I'm working on a near-future horror adventure to be run as a one-shot. The basic premise is that the International Space Station has fallen out of radio communication, but appears (on telescopes) to be undamaged; the PCs are the crew and specialists on a shuttle sent to find out what's wrong, fix it if possible, and rescue the station crew if necessary. The flight crew are probably ex-military; the others are more likely to be civilians. I'm working on subplots for a certain amount of inter-PC bickering. What I'm still filling in, though, is just what has happened. The Soyuz escape capsule hasn't been used (and nor has its radio), so the three-person crew is probably either dead or incapacitated in some way. I have several ideas for the details, but I want to pick things that a bunch of randomly selected gamers won't come up with immediately. Congratulations, bunch of randomly selected gamers! What (as gamers and/or horror fans) do you think are the most likely causes of the problem? -- Roger, gaming grognard Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
Actually protocol for such a situation would be to treat it as a hot zone biohazard issue. (If you had not heard the radiation has done to the mold in the station, you should). So they are going in with special biohazard protocol (i.e. the suit has to be decontammed before allowed back in their ship.) This does make it harder to do many horror things, as there is no way to get them casually isolated. You will have a first contact person shipped with you (or someone with a special first contact training with radio support from a Fire Team on duty that mission). So they will treat any critter as an alien. They will probably be the first lunch. Your best bet is a "doorway" scenario. Somehow a gate/ portal/ warp opens and spirits your PCs away to somewhere else (or lets something in and out of the station). While playing hunt and seek in a ship or station can be fun, the players can just head for any airlock OR suit up and explosively decompress out of the station (picked up by your ship). (In fact, the worse case kit that each member should have, should include explosives for just such an occasion). If nothing can be directly found or easily understood, they will spend YEARS isolating the place bit by bit. Space scientists are nortoreously cautious that way. So you might have to create a "ticking bomb" some kind of deadline that has to be met or "something terrible will happen". __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 03:27:19PM -0600, MoonHunter wrote: >So they are going in with >special biohazard protocol (i.e. the suit has to be >decontammed before allowed back in their ship.) This >does make it harder to do many horror things, as there >is no way to get them casually isolated. Fair point. I assume they'd be using normal biohazard suits for this rather than spacesuits, since they'll have to be inside and the things are rather bulky. >You will have a first contact person shipped with you >(or someone with a special first contact training with >radio support from a Fire Team on duty that mission). >So they will treat any critter as an alien. They will >probably be the first lunch. Which organisations are training people for that sort of job? (I'm happy to have one along, but I want to know a plausible background...) >Your best bet is a "doorway" scenario. Somehow a gate/ >portal/ warp opens and spirits your PCs away to >somewhere else (or lets something in and out of the >station). While playing hunt and seek in a ship or >station can be fun, the players can just head for any >airlock OR suit up and explosively decompress out of >the station (picked up by your ship). (In fact, the >worse case kit that each member should have, should >include explosives for just such an occasion). As far as I know the Shuttle EVA suits still require prebreathing pure oxygen to avoid decompression sickness. (Though the bends may well be better than being eaten by Horrible Monsters.) >If nothing can be directly found or easily understood, >they will spend YEARS isolating the place bit by bit. >Space scientists are nortoreously cautious that way. >So you might have to create a "ticking bomb" some kind >of deadline that has to be met or "something terrible >will happen". Well, the ISS' orbit is low enough for the Shuttle to reach it, so it's not exactly stable - someone's going to have to nudge it upwards every now and then. Good thoughts; many thanks. -- Roger, gaming grognard Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
