Quote:
Originally Posted by cavtroop
So looks like I'll be getting a few people together this weekend and some other times through March for a short 2-3 session 'campaign'. Problem is, I am completely bonking on ideas.
Ideally, I'd like an idea that I can run with for 2 or 3 sessions of gaming, and then expand on if interest remains high and turn it into a campaign. Some quick ideas I'm toying around with (some I've seen here on this board, others pulled from various places):
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I used two scenarios when I was running demos at conventions.
The first involved the U.S. forces stuck in Kurdistan after the withdrawal from points south. PCs were mostly Army with an embedded reporter/paramedic and a local interpreter. They were a recon team retasked with making a rendezvous with one of the last flyable C-130s in theatre. Officially, they were picking up the final disbursement of mail from the States, a token morale boost from higher. This was a cover for the actual mission, which was the final disbursement of medical supplies from the States and a sealed packet of intel and orders for the brigade commander. There were three phases: get to the drop zone, secure it and pick up the drop, and get back to friendly lines.
Both times I ran this, the PCs failed to survey the high ground around the drop zone, resulting in the C-130 being smoked by angry Iranians with SAMs. The bird crash-landed and the PCs recovered the survivors and the essential cargo, then ran like hell. I ran out of time for the final chase/evasion scene which would have climaxed with them getting back into friendly artillery range.
The second focused on Marines (and a Navy corpsman) stuck in western Africa. Intelligence or DSS personnel could have worked for this, too. They were the remnants of a mission sent in to pull out embassy personnel and American citizens from an unspecified nation. Their pickup never arrived because the nukes started flying, so they started walking. At the beginning of play, they'd made their way to Abidjan, the capitol of Cote d'Ivoire, which was the last functioning embassy known to them - though its radio had gone off the air a few weeks prior. The PCs were sent in to reconnoiter the city while the rest of their force laagered up with the civilians. Their objectives were to make contact with the embassy and to determine if any ships was in the port that the force could charter (or hijack) to get back across the Atlantic.
After making contact with hostile militia (introduction to the combat rules, easy enemies), they got to the embassy and found it had been overrun shortly after they received its last transmission. They made contact with a French intelligence agent who offered to help them out in exchange for getting him the hell out of Abidjan. Once they agreed, he briefed them on the recent rise of a warlord who'd been cementing his minions' loyalties through ritual cannibalism - preferably of foreigners. There was one functional ship in harbor, but it was under guard by the warlord's troops. The obvious path, which my players always took, was to take down the troops and fight off pursuit while the ship's crew - being kept on board - got the vessel under way. Then they'd sail down the coast, rendezvous with their force's main body, and head west.
If I were adapting this as a mini-campaign, I'd drop the French agent, forcing the PCs to do a little more intelligence-gathering to get a picture of just how bad things were in the city. I'd also have the ship's crew held hostage on shore or on board another non-functional vessel, requiring the PCs to execute a stealthy hostage rescue before raiding the ship.
- C.