Wheels-Up In Ten! Atomic Robo Scenario Generator
Jul 16, 2018 13:30:38 GMT -8
Post by GM Radio Rob on Jul 16, 2018 13:30:38 GMT -8
One of the things that annoys me a bit about Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game is that, while its back cover touts that it's ready to play in ten minutes (and the character creation rules are good for this), the poor GM is still stuck with reading most of the book - and it seems to do a slightly less good job of inspiring the GM to come up with an idea in ten minutes (it has even less text on pickup play than Spirit of the Century).
In that name, I decided to slap together Wheels-Up In Ten!, a quick-play summary and basic scenario generator that an Atomic Robo GM can use to whip up an immediate situation with a little tailoring to match the PCs' Aspects, then let the players do a Brainstorm to work out the cause and solution.
Here's what I have so far:
The Tables (ideally a D6 roll for each):
The Basic Problem. What's going on that requires immediate attention?
What's weird? Any of the above might require the intervention of local/national authorities. If Tesladyne are being called in, something Weird has to be happening.
Who's at risk? If the Tesladyne team don't act, who may lose their lives in minutes?
Who's complicating the issue? Someone else is on the ground and causing trouble for the Action Scientists and/or putting lives at risk (we have to have a Conflict in there somewhere).
The Tables (ideally a D6 roll for each):
The Basic Problem. What's going on that requires immediate attention?
- Geological - feature (mountain, river, forest) or event (eruption, flood, fire, sinkhole, earthquake)
- Meteorological - rainstorm, heatwave, cyclone/hurricane, tsunami, etc.
- Biological - existing creature or new life form
- Psychological - people acting strangely / witnessing invisible phenomena
- Vehicular: A truck, a train, a plane, a blimp
- Structural: An office building, a lab, a military base, a pyramid.
What's weird? Any of the above might require the intervention of local/national authorities. If Tesladyne are being called in, something Weird has to be happening.
- Outside normal environment (e.g. iceberg in Hawa'ii).
- Wrong size. (e.g. giant ants)
- Unusual attributes - Can speak? Secretes fluid / gas?
- Doing something it absolutely doesn't do (e.g. moving pyramid).
- Anachronism (dinosaurs in LA)
- Vanished
Who's at risk? If the Tesladyne team don't act, who may lose their lives in minutes?
- A person
- A team/group
- An outpost
- A town
- A city
- The world (seems a little too big - is there another option?)
Who's complicating the issue? Someone else is on the ground and causing trouble for the Action Scientists and/or putting lives at risk (we have to have a Conflict in there somewhere).
- Paramiliatry organisation (Majestic 12)
- Men in Black (Project: DAEDALUS)
- Paranormal entities (Undead Thomas Edison)
- Criminal Network (Helsingard)
- Supervillain (Helsingard, ALAN)
- An utter wildcard (Dr. Dinosaur)