Today I run my RPG one-shot -- the first game I've refereed in something like 15 years.
We're playing
octaNe, a freewheeling cinematic game set in a gonzo post-apocalyptic world of American trash culture. Die rolls determine whether the player or the GM has control over what happens next in the encounter. The goal is to create a story where awesomely cool things happen.
I won't be using the setting described in the game. Instead I'll be running an adventure of my own entitled
War Zeppelin of the Iron Man that draws heavily on imagery from 1970s and 80s heavy metal. (I place it in the Stupid/Pretentious area of
Jeff Rients' Threefold Model.) I've included a bit of the adventure's Prologue below.
I emailed my players in advance and told them what their character options are so they can start thinking about who they'd like to be, and how they want to roll. The options (called "Roles" in octaNe) are:
The Metallurgist
Guitar wizard who wields darke magick.
The Witchy Chick
A mysterious sorceress from the mists of Avalon, Utah.
The Demon Biker
A badass refugee of the Hell Wars
.The Frazetta Babe
She roams the savage Wastelands with her chainmail bikini and really,
really huge sword, challenging any who dare test her steel.
The Crazed Aviator
Do you like squirrels? Hey! Let me tell you about my dream!
The Ninja
...The Genius Monkey Scientist
One lab coat pocket holds a handheld supercomputer, the other a ray gun!
I even set up a streaming music station for inspiration:
Listen to War Zeppelin Radio on Pandora
WAR ZEPPELIN OF THE IRON MAN: THE PROLOGUE
In the 1980s, the gates of Hell opened and Satan made war upon the nations of the Earth.
His armies of demons and hell-powered war robots ravaged the land in a time known as the Hell Wars. Humanity fought back with technology, and the secrets of ancient wizardry.
The Devil's unholy march was halted, but at a terrible price. All of the United States east of the Mississippi River became a province of Hell, ruled by the Beast. There, he plots and schemes and readies his armies for the day of total conquest.
In the Lands of the West, humans and mutants struggle to survive amid the desolation wrought by war. Many gather in the ruins of towns and cities, now turned to fortress-states. Others live a precarious existence in the radioactive Wastelands, where monsters, demons and war robots still roam, and eldritch sorcery warps space and time. It is a savage, hostile world, where uneasy truces are frequently broken by raiding and warfare.
Over the past year the armies of the Beast have begun to venture West. Led by an armored general known as the Iron Man, legions of demonic War Pigs have laid waste to dozens of settlements and enslaved their citizens. The attack is heralded by a massive War Zeppelin that rains destruction on the human defenses, smashing them entirely. With the War Zeppelin at his command, the Iron Man cannot be stopped. The Lands of the West will be conquered.
But now, word has gone out across the shattered lands: A mystical figure known only as the Prophet calls the warriors of the West to a gathering on neutral ground. He has gone from settlement to settlement preaching a message of unity and hope; some say that he has come to deliver humanity from its torment, and overthrow the rule of the Beast...