Celebrities in your T2k-Universe
 

We had some thoughts about James Blunt, the Pope and King Charles III., here on the board. Has anyone of you introduced "people of interest" as NPCs in one of your games?

These could be entertainers/artits, caught behind the frontline during an United Service Organizations (USO) engagement, totally surprised by the starting of the nukes.
Or maybe a former Rock- or Moviestar, who joined the forces during WW III (You remember Lance Carter from The stomach Turns, mentioned in the "Contacts"-paragraph of Ver 2.n?).
Or maybe a well-known journalist, who had been reporting about the war, who just could not get back home.

Right at the moment, I think about the possibilities, to let my players stumble upon a former "celebrity", who now sits in Poland, not knowing, what to do, or where to go.

I think, such a character could be used for different reasons. If it works, such a person could be a perfect "comic relief". Or the person could be used for adding a little more "depth". Or it could lead to some unusual encounter with no relevance, but still be "Quite Interesting" (as in: "Hey, buddy, you remember that Stephen Frye guy, we encountered in Lüneburg? That was one weired situation!"). But such an incident could provide the background for a new adventure: The former CNN team, that still wants to work as journalists, may need help, to get from village A to settlement B, with the help from friendly NATO soldiers!

As a GM I've made the experience, that most players like the incorporation of well-known persons, no matter, if those persons are real life persons or fictitous characters (In a Call of Cthullhu adventure we made friends with Houdini, as an example. In a nother one, some of the characters met Batman.).

So, fellow members: Have you experiences with "people of interest" in T2k? Did such characters occur in one of your campaigns? Which characters were these?

And there's always the possibility of "didn't you play a doctor in that movie back in the 80's? Come stitch up this wound will ya?"
Or, better yet, an action superstar who turns out to be a real coward when the bullets start flying for real.

Something like Ned Diederlander in Three Amigos, where he shall fly the airplane?

years ago I was part of a game set in the US. The PC's were all former Warsaw Pact POW's who escaped from their POW camp in Florida and were trying to make it to Texas to link up with Division Cuba. Somewhere in the southern US they encountered a bunch of refugees that included a certain Ms Britney Spears. IIRC she ended up married to one of the PC's (I think it was Junior Sergeant Ivanov of the VDV but I could be wrong).

(obviously she wasn't a celebrity in our T2K timeline as the World had gone to hell before then - she was just another semi anonymous refugee, so I suppose technically this doesn't count).

Only other one that springs to mind was a very brief cameo NPC appearance by a Bundeswehr officer named Michael Schumacher in one of our European campaigns. I think his WVD skill was 99 or thereabouts...

Take a look at World War Z for how such things could be handled - they mentioned a lot of celebrities there but not by name to avoid getting into legal issues

another way would be having them show up before they were celebrities - i.e. look at how many future Hollywood stars served in WWII (Lee Marvin and Walter Matthau come to mind right off the bat) - same here could happen

Or you have stars trying to serve their country like Jimmy Stewart and Clark Gable did - i.e. you see an F-15 go down after an aerial battle a la Red Dawn overhead and you get to the pilot who ejected to find out that its John Travolta (who is a qualified jet pilot) or you run across a squad of soldiers in Poland led by Matt Damon or Tom Hanks who had been thru the mini-boot camp for Private Ryan and joined up after the US got nuked in late 97 for real.

I'm guessing it only took a few hours and a couple of six packs, you know, just like her first marriage IRL? ;)

LOL...Would have been even better if there had been a Junior Sergeant Federenko in the group...

Wasn't there a famous American football player that quit the sport after 9/11 and joined the US Army Rangers?

I'm also reminded of the scene in the Postman where Kevin Costner's character meets Tom Petty...

Pat Tillman. Depending on who you believe, he was killed by accidental friendly fire or fragged because he was an incompetent gung-ho redneck whose battlefield antics were endangering the lives of his fellows to the point that they decided to kill him (I do not believe this).

Also famous for being spat-on postmortem by human shitstain "artist" Ted Rall.


THAT was an amazingly cool little scene. Kind of outside of our spectrum, but Bill Murray plays himself in Zombieland.

I had a little quote from Bill Gates I made up for the "Twilight 2000 quotes" thread...

I remember that scene - would definitely add some color for sure to the game

especially if you run into them in some not so glorious ways

I.e. the cook serving you in the line at Bremerhaven turns out to be Bruce Willis or The New Guy who shoots off his whole ammo load and doesnt hit squat is The Rock

or you have a Romancing the Stone moment when the celebrity that is joined up with your unit saves your butt when it turns out the head of the marauder unit or KGB or Soviet unit that had you dead to rights is a huge fan and loves that he is meeting him or her

a la having Jonathan Frakes with you when the KGB major is a Trekkie would be a huge asset

Kris Kristofferson was a Captain in the 8th ID and a Huey pilot - be neat/interesting to see him show up as an NPC; maybe joined back up to help with the relief effort, lead a training cadre (albeit with very limited avgas...)

Nothing against Jonathan Frakes, but I think I'd rather have Jeri Ryan with me...;)

I just did a search on Wikipedia. I had in mind, Ice-T or Ice Cube had been members of the Rangers. Didn't find anything on these two, but Kris Kristofferson is listed as a former Ranger, hm ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...and_modern_day

But I see, you've got the idea. I like the Tom Petty thing. Some kind of liberal pop singer, who now is head of a small, struggling community is graet. Although I will not use Tom Petty. But it's a good picture!

Nice input, everybody. Keep it coming!

Ashton Kutcher dabbled with survivalism at least in the "Gonna get myself a food locker" way last year or so; maybe come T2k he's a survivalist nut living in the hills in NoCal...

Again this is probably not strictly relevevant to this thread, but I drew up some notes a while ago for a piece of fiction based on the Armies of the Night module and one of the things I was going to incorporate into it was using characters from TV shows (specifically Law and Order - I planned to have Novak, the ADA from Special Victims Unit being in charge of an organised enclave in the City).

Rainbow - how about this angle for the TV character - its the actual actor who the events of the war has pushed over the edge and now believes they are really the character.

Sort of like meeting Charlie Sheen in City of Angels but he has gone over the bend and thinks he is his character from Platoon.

Food for Thought

Drew Carey was USMCR
Montel Williams was a Lt in the USN and a Marine
Dennis Franz was in the 82nd durring Nam
Rob Riggle is still in a PAO with the USMC
Steven Segal could be with the Orleans Police Department
Charlton Heston would still be the Prez of the NRA -AKA dudes with more guns than the US Army

Canadian Army has a few Celeb characters, I have Arnold Schwarzenegger as Col in the Calforina State Guard. (WE FIGHT OR WE DIE)

I though about putting Chuck Norris is a few adventure, but since all is encounter would end with him round house kicking something to slove an issue I decided againist it, it would get boring. T-72 is coming towards you, Chuck counters with round house kick, tank destoryed....see what I mean

Or worse, Vin Diesel stuck as Riddick...
Could have all sorts of movie villains.

Tom Curise off the deep wandering around Utah tell people he is Jesus

I'm a Navy Seal and I popped up out of the water and saw Pamela Anderson running down the beach in Los Angeles chased by a pack of Mexican soldiers. I killed them all with my Kung fu and dagger and she has been eternally grateful ever since.

Hey, you know a couple we forgot about? Dale Dye and R. Lee Ermey!

I have used NBA basketball players David "Admiral" Robinson;served as in the US Naval Reserves as a a civil engineering officer and he was regularly featured in recruiting materials for the service and Shaquille O'Neal; enlisting US Army Military Police in 1996 and earning commission.

One of my recent additions is "John Burrows" (http://www.coverups.com/greatcoverups/elvis.htm)

A couple of side notes:

Montel Williams studied Mandarin Chinese and Russian, as well as working for the NSA and the Naval Security Fleet Support Division.

Richard Dean Anderson was made an honorary Air Force brigadier general on September 14, 2004.

Those two are probably cadre in a unit of Marines who retired to San Diego and other parts of California, like the "Grey Ghost Rangers" from the Grenada module.

"Chesty Puller's Own Rifles"?

Love that idea - can just imagine getting pinned down in a Mexican ambush and then R. Lee Ermey pulls your fat out of the fire using some of the more interesting weapons he has in his collection

"KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN YOU DAMN DIPSTICK! THIS LEWIS GUN BUCKS AROUND LIKE NOBODY'S BUSINESS!"

"Hey, Sarge, you sound like this guy from this movie I saw back when I was a teenager, about guys in Vietn-"

<long stare> "WHAT. WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE SCUMBAG! EYES FORWARD, THAT'S WHERE THE COMMIES ARE!"

A few random thoughts:

Vladimir Putin is probably still in the KGB (IRL he resigned after the abortive coup in 1991). What an ideal nemesis... there is even an ideal picture here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_putin

Bruce Willis is a service brat and is keen to support the US military - maybe he runs a charity for ex-servicemen?

How many entertainers might get stranded in Europe/Korea/Iran/etc entertaining the troops?

There was a character in the Caribbean module was was a TV star - the bosun from memory. He could easily be replaced by a real character.

I used a few (disguised) characters from Soldier Soldier as NPCs - the players have never forgiven me for having Dave Tucker (can't remember the name I changed it to) in their section - especially when his wife Donna turned up!

Imagine Richard Holmes, Paddy Ashdown or Peter de la Billiere commanding a local town militia in the UK...

Bear Grylls would still be serving in 21SAS...

'Bear Grylls would still be serving in 21SAS... "

Ok now that would be one heck of an NPC to meet

"You think you ran into some weirdos. Let me tell you about this SAS guy we met who ate a fish while it was still moving and showed us all how you can drink your own urine!"

Ok that settles it - Raketenjagdpanzer has the officially funniest post of the day