{"id":3979,"date":"2017-05-04T15:03:42","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T22:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/?p=3979"},"modified":"2017-12-18T22:14:53","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T06:14:53","slug":"rescue-or-bug-hunt-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/rescue-or-bug-hunt-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Rescue or Bug Hunt? A Colonial Marines One-Shot, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Happy <em><a href=\"https:\/\/gamingballistic.com\/category\/features-on-gb\/gurpsday\/\">GURPSDay<\/a><\/em>, folks!<\/p>\n<p>Just a quick post today, but &#8220;short&#8221; felt a lot better than &#8220;none.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I once again find myself up against a looming deadline for game registration. Somehow, the span between &#8220;Plenty of time, the registration deadline isn&#8217;t for weeks&#8221; and &#8220;OMG the deadline is tomorrow!&#8221; never fails to whip by in a flash (translation: I can be a horrible procrastinator).<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, a few weeks back another GURPS GM (hiya, Cal!) was reminiscing about the old &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-Technical-Manual\/dp\/1781161313\">Colonial Marines Technical Manual<\/a>,&#8221; one of my favorite fan books ever, so I dug mine out and got inspired to run a Colonial Marines game. I&#8217;ve run them a few times before and always had a great time, so I&#8217;ve been turning things over in m&#8217;brains to come up with a rollickin&#8217; good one-shot.<\/p>\n<p>(Here are the completed notes for download once all this was done.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/?ddownload=4021\" title=\"Rescue or Bug Hunt?\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"ddownload-link id-4021 ext-pdf\">Rescue or Bug Hunt?<\/a><\/strong> | <strong>Downloads:\u00a0<\/strong>2,519 |\u00a0<strong>Size:\u00a0<\/strong>3.0 MB<\/p>\n<p>At this point, all I\u00a0<em>really<\/em> need are enough details to get a decent blurb written for the convention registration. The deadline of which is tomorrow. So, let&#8217;s get crackin&#8217;.<\/p>\n<h3>Note that if you plan to play in this game at Gamex\u00a02017, the below contains spoilers!<\/h3>\n<p>A bit stream of consciousness, but this is what I have so far:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Four PCs, all line infantry in the United States Colonial Marines, the &#8220;absolute badasses&#8221; from the &#8220;Aliens&#8221; movie. At first pass, I&#8217;m thinking:\n<ul>\n<li>Corporal, Rifleman and Squad Leader<\/li>\n<li>PFC, Rifleman and Corpsman<\/li>\n<li>Private, Sniper<\/li>\n<li>Private, Smart Gunner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The game takes place shortly after the events of &#8220;Aliens.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The ship the PCs&#8217; platoon is aboard receives a distress call from a remote Weyland-Yutani research facility on Tau Ceti e. Initial reports suggest a pirate attack, and U.S. Space Command has authorized\u00a0the Marines to reroute and assist.\u00a0The PCs&#8217; Section is specifically tasked with the recovery or proof of demise of a high-value target, Michael Bishop. They are given encrypted trackers keyed to his bio-implant and ordered to recover him at all costs.<\/li>\n<li>What the Marines don&#8217;t know is that they will not be going in against a ragtag group of deep space pirates. In direct violation of governmental and corporate treaties, Hyperdyne Systems has sent a platoon of corporate mercs to Tau Ceti e and seized the Weyland-Yutani facility. Once inside, they discover and inadvertently release a small colony of Xenomorphs being bred there for weaponization and research. Hilarity ensues.<\/li>\n<li>I would really like the game to begin with the PCs awaking from unconsciousness, finding themselves stuck to the wall in a Xenomorph food chamber. Eggs slowly open, facehuggers emerge, and as they leap towards the PCs&#8217; faces&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>We cut to the platoon briefing aboard ship prior to the drop on Tau Ceti e. A subtitle on the scene reads, &#8220;Ten hours earlier&#8230;&#8221; The mission is laid out to the PCs&#8217; section and they prepare for drop.<\/li>\n<li>As the capital ships engage, both dropships head to the surface. Being armed with high-tech Hyperdyne anti-aircraft technology, the secondary dropship is destroyed and the PCs&#8217; dropship is damaged. They crash to the surface, no survivors aboard except the PCs.<\/li>\n<li>In\u00a0<strong>very<\/strong> broad strokes (especially at this stage of brainstorming), the scenes might be something like:\n<ul>\n<li>Xenomorph food chamber, flashback to&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Shipboard briefing and dropship crash<\/li>\n<li>Combat: the PCs are discovered by a Hyperdyne squad sent to confirm no survivors<\/li>\n<li>PCs set out towards the facility (either to fulfill their mission, or because it&#8217;s the only shelter\/resource point on this extremely inhospitable moon)<\/li>\n<li>As they near, Hyperdyne mercs run from inside &#8212; fleeing something, not attacking. Somehow (help me!), the mercs are killed and the PCs are rendered unconscious. Mercs drop a grenade in their panic? Hyperdyne orbital ship launches a massive ground strike? Ordinarily, I am loathe to fiat my way to getting the PCs somewhere, but they need to return from flashback to&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Xenomorph food chamber. Escape and re-arm\/re-equip. According to Michael Bishop&#8217;s tracker, he&#8217;s still alive<\/li>\n<li>Host chamber: mercs filled with chestbursters<\/li>\n<li>Combat: Xenomorph drones try to prevent the PCs escaping from &#8220;the nest&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Outside the nest, deep in the facility, locate Bishop hiding in his panic room. The walls and door are covered with the blood of other apparently trying to get in<\/li>\n<li>Attempt to get Bishop out of the facility to the supply hangar, to commandeer a shuttle and rejoin their ship in orbit<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, that&#8217;s where I&#8217;m at the moment. It still needs a lot of polish, but seems like a solid start. In particular, I&#8217;m concerned about the segue from &#8220;We&#8217;re in a firefight for our lives!&#8221; to &#8220;We&#8217;re stuck to a wall about to be eaten!&#8221; I&#8217;d love to hear any suggestions you might have for this narrative down in the comments.<\/p>\n<p>At the moment, though, it&#8217;s enough to base a convention blurb on, so this is what I&#8217;ll be submitting for Gamex 2017:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As they head back to Earth, a platoon of Colonial Marines receives a distress call from a remote Weyland-Yutani research facility. Initial reports sound like a pirate or corporate attack&#8230; but could it be something far more dangerous? Come find out! NO GURPS experience needed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;ll let you know how this game shapes up in the coming weeks, and how it runs at the table after the Memorial Day weekend when the convention is. Until then, I shall be happily immersed in the &#8220;Aliens&#8221; universe.<\/p>\n<p>(Continued in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/rescue-or-bug-hunt-part-2\/\">Part 2<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>If you enjoyed this post and others like it, might you consider the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/TheMookNet?ty=h\">Game Geekery Patreon<\/a><em>?<\/em><br \/>\n<!--Precis - Some quick thoughts on my upcoming convention game, a one-shot adventure featuring Colonial Marines from the \"Aliens\" universe as PCs against various enemies trying to make them very, very dead. --><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Happy GURPSDay, folks! Just a quick post today, but &#8220;short&#8221; felt a lot better than &#8220;none.&#8221; I once again find myself up against a looming deadline for game registration. Somehow, the span between &#8220;Plenty of time, the registration deadline isn&#8217;t <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/rescue-or-bug-hunt-part-1\/\" title=\"Rescue or Bug Hunt? A Colonial Marines One-Shot, Part 1\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,3,6],"tags":[],"series":[19],"class_list":["post-3979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conventions","category-gming","category-gurps","category-rpgs","series-adventure-creation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3979"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4374,"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions\/4374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3979"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=3979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}