Scenario: Physician, Heal Thyselfe

[Samaritan]

Scenario: Physician, Heal Thyself

NPC’S:

The Ghoul (Dr. Mikhail Sokovitz, Mastermind)
Nicely Silent (The Ghoul’s personal assistant and strongarm)
The Ghouls’ Henchmen (Nurses and Orderlies)
Buzz (Gang leader employed by The Ghoul)
The RipSaws (Buzz’s gang)
A Characters DNPC
Fred Selton (The DNPC’s friend)
Amilee Selton (Freds’ terminally ill daughter)
Dr. Jack Reynolds (Amilees’ Doctor)

Scenario Synopsis: The Ghoul is dying: in fact, he’s been dying for years. The only thing that’s been keeping him alive is the Animatus Machine, a device that siphons the life force of victims and bestows it to him. In fact, the reason he became a villain in the first place was to beg, borrow, or steal a cure for himself. To this end, he has hired himself out to any Criminal Group or Supervillain that needed his, ahem, expertise in unusual medical procedures.
The Ghoul has heard of some interesting Regenerative Therapies being explored at a high tech facility (A Government Research Lab, A Hi-Tech Corporation, a College doing experiments for the Government). Fred Selton is an administrator on this project, and he dotes on his terminally ill 15 year old daughter, Amilee. Using a combination of Bureaucratics and Bribery, The Ghoul tricks Dr. Jack Reynolds into sending her to The Ghouls’ fake private clinic, where The Ghoul uses the Animatus Machine to improve her condition. He then proceeds to blackmail Fred Selton into stealing documents and data from the project he oversees. Failure to comply with The Ghouls’ demands means a “relapse” in Amilees’ condition, a possibly fatal event. Eventually, when the project is close to fruition, The Ghoul will send Buzz and the Ripsaws to ransack the facility and steal the cure.

The Characters DNPC is a close friend of Fred Selton (Mentor, Brother In Law, College Roommate), and is concerned: Originally, Fred was ecstatic on finding a treatment that improved his daughters’ condition.. As weeks passed, Fred seemed distracted, then worried, and now Fred barely talks to the DNPC. Taking the initiative to confront Fred at his office, the DNPC meets Buzz and the Ripsaws recieving their latest “package” from Fred
Really concerned now, the DNPC waits for an opportune time to ransack Freds (office, home, car) to find out what’s going on. One of the RipSaws, assigned to keep an eye on Fred, spots her doing this, and The Ghoul orders Buzz and his gang to kidnap the DNPC. Shortly after the kidnapping (hours, days), The Ghoul realizes that the authorities involvement in finding the DNPC could threaten his plans. He closes shop at the Clinic and moves his captives to his hideout, and sends Buzz and the Ripsaws to steal the project.

How to get the Heroes Involved: The DNPC has regular contact (dates, lunches) with the Hero. During the course of other adventures, the Hero will see the DNPC happy for her friend, then concerned, then worried.. If the Hero hasn’t come to the conclusion that something is wrong, his next contact will be a frantic phone call from the DNPC (at home, the office, a phonebooth) after the DNPC ransacks Freds’ (office, home, car) –
Halfway through explaining what the DNPC found, Buzz and the Ripsaws snap her up.
At this point, The Hero and his friends need to do some investigating of their own- first leading them to the Clinic where some of the Ripsaws are clearing the place out (when Buzz returns they’ll go to the secret lair, and only Buzz knows where it is), then the facility that houses the project (confronting Buzz and some Ripsaws), and finally to the secret lair of The Ghoul, confronting him, Nicely Silent, and a few of The Ghouls’ other henchman (dressed in nurse and orderly outfits). Here, they’ll rescue Amilee Selton and the DNPC, hopefully defeat The Ghoul, and conclude the adventure.

[Silverback]

Excellent concept there Samaritan.

I'd treat this as a synopsis of the plotline and look at developing it into a full-blown adventure or mini-scenario/hook. Think about the structure of existing modules you may use.

What information would YOU need/expect to run the game and then compare it to what you have produced so far - is the layout presented in a logical and cohesive manner?; do the events have a specific timeline (days, weeks, months)?; think about running a test version of the scenario and note what's missing.

I hope this helps you with your adventure design. Don't take my comments to heart as I do like the adventure idea a lot! It sounds like something that could become a good campaign! You may want to think about running it on this board at some point in the future! If you do I'll set something up for you.

SB

[Samaritan]

I wasn' t exactly sure if it would be more or less helpful to include more information (at least in the synopsis).. I tried to get as much of the who/what/where stuff in there so that a GM could custom fit it into the game. Please, feel free to point out what needs to be more fully explained to help you run the adventure..

Looking at it, I see I didn't really explain where the characters could investigate, or what their investigations would reveal (like business cards, insurance documents, the location of the girls original Doctor)..

Most of my face to face adventures involve a lot of improvising *grin *

Specifically, what do you guys think has been omitted that would improve your ability to run a game like this? Is it better to have a detailed synopsis to adapt to your game, or do you prefer a fully fleshed adventure with the characters written up in, say, Hero?

I know maps are good, but I don't have a website to host them on, or knowledge of a good free program to create them on. Is it easier for you to make your own maps?

Do you like the villiains? Should I include more super powered badguys in this adventure, perhaps under a heading of "Customizing the Game"?

I'm currently working on the writeups of the NPC's for "Physician, Heal Thyself".. when they are done, I'll rework the synopsis and then write the whole adventure up, module style. There are probably going to be two more adventures, all tied together, involving The Ghoul and Buzz - the second will be "Veni, Vidi, Vici" and the third will be "The Doctor Is In" (tentatively)

These should complete a nice story arc, with the villians aware of the heroes and planning for their interference...

So Thanks for feedback, but give me more! I want to get good at this!!

-Samaritan

[SJ]

Physician, Heal Thyself is very good. One prospective quality is that it can be adapted to meet individual game levels.

Here is some friendly feedback, please do not take this to heart. I am only suggesting.

A description of The Ghoul and other supers (or high-powered agents) would be helpful. I suggest creating a basic package deal for goons, thugs, and gang members. Since the game is also a mystery, in a sense, a GM could combine pack deals to create basic Ghoul contacts, spies, orderlies (thugs), or who else he has bribed, blackmailed, etc. A general hierarchy descriptoin of who reports to who, and so on, should The Ghoul be adapted as a mysterious villian stealing hi-tech medical technology or kidnapping heros with reguvination super powers to suck dry in the Animatus Machine.

I am questionable on using a straight forward mission statement to describe The Ghoul's motivation. Maybe elaborate on the dependency of receiving lifeforce infusions and the madness its caused him: becoming obsessed to free himself of this life-threatening dependency. A GM can take this any way whether diabolically or desperate man.

The connection to Fred Selton is good. Perhaps a profile of him would be useful since the PCs will likely interact with him once or twice before realizing the truth. A profile of Aimlee would be a bonus. An insight on what each of these NPC will disclose will be useful. Who was not described well was Dr. Reynolds: the synapsis leads the reader to believe he's the childs physician. Or, is he someone connected to the project?

As for the adventure, it is straight forward. Easy for any GM level to run while the prelude information will let more experience GMs expand on the synapsis.

The game events done in a timeline fashion would be good. Describing the sequence of events that play out during the course of the story. GMs could run the synapsis as either a linear module style or a free style manner.

Clues could be plurbs of information NPCs would share without being specific. Like a rumor mill list. It could be divided into general NPC, specific NPC, and Locational (i.e. material clues). Urm, I hope that was semi-clear for you.

Another possible 'bait'n hook' idea to get PCs involved could be..

An UNTIL agent contacts the hero group/players asking for their assistance. One of their covert agents disappeared while investigating a recent disappearance of a reknown scientist. Due to certain political restraints, UNTIL is not able to get too involved. The PCs are given a couple names to check into, one being Fred Selton. The scientist was one of Selton's experts on the project but recently disappeared. This caused certain drawbacks but not enough to delay the projects. The Ghoul could have kidnapped the scientist after discovering he was in contact with UNTIL.

I hope this helps. Excellent work, and again, I am not an expert at writing games so don't take me to heart.

~SJ

[Samaritan]

If you play games, then you know what you like - and that makes you enough of an expert to help me out.

I like all of your suggestions, and will incorporate most of them in the next draft of the synopsis and the full adventure writeup.

I have fleshed some of the NPC's out further, but like a dolt I did it under a new thread heading, when I should have put it under this thread or even as part of the original adventure posting.

The Animatus Machine as I have it in my head (and notes!) has some more serious ramifications, but as they weren't relevant to the story I skimped on them.. I was going to flesh it out in the other 2 adventures revolving around The Ghoul and Buzz. I'll make sure to detail it more in my rewrite, along with the NPC's.

I like your plot-hook too.. It gave me inspiration for another one I'll include as well as your suggestion, regarding the Homeless and the strange behavior some are exhibiting after being used in the Animatus Machine...
Thank you for your comments and advice!

-Samaritan

[SJ]

Perhaps deciding on one main introduction for the PCs to get involved in would later help draft up the series of clues or leaked information for the PCs to discover during their investigation.

When writing the main lead in. Having other plot-hooks for GMs to adapt into their games would be nice too. Maybe a couple solid plot-hooks, with tips to the GM on how to distribute information when the PCs begin to look into the matter.

Now that the PCs have been introduced to the story, you can break it down into Acts. I thought a timeline would be good, but I have second thoughts on this. Leaning on storytelling that use Acts or set scenes to sequence the events. Depending on how creative players are, some events may happen out of sequence so using set scenes within a series may help the GM make adaptations to the game.

For instance,

I – The Ripsaw Gang Strikes! (Raiding the Gov. Complex to Steal the Project)

II – The Ghoul moves shop. (Investigation)

III – Ambushed by Buzz (Okay, The Ghoul decides to eliminate the nosy PCs)

IV – Failed Ambush! (PCs escape the ambush and find the final clue that leads the PCs to The Ghoul’s secret lair or successfully interrogates Buzz)

V – The Hidden Lair (PCs can sneak or blaze in, but The Ghoul lies waiting since Buzz didn’t return or delivered the bad news.)

VI – The Plot Thickens (Dire choices with little time. A classic stand off scene; either save Aimlee/DNPC or capture The Ghoul. Add in some hi-tech defense gadgets to hinder the PCs and cover the escape of The Ghoul).

These were some envisioned scenes that I got from your synopsis. By the time you read this, you may have already came up with the story’s unfolding.

Some additional thought on getting out the information necessary for the PCs to piece together the plot, you could attach specific clues to each Act as well as staged bits of information. You wouldn’t want to give the PCs all the clues in the beginning or first couple encounters. Chances are most PCs will be 80% powers with minimal investigation or social skills, so giving some latitude on clue finding will help; sometimes players will feel their character isn’t the investigating type and sits back waiting. Prompting role-play for these stubborn players a reward for effort may sway them to get more involved.

Maps would be nice. A picture tells a thousand words.

Okay, I hope this helps also.

SJ