PLEASE DON'T READ IF YOU ARE IN THE MUNICH AREA !!!!!







in short:

megacorp wants beta-equipment back, that another team of runners got for taking out a toxic-initiation group in a contaminated area. these other runners never made it back. so it's up to my runners to find the missing runners, eliminate the toxic-group and get all back to the johnson.

the scenario will be in a contaminated area. showdown in an old nuclear-reactor. atmosphere will be creepy, horror, with lots of paranormal animals, ghosts and a somewhat überstrong toxic/blood-shaman/s.

my runners are all pretty proffesional already. 4 characters almost 100karma each. i want them to be on the bleeding edge all the time. i am thinking of resident-evil. one of my runners is an ex-UB-follower, so i am thinking of bringing this aspect into the game.


what do you guys think? will this work out or do i have some major flaws in this plot? keeping the plot easy, let's me change things on the fly.

any suggestions?

Keep in mind that they will be absorbing rather a lot of radiation unless they have proper equipment.

~J

/pulls out bottle of Radaway

Ready when you are!!!!

Radiation will be the big issue. That stuff will be nasty.

But using radiation resistant armor adds a whole new level of tension... Climbing around in ruined industrial factories, sliding down collapsed roofs into think, sticky mud, the air thick with wet, grey fog, respirators clogged, weapons slippery, did the mud just move, finding the former team alive but their faces skinned off, horrible grinning faces attached to bulging, boiled bodies, the toxics blend in with the twisted metal and broken concrete, why don't they show on thermal, stone figures holding rusted assault rifles with bullet casings all around them, the mud did move, I saw it, a thunderous heart beat drumming in your ears...

They should definitely have some sort of radiation protection. Depending on the levels of contamination you could give them full suits, or maybe even just do some hand-waving with something similar to those iodine pills they give people. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google for "iodine pills radiation" or something similar. Either way, establish a safe level of radiation. Then, as they walk around, even when they're within tolerance, remind them of the radiation levels around. Y'know, if they're safe up to 500 rads, then let them know they're at 150, oops, now they're at 300, this area is pretty clean at only 75, there's 600 coming out of this room, don't dawdle, the levels in the hallway are 100, 200, 300, 400, what's down the hall!?
I think that could be a fun tension device, and also a constant reminder of their environment.
note: I have no idea what an appropriate radioactive scale is, so all those numbers and "rads" stuff is bunk, I was just establishing a concept. Target: Wastelands and Bug City have lots of good info on this, though.

Another idea: Halfway through the run one of them could start feeling sick. Is it radiation poisoning, or diptheria? They don't know!

You can expect about 2000 mrem/hour if you're walking around inside a containment building and everything is still intact. If it's not, you can expect to be dead in minutes.

This is a site about a person who rode a motor cycle through Chernobyl. It sould provide you with a feel for the setting
http://kiddofspeed.com/

Don't forget Radiation badges. Four things are very important for anyone in an iradiated area, face masks to keep out dust, a radiation badge and gieger counter, and clean drinking water with its own radiation badge.
Small dses of radiation over a realitivly short period of time won't cause any immediatly noticable damage. The runners will be at high risk for devolping cancer 10 or 20 years in the furure, but runners usualy die of lead poisioning before then, anyway.
Even brief exposure to lower unsafe levels is unlikely to cause radiation poisioning, although it will certainly lead to cancer sooner than later. Longer exposure to small ammounts ofradiation or short exposure to medium or large ammounts of radiation can cause radiation poisioning. Very large ammounts of radiation will cause horrible burns inside and out.

I'm not sure of any figures at the moment.

Let them leave some "clean" genetic material for use with a slight variant of Leonization (no, I will not look up what's its called now). When they get back, give them the choice of giving up 1/2 to 2/3 of the pay in exchange for getting their DNA restructered to how it was at the first meet or taking the full cash and smack a variant "borrowed time" flaw on them based on how much you think they lingered.

HEre are a couple of other interesting links

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.j...8/08/do0801.xml

http://www.radford.edu/~fac-man/Safety/Rad...iation/chp5.htm

One important thing to remember about radiation is that everyone is exposed to radiation all of the time. Everything on earth contains a small number of radioactive atoms. The air we breath, the water we drink, buildings, clothes, homes, our own bodies, dirt, all of slightly radioactive and the result is that every place on earth has a mild ammount of background radiation. This amount can differ greatly and some places are less radioactive than others. But, it remains a fact that radiation is inescapable. There is no reason to panic about radiation unless it is an extreme ammount.

The radiation can cause tension in the campaign and the runners sould always be wary of it. Maybe there should be areas where the radiation level is lethal, maybe not. Either way the runners should assume that there are. The runners should also know that the greatest danger is having radioactive dirt stuck in their clothes and should be be careful not to get stuck in mud or roll around i the soil. They should have a van with emergancy showers and otehr decontamination equipment in case they do. However, it is not something that should result in a borrowed time flaw unless they really mess up (walking into an area with a lethal background count, carelessly playing with uranium rods, ect.)

If you want some great tension, the PEDs we use at work have two types of alarm on them :

The first is a solid, deafeningly loud beeptone that signals that you've exceeded your allotted dose. Having one of these go off, characters shouting to hear eachother, looking down at the readout and seeing how far they exceeded their "safe" limit, having something in the shadows stalking them in the confusion...

The second alarm (and actually the one you'll probably hear first) is a pulsing, VERY loud beeptone that indicates that the dose rate is unsafe. Moving into a lower dose rate area will end this alarm. A great way to drive up tension as the PC's enter a high rad area.

Radiation in low level amounts is not very harmful and studies have been conducted that suggest it may be beneficial if you can believe that. Either way, I receive more rem sleeping next to my wife than I do from any given day at work.

Ok, I should clarify. By custom borrowed time flaw, I meant in a scale of years before anything happens, and usually it would be some extra surgery costs down the line and maybe a need for amputation and replacement depending on how badly they roll on a body test.

Most PCs would either be dead or rich enough to afford any medical treatment before it would be serious, but it would be something to make note of.

awesome info guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


i'll definately use most of the suggestions ....


thanks... run is starting in 30 minutes ... so i have to leave now