DesertBusRun:A Roleplaying Experience, An adventure for your amusement Options

[hyzmarca]

DesertBusRun

Requirements
1 Bootleg copy of Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors
1 Sega CD or Sega CD emulator
1 or more players.
8 or more hours of uninterrupted play time

The Premise:

A Mysterious Johnson hires the PCs to drive a Mysterious Bus from Tucson to Las Vegas and warns them to watch out for ninjas. To simulate this boring and tedious ride the players must complete the Desert Bus mini-game on Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors.

The Meat:
Desert Bus is the most realistic bus driving simulation ever made. There is a single straight and empty highway but the bus drifts right slightly so constant vigilance is required to keep it on the road. Completing this game takes 8 hours of real time because the bus cannot go faster than 45 miles-per-hour.
Should the simulated bus drift off the road and overheat the PCs are stuck in the desert with no food or water and they fail the mission.

The players are encouraged to roleplay constantly, without breaking character. In fact, that is the entire point of this session. Players who roleplay well are rewarded with bonus karma. Players are encouraged to take turns driving, as well. The task can produce fatigue and everyone has to use the restroom sometime.

The Spice:
At some point during the drive, preferably around the 4 hour mark but earlier or later as the GM sees fit, the PCs will get a perception test to determine if they hear a helicopter overhead. Several real minutes after this 4 Generic Ninjas and a Ninja Leader will jump out of that helicopter and onto the roof of the bus. They will then attempt to climb in through the windows and kill everyone.
The Driver must make his own rolls and keep driving. The Driver's PC must spend a simple action every turn to maintain control of the vehicle. Should the driver's PC be killed or knocked unconscious he must stop driving. Another player may take the driver's place at the cost of a complex action.

Should the ninjas be fought off the helicopter will return with more every 15-30 real minutes until it is shot down or the bus reaches Las Vegas. If the combat is too easy don't be afraid to double the ninjas.

The Reward:

In addition to the negotiated fee, all PCs surviving the trip get 1 point of karma. The Johnson will then offer them a chance to drive the bus back to Tucson for the same price. The Players only have a few seconds to accept this offer. If they choose to do so they'll get another point of karma for the second 8-hour trip. This is not recommended. Bonus karma is not totaled until the Players give up and stop playing Desert Bus.

The Bus, the Johnson, and the Ninjas should remain mysterious. The PCs will never know why the Johnson was paying them to drive that old bus back and forth along a deserted highway and they will never know why the ninjas were trying to stop them.

Antagonists (SR3 stats):

Generic Ninja
Human
BOD 6
STR 5
QUI 7
INT 4
CHA 4
WIL 6

Skills
Unarmed 6
Edges weapons 6
Polearms 4
Throwing weapons 4
Whips 5
Athletics/Jumping onto the roof of a moving bus 5/7

Equipment
1 Armored clothes (Ninja suit)
8 throwing knives
1 katana
1 spear
1 Manriki-gusari


Ninja Leader
Human
BOD 7
STR 6
QUI 8
INT 5
CHA 5
WIL 8

Skills
Unarmed 6
Edges weapons 7
Polearms 4
Throwing weapons 6
Whips 6
Athletics/Jumping onto the roof of a moving bus 5/7
Pistols/Machine Pistols 1/3

Equipment
1 Armored clothes (Ninja suit)
1 Armored Vest (Ninja Leader Vest)
8 throwing knives
1 katana
1 spear
1 Manriki-gusari
1 Kusarigama
Ceska Black Scorpion (with 1 magazine of regular ammo)

Their Helicopter is a Hughes Airstar from Rigger 3.


Johnson
Human ???
BOD 3?
STR 3?
QUI 3?
INT 3?
CHA 3?
WIL 3?

Skills
Negotiation 3?
Etiquette 3?
????

Equipment
1 unarmored business suit
?

Troubleshooting:

You'll have to handle the task finding players with so much free time.

Penn & Teller's Smoke & Mirrors was never officially released but someone was kind enough to put a reviewer copy onto the internet. It is technically illegal to download it but it won't hurt anyone. I don't know how the admins would feel about this piracy so I won't provide a link here. It can be found where fine Sega CD games are bootlegged.

If your players continue the session longer than 16 hours then, for gods sake, kick them out and make them go home. Or just go along with it and have fun. Make sure they sleep and eat either way.

[Toshiaki]

You are a sick, sick person.

Now if I can only convince my players that it's safe to come over despite the evil laughing....

[Wounded Ronin]

I think that I know some players who would actually like this. People who like "free forming" would just improv some in-character conversation the whole time.

[Trax]

8 hours and non-stop attacks of helicopter riding Ninja's for just ONE point of karma? They'd better get more than that from roleplaying their characters.

[Brahm]

:|

Suggested Followup Session:
LARPing replacement implant cybersurgery for a Mr. Stud.....on a GM roleplayed NPC. :eek: ;)

[Wounded Ronin]

Heh. Maybe the Johnson is from the Vatican and if the bus crashes the gates to Hell open.

[hyzmarca]

[nezumi]

You know what this plot needs? Mother-fucking snakes.

[Jrayjoker]

I would give the PCs 1 karma per trip, plus one for roleplaying, plus any extras, plus one for threat. I mean really, 8 ninja every 22 1/2 minutes for the last half of every trip? That is gonna add up to a lot of trouble after the first couple characters get injured.

[hyzmarca]

The PCs can just shoot down the helicopter thus negating the ninja danger.

[nezumi]

Wouldn't the ninjas just jump out and fly by their own power?

[Bodak]

Is the helicopter repeatedly restocking itself with ninjas from some remote location or does it have an infinite number of ninjas on board and it only lets down 5 at a time? If the former, I suppose they would get to shoot it down in the few seconds before ninjas descended, each time.

The bus can pull over and stop if the players want it to, right? What do they get when they loot the copter?

[Moon-Hawk]

No no, if the bus goes below 55mph it explodes. :D

[Wounded Ronin]

[hyzmarca]

[Moon-Hawk]

[nezumi]

Ninjas are fully capable of tremendous physical feats, including folding themselves into convenient 3'X3' boxes, which can then be comfortably stacked in the rear of the helicopter to be set up before deployment.

[Lagomorph]

[Bodak]

[eidolon]

Bodak wins the prize for Funniest Post of the Day!

:D

[Toshiaki]

[Dogsoup]

Actually, Hyzmarca's idea is ideal for a "Rat Race" (the movie) premise: Rich bastards enjoying the show. For additional laffs, the bus may be setup to never go below a certain speed, and announce (real or unreal) selfdestruction towards the end of the ride. The PCs may be abandoned by their employer after the ride is completed/put out of working order, or be rewarded gratuitously: GM call.

[KarmaInferno]

I would run this but knowing my players the bus would have been modified to an UberStomping Bus of Rocket-Powered Doom by the time they got there. With Fuzzy Dice.

Probably without ever actually stopping the bus.

My guys like to emulate the A-Team, what can I say. Trapped in hopeless situations with low resources, their first actions will be to break out the portable cutting torches and see what's around them.

=)


-karma

[Darkwater]

Now you're talkin. Let's mount some RPGs on that thing.

[Critias]

Alternately, you can just run this (without the ninjas) for some post-Apocalyptic game. Park them in front of the bus driving simulator, give them a canteen apiece full of warm water, and just leave for eight hours. Their characters get a box of .45 ammo and some rat on a stick when they complete their mission, arriving at whereever-it-is with their truck full of whatever-it-was, in the horrible bleeding-gum hell after the bomb dropped.