[Games] Planetarium of the Apes -- Scenario Brainstorm
For my third Necronomicon scenario, I plan on running a game called "Savage Fallout: Planetarium of the Apes." The "Savage" part is because I'm using Savage Worlds RPG. The "Fallout" part is because the setting is based on the "Fallout" series of video games. And "Planetarium of the Apes" is because I'm doing a lot of primate puns in this scenario.
Part of this is about economy and time management. I happen to have a whole bunch of miniatures of space apes in power armor with big guns and gizmos, piloting weird vehicles that look like a sort of fusion between 1950s/1960s futurism with a bit of dieselpunk and grunge tossed into the mix. The faction is called "Karman," from the discontinued French miniatures game (from Rackham) called "AT-43." What's really nice is that they are already assembled, pre-painted, and ready to go. So, by using these minis (and reusing my Fallout-themed PCs from last year), I don't necessarily have to paint up any new miniatures at all. Any work I put into it will probably be for "props," such as some custom floor tiles, which could just be done up in Photoshop and printed off, and glued to foam-core illustration board.
The other is because, well, apes just seem like such a retro-sci-fi trope, and yet they don't show up nearly enough in the Fallout universe. This scenario aims to rectify that.
Originally, I envisioned this as the grand finale setup for my (sometime in the distant future) Fallout-themed cross-country campaign. The heroes would start in the west, follow Route 66, reach Chicago, then trek down toward Florida, visit this world's "Disneyworld" equivalent, and then eventually head to Cape Kennedy to finally engage in a "save the world" sort of mission (kind of), duking it out with a bunch of heavily-armed apes. By that point, the PCs would presumably have plenty of experience, maybe a powersuit of armor or two, and some heavy weaponry, so they could take on a powersuit ape army or two.
For a convention scenario, where the power level is a bit lower, and this is just a one-shot game, I need to rein in the scope a bit.
For the setting, my rough idea would be that this was going to take place at a space launching facility at Cape Canaveral that had become more of a space research facility (with an on-site aerospace museum) after advances in rocket technology rendered the idea of a launch center almost superfluous. (That is, since rocket technology has progressed to something more Buck-Rogers-ish with rockets no longer requiring multiple booster stages, and being something that could be launched from a ramp on the ground, vs. requiring a giant complex.) The place wouldn't be "Kennedy Space Center," because in this alternate universe, JFK wasn't assassinated.
Just as in the real KSC in our world, there would be a visitor center and an area with old stage rockets and space shuttles (the Fallout version being a bit more retro-looking of course, as 1980s design aesthetic apparently never came about -- not even where physics is concerned). In this version, there would also be a special facility on site, known as CAPE (I was playing here off of CAPE Canaveral): "Center for Advanced Primate Experimentation." In this program, primates were genetically engineered, bred, raised, altered, and trained in the hopes of coming up with a viable alternative to sending human astronauts into space for long-term missions. Among other things, the primates would be bred/engineered to be more intelligent than their wild cousins, and to be resistant to the high doses of radiation they would be exposed to during prolonged space journeys.
Then, on October 23 of 2077, the bombs dropped. At this time, Cape Canaveral wasn't actually active as a launch center, so it wasn't prioritized as a target, but radioactive fallout still killed off most humans in the area, while leaving the experimental primates alive. In time, the strongest and fittest (and smartest) among the primates managed to eke out a living, fight off ghouls caused by the radiation, and to establish a base there. Shortly before the time of the bombs dropping, a very popular media franchise was that of Captain Cosmos (a comic book character who ended up with his own weekly broadcast adventure series), with his sidekick Jangles the Moon Monkey. As a bit of a promotional tie-in, there was an exhibit at the Cape Canaveral Space Center featuring Jangles the Moon Monkey. The descendants of the original CAPE primates have turned the exhibit into a shrine, and Jangles into a mythic, god-like being. (They downplay the relevance of Captain Cosmos. To try to clarify to the CAPEs that Jangles was just the "sidekick" of Captain Cosmos, rather than the mastermind, is to invite DIVINE APE WRATH upon oneself.)
As for the CAPEs, they have long been assembling an older staged rocket, either with the intent to mount a weapon of mass destruction upon it to purge the countryside of pesky humans (so that they might become the dominant race, and rule in the name of Jangles) ... or else the point is to RIDE the rocket up to an orbital space station (which in turn happens to have a bunch of weapons of mass destruction in it, borrowing a plot point from the defunct "Fallout: Van Buren" game, which was cancelled, but which had some of its creative elements incorporated into later Fallout games, so it's not ENTIRELY non-canon. ;) ).
So, how are the PCs involved?
Well, for the campaign, I was going to involve the Nuka-Cola delivery truck. The PCs might be at the "Mimsyverse" parks for a while, and then the Nuka-Cola truck receives a new restocking request signal from the Space Center, and it hits the road. At the Space Center, the PCs fight off ghouls, CAPEs, berserk robots, and other adversaries, eventually learning that the CAPEs have a nasty project they're working on, and must be stopped. Things going BOOM are likely to be involved.
For a one-shot convention game, there's no particular need for the action to take place in Florida. I could just as easily have it be some generic "Repconn Testing Facility" located wherever. I don't really have much of a "plot" per se figured in. Mostly it's a matter of going into a ruined area, finding interesting and/or amusing and/or dangerous stuff, and blowing up an assortment of enemies (armored apes, radioactive ghouls, giant mutant cockroaches -- maybe even a mutant gator or two if this is still in Florida). I sometimes try to work in more of a plot, but too much of that tends to get wasted at convention games: The rooms are noisy, "clues" get lost by the wayside, and there's too high of a chance that players may not really be "team players" per se. Instead, most of the game appeal is just in sheer weirdness/wackiness, and in providing role-play opportunities for any player inclined to latch onto them (but not getting out of shape if the players are more interested in just blowing stuff up).
My arsenal of encounters/minis/props that I'm likely to work with:
Karmans / CAPEs:
These are the "stars of the show." Space apes in armor, with bubble helmets, and weapons that are kludged together from power tools, mini-rocket engines, and so forth. So, industrial bolters (high-powered "nail guns"), portable thermal lance (super-heated industrial tool), chemical flamethrower, and maybe even an improvised RPG that fires weaponized toy rockets (salvaged from the Space Center gift shop and its supply warehouse, and packed with explosives). Some might have "speaking roles," so I should come up with some names and some cheesy lines -- preferably something with an old sci-fi B-movie feel.
I'll try to fix up one to be the "big boss" ape with some heavy weapon. I suppose that it might be possible to end the adventure by talking the apes into not trying to obliterate what's left of humankind, but it ought to require some sort of James T. Kirk speech that really lays on the melodrama (and only after there have been plenty of opportunities to beat up apes/monkeys on the way in, for any combat-monsters in the PC group).
Option #3 might be to bypass the apes and do a sneaky mission: Rather than trying to defeat the head ape or take over Mission Control, they might simply sabotage the rocket. If that's the case, though, they'd do best to secure some sort of fast transport OUT of the Cape Canaveral Space Center, because it's not likely to be around for long when that thing goes off on the launch pad (or when it lifts briefly into the air and then comes crashing back down again).
Random crazy Big Boss idea: Give the head ape a really weird hair style (via putty) and call him "Kim Kong-One." Maybe have a part where he executes a disloyal underling in over-the-top fashion, such as positioning the poor monkey underneath a booster rocket and then test-firing the engine. Or pointing a giant kit-bashed plasma-array cannon at him and then -- BZZZZAAAAPP! Giant crater of green goo. It'd be highly anachronistic for a reference ... but maybe it'd work. Who knows? It might just fly over players' heads anyway.
Also, for characterization purposes, I've been thinking of having many of the CAPEs not being all that bright, so as to better justify PC attempts at on-the-fly trickery to work their way in (e.g., disguising themselves as "apes" with improvised disguises). There's just a certain "elite" class (perhaps "the Kongs") that got more of a focus on the brain-boosting program. Alas, I don't have any "space monkey" minis ready to go, or perhaps I could have smart (but fairly weak) space-monkeys, vs. strong (but not that bright) space-apes, with the leader being a rare specimen who gets the best of both worlds.
HorrorClix Undead Astronaut / YT-17 Trauma Override Harness:
I have a few of these minis on hand. In Fallout: New Vegas, the YT-17 Trauma Override Harness was an adversary representing cutting-edge technology gone horribly wrong. The concept of the harness was that it was a protective power-assist suit with "intelligent fiber" and "artificial muscle" technology worked into the suit, as opposed to the mechanical/hydraulics tech mostly in use circa 2070. The suit was "smart," monitoring its wearer's physical actions so that it could better adapt to assist in tasks requiring added strength, without working against or even injuring the wearer if such assistance were applied incorrectly. It also had a feature whereby if the user sustained severe injuries, the suit could take over, and walk the suit-wearer back to a "home base" for medical treatment.
The trouble is that with the dropping of the bombs of the Great War, the mechanism that signaled the location for "home base" was destroyed, and so the suits entered a random "wander" state, perpetually unable to find "home base," while their wounded and radioactivity-weakened occupants died a slow and agonizing death. Also, it seems to be a common thread that whenever an AI deteriorates over time, it seems to almost inevitably gravitate toward some mode of operation that makes it less-than-safe to be around (or even outright hostile). In Fallout, this meant that when you encountered them, of COURSE they'd be armed with guns and start shooting at the protagonist. As this is an RPG, I feel like I should put at least a little more thought into the threat posed by them.
I envision having a few of these things wandering around aimlessly, perhaps initially being mistaken for humans in space suits by the PCs, and then discovered to basically be automated suits with skeletons stuck inside, which would be rather creepy. The technology is rather remarkable, and if there's some sort of engineer/McGyver type in the group, I could envision the potential for these suits to be researched, and for someone to be able to make some lightweight power-assist armor (not as durable or as powerful as full-sized power armor, but not nearly as heavy or posing as big of a penalty to stealth, either).
However, some of the CAPE engineers have recognized the potential value in these creepy things to turn them into perimeter guards. Upon recognizing an intruder, the YT-17 has been programmed to set off a noisemaker (which will alert CAPE guards to come investigate), or else to perform some other specific task (e.g., walk over and pull an alarm, trigger a trap, or even take an improvised weapon and directly engage the enemy, albeit without much skill).
Perhaps the first YT-17 encountered at the perimeter could have a looping, recorded message it plays that basically serves as a warning for all humans (pure-strain, mutated, or otherwise) to STAY AWAY, or risk being used for target practice.
Another notion I have is that some poor technician who became trapped in his suit -- the suit detected he was wounded, and took over, but was failing to actually find the medical center -- could only interact with his voice-activated communications device and audio-log. When encountered, the YT-17 is playing back the last log recorded -- something like, "Log review. Recorded entry begins now -- BEEP -- Day two. Suit is still wandering, nowhere near the medical center. Can't regain motor control. Wish I had a stockpile of Radaway. I passed Sherm -- pretty sure he's dead, but the suit is carrying on, taking him in a completely different direction. What a way to go...."
Random related idea: What if someone trapped in the suit got ghoulified? (In the Fallout universe, some people exposed to otherwise lethal doses of radiation would -- instead of dying -- undergo a weird "mutation" that caused hair to fall out, cartilage to deteriorate, outer skin to slough off in patches, and generally for the victim to have a "walking dead" sort of look, but become quasi-immortal, not only immune to damage from radiation, but even getting "sustenance" from it ... but most of them would eventually suffer brain deterioration, and develop an overpowering taste for non-irradiated flesh, thus becoming "feral ghouls.")
Mr. Handy / Mr. Gutsy / Ms. Nanny:
I have at least a couple of "Brother Vinni" miniatures sets to make Mr. Handy robots (or its variants) thanks to the generosity of Goober_Chris. This is a Pre-War robot that hovers around on a nuclear-powered vertical thruster (somehow), and has three robot arms and three robot eyes -- each arm either ending in a claw or a plug-in tool/weapon attachment. "Mr. Handy" was the civilian, home use version, while "Mr. Gutsy" was the military version (with plasma weapons and such as attachments). "Ms. Nanny" was introduced in Fallout 4 as another variety, having a "female" personality (and a French-sounding accent), serving in medical researcher and in teaching roles, among others.
It might be fun to have at least a couple of berserk robots on-premises, if I can get them painted up in time. I also have some Protectrons which could be painted and kit-bashed in a number of ways.
Ghouls:
(No picture, because any number of "zombie" minis could work.) As noted earlier, "ghouls" are sometimes produced by nuclear radiation in the Fallout universe, and even though they're supposed to be a relatively "rare" outcome of being exposed to high radiation doses, if one visits the ruin of a place that was sufficiently populated before the Great War, there's bound to be a local "supply" of ghouls, most difficult for any lone wanderer to hope to clear out.
A random idea I had was that a few ghouls who haven't become feral yet have been subjugated by the CAPEs, and show their subservient natures by wearing Jangles Halloween masks (since, after all, the Great War happened in October -- hence a lot of Pre-War sites still have Halloween decorations up, or at least the remnants of such). But even if I go this route, most of the ghouls might be feral, and simply "herded" by the still-intelligent ones as cannon fodder. Anyway, if there are some "minions" like this, there might be a better chance of justifying the PCs being able to wrangle some sort of disguises for purposes of infiltration, if they choose to go the sneaky route.
I'm not sure how to really make the encounter INTERESTING, per se. Maybe a ghoulified actor who, at the time of the bombs dropping, was there to portray Captain Cosmos. Now he's something like the "court jester" for the currently reigning leader of the CAPEs, and he has a deliberately slanted retelling of the way the things were in the world before the Great War, so as to curry favor with his current audience. He might be the sort who, upon learning of the heroes' arrival, might initially try to win their favor and give them useful information and such, in the hopes that they're his ticket out of there ... but as he learns more about them (and all the trouble they go through on a regular basis, etc.) he might suddenly change his mind and decide that the status quo is worth something after all, and thus at some point he tries to double-cross the PCs, revealing himself to be a wretched sort, totally unlike the heroic Captain Cosmos he was once supposed to portray.
As for props, I might try printing a few floor tiles to represent things like rooms within the Space Center -- perhaps finding some old pre-Kennedy-Space-Center logo for the old space program, and adapting it to make it more "Fallout-ish" somehow. As per the name of the scenario, the CAPE "throne room" should be in a planetarium (and here I'm drawing inspiration from the "Sam & Max" Telltale Games series). Since I can't very well represent the ceiling the planetarium, I might try to find some sort of 1960s-looking "depiction of the solar system" and then apply some texture effects to make it seem like this is done as a mosaic on a floor, or similar effect, and then with a bunch of wear and maybe some debris (discarded banana peels? ;D ).
Once upon a time, I used to have a bunch of plastic rocket toys (both "realistic" and not-so-much) that would be nice to work in as props, but those were gone in garage sales ages ago. I can't keep EVERYTHING around (although my garage makes it clear that I try).
I suppose I should also have a "Mission Control" room, and/or something to represent a launch gantry (or portion thereof), as perhaps we could end up with a big fist-fight as the rocket is being prepped to launch. I suppose I could try to have a grand finale that takes place on a derelict space station, but that sounds like it'd be worth its own adventure scenario, not just shoehorned in as another encounter in this game.
I'd like to think of a few retro-futuristic elements to introduce to the game, such as, for instance, in the sort of "loot" the PCs may be able to scrounge for.
Ideas:
* Packages of "Astronaut Ice Cream." The Space Center has tons of them, because nobody ever really liked the taste that much, and that extends to the CAPEs (with the exception that every last one of the BANANA flavored Astronaut Ice Cream has been consumed).
* BANG. It's sort of a cross between TANG and Pop Rocks (which, according to Wikipedia, were actually invented by the same food scientist). The presence of "Tang" is meant as a sort of homage to how Tang (invented in the late 1950s) became associated with the manned space program, after John Glenn used it on the Mercury mission. I had thought Tang was actually made for the space program, and according to Wikipedia that was a common mis-perception (and figured into Tang's boost in sales). Anyway, "BANG" kind of fits into the weird Fallout aesthetic in the same way that "Blast Radius" is the only board game we know of, and "Sugar Bombs" the only sugary breakfast cereal of note in the canon. Perhaps in its powdery form, "BANG" is not only useful to be reconstituted into drinks, but it might have interesting chemical properties, useful to make ammunition for some sort of interesting weapon.
* Model Rockets. Just as the CAPEs might make use of toys with dubious safety records from the gift shops as makeshift weapons, any character with the "McGyver" Edge might find ample opportunity to turn toys and gizmos on-site into improvised weapons.
I am suddenly reminded of a crazy scene from the LucasArts game, "Full Throttle," where the protagonist deals with a minefield by getting a whole crate full of wind-up toy bunnies and unleashing them upon the minefield (to the tune of "Flight of the Valkyries," with explosions).
Anyway, I guess I need to figure out the intended "flow" of the adventure.
First, the PCs arrive. I want to tell something of the "story" of the site at first. While I could fill in a little bit through narrative, if I just start reading off a "wall of text," I'm going to lose player interest. Some of it might be told through table props (billboards, decorative map tiles portraying the Space Center, ads for "SEE the Jangles the Moon Monkey Exhibit -- LIMITED ENGAGEMENT!" and so forth).
The encounter with the wandering YT units could be a way to introduce the idea of the CAPE program (through recorded messages) without actually having the PCs encounter space-primates yet. Maybe let the PCs encounter a straggler (maybe a lone CAPE sneaking off to catch a smoke, when only the Kongs are allowed to smoke?), and have a chance to capture and interrogate him (if they don't, y'know simply blow his brains out at the first chance). Further information-gathering opportunities might be had if they observe a robot patrol; it might be not only patrolling, but scavenging for materials to use for repairing some of the systems used in the rocket system -- hinting that someone's trying to launch something. (Well, that, and various lights shining over in the direction of the launch pad....)
For bonus points, I might try to put together some sort of a "visitor's map," highlighting the major areas, such as the planetarium, gift shop, theater, history exhibits, "junior space cadet" play area, some sort of a higher-end restaurant (perhaps on an upper level, with a more impressive view).
SPACECRAFT:
I might work in a reference to the USS Quetzel, a shuttle that appeared in Fallout 2:
Not that any of my players is likely to catch it. (It was already pretty obscure to me.)
The "Delta XI Rocket" is a rocket used for manned missions to the moon. It appears in a museum in Fallout 3:
Apparently at the time of the bombs dropping, the ongoing space project of note was the "Mars Shot Project," which was going to involve sending a human crew to Mars, in a long-term space journey. The ship wasn't exactly ready to go -- they were still having problems developing the booster -- so I might reasonably invent the fiction that there might have been an interim mission planned where CAPE primates would be sent on a journey to Mars -- first to test the viability of HUMANS surviving for that long (albeit with engineered apes who'd have better resistance to radiation -- but that would just mean that this rocket could cut back on the shielding a bit), and then to perform some experiments on the surface of Mars, and to set up preparation for a future colony. This being the Fallout universe, full of super-cynical little details, such a mission might not have involved any plans for actually getting the apes BACK from Mars.
Maybe the ship could actually launched before the Great War; the savings in terms of payload (less requirement for radiation shielding) might have meant that an existing booster could have managed it in the intended time frame, rather than waiting for the new XMB Booster Engine from ArcJet Systems. (Either that, or maybe the importance of the XMB Booster was not in GETTING to Mars, but in having a powerful enough rocket that it could get there and then blast off again from Mars, with enough fuel to make the return journey, without any support system in place on Mars. So if it's just a one-way trip, there'd be lower requirements to send the test ape mission, and less need for the special booster.)
REPCONN Rockets: In Fallout: New Vegas, there is a quest called "Come Fly With Me," wherein some ghouls have a crazy plan to launch to some (unspecified location in space -- possibly the moon) with some rockets from the REPCONN rocket testing center, from a "launch dome." They basically just launch from little frames at an angle, rather than requiring a proper launching platform, and look barely large enough to carry the passengers. It seems to be quite a step up, technology-wise, even from the other rockets portrayed to this point. Alas, no type/model is given for the rockets. The implication seems to be that they're still some sort of "prototype," hence cutting-edge circa 2070 when the bombs went off.
...
Anyway, if I can kitbash something easily, or find some cheap toy that happens to have roughly the sort of rocket appearance that might fit in this setting, I might fix it up as another (rusty!) prop for more "table interest" -- and to reinforce the retro-futuristic look of the spaceship technology represented in this setting.