Merc 2000
 

Hi folks, as I may have previously mentioned, since I moved out to the country I've had to drop my regular gaming sessions due to travel problems. In a effort to get my gaming fix I've been thinking about running a one shot session. I think Merc would be better suited to this than T2K due to the potential for episodic content. I've never run Merc before and I was wondering does anyone have any pointers for it rather than T2K. I only thought of this today, so I've no real idea about scenario's or settings yet, but do you think it would work like this? I'm thinking of some fairly cinematic stuff, taking out drug labs, hostage rescue etc. Any pointers?

For a one shot session with Merc:2000 characters, you could use one of the adventures in "Twilight Nightmares". I find these adventures difficult to fit in any Twilight 2000 / Merc 2000 campaign, but some of them are good enough for a session. I remember one in particular, "This Ain't No Weather Balloon", about the rescue of an important businessman in South America, with UFO included. Not bad.

I'd been thinking about some of the Nightmare's scenarios, but I want to try to give them a normal scenario first to lull them into a false sense of security. Is that the scenario that seems to be based on Predator?

Mmmmm... not. Well, if I've not missed the title :o . A crashed and (of course) evil UFO tries to control people to garantee its concelament and take profit of their brains...or something similar. Ah!.. and the adventure was situated in Philippines, not in South America.

Just dug out my copy of Nightmares - the scenario I was thinking of is "You're not from around here, are you?", sorry for any confusion!

zombies. when in doubt. use zombies.


hmmm actually I wanna play a T2K campaign short adventure w/ zombies...hmmmmmm brains....

My main Twilight campaign has zombies in it already, so it wouldn't be much of a change for them there.

GOOD IDEA

btw. Antenna has decent Zombie Rules.

Well I just started a Merc Campaign this year, and we have had couple of "episodes" , might be some inspiration there ;) - When considering suggestions I am afraid any idea I give you will ruin suprises I have in plan for the vitims.....I mean players in my campaign...hehe ..little slip there...

If you haven't checked my campaign forum it's here.....

http://forum.juhlin.com/forumdisplay.php?f=12

link on those rules? Someone start up a short game on rpol about Zombies. Make it hardcore. Im in. :P

Think this is it

http://www.ludd.ltu.se/~antenna/matt/Zombies.pdf

The best thing about merc is that you watch TV news or online news service and get some idea, the recent pricay in the gulf of Aden, blackwater in Iraq, are some ideas that come to mind, for other ideas, if you can find a copy of the merc gazetter it has some ideas also the I found the material in Bangkok Source Book and Operation CD both TW 2000 books are good for using as adventure in other locations and them have soem good maps too.

Yep, i am a huge fan of Merc.

More guns, quicker action, fun toys, more of all the good stuff & less book keeping (& I'm an accountant!).

As everyone has said, newspaper is maybe a good bet for story lines. Storm a freighter off somalia or a protection job of a VIP in Iraq.

But hey, its Merc, do both over 3 or 4 sessions!

More action and less character development is a better use of time i think.

I spoke to two of my group yesterday and they seem to be up for the idea, I'll hear from the rest later today, but I reckon they'll go for it. Think the first one off will be a lower key operation, maybe something against a low level local drug operation, just to establish the group. I'll be concentrating on action rather than character development as it may only be a one off game, but I'll try and leave it open ended so that we can run a series of one offs using the same characters until I can get back to the normal campaign. My ideal plan would be to try and sort a one off every couple of months until we can get back to regular games. I'll let you all know what happens.

Awesome, I was looking for those zombie rules as well!

Maybe it was my imagination, but weren't there T2k rules for werewolves and vampires also?

Dark conspiracy (with their rules compatible with Twilight:2000 and Traveller:TNE) have a good collection monsters, extraplanar creatures and this kind of pleasant beings. I suppose that GDW people don’t have forgot about the “classics”.

another merc idea
 

I was using google earth around Eureca,California - and to my astonsihment there seems to be KMZ overlays regarding "BIGFOOT SIGHTINGS" - so a mission searching for a bigfoot researcher - party is for instance hired by family or girlfriend of said researcher. Offcourse you can add a special government black-op research unit ;capturing bigfoots (or just hairy rednecks) using them for some RnD in battle-stimulants or something else, the bigfoot researcher is typically captured by the black-op-operatives...

Such a mission would include lots of action in wet forests, maybe normal animals as bears and wolfes and as a intro (before they find theeir target) u can make the players stumble upon a Marihuana crop with some local yokels a-la "the hills have eyes" or "texas chainsaw massacre"

ahh.the possibilities....

I've never associated Merc with zombies. I always seen Merc as more contemporary and modern day. more real.

If i went the zombie route, it would more likely be in T2K where some sort of suspention of belief is already in effect. And instead of being true zombies theyd be radioactively affected in some way.

Anyway, Tigger, keep us up to date. I'd be interested in hearing how you go.

Spoke to the guys from my group today. Looks like the game is going ahead on 22 March. Going to be a low key mission for them, starting them off against a street gang with a small drug lab. Based loosely on the scenario in the Merc rulebook. I'll keep you up to date on how it goes, both planning and the game.