The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec

Luc Besson is one of my favourite directors and I eagerly await his latest film based on the mid 70s comic books by Jacques Tardi.  Can't wait for this one... and as hits UK screens this month, it looks like I won't have to.

RMS Titanic

Less of a fully blown plot more of a plot outline suitable for a one or two session Steampunk or Alternate History game.

The PCs are a mix of passengers and crew aboard the RMS Titanic on it's maiden journey from Southampton to NewYork when it finds itself on a collision course with an iceberg.  The captain and crew give the iceberg a wide berth only to find some hours later that the iceberg is following them.

The iceberg is infact the cleverly disguised ocean going mothership of the twisted genius Fu Manchu who launches his attack on the Titanic in the guise of manned mini submarines.  These small submersibles are designed to punch a neat hole in the side of the ship and disgorge their contents, blood thirsty Malay pirates, into the bowels of the ship and take it over from the inside out.

The PCs must:

• overcome the pirates
• discover what Fu Manchu wants with the ship
• ensure that it completes its journey.

1884 - A New Terry Gilliam Project

Just in time for Christmas comes the news that Terry Gilliam is producing a steampunk puppet movie.  No details (or IMDB entry) on the production schedule, cast or release date but two videos are available:

Animation Test Video

Teaser Trailer

Makes me want to dust off the old Forgotten Futures rules and get writing.

Character Archetypes?

I was asked to create a filler game at short notice this week and wanted to try out a new character creation concept (well new to me anyway), character archetypes.  It's a halfway house between letting your players roll up their own characters or presenting them with fully written characters.

The archetypes are printed onto small pieces of card in the form of a TITLE, PRIMARY STAT & SKILL (or in the case of SBA a Primary Skill (at Superb +5) and a Stunt) and a BACKGROUND SENTENCE to provoke the players into writing their own background.  For example:

THE DASHING ARMY CAPTAIN

RAPPORT / Intergalactic Ladies Man

"Last one to rescue a young lady is a rotten egg"

or

THE YOUNG PLANETARY SCIENTIST

SCIENCE / Scientific Genius

"Those fools at the Royal Society don't appreciate the possibilities of my discovery"

I used this method because:

• I didn't have the time to pre-gen a bunch of characters for the game and write the scenario.
  
• The players were relatively unfamiliar with the system (Starblazer Adventures) and the genre (Victorian Sci-Fi).
  
• I find that players are less reckless with characters they've had a hand in creating rather than ones they're just given and this results in better roleplay.

So how did it work out?

I was quite pleased with the results.  I gave the players a few minutes to digest their choice and then did a small piece of 1 to 1 roleplay with each player to introduce their character into the game and to discuss some options which they might consider.  Each player then spent about 10 minutes or so fleshing out their character before we began with the opening scene.  I'll certainly be using it again and might consider it for other systems.