GreykevI’m thinking of running a 4-hour UA session at a convention in October, but all my GMing experience is with campaigns so I’m finding it hard to plot something that will be entertaining, have some meat to it, & still contain closure in so short a time. Any advice on convention plotting vs campaign style would be welcome.
I’d like to do something based around the natural gas explosions in Hutchinson Kansas a couple years ago. (short version: January 2001: an explosion destroys a couple stores downtown, the next day there’s another explosion in a trailerpark(killing two people). Plumes of flame jet 20 feet in the air at both sites. After a week the source of the flames is traced to a leaky natural gas storage facility a ten miles outside of town. The gas “migrated” under the town, then seeped up old abandoned wells until it met a spark or open flame. Vent shafts are drilled all around town & lit to burn off excess gas. (there’s a map of where the flaming gas pipes were) The UA aspect comes in because initial reports at a salt mine in town stated that there seemed to be “mobile pockets of gas” and the fact that the first 20-odd vent shafts came up empty, no natural gas at all. Only after government geologists with special equipment were called in were they able to hit pockets of gas. The pattern of the “eternal flames” or the abandoned wells might also be important, if there was some sort of ritual involved.)
The thing is, UA isn’t widely played at this convention, meaning I’d most likely have a group of new players, so I’d like to make the session the Trigger event opening the group up to the existence of the underground. The players will probably try to treat it like Call of Cthulhu with different mechanics. On one hand, fine, I can GM that, but I’d like to demonstrate what makes the system unique if at all possible.
I’m also conflicted over setting the game now (and have a research-heavy ‘piece together the clues’ sort of game) or set it during/close after the events and have them trying to stop the A) people making use of the ritual flames, B) subterranean gaseous entities, C) avatar making use of an “ordinary” emergency to further some other cause, D) something I haven’t come up with yet.
The PCs will be pregenerated, I want to make eight and let the (6) players choose based on profession. Which means any vital-to-the-plot skills need to either be shared by multiple PCs, or there’ll be a core of useful PCs and a few players wondering why they’re there. Perhaps I’d better just make six PCs.
Sorry this is so scattered. Any advice, ideas, or suggestions would be welcome, and I’ll post the final product in the scenarios forum.
Greykev
lessthanpleasedDude, I’m in the middle of finals week, so I’m a bit scattered.
If, in a week, the con hasn’t happened, I’ll be more than happy to come up with some ideas based on your hook.
You could, however, take the easy way out: use a Scenario from WEEP, the UA book of one-shots.
I’ve played in a few and run a few, and they’re frickin’ incredible at getting newbies into the world. I’m sure you’ve already read it or own it, but if you wanna run a game at a convention, look at the One-Shot “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” (I could be a bit off on the title).
If you don’t hook all of the newbies with it, I’ll be shocked.
If, however, you wanna run an original one-shot, then just post and, if you still need help in a week, then I’m in.
Just a few thoughts…. It’s hard to get newbies into the game, and that scenario, along with “Jailbreak,” are written to hook players on UA by the creators of the game.
neal hebert=neal hebert
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