I’ve ran (and played) All editions of D&D, a few zombie focused games (mostly AFMBE), Battltech, Conan 2d20, DC Adventures, Fallout 2d20, Legend Of The Five Rings, Pathfinder (1st & 2nd), Shadowrun, Star Wars, Star Finder and World of Darkness to moderate/great success.
The problem is I can’t seem to get off the ground for Infinity 2d20; Short story is I’ve tried at least 2-3 times but can’t quite figure out what to do and my players are just about as lost if I try the trick of letting them run the game.
That all said, I don’t want to run an O-12 campaign if it can be avoided but may consider it becoming one.
The group consists of;
-two Ariadna characters, one being Spetznas and the other an Army Ranger.
-one Nomad simian infiltrator.
-one JSA Neo-Bushi Ninja.
I figure the focus of the campaign/scenarios with them being from different allegiances would be on the Big Bads like the Combined Army, Yu Jing, Mercenaries and Unaligned factions. They aren’t too much on the Cloak and Dagger (tried running on of the premade adventures) but don’t mind it being sprinkled in here & there, they are more for the dagger approach.
If any more information is needed I’ll be glad to answer, as we all really want to play but could really use some help to get inspired. Thanks for your time & input.
You have a group of military types / special forces best suited for infiltration, sabotage, surgical strikes, extractions, etc.
O12 does those all the time. And the best part: you can simply assign your characters missions to perform, so there is no need for building up personal motivation why they do this or that.
Of course, instead of working for O12 with all the benefits of regular income, requisition of transport and equipment, they could sell out to the highest bidder as mercenaries, which they seem to be qualified for anyway.
So if your players are not so much into investigation, infiltration, espionage in a more social setting, then they could as easily go for special forces / black ops missions hired by corporations, political entities, some rogue AI (which are not supposed to exist, but do anyway), or one of the many flavors of Submondo organized crime etc.
The question is, what keeps those very diverse characters together as a group?
As O12 special agents, they are simply ordered to work in a (strike) team. That is all you need to motivate them becoming a group.
As mercenaries, each one of them could simply leave and look for another contract at any time, so they need at least some reason why they stick together.
The idea is I’d like them to ideally like to have their loyalty to their factions, I suppose that’s still possible considering the nature of the setting if we were to run an O-12 campaign. But as noted they seem to have trouble with the personal motivations so it might be something they can come up with as their character growth comes in.
Maybe you or someone can correct me on how I’ve absorbed the information, but I perceive O-12 as NATO/UN oriented; that is to say all the Factions have their hand in it but use their forces to work together?
The UN analogy works quite well. - O12 is a political superstructure where all the superpowers, major and minor nations are represented to avoid continuous, destructive major war as they did in the NeoColonial Wars before.
The “working together” part is, too, quite similar to the UN, meaning, everyone is working against each other, but in a somewhat more polite way. The major players are as ruthless and self-interested as they come. But as interstellar warfare is destructive for everyone and as there is an alien invasion going on, everyone agreed to play nice - mostly nice - somewhat nice - nice-ish.
That means every power represented in O12 and a lot of organisations, minor nations etc. not represented in O12 will still continue their black ops, some more black than others.
And O12’s Bureau Noir, the agency the PCs in Infinity RPG per default campaign work for, are trying to keep things somewhat in balance. If one faction would manage to tip the balance, not only full scale internal warfare in the Human Sphere would be the consequence, but the collapse of the defense effort against the alien invasion, too - so the fate of whole humanity lies in the hands of the few special agents O12 Bureau Noir has at their disposal for absolutely survival critical missions.
Some faction cooperate for some common goal - often to keep another faction from achieving their goals.
And even with O12 special agents you have their Wilderness of Mirrors secret-secret agent stuff going on, working for their own factions, sometimes at cross purposes, sometimes sabotaging the entire mission.
And that is important: you need to discuss with your players how much PvP they want in their roleplaying games, as different factions could mean, they are at each other’s throats all the time. Some players like it that way, others not so much - so you would tone down the inner conflicts and concentrate on the actual mission.
They are hired to test defense systems of a corporation.
So they investigate, plann and do the job.
This part is like a heist movie, just more guns.
During the job, a high ranking official is assassinated.
They are blamed of course.
Have to gather all.the clues and information they can while running away.
Now once out, kinda stuck on the planet, need to build alliances and prove they are innocent, and maybe who the killer is.
As a twist have a liasion sent to watch them break the security.
Who happens to be the sibling or child or next in line for the position of the one killed.
So you get a heist, which turns deadly and needs lots of data gathered while running, maybe a good chase leaving the compound or building, then a murder investigation while avoiding police and corp hit squads.
I really do like this idea, I think I’ll start with this and go into FrankF’s ideas.
Just so I have more clarity, would the “testing” I assume be a live fire test vs said corps personnel?
Also if they don’t like to play like the “Metal Gear” video game (Bureau Noir), Then o12 has plenty of other options, heck you could even have them collaborating as members of a mixed Bureau team
Hacker from Bureau Toth, an infiltration specialist from Bureau Noir, A "Machine guns go Brrrr operative from Bureau Aegis
I would like to add a little on the ‘faction’ goals you might hand out. Try to keep them interesting but not going directly against the current mission. I played a game (not infinity) where we all had ‘secret’ goals while the group goal was to rescue this guy. One of the players was given the goal to kill the guy, another’s goal was to kill one of the other PC’s. Fast end to a game sadly. You can’t really give out goals that will ostracized someone from the team. Frowned on or finger wagged at if they get caught sure, but not instantly distrusted by the rest of the team. So consider what would happen if they get caught first to gauge what kind of secret objectives you might give out.
I liked the faction goals from the quickstart as they were covert, unlikely to jeopardise the overall mission or result in pvp.
I think the key is to not give goals which directly conflict with each other. They can frustrate each others goals making their outcome less effective without the actual characters knowing.
If the overall mission is to rescue someone then no goal should really counter that. No killing the target as a goal. But placing a covert tracker on him, that’s fine. Obtaining information to discredit him, OK. Placing a virus to monitor all computer communications from him, go for it. Leaking the location of the safe house etc. It writes itself. You should not directly oppose the mission but undermining it is perfect!
