So I was watching Iron Man... (Or: Thorn, momentarily back!)

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So I was watching Iron Man... (Or: Thorn, momentarily back!)

Postby Thorn » Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:23 pm

First off, I'm back from the dead, for anyone who remembers me. :P

Second, as I was saying, I was watching Iron Man and thinking about my work schedule. I'm wrapping up my Master's in geotechnical engineering in May and starting on the PhD in June, and, weird as this sounds, I have way more time on my hands than most graduate students. I also have no gaming group in College Station, despite putting out feelers, and I'm starting to go just a bit crazy.

So - Iron Man. Got me thinking about power armor, and because I'm me, that got tied to the Nazis. This, of course, leads me to Rifts. The Coalition, the old-style "put skulls on everything" armor, the new-style "put skulls on it and then file all the corners off" equipment (for the record, I prefer the former), et cetera. I was thinking that, one of these days, I'd like to run a Rifts game without the inconvenient encumbrance of past Rifts games (specifically, bringing that big ol' stack of books where you can chart MDC growth as a function of publication date to every gaming session).

I bring this up because if I don't start harassing other people with my ideas, they wind up dying. Happened with my abortive Rifts d20 experiment way back in the day, and with what I think is a really good Byzantine Empire/Arthurian plot earlier this year (see "I have no gaming group."). This thread isn't a recruiting thread (well, not yet), but rather kind of an open sketchpad.

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Idea 1 - Old Muddy. Characters are members of a CSN river patrol craft crew (sailors and marines, no SEALs, commandos, borgs, etc.; can you imagine a borg in a river?), assigned to what used to be the Gulf Coast. Problem here is that the various sourcebooks are very confused about where the Coalition fields its navy. I know from experience that there's no way on God's green earth that, even with total polar shrinkage and the addition of Atlantis as a landmass, the sea could ever advance inland as far as the "official" Coalition outposts in north Texas. I mean, even if they were flowing at their onetime maximum, there's not a river in Texas that could accommodate a Nimitz, which is what the CSN sourcebook claims they've stationed here. Supposedly there's a string of fortifications stretching from Sabine Pass (east border of the state) to someplace west; I assume they mean the current Galveston Bay to function as the anchorage for the Coalition States' south fleet. Anyway, I've wandered here (as some of you may already expect of me). Point is, river and coastal patrols. Long periods away from home. Extended boredom penetrated by sheer terror.

Idea 2 - Lone Star. Characters start as private infantrymen in a squad in CS Army's 141st Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division, stationed in Texas/Lone Star (see a theme here?). The division is fortunate in that it has been spared the Tolkeen war, but unfortunate in that Texas is in a constant state of not-quite-full-blown war. Among Coalition forces, the units of the Texas Corps (36th and 45th ID, 49th AD) have a unique history in that they were re-constituted from local militias on a divisional scale, and as such in some cases retain an extensive oral tradition, with battle honors stretching so far back that many consider them a myth. However, because Texas is not an "active" front, they are not considered elite units, and the Texas Corps is looked down on by officers posted to the more active zones. That is, of course, subject to change at a moment's notice...

Game tone - Posting to remote firebases. The Wild West - constant skirmishing, occasional weeks back in the Big City of Amarillo... more freedom than most CS units see because this is the frontier.

Idea 3 - Death's Head. Characters start as either privates or rank-and-file policemen in one of the divisions raised by the Ministry of Information during the initial panic immediately following the first offensive into Tolkeen failing. Because technically they fall under the Ministry of Information, these divisions are considered recruiting-poster elites, with both an all-volunteer makeup and stringent physical requirements. They are also equipped from police inventories, at least to start - which means second-rate equipment compared to front divisions. Their leaders, and the units themselves, view more advanced equipment as luxury, because they are the best the Coalition has to offer, and if the Emperor ordered it, pocketknives would be enough. At least, that's what the political officers say, and if the politicals say it, it must be true...

Game tone - Essentially, they're Waffen-SS divisions, so this is definitely a "bad guy" kind of game. Earth for the Earthborn, long live the Emperor, et cetera.

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Anyway, I'm sure I'll come up with more. I'm tempted to post a poll, but more likely, I'll just use this as a notepad. For now, I'd like input from anyone else who thinks they might be able to add to any of these.

So hello again, and it's good to be doing something gaming-related again.

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Postby COBRA » Fri May 01, 2009 4:46 pm

Whoa! I haven't seen you in years and you return like a bomb dropped from a stealth-bomber. :P

How have you been?

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Postby Thorn » Wed May 06, 2009 1:24 pm

Alive, mostly. When I left, I'd more or less been thrown out of school (officially I had, but they accepted the appeal, so I stayed). Someone liked me, so I wound up sticking around for a Master's. Start on my doctorate in a month or so. Discovered that I'm REALLY bored most of the time, so thought I'd come back here to fix that.

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