Transhuman Space One-Shot plot advice

[John Geoffrey]

I was thinking about playing a Transhuman Space one-shot with my
players. I like the setting, but I am not quite sure about GURPS so far.
I have read the rules, and I think I understand them, but I am not
really sure about it. But anyway...

Does anyone have some good ideas for showing off the scenery in TS? Some
stuff that tells them they are not in Kansas anymore and drives home
that this is their world but in the future?

I was thinking about starting with an ontological mystery: the
characters all were contracted out for something. This contract involved
a memory alteration that would expunge the last month of the characters'
memories.
In good old Shadowrun Mr. Johnson fashion they were screwed over
completely: instead of just expunging the last month, all off their
active memories were suppressed, right after they completed their job.
Now they wake up, hear the end of a message from their patron ("luckily
according to the letter of our agreement you will not be a problem
anymore. Thank you for your service."), and they are left in a hotel
room with no information whatsoever except for their character sheets
(empty except for stuff like gender:male/female and age: thirtyish).
At the same time a group of local (I was thinking about Kazakhstan or
Kyrgyzstan) special police are trying to find where the people who just
assassinated ImportantPoliticianMarkI.
So the players have to figure out who they are and what they were up to
as much as possible, while at the same time they are working against a
timer.

Thoughts on that?

[Kent Allard]

In article <ljbeu8$96v$***@speranza.aioe.org>, John Geoffrey <***@gmail.com>
wrote:

They might think they're playing a supers game if they discover their powers but
there aren't any other tells. Are they going to be starting out on Earth and
where on Earth? Big cities would have lots of tech to show them that they're in
the future and with lots of other people around they're sure to see other people
with more obvious signs of transhuman alteration - especially eyes.

Starting them out in the middle of nowhere might give them time to discover
their own 'otherness' before the see the otherness of the rest of the world and
solar system.

You could even attack them out in the distant location. Say if the big boss who
thought wiping their memories was enough, had an underling that thought a more
permanent solution would be safer.

GURPS is great fun. I switched all my campaigns over after I discovered how well
it worked compared to the 'many' other systems I was using. My group started
with the Lite rules and stuck with them for a year before buying the core books.

I've never regretted it.

The free GURPS character sheet app is very handy. Character creation being the
most time consuming thing for me when creating a campaign.

http://gurpscharactersheet.com/wiki/

Post by John Geoffrey
I was thinking about playing a Transhuman Space one-shot with my
players. I like the setting, but I am not quite sure about GURPS so far.
I have read the rules, and I think I understand them, but I am not
really sure about it. But anyway...
Does anyone have some good ideas for showing off the scenery in TS? Some
stuff that tells them they are not in Kansas anymore and drives home
that this is their world but in the future?
I was thinking about starting with an ontological mystery: the
characters all were contracted out for something. This contract involved
a memory alteration that would expunge the last month of the characters'
memories.
In good old Shadowrun Mr. Johnson fashion they were screwed over
completely: instead of just expunging the last month, all off their
active memories were suppressed, right after they completed their job.
Now they wake up, hear the end of a message from their patron ("luckily
according to the letter of our agreement you will not be a problem
anymore. Thank you for your service."), and they are left in a hotel
room with no information whatsoever except for their character sheets
(empty except for stuff like gender:male/female and age: thirtyish).
At the same time a group of local (I was thinking about Kazakhstan or
Kyrgyzstan) special police are trying to find where the people who just
assassinated ImportantPoliticianMarkI.
So the players have to figure out who they are and what they were up to
as much as possible, while at the same time they are working against a
timer.
Thoughts on that?

[John Geoffrey]

I was thinking about having them start somewhere in Kyrgyzstan. Lots of
soviet-style uniform buildings around, but with some linings of
ultramodern tech. They would receive prop materials (including passports
for their previous fake identities as European/American/Chinese
tourists), and at certain times some of the more modern features of
their own bodies would pop out (e.g. a new mail alert that only one
person can see, with a mail from a contact asking about their
wellbeing). At least those were some of the ideas I had so far.
Others included looking out of the window and noticing that there were
information captions for the hotel on the other side of the street in
their view, and trying to switch on what they think would be a TV
without a remote (it's sound controlled, local news reports are
autotranslated by a translation program still running in their implants).
So I was hoping that would slowly drive home the setting.

If they manage to get out of this situation the big bad would have to
act somehow, but at the moment he might think having them take the fall
for the assassination should be enough.

Post by Kent Allard
They might think they're playing a supers game if they discover their powers but
there aren't any other tells. Are they going to be starting out on Earth and
where on Earth? Big cities would have lots of tech to show them that they're in
the future and with lots of other people around they're sure to see other people
with more obvious signs of transhuman alteration - especially eyes.
Starting them out in the middle of nowhere might give them time to discover
their own 'otherness' before the see the otherness of the rest of the world and
solar system.
You could even attack them out in the distant location. Say if the big boss who
thought wiping their memories was enough, had an underling that thought a more
permanent solution would be safer.
GURPS is great fun. I switched all my campaigns over after I discovered how well
it worked compared to the 'many' other systems I was using. My group started
with the Lite rules and stuck with them for a year before buying the core books.
I've never regretted it.
The free GURPS character sheet app is very handy. Character creation being the
most time consuming thing for me when creating a campaign.
http://gurpscharactersheet.com/wiki/

Post by John Geoffrey
I was thinking about playing a Transhuman Space one-shot with my
players. I like the setting, but I am not quite sure about GURPS so far.
I have read the rules, and I think I understand them, but I am not
really sure about it. But anyway...
Does anyone have some good ideas for showing off the scenery in TS? Some
stuff that tells them they are not in Kansas anymore and drives home
that this is their world but in the future?
I was thinking about starting with an ontological mystery: the
characters all were contracted out for something. This contract involved
a memory alteration that would expunge the last month of the characters'
memories.
In good old Shadowrun Mr. Johnson fashion they were screwed over
completely: instead of just expunging the last month, all off their
active memories were suppressed, right after they completed their job.
Now they wake up, hear the end of a message from their patron ("luckily
according to the letter of our agreement you will not be a problem
anymore. Thank you for your service."), and they are left in a hotel
room with no information whatsoever except for their character sheets
(empty except for stuff like gender:male/female and age: thirtyish).
At the same time a group of local (I was thinking about Kazakhstan or
Kyrgyzstan) special police are trying to find where the people who just
assassinated ImportantPoliticianMarkI.
So the players have to figure out who they are and what they were up to
as much as possible, while at the same time they are working against a
timer.
Thoughts on that?

[John Dallman]

Post by John Geoffrey
Does anyone have some good ideas for showing off the scenery in TS?
Some stuff that tells them they are not in Kansas anymore and
drives home that this is their world but in the future?

I would go somewhat more gently than the scheme you describe below.
That's the kind of thing that makes THS seem like a Philip K Dick
screw-job, and while it can be that, mostly it isn't.

The weirdness of THS is pervasive, and there's no need to try to get it
all across in the first session. It's more effective if the players keep
on finding more of it.

Post by John Geoffrey
I was thinking about starting with an ontological mystery: the
characters all were contracted out for something. This contract
involved a memory alteration that would expunge the last month of
the characters' memories.

Is the way that this eases pre-generating the characters appealing to you?



John

[John Geoffrey]

Post by John Dallman
Is the way that this eases pre-generating the characters appealing to you?

The character generation still would be normal. The idea would be that
the players have to figure out the details of their character somehow. I
don't think it would ease much.
I would like to have this as a one-shot that I can run when I don't have
anything else prepared, I lately have been looking for some good
scenarios that can be played like that. My group is constantly changing
and I found it hard to play campaigns when half the players might be
different in the next session.

[Phil Masters]

Post by John Geoffrey
Does anyone have some good ideas for showing off the scenery in TS? Some
stuff that tells them they are not in Kansas anymore and drives home
that this is their world but in the future?
I was thinking about starting with an ontological mystery: the
characters all were contracted out for something. This contract involved
a memory alteration that would expunge the last month of the characters'
memories.
In good old Shadowrun Mr. Johnson fashion they were screwed over
completely: instead of just expunging the last month, all off their
active memories were suppressed, right after they completed their job.
Now they wake up, hear the end of a message from their patron ("luckily
according to the letter of our agreement you will not be a problem
anymore. Thank you for your service."), and they are left in a hotel
room with no information whatsoever except for their character sheets
(empty except for stuff like gender:male/female and age: thirtyish).

It sounds like you want them to wake up knowing nothing about the
setting, but knowing whatever their players know - i.e. anything that
a normal early-21st-century person would know. That's not very
plausible. They'll "know" that, for example, there are two sexes, but
not that computers may be capable of natural-language conversation -
but the latter should be as well engrained in their minds as the
former, if they grew up in the TS world. Information from 2012 is
*not* universally correct.

If you want PCs to be early-21st-century characters waking up in the
TS world, the setting does actually offer an option, in the form of
ghosts based on people who were in cryogenic suspension. That might
make more sense for your purpose. But then, however you arrange
things, you'll spend huge parts of the first few sessions dumping
information to the characters - or if you don't, they'll get all
confused, and quite likely, well-roleplayed characters will go into
deep future shock.

Honestly, if you're going to run TS, you have to trust that the
players are willing to absorb a fair bit of "transhumanist" setting
information, sooner or later, and you might as well get it over before
play begins. If you want an excuse for them being a bit naive and
confused, playing teenagers (see *Personel Files 5,
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG37-6706 ) or escaped bioroids,
or something, might be one way to go.