I think I find myself gravitating more toward your idea of making this into a sort of pseudo-mystery that might or might not be solved by the PCs, combined with your idea to make the PCs all NCR officers (or deputies, perhaps). So far, I've been treating the PC collections as very mercenary in nature -- just a random collection of oddball wastelanders who happen to be hitching a ride on a Nuka-Cola truck or whatever to get from point to point. As much fun as I've gotten out of setting that Nuka-Cola truck on the table, however, it probably makes for a lousy centerpiece. (It's TOO BIG.) it's fine for my "Route 66" campaign, but for convention one-shots I shouldn't be so beholden to using the same plot device every time.
The NCR angle is a pretty neat one and I should have thought of it before. Certainly, I've got enough minis to do the job. My "Travel Service" picture shows a bunch of "Peacekeepers" (from the "This Is Not a Test" game) that I painted up as NCR troopers and some Vault-Tec security. So, I've got the older officer, one female sniper, two figures that could work for the iconic NCR ranger in the gas mask and long coat, and I could easily borrow some Dust Tactics Allied or AT-43 UNA troopers to pass for NCR. I could even have a heavy trooper in power armor. (My main problem is how to BALANCE that.)
And then, if that weren't enough (or if I wanted more variety), I could always have a merc who's with the group, a "deputized" scout/guide, somebody's ridiculously smart pet, or even a robot.
I don't want to spend too much time rewriting new character sheets, so I'll probably just re-purpose ones I've already written up, with a change in background. For instance, my "Great Khans" sniper character could easily be written into an NCR ranger/sniper. I already wrote up an NCR Veteran Ranger, so that should work as-is. I probably need at least one non-human character. I suppose I could either reprise "Ricky NoImNotARaccoon" as a "deputized scout" ... or, hey, call him Ranger Ricky. :D
(Note: "S'Lanter" were cut content from Fallout -- they were going to be genetically engineered raccoons. There are still some terminal entries that make reference to the experiment, even though the "Burrows" never appeared in-game. One of the original contributors rather snarkily suggested that all "talking animals" in the game were dead and gone by the end of Fallout 2 and as such should not appear in any future Fallout games, but a lot of his sweeping Word-of-God proclamations have been directly contradicted by published Fallout material anyway, so I prefer to give priority to published material as "canon" over some snarky remark in the background by one member of the team. I do hate the term "S'Lanter," though, but I guess it sort of fits the conceit. The raccoons make a big deal about living in stick huts, giving themselves fantasy-sounding names with extra apostrophes, and being One with the Earth and such ... but they still speak English [albeit with a bunch of made-up words sprinkled in] and secretly hoard human technologies. My backstory for Ricky was that he just didn't give enough lip-service to the shunning of all things human, and was inadequately hypocritical to stick around with the others. :) I'm using a Rocket Raccoon mini for him, so of course he openly brandishes a gun rather than a stone spear.)
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The NCR angle is a pretty neat one and I should have thought of it before. Certainly, I've got enough minis to do the job. My "Travel Service" picture shows a bunch of "Peacekeepers" (from the "This Is Not a Test" game) that I painted up as NCR troopers and some Vault-Tec security. So, I've got the older officer, one female sniper, two figures that could work for the iconic NCR ranger in the gas mask and long coat, and I could easily borrow some Dust Tactics Allied or AT-43 UNA troopers to pass for NCR. I could even have a heavy trooper in power armor. (My main problem is how to BALANCE that.)
And then, if that weren't enough (or if I wanted more variety), I could always have a merc who's with the group, a "deputized" scout/guide, somebody's ridiculously smart pet, or even a robot.
I don't want to spend too much time rewriting new character sheets, so I'll probably just re-purpose ones I've already written up, with a change in background. For instance, my "Great Khans" sniper character could easily be written into an NCR ranger/sniper. I already wrote up an NCR Veteran Ranger, so that should work as-is. I probably need at least one non-human character. I suppose I could either reprise "Ricky NoImNotARaccoon" as a "deputized scout" ... or, hey, call him Ranger Ricky. :D
(Note: "S'Lanter" were cut content from Fallout -- they were going to be genetically engineered raccoons. There are still some terminal entries that make reference to the experiment, even though the "Burrows" never appeared in-game. One of the original contributors rather snarkily suggested that all "talking animals" in the game were dead and gone by the end of Fallout 2 and as such should not appear in any future Fallout games, but a lot of his sweeping Word-of-God proclamations have been directly contradicted by published Fallout material anyway, so I prefer to give priority to published material as "canon" over some snarky remark in the background by one member of the team. I do hate the term "S'Lanter," though, but I guess it sort of fits the conceit. The raccoons make a big deal about living in stick huts, giving themselves fantasy-sounding names with extra apostrophes, and being One with the Earth and such ... but they still speak English [albeit with a bunch of made-up words sprinkled in] and secretly hoard human technologies. My backstory for Ricky was that he just didn't give enough lip-service to the shunning of all things human, and was inadequately hypocritical to stick around with the others. :) I'm using a Rocket Raccoon mini for him, so of course he openly brandishes a gun rather than a stone spear.)