EE workings & PS maps

I think I've got the turn thing worked out.

A player's AP is (coordination) + 10. Max is 30.

The rules are simple:

• Every action uses AP
• You can do until you run out, then your turn is over
• AP regenerates at the beginning of your turn
• If you want to do something you don't have enough AP for, you cannot do anything else during your turn
• You can choose to "interrupt" during someone else's turn (my response to D&D's attack of opportunity), but it will cost during your turn.

I think I've got it all worked out. For the time being, walking takes 5 AP, making a skill check takes 5 AP, using an item/weapon uses a variable amount. Pressing a button is less complicated than giving yourself first aid.

~

For the area maps I've got a simple (and I think ingenious) idea: The alphabet. Each room will be roughly shaped like a letter. H, V, E, U, etc. All fair game. As long as I'm not too obvious about it, no one will notice. And it's really easy once I've got the basic shape.

Plus, different races (thus architecture) can be derived from different alphabets. English, Arabic, Binary, etc.

5 rooms in water treatment plant
5 rooms in orbital catcher
8 rooms in hellhammer crater, 2 for boss fight.

Speaking of the boss fight, I need to make it suitably epic. More in a later post.

Edit: I can also spell stuff with the maps. "Y O U A R E S O S C R E W E D," perhaps.

Not Project Sunburn

Taking a break from the 'burn. Probably going to write more about it anyway, though. I'm on kind of a one-track mind ATM.

I was thinking more about the zombie breakout in Indiana, I've decided. The players, for whatever reason, have to leave town to talk to a guy (Milo?) in a radio station. He's a little paranoid, and falls into my habit of crazy people always being right- it's zombies! In a military base!

Officially, the project was an additive in MREs that would make the soldier more alert, and physically capable. But guess what? Zombies!

The players rush back to town to find two groups struggling for power- the Sheriff's men, and the Bikers. Because the town needs to be defended from... Zombies!

The players enter a speech challenge to decide who the massed crowd follows. If they side with the law, then the Sheriff himself will join them. If they join with the bikers, then Lorraine will join them- and stab Zombies!

The Sheriff's plan is to coordinate the local citizens, and set up a firing line. He really doesn't trust them to do anything else, which is probably true. The Sheriff himself has higher than normal defense, on account of his kevlar vest. He carries a shotgun and a tazer, good for electrocuting Zombies!

The bikers plan to make hit-and-run attacks on the zombies, because they're really good at that sort of thing. They are fast, mean, and get into fights for a living. So does Lorraine. She's an angry black woman who carries around an SS knife- "SS is Nazis. I hate Nazis. Hate is power. This makes me powerful." She is aggressive, and good at it. Her weapons are the SS knife, a revolver, and a bad attitude which she uses for shouting at Zombies!

Cue the required military base fight. The bulk of them are shambling towards the town, so the players (and their plus-one) are going to have an easy time getting in. At the end, there's a mad scientist ranting a raving to his shadowy cabal of overlords on huge screens. He pulls out a machine gun and poorly tries to shoot at the players. His skill with guns isn't worth dick. And in the end, the faces on the screens give a dire warning (dun dun dun!), and log off. The town, with whoever in charge, has defended itself from the Zombies!

It's short, sweet, and simple. I really wish I had thought of this before investing so much time in PS. Ah well.

And here's the required piece about PS. I've decided "Nasser" doesn't fit the criteria for Space Trooper names, and I'll change it to something like Mitchell, or Gomez. More later. Currently thinking of floor plans for the bunkers. And the basic EE fight rules. And the speech rules. And, most importantly...

... Zombies!!!

Sunburn Misc Ideas

I've been thinking about the ending, and here's what I've got.

After the players destroy the Hellhammer and retrieve the piece of the Burning Wheel, they will return to it.

Two hundred years ago, it launched that piece of itself up into orbit, striking a hostile ship. The piece, being invincible, fell back down to the planet. The following impact made the Hellhammer crater. So, dah de dah, it's been trying to get that back, but with limited success.

With the piece returned, and the EMPIRE's bug deterrant shut down, it could repeat the shot, and have the Drahn pick up the piece. Doing this would blast a hole in the sky, and make the planet open to space travel for a dozen years or so. The problem being, EMPIRE will make an occupation en masse, having free access to the surface. But at least the players will be safe on the Brahma.

Or, the Burning Wheel can focus its energy on the water tables, and the local environment. This means the players will be stranded on OHS-817, but in good company. Also a chance to follow X and Y's little escapade (see what I did there?) through the fog.

The most human option is to leave things the way they are. I'm going to try to endear the Drahn to the players, but I can't really say I blame them for leaving a planet with dust, death, and bugs that eat guns.

Speaking of X and Y, because I'm still trying to find a name, I've got a little story for them.

Y is a very special girl. I have no idea how, but she is. I'll definitely develop this arc further, but that's all that matters for now. X is a power-armored marine. I'm thinking Enclave trooper as an inspiration- that was really my first visualization of him. He has something of a father complex (can't have kids in this military), so he flipped out with how they were treating Y. Both of them kicked out in a drop pod, landed, and did virtually what the players did. Here's how I see it happening:

He lands east of the water refinery. Knowing he can't fight them and protect Y at the same time, he coordinates attacks with the Drahn. It's after this little event that the EMPIRE put up the bug repellant. X gets some special material from them- something like a fireproof suit- and makes a hazmat suit for himself and Y. His power armor can't make it through the cloud. With all their stuff set, they escapes to the south-west. Here's the clues he leaves behind to his existence and trek:

• Players find his drop-pod in the Water Refinery. The EMPIRE moved it in to examine it. Inside is the video recording of Nasser and Kierra making re-entry. "Daddy, are we going to be okay?"
• Kierra's old jumpsuit is being sold by the Drahn. Kierra is a young teenager, so it's not going to fit any of the players. The Drahn haven't eaten it because they can't digest those fibers.
• Hellhammer thinks Nasser was a kind of advance party, like a scout.
• The Burning Wheel was a median between Nasser and the Drahn. It also noticed something was different about Kierra.
• Players can find Nasser's armor out in the desert. Medical examination reveals mutated skin stuck to the inside of it. Drahn buy for 2 things of water. Unusable due to weather damage. Also heavy as fsck.
• Scrawled on a rock in the wastes is a scented picture of a flower, drawn by Kierra. The same smell was inside the pod.

I figure Nasser and Kierra are from a generic human military. The TLA. Same people who sent the Brahma out. I'm not totally sure what I want Kierra's power to be yet, but I'm thinking it has to do with terraforming, or teleportation. If this campaign turns into Spectrum, she's probably going to be the one to open up a gate.

Nasser is pretty much just an improved version of the mercenary One from Mr. X. Except that he doesn't try to kill them on multiple occasions. Vaguely inspired by Ulysses from New Vegas. He just wants to start a nice family somewhere quiet.

He picked the wrong planet to fall on.

Map

I can hardly think of a better place to get dehydrated and potentially die.

Players' crash-site is as the bottom-left, it's the tan pockmark in the ground. East by northeast is the Water Treatent plant. Then Burning Wheel. Then Landing Zone Then the Drahn caves. And then, at the very top, the Hellhammer crater.

I admit that I was thinking about more of a sandboxy atmosphere- more Fallout style, with players "accidentally" finding places on the transit between two points. But I'm not sure how I feel about that now.

Assuming the Burning Wheel is guarded, there are 4 definite EMPIRE fights- not bad. Plus random encounters, I think we can really expect things to get... interesting. I'll make a few maps for the random encounters- just dunes. And both sides roll to see which compass direction they start on. It's not pretty, but This Is Sunburn!!! (bonus points if you Sparta'd that)

Short, sweet, and to the point. Now I just have to make maps for all 3 bunkers... Ugh. Ugggghhhhhhhhh... I'll probably put them together from a side view, then make the individual rooms. Looks more official, and gives the players an enhanced... depth of what they're getting into. Pardon the pun.

As always, more later. I think I'm not going to change the map from here.

One idea I had for the next campaign is zombies. A little cliched, but I think I can pull it. Especially if it's Jericho style, with a small mid-western town (I'm thinking Arkansas) and a biker gang. And an angry black woman, coming to grips with her identity. Oh yes. Lorraine lives.

EMPIRE Bunkers

With the total map complete, I'm ready to move on to specific places. I've been thinking it takes the players from south to north, and the narrative moves with them- think Sonny.

My plan is as follows. Remember there will be random encounters (patrols, wild animals, or Drahn) between all of them.

• Crash-landing
• Dead EMPIRE patrol
• Drahn ambush
• Water treatment plant
• Burning Wheel
• Second bunker- "receiving." It's a giant catch-pad for orbital drops.
• Drahn caves
• Hellhammer site
• Burning Wheel

There will be no reason to head back (except at the end), but the players can if they choose to.

Also had a thought on water- the Drahn can dig under the sand and suck it out of the roots of plants. But they'd like something in exchange for all their hard work. Like a gun.

Speaking of which, I need to reduce the weight on most of the gear. And find the formula for carry weight...

Each EMPIRE base should have its own "moment." In order of appearance:

• Fight inside a fresh-water tank
• Dark maintenance tunnels
• Hellhammer

I think I've got the nuts to pull this off. Maybe even in 30 days or less. I'll be thinking today.

Hellhammer and boredom

Lately I had a thought- Project Sunburn is boring.

-Crash
-Desert
-EMPIRE
-Desert
-Drahn
-Desert
-EMPIRE bunker
-Desert
-Burning Wheel
-Desert
-Hellhammer
-Desert
-End

I was thinking that Mr. X had such a nuance about it, and a certain immediacy. Normally I shun the real world in RPs, but I see what makes it so compelling- it could be happening right now.

The timeline of anything modern inserts it closer to the players' real lives, and is much easier to immerse in. Everyone could be your next-door neighbor. Every location is real. All factions present can be found on the globe. So why is Sunburn so boring now?

I guess the idea of being stuck in a desert just isn't that appealing. Just walking around, getting dehydrated, sounds mundane. We want action. Waah. The random encounters help, but there's not much avoiding it.

I plan on having random encounters, and-

Oh fsck it. I'm still hung up about the A[name removed] thing. Also pissed at being punched in the arm instead of told, "hey asshole, you screwed up!" Actions speak louder than words, but my hearing is fine. Now I know to not fsck around with trains, or to immolate people, or to make mention that no body was found. Cool. Awesome. A didn't seem pissed at me, but I'd believe that she's good at smiling and staying quiet. I'd expect her to go on a self-righteous rant, but maybe this goes deeper. Hell if I know. Fuel-air bomb has been replaced by a sniper attack.

Anyhow, I'm thinking about that action curve from Star Wars. Lemme drag it up.

This is what I'm trying to get. I figure the desert wandering takes up the low spots, with the higher ones being any EMPIRE bunker, Burning Wheel, ending with Hellhammer. I'm just feeling all out of sorts at the moment.

Still hung up about A. I feel super bad for just ripping a hole to a really bad emotional spot. And I justified it like a dolt.

"Yes, J, bad things happen in RPs. People die. Some are horribly maimed. I imagine people dying, and you gladly participate."

What a douche thing to say.

Hellhammer is a giant robot. It's been built from the head down, and the players find it built to the pelvis. It's surrounded by gantries, and is loaded with weapons (like automatic grenade launchers). They flip it over by adjusting the jacks (to raise it up for construction), then bury it under something. Either fuel or toxic stuff. I'll give them a choice. Fire damage or poison.

It can turn to face north, south, east, or west. There's a computer terminal at each corner (NW, SE, etc), required to authorize the lifts. The piece of the Burning Wheel is used to power it, or something. Probably a processor, makes sense for advanced alien tech.

Alright, done with that brain dump. Going to go whip myself a couple of times.

Gameplay of Project Sunburn

It would be all too easy for Project Sunburn to be a 3-dungeon crawl. The players arm up by killing patrols, and looting their stuff. Then, when they have enough bullets and medkits, rush one of the EMPIRE facilities. Maybe bump into the mythos of the Hellhammer by accident. It would be so easy to run this game like regular D&D.

But it's not D&D- it's supposed to be harsh and "survival oriented," and "difficult." The patrols have at most 20 bullets per person, and less than two canteens of water. Everyone is supposed to feel the pinch.

PS is very highly modeled after Hunter Prey. The idea of being stranded on a desert planet- I mean, come on guys... OHS-817. Read it in 1337- is a horrible thing to fathom, especially if there is a literal EMPIRE who destroys gods for weapons research.

So what is the gameplay?

There must be wandering. Fallout-style random encounters with Drahn, EMPIRE, twisters, and other random crap would bring more life to an otherwise gameplay-dry desert. Maybe they find a missing piece of Hellhammer out there.

I want 3 EMPIRE bases in the desert- Hellhammer site, and 2 outposts. The map is going to have geography in such a way as to isolate the final encounter, perhaps in a mountain range defended by twisters. Now, just the light-weight twisties. I'm not evil enough to put down the full-bore pick-you-up-and-maim-you ones.

I'll be thinking about it for the rest of the day. I'd like to cite Chrono Trigger's gameplay as inspiration- find local legends, then find them out there. With an emphasis on exploration and water scavenging.

For an example, I've been considering a tornado pit. A track shaped like a ring, with a big twister in it. And at the very center is something magical. Most likely the Burning Wheel itself, because that's just epic. More thoughts on this later.

Burning Wheel

I think I've got it all figured out. I was listening to this song-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRtNN6VvncA&feature=related

- when I got a really good idea.

The Drahn have a god-figure of sorts. It's the concept of an all-powerful object or being which when prayed to, gives them water. Well, the EMPIRE are complete dicks, so they took the stone idol and left the rest of the shrine to crack in the sun.

It's a circle with a wedge-shaped piece inserted in the side. Looks like this, but made out of stone:

That bit in the bottom is Hellhammer. The EMPIRE thinks they can weaponize it as a dehydrator weapon- something incredibly useful on desert planets.

This barely changes the plot- the players can find the shrine to the ring, and notice the bit at the bottom is missing. It also talks to them. "Machine, god, machine god... Does it matter? I restore water to the faithful insects, as I need a piece of myself restored to me."

The endings are as follows:

-Reconnecting the wheel will bring water back to the water table beneath the Drahn colonies, but strand the players on OHS-817 (still hilarious) forever.
-If the players hold Hellhammer hostage, the EMPIRE will finally get them a shuttle off the planet.
-If the players shoot Hellhammer out of the artillery piece, it will punch a hole in the debris cloud big enough and long enough for the Brahma to pick them up.
-If the players destroy Hellhammer... Well, they can't. It's made out of the invincible alien stuff.

EE test run

I've been getting ahead of myself recently.

Project Sunburn is cool and all, but I need a proof-of-concept test first. Something simple, that only uses the core skills.

Hmm...

I thought about zombies for a while. Just a quick romp around a sunny, ideal American town filled with the undead. But zombies are way overdone. Like seriously overdone. Just ask anyone who remembers ~2008.

I'm thinking of something funnier, a lot more sardonic (?). Like a counter-culture romp. An entire town filled with idiots, worshiping some stupid, banal thing because it's on every screen. I'd have trouble pulling this one off as a GM (personal bias and all that), but it's a cool concept. I think I'll brainstorm for a little bit longer.

Update: Screw it. Sunburn is really short. Maybe a few sessions long. I'm using my official "fuck it" stamp, and forging ahead. This is going to be fun.

Onward, to glory!

EMPIRE

Their motivation is simple: Find the artifact the Drahn keep talking about, extract it, then establish a more permanent foothold "for mining operations."

They've established ~four outposts, in addition to the Hellhammer site. Not sure how far the players can attack into these, but any caravan or patrol is fair game.

To be a dick to the players, the EMPIRE troopers drink salt water. Yuck! The players will need a De-salinator to make it drinkable. But at least they carry water.

They also carry guns. Nasty guns. I'm thinking:

• Assault rifle (ammunition is acidic- feel the burn!)
• Marksman rifle (Larger rounds with more penetrating power- fewer in magazine)
• Pistol (because everybody needs a pistol. Something stealthy. Like a poison gun? That's cool.)
• Grenade Launcher (either incendiary, chemical, or fragmentation)
• Heavy machine gun (fires assault rifle ammunition at crazy high-speeds)
• Cool combat knife (heavier and more armor piercing than Drahn weapons)

 Every time a player loots a weapon, they roll on this table:

Um... Blogger doesn't do tables.

The weapons will be in better or worse condition. Worse ones are more common than better ones, as dictated by a D20 roll.

• Uniquely Terrible (1-2)
• Cursed (2-4)
• Unlucky (5-6)
• Average (7-17)
• Improved (18)
• Optimized (19)
• Blessed (20)

I'll throw up a new page on EE.

EMPIRE armor is meant to work against their own weapons- it has a chemical protection as well as kinetic and concussive.

As for vehicles, I was thinking hovercraft or something similar. Those are pretty cool.

Though, realistically, a hovercraft would be really crappy in a desert, filled with lots of dunes. It'll most likely be a tank-treaded thing. Like a large sledge. I'll figure it out.

Project Sunburn- natives

The Nali from Unreal are the base inspiration- timid, strong, and pacifistic. Except fsck being pacifistic. These people live on hell's front doorstep.

Most likely hunters, with lots of experience using spears, atlatls, and other weapons made from bone. Because wood? What's that?

Drahn. It sounds elegant, and like something you might find living in a desert.

They live in small villages wherever they can find shelter. About 200 people per village, but most are the usual hunter/gatherer fare. Somehow they can find water in most places.

They refuse to fight the EMPIRE in anything other than self-defense. They know what kind of things fall from the sky when they disobey.

They buy pelts, guns, and ammo. The EMPIRE armor is all but useless to them- most of their prey doesn't shoot back.

They sell water, tribal fighting equipment, and survival gear- including camouflage cloaks. It's a little odd the cloaks fit perfectly over the EMPIRE armor. Almost as if they've been planning something. They also sell poisons and antidotes. Mostly antidotes, though.

They don't need to sleep- being highly adapted to the environment, they never sleep. If they get tired, they just lie down for a few hours to let their muscles relax.

Oh! And they also sell amazing jerky. Like really tasty. It's a method of endearing them to the players.

More later. Running out of inspiration.

The Hellhammer

Still waffling on names.

I thought a cool motivation for the EMPIRE (catchy) troopers was something called "Hellhammer." Currently I'm thinking an alien artifact, crashed to the surface... 100 years ago? Some time about there.

The location of the dig site is a glass crater. It sounded pretty nifty, given the desert environment. Something like this-

- crashes, and a lot of sand is going to turn to glass. The shockwave would make a large bowl, with the edges well above the dunes. Otherwise, it would be pretty risky to build below the sand level. Here's a bad picture in MS paint.

A- Sand, sand, more sand!
B- Crater. Yellow color because of infused sulfur during impact.
C- EMPIRE facility. Combination digsite/armory (think Mariposa)
D- Trolley station/sniper outpost
E- Trolley cable
F- Mineshaft to Hellhammer
G- Big huge poisonous gas cloud (AKA why we can't have aircraft)

Not shown:
-Twisters which throw stuff up into the clouds. 90% of twisters can't pick up anything heavier than 10 pounds, limiting them to sand, and the sharp rocks below. The rocks start roughly at the bottom of C, like 30 meters below the average sand level.
-Ramp to D from outside. No way in hell anyone can survive just walking up it (snipers). Players will have to climb up a different side, use an armored vehicle, or get creative. Maybe a combination.
-Artillery gun in crater. The winds at cloud-level screw up any kind of accuracy, but it's still really effective with cluster munitions.


If the glass crater is broken open, the sand is going straight into the crater via osmosis. I'm thinking this will be an ethical decision on the part of the players- they can take Hellhammer with them and GTFO, or they can choose to bury it beneath the sand, along with everything else.

The nature of Hellhammer is difficult for me to imagine. I've sworn off of nukes for this scenario, though the thought of a 3-kiloton re-usable munition did occur to me.

The obvious literary device is that it jump-starts the local ecosystem, complete with rain and plants.

!!!

The players' ship is in orbit, trying to assist them. But, given how much the cloud fscks stuff up, it's really hard for them to assist. Perhaps they send occasional drops from orbit, along with messages... Because their radio is broken. OMG amazing.

Plot so far:

The players are the assistants to a geologist heading to planet OHS-817 on the TLA Brahma. They may be there for security, company, survival, etc. Irregardless, the module gets battered by the rocks caught in the clouds, and is forced to separate via explosive bolts. The navigational computer can increase the survival of one pod exponentially, but the trajectory sends the other one straight into a twister.

If the players choose to save the professor, the twister shifts and dashes his module into the rocks, and buries him in the sky. The players crash, but survive.

If the players choose to save themselves, the professor's module is sucked into a twister and dashed on the rocks, buried in the sky. The players crash, and survive.

The players get a short conversation with the Brahma's captain. He notifies them there is an odd electric disturbance over the crater zone (but can't see the crater), as well as sentient life on the planet. Whenever possible, he will drop supplies down to them from orbit, but doesn't see many openings. Good luck!

[The players do the entire mission, risking life and limb for... life and limb]

The crater base has been flooded with sand by setting the artillery gun to open fire on the glass wall.

If they take Hellhammer and activate it:
The clouds part, and it starts to rain. The Brahma sends down a shuttle immediately, and they get picked up. Cue a Fallout-style ending, highlighting the results of all of their actions.

If they leave Hellhammer:
With no opening large enough for an extraction shuttle, the Brahma is forced to wait until supplies dwindle, then carry on its mission. They dump any useful thing they can, before returning to Earth.

The EMPIRE forces have been purged from the planet, and any future incursions are swiftly dealt with, earning the players the name "Sand Demons." The planet is designated too dangerous for occupation, and the EMPIRE moves on to more submissive targets. The heroes live out the rest of their lives under the Cloud, and die with honor among the people they worked to save.

Cue a fallout-style ending. Ultimately, the Hellhammer itself needs to be a pivotal character, capable of making them work through this decision. So far, I'm thinking the choice of "opening the sky" brings rain- something completely unfamiliar to the natives. Many of them will die, but the planet will finally be truly open to space.