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#Post#: 441--------------------------------------------------
Chicken Riding Murder Hobos III+2
DIR By: jrnewton
Date: March 19, 2018, 1:33 pm
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TL;DR - Maybe skip to "The Way of Things" or "The Midoriyama
Green".
Introduction & Background:
What a long strange trip it's been...
My current campaign is going through a bit of flux. The world is
something I've been working on for a few years from a concept
perspective. Mostly gathering ideas, thinking about how the
world came about, how it works, etc. This current incarnation
started as a cross between a Firefly game and a Final Fantasy
themed game.
We had just finished a disastrous Firefly RPG game run by
another member of the group, and she shortly left the group due
to time reasons. Well, I wanted to run a Firefly game (using the
Cortex Plus rule set), but was advised by my wife that it
probably would send the wrong message to the last GM (e.g. "Your
game sucked, we hated it; Here is the RIGHT way to run a Firefly
game."). So keeping that in mind, I decided to mutate the
Firefly rule set using the Cortext Plus Hacker's Guide (using
the Fantasy Heroic rules), mix the setting with Final Fantasy
and see what came out.
In the end, the world is pretty cool, and I think all the
players like it so far... The rules however were not a big
favorite. After some talk with individuals and the group, and
listening to the Game Master's Journey podcast for the last 8+
months, I decided to try it out with 5E. Which brings us to
today, with just having finished our last adventure in Cortex
Plus, I'm finishing up the player packet for 5E, and next time
we meet we will generate/convert characters. I'm going to start
everyone at 1st level, as this is the first time for nearly all
of us in 5E, including me as the DM. Quite a few of us have
experience with D&D 1st - 4E, as well as Pathfinder, so I don't
see this as a huge issue.
Some Ideas About the World:
The original campaign name was "Fall of Dawn" and most of my
notes reference that name, but when I made the specific Cortex
Plus Fantasy Heroic rules set for the players, I named it
"Chicken Riding Murder Hobos III" and the name sort of stuck.
The world is a sky realm of floating islands in a sea of clouds.
I think I first really started thinking of this as a game when I
saw the video for the Gorillaz song "Feel Good Inc."
Specifically the windmill island with the clouds around it
(
HTML https://goo.gl/images/jcDsCJ).
I also took ideas from various Final Fantasy and similar video
games, as well as anime and comics with similar themes. Around
the time I was formulating the world, I started reading the
Trilemma Adventures by Michael Prescott on his blog at
HTML http://blog.trilemma.com
. His dark and gritty world was fodder
for my dreams, and I've grabbed several themes from his work for
this world.
Influences:
- Music: Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc. video:
HTML https://goo.gl/images/jcDsCJ
- Video Games: Square titles -> Final Fantasy (III, VII, IX
specifically), Final Fantasy Tactics, Chrono Cross, Skies of
Arcadia
- Anime: Vision of Escaflowne, X'amd: Lost Memories
- Comics: Girl Genius
- Maps/Blogs: I'll See It When I Believe It
(
HTML http://blog.trilemma.com
), Dyson's Dodecahedron
(
HTML https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/)
Themes: the corruption of power, unintended consequences, secret
history
Why III? Or even III+2?
For those of you who don't get the "Chicken Riding Murder Hobos"
joke, I kind of laid it out in my first player packet:
--- Quote ---
> Chicken Riding Murder Hobos III (CRMH3) is a [game] of high
adventure in a world similar to certain video games where horses
don’t exist and people ride giant chickens (Why III? The first
two weren’t released in the US). It references all those sword
and sorcery and mixed technology video game tropes you know so
well to create a game of amazing heroics, somber monsters, dark
dungeons, spell slinging, and fantastic semi-magical technology.
--- End Quote ---
And of course, as I'm moving to 5E I couldn't resist the further
joke:
--- Quote ---
> Why III+2? III was for CortexPlus, in the FF universe there
were several sequel games indicated by -2, such as X-2, and in
our case III+2 is 5th Edition
--- End Quote ---
The Way of Things
The initial Gazetteer info I gave my players was just intended
to give them some background on the world that everyone knows,
and mix the Firefly and FF backgrounds into a coherent story.
This also serves as sort of a creation myth for the current
generation of the world.
--- Quote ---
> How the Sky came to be
> The Earth that Was is no more. The Seree [Suh-Ree, Sear-E,
Seh-rea] reached too high, exceeding their grasp in a
blasphemous affront to the natural order. They shook the world,
and the Divines responded by breaking it and destroying their
civilization as punishment. All sapient came close to extinction
due to their arrogance, but we managed to survive. Now we have
the Sky.
>
> The Alliance
> People slowly established themselves on the ruins and lands
that remained. New kingdoms and empires rose and fell, each
leaving their mark on different parts of the Sky. Over time the
largest, most concentrated, and most stable of these areas
became known as the Core and eventually these lands banded
together in an alliance.
>
> The Alliance became the focus of sapien civilization, the most
magically and technically advanced, with stability for all who
lived there. The Border lands lived and traded in the shadow of
the Alliance using treaties and trade to grow and protect
themselves. There were other contenders for civilization,
however, and some were quite aggressive. Eventually the Alliance
decided that the best way to defend their borders were to expand
them to include everyone.
>
> Unification War
> A short time back, the Alliance stopped talking to other lands
as equals and instead brought their ships and troops. Some were
happy to see them come, some quickly caved, but some took a
stand. These Independents fought back in what became known as
the Unification War. The war was long and bloody, and some say
this was partly because of “Neutrals” like Shinra Corp who are
said to have sold weapons and supplies to both sides.
Eventually, however, the Independents were forced to lay down
their arms, and the Alliance became the undisputed rulers of all
the lands. Many of the so-called “Browncoats” that fought
against the Alliance still remember the war and fight on today,
in their own ways.
>
> How things are now
> While the Alliance rules over and controls all the lands,
things get a might less formal as you move away from the core.
Undeveloped and unexplored lands still fill the Sky and the Rim
can be a wild and dangerous place. Even in the Border lands,
many of the original kingdoms still remain, managing the day to
day lives of their people for the Alliance.
--- End Quote ---
Hot off the Presses
I've been going back throught the GMJ archives and listening to
episodes that I didn't get when they first came out, and
recently I listened to GMJ 129 & GMJ 131 - Keeping the Game
Going Between Sessions (pts 1 & 2). This inspired me to make a
newspaper from the current town the PCs are in. This is maybe
1/3 "other's views" of the PCs actions, 1/3 setting fluff, and
1/3 plot hooks. I sent this out a few days before the game, and
it seemed to be a big hit with the players and the characters.
They used it several times during the session to figure out who
to talk to and things they could do in the local town to advance
their agenda. In the future I plan to make more newspapers local
to place the PCs are in.
The Midoriyama Green:
HTML https://www.dropbox.com/s/xnzjwmh0gwsd9xs/The%20Midoriyama%20Green1.pdf?dl=0
Did you make it all the way down here?
If you guys are still interested after all that, I'll post more
things over time. I have more generic world info, past adventure
write ups I've done, as well as the (soon to be finalized) CRMH
5E player packet, and future newspapers, etc.
Let me know if you are interested in more.
#Post#: 465--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chicken Riding Murder Hobos III+2
DIR By: GothPegasus
Date: March 27, 2018, 11:05 pm
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Your newspaper was great! The Apple-Pen-Pineapple Cafe really
caught me off guard. LOL
I am very interested to see more stuff on your game.
#Post#: 501--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chicken Riding Murder Hobos III+2
DIR By: jrnewton
Date: September 18, 2018, 9:55 am
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I just released a new newspaper to my players. This one is from
another town (compared to the first one).
The Daily Breeze:
HTML https://www.dropbox.com/s/r6jjx8gyi7en06e/Daily_Breeze_v1.pdf?dl=0
One thing that the players figured out from these is that the
Bad Guys are using the articles "Students of Quin Lan
Discussion" to pass coded messages to subordinates, etc. They
were able to recover a code book from an NPC sub-boss that they
defeated. It had 61 entries in it, each a random string of 55
numbers (from 1-55). They figured out that this corresponds to
the word order in the Quin Lan articles posted in the papers.
The months alternate between 30 and 31 days, so that gives 61
rotating codes. If you look up the number code list for the date
of the news paper, you can decode the message in the article.
The first coded message gave them info on a supply drop, which
they intercepted. They followed up on the airship that made the
drop, learning that it was a contracted drop paid for by a local
fixer that is known to work for the Shinra Corp (one of the
major companies in the world). This same fixer has been behind a
lot of the goings on that have personally effected the party.
The middle man "Todd Binders" has become a personal love-to-hate
NPC of the party. They haven't killed him yet, but he always
turns up having paid someone off or done something to mess with
the party.
They did not follow up on who placed the first article in the
paper, but now that they have found a second one, they seem more
interested in looking into that.
The second coded message they intercepted, which is in this
newspaper, gave commands to kidnap the local mayor's kid, for
which they are coincidentally on a rescue mission for. They also
learned of orders for another operative but they are unsure of
what it means (it relates to their next adventure).
On a side note, the first message was easy. I wrote the article
and picked out the words I wanted for the message, and it became
the cipher key. Well, after that (in order to be consistent, in
case the PCs ask), I put together the full list of 61 cipher
codes. This made the more recent message a little more difficult
to encode. I ended up creating a spreadsheet that helps me
define the message I want sent, and then fill in the missing
words to make a Quin Lan article. I specifically made the
backstory on the Quin Lan articles be hokey metaphysical
jibberish to aid hiding messages in it. The basic story is that
Quin Lan was an ancient scholar who published writings similar
to the Tao de Ching & the I Ching, so publishing weird rambling
articles in the local paper is not considered super strange to
locals.
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