The Games I'm Running:Serenity&"No Deposit"

[machina]

Hi All,

I'm Tali, the GM for two RPGs at this upcoming Ubercon 2010. I wanted to open this thread to better communicate with potential players. This is to hopefully improve the gaming experience for everyone, learn more about what all RPG players coming this year are looking for as a game experience both in my and other games in the RPG track, and let out some of the ideas I'm excited about for my two sessions. I'm looking to make a win-win here.

In later posts I'll expand on each of my two modules and gladly interact with those interested. Foremost on my mind I want to point out certain details about each game, right now.

Serenity: The Truth Is Out There- The pregens will not be the heroes of the fantastic Firefly TV series or the Serenity Movie. They're great entertainment and if you haven't tried them, at least, well, you should. A scifi western. My game is set somewhere after the time of the movie but we will attempt to avoid spoilers if anyone asks (such as Jayne's pregnancy). There will be a little touch of comedy, scifi, and horror, and the game will be more teamwork oriented, with character foliables.

No Deposit, No Return- This may or may not use the Feng Shui ruleset. I'm traditionally a rules/mechanic junkie(a "crunchy" player), but this game idea I have is far too flexible, and demands more individual character-driven concepts. There will be less solid teamwork, and more free-flowing game design at heart. My goal is to bring an exciting backdrop for the characters to be thrown into, with big goals, impressive abilities, and unique challenges and twists for everybody. This means this game asks more than just rolling dice and checking your character sheet. You may not even have character sheets. What we'll have is fun. My inspirations are closer to the ~sci-fi dramas of recent years. A tiny bit of Lost, X-Files, Heroes, BSG, Fast Forward, etc, all wrapped around a core as action-packed in the 'real' world as 24, any cop or spy drama.

Does any of this excite/horrify you? I welcome opinions.

[machina]

No Deposit No Return
"Your senses return slowly, rising to a crescendo of a blue-lit world, ringing persistently and smelling of iron and gunpowder. Nausea gives way to wobbliness and distraction as you start to discern between the noise of alarms from far away and an office phone very close by. You see you're in a bank; you still are in the bank you last recall being in, before a blank spot in your memory is pinpointed and the confusion and fear strike home. You're standing up, about two hours have passed, you think, and the phone keeps ringing and something wet slowly spreads across the thin carpet of the bank. You don't quite remember why you were here but you're here and you're not alone, others are also stumbling around and there's people lying still on the floor. Too still, all too motionless, as the ringing of the phone mystically rises in your ear and the flashing of police lights against plastic wrap over the windows."

[machina]

"The Truth Is Out There"
but first, a message: "We are not alone! Forget what you think you know. Forget what your mother told you when she tucked you in at night, forget the lies of our oppressive, cabalistic Allied governments! Behind this curtain lies the very secret they don't want you to see --the most astounding scientific find in the history of humanity. Proof! Of Alien life. Yes, go ahead and laugh, sir, but what you see inside this room will change your life forever! It will haunt your dreams and harrow -- YES -- your very soul. For six bits you can unlock -- this lady wants to go, I cannot allow her to be near such wonder, such thrilling horror, unescorted. Who will go with her? Who will see the unholy truth, the only captured specimen -- in existence -- of Alien life!"

You've been handpicked as to join a crew who's as to sift the gold of truth from the Gǒushí dirt all across the 'Verse. Your elite team of skeptics, and a few trustworthy believers, are to mount up and reveal if the growing chorus of voices from all over the system are wasting their breath or harkening a new age. Strange happenstances on many a world have hinted that we may not be the only spacefaring race even after we have long left Earth-That-Was. The quest for proof is on!