Like a Sisyphean task, all my imaginative ideas for stories or games come in cycles, but they remain unrealized. Recently, my mind returned to a retro-futuristic "alternate Mars" campaign that I've always wanted to play a little more than I've wanted to design and run.
What do I seek out of such a game? More important than the details of the setting and technology, I want the players to proactively drive the game's narrative while the GM's role is almost purely reactive. That's just one of the OSR's mantras: "The OSR is the players' story, not the GM's." However, for this game, it's a central focus.
In that same regard, I want the game to center on exploration, but that means designing a campaign world players crave to explore.
To encourage that style of play, I thought an interesting starting hook would be to give the players one "big thing," like a spaceship or a shipping company then a possible commission or two.
For example:
The players have an old, battle-damaged hover tank and personal gear from The War: laser rifles, blaster pistols, and powered, exoskeletal armor. There's a bounty on Blackthorn and his hoverbike gang. The leader is wanted dead or alive for 100,000 credits, enough to pay the bills for a year!
However, the tank's main gun is damaged. The part needed to fix it is 100,000 credits . . .
Of course, you could go to the Zone and look for one among the burned-out wreckage of the battlefield, but watch out for the mutant zombies!
Like I say, this isn't the first time my imagination has drifted this way. Here's a short story I wrote and posted to an Internet forum Dec. 12, 2009:
In all directions, the endless dunes of Cortan III's crimson sand stretched out as far as Dawson's eyes could see. Twin tracks extended past the bleak, desolate horizon behind his battle-scarred tank. Alone in the infinite dust bowl, he sat on its roof beneath the long barrel of its gun turret, waiting.
He had no fuel, no water, and no food.
But, he had air.
Just then, a red warning light flashed synchronously with an alarm buzzer inside his helmet, warning his supply of oxygen was nearly depleted. Dawson exhaled loudly and shook his head. He hated Cortan III as bad as it hated him and every other living creature unfortunate enough to tread its wasted surface.
With a mirthless sigh, Dawson uncrossed his legs and hopped down from his battle wagon. The heavy boots of his armored, exoskeletal space suit crushed the rocky sand beneath them. There was nowhere to go, but he felt like moving a bit. He sulked around his crippled war machine and gazed into the distant horizon.
"Anytime now, 'Brose," he thought to himself. "No hurry."
He dared not think about the consequences if Ambrose didn't reach him in the next 30 minutes. He dared not imagine himself alone, suffocating, gasping for nonexistent air. He dared not think of what might be keeping his robotic comrade; certainly he hadn't been attacked. Certainly his dune crawler hadn't broken down in Cantina. Certainly he was fast on his way, just behind the farthest wave of dunes . . . Certainly.
"Damn it," Dawson cursed mentally for allowing himself to think all of those things. He looked up in the direction of Cantina hundreds of miles away, eyes begging for any sign of movement. There was nothing, nothing but wind and endless sands.
"Come on 'Brose!" he shouted, but there was no one to hear him. If there were any living creatures on Cortan III—and there weren't—it would be a vulture flying high above, circling the forsaken patrolman. Dawson scoffed and spun about. He kicked his tank and grumbled, then slumped against it.
"A cigarette would be real nice right about now," he thought. Fortunately, he had a pack. Unfortunately, there was no breathable air in his tank, or in the atmosphere for that matter. His dome-shaped, black, opaque helmet would have to stay in place.
Dawson contemplated how long he would last if he took it off, wondered what would happen if he inhaled through the butt of a lit cig—
Radio static interrupted his thoughts. His eyes widened and his ears peaked.
"1-0-3 from 51-5, copy?" It was scratchy and cut in and out, but Dawson heard Ambrose's monotone voice loud and clear. It took a second for his sunburned brain to process the overwhelming emotions flooding his mind. Ambrose was calling out his badge number, 103, as if they were still in the Patrol; as if it still existed.
"51-5! You're 10-1!" Dawson yelled through the radio. "Get your metal ass over here '33!" He replied using 10-codes for "loud and clear" and "fast as you can" respectively. Force of habit.
"1-0-3, I'm '76 to your '20. ETA, seven minutes."
Dawson exhaled long and loud, leaning back against his tank. He slid down, rear crashing to the sand. "10-4, 51-5," he replied to his savior. He closed his eyes and focused on saving his remaining air.
"Are you that desperate for a cigarette, or did you just miss me that bad?"
Dawson didn't need to answer scratchy transmission. He just chuckled slightly to himself. The android knew him all too well.
"Did you bring the beer, '5?" He said after a long pause.
"Negative, 103. Want me to go back?"
Again, Dawson chuckled before replying. "Sure... I got all the time in the world."
From what I recall, the story's protagonist and his robot sidekick were members of the "Moon Patrol," and that the world only had one dusty rock-ball of a moon. They were planet-side on leave.
The planet, Cortan III, was once a burgeoning mining world on the outskirts of interstellar civilization with hundreds of bubble cities and underground populations spread thinly across the surface.
For some reason, the most populous of these cities was destroyed, nuked from orbit. An orbital blockade was formed so that no one could leave the world, and no one could enter.
Soon after the holocaust, surviving populations formed clandestine city states. The scattered cities began warring for resources and territory. Bandits pirate the wasteland between them.
That's where the PC's come in.
It'd be like Mad Max on planet Tatooine from Star Wars Episode IV.
