overhead rail that the gantry can be suspended from. Otherwise, it might end up with wheeled supports, "straddling" the lane that the truck is in (and thus taking up some space of the adjoining lanes). In any case, it has a limited range, pursuing the customer vehicle (first come, first serve!), sudsing it up with some cleaner-spewing hoses, then buffeting it with spinning spongy cylinders (the sponginess might be in question after sitting around for 200 years), and thus providing quite a hazard to anyone trying to hang onto the outside.
Not that I plan on seriously sending heroes flying off onto the pavement at 60 mph or whatnot. More likely they'll just be knocked down and sudsed up for a round or two. This is more for "narrative interest" and "retro-futuristic silliness" than anything else. I suppose it might be funny if one of the PCs was a Brotherhood of Steel Paladin, and after surviving the hot-wax treatment (one hopes with his helmet still on), he's gleaming and SHINY. (Or similar to any robot caught outside, minus the need to wear a helmet.)
Very Fast Food: Actually, a bit of a digression. This page has scores of fascinating retro-futuristic pictures of bus and "land yacht" designs, some of which look like they could fit in the Fallout universe. But anyway, one idea I was toying around in variations was that of having a mobile food truck that would come alongside the Nuka-Cola truck and start serving up food to anyone inclined to order. The design of the model of the Nuka-Cola truck is such that it's actually depicted with some side-windows. I figure they can be rolled down (so passengers can fire out the gun ports, though surely that was NOT the original idea!) and it might be possible for a bit of food-service that way.
But which route to take? That depends upon how light or how dark I wanted to take things.
1) The Robo Grill -- light version: The mobile food truck is robotic, and tended by robots. It only "wakes up" because of the Nuka-Cola truck's transponder. (The Nuka-Cola truck is aware that there are employees on board, and that its food stocks are low, and it's about lunchtime, let's say, so it automatically orders mobile service. Either that, or the Robo Grill just opportunistically comes along, looking for customers.) The whole situation is kind of crazy, because there's a battle going on still, but if anyone actually takes the time to make an order, there's some sort of perk -- maybe a Benny for the "morale boost" of having a nice (if heavily preserved and highly artificial) meal. One fun thing I might do is to prepare a period-styled menu to go through. (The reader is notified of the credit budget, as dictated by the Nuka-Cola truck's AI, and calculated by the number of employees recognized as being aboard.) One twist could be that there are a few "convenience" items available as well as just food: some Tummy-Tum-Tums for indigestion, some Pain-X for headaches, some Dohz-No for an "energy boost," and Radaway for dealing with a common hazard of spending all day driving a nuclear automobile. The Radaway might be of particular use, especially if this encounter happens after dealing with the Feral Ghouls and the Glowing One -- or as a preventative.
2) The Soylent Grill -- gruesome version: Same setup, but the food truck's AI has short-circuited a few protocols and has a rather brutal way of acquiring fresh meat for its "meat patties": a robot pries roadkill off the front grill of the food bus, and processes it. The menu would keenly avoid any mention of specific meat type, or have strategically small "scare quotes," or asterisks with flyspeck print. The jig might be up if the food bus actually rams into something (a pack brahmin? an unlucky raider? a pack of ghouls?) on the way, and starts processing it on the fly, as the chef-bot hastily adds a new "Special" to the menu. A super mutant character might not mind the petty details (as they're known for being rather enthusiastically opportunistic about their food -- "Me hungry. Me want someone to eat!") but others might think twice about it. It could still be a good opportunity to get some Radaway. Quite possibly if the PCs opt NOT to order anything, the robots go berserk and attack (because ... that's just how things happen in Fallout).
A compromise version might be that the "road kill" that gets hit would be some radroaches, mole rats, radscorpions, etc., without chopping up any humans for the meal. In other words, it's kind of gross, and definitely not hamburger, but these are the sorts of things that wasteland survivors often end up cooking up and eating anyway, so it doesn't turn into "Eww! Cannibalism!" I would drop the "Soylent" from the name, incidentally. No PC is going to touch it with a name like that. ;)
3) The Ghoulish Grill -- extra gruesome version: It's a high-speed food truck operated by a family of not-quite-feral-but-almost-there ghouls (and in fact, one or two of them might BE feral, and only barely controlled by the others). It shouldn't too long to figure out just HOW opportunistic they are about the food source, and basically it's a case of: Either you order from what's on the menu, or you ARE what's on the menu. (So, PCs either place an order and go through some awkward moments -- then quietly pay in caps and toss the "food" once the truck's gone -- or else suddenly they've got a food-truck trying to side-swipe them and crazed ghouls with chef hats and cleavers boarding.
I briefly had the idea of some sort of "rocket-roller-skate" waitress coming alongside the truck and taking orders, but that's probably just a little too Jetson-ish and ridiculous even for Fallout.
4) The Eat-o-Matic: This could perhaps be a separate encounter. At some point, a robotic van comes alongside, and there's basically a bank of vending machines along the side, allowing for order/dispensing of Nuka-Cola, Sunset Sarsaparilla, junk food such as Fancy Lads Cakes, and then some potentially useful stuff such as a Motorist Convenience Center with Stimpacks, Radaway, Rad-X, a First Aid Kit, etc. Either it operates off Old World money (of which the PCs might have very little), or else it's a case of the PCs discovering that they have "employee budgets" registered in the Nuka-Cola AI's system, based on the time they've been "working" on the truck. (In theory they might find that they're surprisingly "rich" according to the "employee expenses credit" ... but this credit can only be used with machines that RECOGNIZE the credit, and a limiting factor might simply be that it takes a bit of time for each vending machine order to process, and they're only going to be driving alongside this Eat-o-Matic truck for X rounds -- possibly less, if some raider manages to cripple the Eat-o-Matic truck during combat.)
Hmm. Maybe a high-speed unicycle "waitress" robot like the one at the cafe in Attack of the Clones?
Yeeee-HAWWWWW: The highway isn't always intact. This might make an interesting "termination point" for some chase segment that has gone on for too many rounds. It's definitely one for either the cloverleaf segments, or the mountain segment -- not the parts where the highway should be at ground level. Somehow, however, improbably, the Nuka-Cola truck is going to make the "leap." Other vehicles may either chicken out and come to a stop, or attempt the jump (with a few of them crashing and exploding in spectacular fireballs) ... though a few (no doubt including the "Big Boss") might get through.
PardonMeComingThrough!AIEEEEEE!**CRASH**: Inspired by some pretty cool settlement builds I've seen utilizing sections of elevated highway (plus the various bases established by NPCs, also on elevated roads), I thought ... what if somebody BUILT something on that road you're barreling down? The Nuka-Cola truck can recognize obstacles to a certain extent (it steers to avoid wrecks), but its AI programming is a wee bit off, and rather than politely coming to a stop if faced with a traffic jam, it's more likely to simply plow its way through the calculated weakest point. The same applies if someone built a shack in the road and some fencing and thought it would be a bright idea to charge tolls (without actually positioning this setup at an actual toll booth the truck's AI would recognize). So, cue random crazy crashing through stuff, and random things (or creatures or people) ending up taking an accidental ride on the truck for a bit (until they get knocked off by the next crash-through).
I'd have it be some sort of raider base so crashing through it wouldn't seem excessively cruel, but supposedly I-15 is NCR territory, so while there might be a few super mutants camped out, having a well-established superhighway-straddling raider base might be a bit too much to suppose that they'd tolerate for long (since this is the main trade artery between the NCR and its interests in Nevada). Maybe it's an established area where some group has control of some construction robots and they're charging tolls, and the NCR tolerates them (although there's some corruption in that the operators might raise the toll for someone who they think can afford to pay more), since at least they're keeping the road intact. Not that the PCs are going to have time to get very familiar with the arrangement. It's just going to be -- HI! ***CRASH*** Oops -- BYE! (With a bit of screaming and braying and crashing and mayhem in between, and a few gratuitous explosions perhaps.)
I may think of some other elements, but that's probably enough in the way of combat encounters. Anything else will just be interesting narrative details, or momentary hazards / environmental effects that might come in play for a round or two. (E.g., there's a partially-collapsed road sign resulting in LOW CLEARANCE, so anyone on top of the trailer has to duck, or risk going face-first into a sign. Or, there's thick fog that obscures vision for a bit, or there's a rad storm that deals radiation damage to anyone unshielded and outside, or some raider manages to toss a smoke grenade through a vent-hole in the trailer and now anyone INSIDE has to deal with smoke effects, etc.