Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: AndyNakamura on <04-25-14/2102:38>
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I have a mercenary campaign on the backburner, and need suggestions for the location and the resource the campaign would revolve around. To give you an idea, I'm drawing inspiration from the following:
Video games:
Jagged Alliance (set on a fictional tropical island, the resource is a mutated tree with pharmaceutical qualities)
JA 2 (fictional tropical nation, gold and silver mines)
Mercenaries 2 (Venezuela, oil)
FarCry 2 (Africa, diamonds)
FarCry 3 (fictional Pacific island, slaves and drugs)
ArmA 2: PMC (fictional Middle East nation, WMDs)
Movies, live-action and animated:
Black Lagoon (Pacific islands)
Lord of War
The Expendables
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Angola. Diamonds and oil.
Black sea countries. Oil.
Amazonia. Because why not.
Middle East. Again why not.
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movie: blood diamond - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450259/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450259/) diamonds, Africa.
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Asamando. The mercenaries are hired to do work related to the food supply.
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A random island country off the coast of Southeast Asia that is the source of a rare Awakened plant used for Bioawakened Drugs.
Also, I second the Asamando idea.
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Asamando. The mercenaries are hired to do work related to the food supply.
That... would be a pretty dark campaign, no?
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Caribbean League: small contingent of "security specialists" are hired to protect a freighter from pirates...but what if the freighter is carrying "questionable" cargo?
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Black sea countries. Oil.
I'm liking that. Good way to reference troubles in Ukraine.
I also had Amazonia on my list, but what would the resource be? Awakened plants / animals?
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Caribbean League: small contingent of "security specialists" are hired to protect a freighter from pirates...but what if the freighter is carrying "questionable" cargo?
Caribbean is a good option too. And the freighter would make a good lead-in for any option.
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Why not go Deus Ex with an outfit like the Tyrants? Give the players a crisis of conscience as they see their actions subtly affecting world events. That way, you could have all kinds of crazy set piece missions. One week, you're infiltrating a remote Carib island on a sea sled, the next, you're hunting human traffickers through Shanghai. The next day, you're hitting a convoy in Malaysia before some downtime. The next week, you're protecting a scientists headed up a river in Mali to test the source. The game ends with an assassination in the Vatican during mass--will the targets be the characters?
All ideas shamelessly stolen and transplanted (except the last one)
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Asamando. The mercenaries are hired to do work related to the food supply.
That... would be a pretty dark campaign, no?
Depends on what the work is, eh? Think 'Tears of the Sun' ... and just remember, though SR guidelines tend to recommend less ¥ for 'feel-good' runs, it doesn't mean that someone with serious money and good intentions can't be funding your cutthroat gang of merrie mercenary marauders ...
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Also depends on what the food supply is "Do you know how many body parts are removed every day to put in cyberware? Over 60% of our food imports come from deals with bootleggers to ship frozen parts to us but lately someone has been targeting those shipping lanes. We need you to find and stop them." Is very different to "We need you to go here, round up some sinless people and ship them in."
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If you want to go Pink Mohawk, you could also use the A-Team as a model. :D
Other Movies for inspiration:
Predator --> What's hunting me in the jungles of Amazonia?
Avatar-->not the offworld setting, but the layout and function of RDAs military base; sub all the alien flora fauna with earth based equivalent....well I think some giant cat beasts would be fine....
The Dirty Dozen-->Mercs with a dirty past; aka "Oh why oh why do I have a Kindbomb in my head?"
The Rock-->Not in the jungles; but the premise of having to hold a location (an island in this case) would work as at least a run or three.
Apocalypse Now-->I love the smell of napalm in the morning!
Blood Diamond-->Haven't seen it, but looks like it might fit
Serpent and the Rainbow-->Shedim anyone? ;)
Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold-->Oh, come on! It's your comic mission break run! ;)
And the game Serious Sam-->Another Pink Mohawk option!
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And for resources (I got all excited about the movie references) ::)
Mundane/Magical Artifacts: The Atlantean Foundation and DIMR have been doing a lot of artifact research in the sources books I've been reading recently.
Check out ParaGeology if you can -- a lot of magic sites in different parts of the world as well as awakened minerals and alloys since SURGE; ley lines are resources too.
People: there are a lot of extractions going on in remote areas of the world; where else do corps and other large scale entities perform their research and experiments.
Locations:
Asomando has already been mentioned---I think that could have really interesting mix of resources, a growing country has a lot of resource needs; some of which are quite unique!
Tibet --- May not fit with the mercenary background, but looks like an interesting area to run with a good team.
Underwater---I am just waiting for the right opportunity to have an underwater run; that and a jungle run....and a jungle run underwater....I'm easily distracted. It's been a long day of work! ::)