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jordangreywolfAs mentioned earlier, I'd floated ideas with the player group in my Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign about what we might do next. I proposed doing a post-apocalyptic retro-futuristic setting heavily inspired by Fallout, though I didn't want to be overly beholden to Fallout "lore." I had a few different ideas for such a campaign -- a road trip on Superhighway 66, a base-building / area exploring exercise set somewhere in the Midwest, or perhaps a trip through an alt-history Florida. The Florida idea drew the most interest, especially after I explained that I was inspired by imagining how "future Florida" might be viewed from sometime circa the 1950s to early 1960s: it'd still be a land of countless tourist traps and attractions along the major highways, and there would be no Disney World. Two of the players are Florida natives, and know a lot more about Florida history than I do, but I'm not running a period piece, so that doesn't worry me quite as much as it normally would if, say, I was running a Wild West game with players who knew far more about the Old West than I did.
We had a bit of brainstorming where I was busily scribbling down various things mentioned by the group that I should look into for inspiration on locations to visit, old ideas about what Florida's future would be like, etc. For instance, there were once plans to use atomic blasts to create a canal across Florida! It was eventually abandoned, but what if, in this alternate timeline, it came about? Miami had big ideas for a year-'round "world showcase" and model community that sounded an awful lot like Walt Disney's hopes for EPCOT. What if that actually became reality? Plus, there's a lot of interesting history that I could play with for alternate history, tie-ins with weird mutant monsters, strange phenomena, etc.
But where to start? If the adventure will involve visiting a lot of tourist-trappy theme-park-ish places, then I could probably use some semi-generic "theme park" terrain and props. It could use signage. What would be something pretty generic for a Florida theme park?
How about ...
FLORIDALAND?
(...)
Okay, it turns out, IRL, there was a Floridaland. But this isn't it.
Welcome to Floridaland!
A couple of guests arrive at the famous Floridaland theme park. It's in a bit of disrepair, 200+ years after the bombs dropped, but the robotic mascots still eagerly welcome visitors. At least one of the park's atomic power generators is still online, keeping the lights, music, and air conditioning running, making it a tempting spot for post-apocalyptic survivors to explore. Of course, there are RULES to be followed in the park, and everything is paid for in Old World cash rather than bullets or bottlecaps, so there might be a few misunderstandings. As friendly as the robots might be, it's been patently impossible for them to maintain their priority objectives since all the living staff died, and no one has performed maintenance work in centuries. As a result, some of the flaws in their logic processes have become painfully obvious to anyone who makes the mistake of venturing into "employees only" areas, scavenging for loot, or disturbing any part of the many skeletons littering the grounds.
Work-in-progress shot of a couple of "mascot-bots" I cobbled together using the "Fugitoid" figure from the HeroClix TMNT line, head-swapping from some small toys I found at a thrift store. I also picked up a few other Clix minis I thought might have post-apoc application: "Dee-Dee" from the HeroClix "Batman the Animated Series" line actually gave me two characters that I might try fixing up with gas masks, weapons, and other wasteland gear. The "monkey with cymbals" has obvious application for anyone who's played through Fallout 4. The "Dune Buggy" looked wacky enough that I thought it might pass for a retro-futuristic alt-universe vehicle of some sort. (A little bit of grunge so it's not just solid plastic yellow and we're good to go.)
The big sign/waiting area structure, inspired by a 1950s entrance to Silver Springs, is made mostly from foam-core illustration board. I found a bag full of self-adhesive letters that I thought might be useful for signage, but found that a lot of the letters (especially "E") were long gone. I couldn't even spell out "FLORIDALAND" (let alone twice), but I figured out that I could cobble together the missing letters by cutting apart and recombining several of the remaining letters I had in abundance. (So, "T" with some trimming and extension became "L" and the curve of a letter "G" combined with an "I" to give me a couple of "D"s., etc.)
For the Florida-based campaign, I intend to minimize the involvement of familiar Fallout factions/entities such as the super mutants, Vault-Tec, the Brotherhood of Steel, NCR, etc., and go more my own direction. For one thing, Florida houses generally don't have basements for a reason, and this would be a terrible place for Vault-Tec vaults. Super mutants are way too prevalent in all the Fallout games, IMHO, and I think we need to see OTHER sorts of not-so-super mutants. Plus, I really don't want to have to deal with the implications of applying power armor as it's portrayed in the games in an RPG setting. (A la, just how long a fusion core should really last, if the Brotherhood of Steel can afford to send power-armored troopers on long-range recon/patrols/quests, and whether I'm willing to put up with the power-level differences in a PC party between the character who's safely inside a walking tank vs. the one who's NOT.)
AND YET ... I've got a bunch of super mutant minis (and my friend with the printer just gave me some more to paint up), and lots of power armor, and... Okay, so maybe these things will likely pop up at some point or another. They just won't be the main event, if I can help it. ;)
Floridaland Welcoming Committee
At the entrance to Floridaland, one of the masbots (mascot robots) encountered early on is JJ the Scrub Jay. In this alternate timeline, the northern mockingbird has been replaced by TWO birds, the scrub jay and the flamingo, to represent Florida's "state bird" (or birds as the case may be). At Floridaland, JJ the Scrub Jay is also a mascot for FLA, the Florida Law Association -- and thus it's only appropriate that he is the one who presents visitors with obligatory legalese to exempt the park owners (never mind that they've been deceased for over 200 years) from any liability.
Other masbots present include Fran Fox and Barry Bear (the latter representing a Florida Black Bear).
As a bit of a gag, there's also a janitorial street/floor-scrubber bot that makes the rounds, dubbed "Scrub-J." Ha, ha.
The "masbots" are more converted Fugitoids like above. The Scrub-J is a mis-cast steamroller bot from Hirst Arts Castlemolds, intended originally to be a Robo Rally playing piece. Part of the "roller" didn't cast properly, so I replaced it with some "scrubbers" made from foam and putty.
The scooter is a random little toy piece I got in a thrift store grab-bag deal.
Floridaland Pill Bottle Booths
Got empty pill bottles, might as well use them. I thought of turning them into mini-vendor booths, so I used some putty to add the "rib" elements on the side, some more epoxy putty and bits to make decorative signage and elements on the counters. I used Bing AI image creator to help me make some "mascots" for the menus. Yes, I could have drawn them myself, but this is basically just scrap to decorate some terrain -- not exactly something for mass production. If I ever try writing up an adventure module, I'll make some original art for illustrations.
Tankotron
3D-printed "Tankbot Grunts" from Imitation of Life Miniatures. These were assembled and painted for my friend's ongoing Fallout 2d20 campaign, but I thought it might be fun to make some sort of billboard to "tie in" to the design. (It also occurred to me that I might try kitbashing some "tankbots" of my own, for my own campaign.) The design from Bing didn't quite come out how I wanted, so I did a bit of Photoshoppery to get something closer to the design and at least roughly symmetrical, with a "dome" head. I also had to do a lot of touch-up work to make the Fallout alt-universe US flag in the background.
I didn't find the link for the models until after I'd already assembled and painted these -- they came in parts, intermingled with several other robot kits, and it took me a while to figure out how they went together. I didn't realize they were supposed to have the skull heads and helmets per the original model (see link below), and I figured that since they were very similar in style, rather than just having them have random heads from the selection (and, besides, I was running short on robot heads), I opted to just use balls of putty to give them "dome" heads, like Fallout's Robobrains.
The robots are posed with a Disney "Finding Dory" plastic light-up "billboard" puzzle frame toy, and some "Power City Construction" (Girder & Panel) construction set parts. This also inspired me to try using Bing AI image-creator -- with a lot of Photoshoppery -- to make some other billboard designs. My notion is that I could do a bit of foreshadowing of upcoming encounters, locations, etc., through background elements such as billboards. I could probably establish more of the setting context through such details rather than dumping a bunch of exposition on the players in a handout.
IMITATION OF LIFE "MyMiniFactory" link for Tankbot Grunts kit STL:
https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-tankbot-grunts-modular-build-a-bot-kit-197399
(Post-)Aporkalyptic BBQ Billboard
I thought I'd try making ads for some of the different faux businesses I've made terrain for, using AI, though it could only get me so far. Pig mascot? Sure, after a lot of tries, I could get that. But a mushroom cloud in the background? I kept getting "dogged" for that. AKA, Bing would give me that ugly picture of the mutant dog and the broken egg yolk -- at least I THINK that's what's pictured -- and a warning that the content was inappropriate and that too many more such results might get my account closed. So apparently mushroom clouds in the background are BAD. I had to make a mushroom cloud using some effects and a lot of touch-up work in Photoshop. The "distress" layer was also created through Adobe texture-generation features (and more touch-up work when it didn't quite turn out exactly as intended).
Poseidon Energy Power Center Billboard
More AI art composite work (bits and pieces combined to get to where I wanted) and lots of Photoshoppery. Photoshop's "generative fill" is nice for allowing me to lasso a part of the picture (a mutant hand that looks more like a flipper, for instance) and getting it to at least TRY to draw something new within the area I outlined, and maybe it'll be closer to what I wanted after a few attempts. (And then I use the Wacom tablet and brushes to draw the rest.) I thought I'd try sharing this one without the distress layer for once. The horizon doesn't quite line up but ... ah, good enough for a bit of background detail.
The dimensions here are slightly different because this was used for a different purpose: I made a stand to hold the "billboard frame," and to make a back side for it. If, however, the plastic billboard frame is removed, there was a bit flat surface ... so I figured I'd put a billboard design on it! The billboard frame's interior is 8"x4" -- but the surface left open there was 9"x5".
Wasteland Pickers
Some more resin wastelanders painted up for my friend's Fallout 2d20 campaign, but while I was at it, I'll show off another partially-AI-generated billboard in the background.
This billboard was inspired by my old "Planetarium of the Apes" adventure. My premise there was that Cape Canaveral (never "Cape Kennedy" in this timeline, since Kennedy wasn't assassinated) has become a combination space museum and research center, since rocket technology has advanced to the point where having an equatorial (or near-equatorial) location for spaceports is no longer necessary.
Jangles the Moon Monkey is the sidekick of Captain Cosmos in Fallout 4 (or, rather, in the in-universe fiction), and I figured he'd be popular with the kiddos. So: Jangles the Moon Monkey as the mascot/star of a special exhibit/installation at the space museum, at the time the bombs dropped.
The billboard layout is inspired by a real-world period-appropriate postcard design for Kennedy Space Center. The blue logo in the upper-left is an in-universe logo for the "USSA" (United States Space Administration), which is a stand-in for NASA in the Fallout timeline.
One of the factions I plan on having in this campaign will be the "CAPES" -- genetically-engineered/uplifted apes who were being developed as alternatives to human astronauts for long-term space missions at a research center on the extended Cape Canaveral grounds. (I'm basically using a bunch of plastic AT-43 minis that I got on clearance a while back. Their bubble-helmet suits have a little bit of a retro-futurism vibe. Plus ... they're space apes! B-movie pulp sci-fi material to be sure.)
Night Drive
Once again, another birthday comes around (my sister's) and it's only at the last minute that I come up with some sort of idea. She's been traveling around with a camper, on a grand summer adventure, and I have no idea what her vehicle or the camper look like, or else I'd draw that. Failing that, I figured I'd just draw something retro and "generally representative" of the idea. It's the thought that counts, right? Plus, I've been on a retro kick anyway with all the Fallout-inspired stuff.
The car isn't any particular RL model. It's kind of a hodge-podge of different details.
Cry-O-Flo - United Power Billboard
Opportunist that I am, I thought I'd use the previous picture design and make a billboard design that's NOT a bunch of AI stuff. The "Cry-O-Flo" logo is my work as well - something I made earlier to decorate the side of a tanker truck. The "UP" logo is also home-made to go with another service center terrain project.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-03 10:38 pm (UTC)Although -- I've been trying to do that with the group, to get a sense of what they'd be interested in, but it hasn't really gotten anywhere for the most part. Unfortunately, it probably boils down to where I need to put something together as a "presentation" and then find out ... okay, does this interest you? If not, can you please articulate WHY NOT?
I need to put together a "brochure" for the post-apoc campaign, for instance, to "sell" the setting with a few ideas -- some ideas of what might be in the location, what sort of characters might be found there, what sort of archetypes the PCs *might* be (even if ultimately the choices are far more open-ended), and so forth. If someone already has a concept in his head he really wants to go for, then great. If he sees something and thinks, "That's cool -- I want to try that," then great. But if nothing appeals either way, then I've got a problem.
Digital_Rampage has voiced that he thinks that everyone should have a joint concept, rather than everyone coming up with their own characters. However, beyond that, we don't have any specifics to go with. I've tried doing that in the past, and even when I got player buy-in it ended up being a mess: for my last cyberpunk campaign (Interface Zero) I floated the idea that everyone is a member of a corporate merc force -- kind of like the "Colonial Marines" from Aliens 2 -- going to an asteroid base. The baseline would of course be that everyone would have basic military skills, but beyond that it'd be up to them what their specialties might be (explosives, hacking/security-systems, piloting, people skills, stealth...).
I've often gotten complaints about situations that have cropped up where some particular skill would have been useful, but nobody had it, and certain players might respond to such situations by, at the next level-up or Advance, investing in that skill that may or may not ever actually come up again, and by the end of the campaign ends up having a ton of entry-level novice skills and not really specializing in anything, and being upset about it. The thing I've been unsuccessful in conveying is that the "need" for those skills is entirely illusory: When I'm writing a campaign, I have certain skillsets in mind that would be especially useful, but baseline if you've got some sort of fighting skill, and SOMEONE in the group has some people skills, and SOMEONE has some stealth/sneaky skills, you usually have the bases covered.
If it's some situation where the PCs are supposed to be "normal people" who are suddenly thrown into the world of the occult, then the guy who has "Knowledge (Occult)" understandably has a certain edge, but likely the PCs would have come across that story-setting knowledge eventually through the course of investigation and research. If an adventure is written where a widget is needed to progress the story along, then it's pretty rare (and generally a sign of bad adventure design) to depend on someone having started the game with a widget in his or her inventory during character creation. I feel like it's an unnecessary holdover from D&D if one has the idea that an adventuring party MUST contain one thief, one warrior, one cleric and one wizard or else it's broken. That mindset gets especially problematic in a setting that doesn't have such clearly defined classes: the closest I can imagine would be sneaky scavenger, hardened soldier, doctor/scientist, and ... mechanic?
no subject
Date: 2024-12-14 05:48 pm (UTC)As for a shared concept, you mentioned a merchant with a pack brahmin in the other comment, so that might be a good one: they're a trade caravan. Maybe one or several NPCs who might give them initial direction, but eventually bite it, leaving the players responsible for figuring out What Do Next. "Kid, I'm trusting you with this bunch, you got what it takes..." *croaks*