Author Topic: d20 Modern/Future setting help  (Read 3013 times)

Offline emissary666

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d20 Modern/Future setting help
« on: February 09, 2016, 11:18:56 PM »
I'm in the long process of creating a d20 Modern game based in a dystopia where the players are part of a task force that must defeat a plague that has infected a city. I've built a piecemeal setting and broke down most of my original design document into a forum on mythweavers for ease of reading (I hope). I've mostly hit a wall in creating the setting and have just barely begun to scratch the surface on mechanical considerations.
I'm not entirely sure what I am asking help for, I guess at this point I'd accept any input, feedback or assistence (it doesn't help that, at time of posting, I'm dead tired).
« Last Edit: February 09, 2016, 11:20:52 PM by emissary666 »

Offline bhu

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Re: d20 Modern/Future setting help
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2016, 12:32:00 AM »
You looking for thoughts on fluff or crunch?

Offline emissary666

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Re: d20 Modern/Future setting help
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2016, 07:52:36 AM »
Either really. This is a project I never actually expect to get terribly far with and now I've invested too much time to give it up.

Offline bhu

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Re: d20 Modern/Future setting help
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2016, 04:14:22 PM »
Have you decided on a cuase for the plague yet?

Offline emissary666

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Re: d20 Modern/Future setting help
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2016, 05:04:50 PM »
That is one of the hang-ups I've been facing: I have a setting based around a plague and I don't have much in the way of a plague. The setting is based strongly on the game Pathologic, which had a vaguely supernatural element to the plague and its source. All I have on the source of the plague is that it comes from the earth beneath/around the city and is supernatural in some way. Looking at my design document (which I hope is the same as what I posted on the forum), it acts in an intelligent manner; I envision that, as a gameplay element, it reacts and adapts to the actions of the players.
The only mechanical element of the plague I have so far is the Infection Index, a scale of 0-100 representing the progress of the infection within the characters. While it is possible for the players to avoid infection, it is difficult to the point that I expect all PCs to be infected eventually.

Offline bhu

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Re: d20 Modern/Future setting help
« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2016, 12:26:38 AM »
Perhaps an AI has gone rogue and is using bots as it's pawns to spread a plague it sees as bad for the humans but good for itself, without knowledge of it's supernatural origins?

Perhaps the disease  is a single entity composed of disparate bacterial cells united under one mind.  An entire species of infectious disease that is in reality a single being.


Offline Solo

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Re: d20 Modern/Future setting help
« Reply #6 on: February 11, 2016, 12:28:41 AM »
Perhaps it is a computer virus?
"I am the Black Mage! I cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down."

Offline emissary666

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Re: d20 Modern/Future setting help
« Reply #7 on: February 11, 2016, 10:07:32 AM »
Perhaps an AI has gone rogue and is using bots as it's pawns to spread a plague it sees as bad for the humans but good for itself, without knowledge of it's supernatural origins?

Perhaps the disease  is a single entity composed of disparate bacterial cells united under one mind.  An entire species of infectious disease that is in reality a single being.

The only rogue AI in the setting is the SUN TZU War Machine, a sentient military industrial complex. The Russian AIs are Aismov Law compliant. It is very important that the players can trust the AIs, as they are the ones passing down many of the commands.
The second idea sounds like a viable source. Maybe not as much as a single entity as much of a hivemind.