Could Use some Input on a Campaign

[rrank5377]

I'm currently running a Rifts campaign. After going through the first portion of it, I'm a little torn on what to do. I'll start with the overview of planned out portion.

"A Gathering Menace"

There is an alien intelligence that is gathering power and working its way into the Rifts Earth dimension. It's direct subordinates are alien creatures from its home dimension. The overall number of these aliens (which will be humanoid, specifics are not determined yet, I'm considering basing them off of Splicers) will be reasonably small. They have built, and subsequently control, a number of androids. These androids are designed to infiltrate human society and gather power using their human-like appearance. The "foot soldiers" are Crazies, Headhunters and 'Borgs. The common link there is the army is completely cybernetic. The androids insert a mind control chip into the unsuspecting victims' heads which they use to control their army. The catch is that the chips eliminate any psychic abilities in their victims. The "Achilles' Heel" of the army is they have no magical or psychic abilities; they're strictly firepower.

Act 1 was the discovery. The androids used Zombie Juicers (along the lines of the Juicer Uprising book) as an experiment. The androids lost control over a small group of the juicers which then went on a rampage. The group followed the track of destruction and eliminated the juicers. The invaders deemed the experiment a failure. Act 2 is that they discovered the androids controlling the enemy army, but know nothing about them. They found a robotics expert who can help them pending the rescue of his son from the Androids. Act 3 is shutting down/destroying the android factory on Rifts Earth. Act 4 is tracing the aliens back to their home base on Rifts Earth where they will discover an open Rift. Depending on how long it takes them to go through the first 3 acts, the Alien Intelligence will either be in the dimension or on its way in. Assuming its in and the PCs do enough to knock it down to the point of likely defeat, it will escape back to its home dimension.

Here is where I'm torn. *IF* the PCs elect to follow it to its home dimension, I'm not sure if I should make it a straight forward "seek & destroy" act to eliminate the threat once and for all or if I should add a plot twist. Example: maybe the alien intelligence wasn't really invading Rifts Earth. Maybe it was coming to get something that could only be found on Rifts Earth to fight off a force invading its own home dimension. If that's the case, I could make another multi-act campaign out of this.

Again, that's a big "if." If the players elect to say that sending the Alien Intelligence back to its home dimension was good enough, I will move onto another, unrelated series of adventures, maybe bringing back this particular adversary later.

I'm not married to any idea involving the Alien Intelligence's home dimension and anything going on in there. So any ideas, input, etc is very welcome.

[Alrik Vas]

Depends on whether or not the AI cab truly threaten the rifts dimension. There are a lot of big time players already there that would take a stance on it. Might want to study up before making a call.

[rrank5377]

Correct. The beginning is based on Juicer Uprising, though I drew some of the very base inspiration when reading Psyscape. I always like to throw in some sort of curveball to keep the players interested. The beginning is a little vanilla in that regard. Though the group seems happy so far.

[Alrik Vas]

Changed my post when I read the whole description.

How exactly do you expect your players to beat an alien intelligence anyway? Do they have strong classes, are they tired to any organizations? Could be important.

[Slight001]

Personally I'm a big fan of the villain actually being the good guy. One of my favorite villains was a warlord who was brutally conquering and subjugating the world. It seemed strait forward that he was the bad guy and that the dark ones he employed as his enforcers were proof of his association with evil as they were rather demonic with powers that if not being derived from darkness at the least had a dark edge to them.

It wasn't until it was almost too late that the players learned they were helping the enemy. A race of energy beings that had infiltrated human society at all levels and had adopted the guise of angels as their powers were derived from the light. The warlord was a human who became aware of the corruption and joined with a Dark Walker becoming something not quite human. Aware of the time table he determined that the only way he could stop the Light Bringers and save humanity was a brutal war that would allow him to wrest control of key points of the planet from the Light Bringers.

It was a lot of fun. We had a single player who kind of freaked out when it was revealed that the 'angels' were actually the bad guys... but other then that a fun campaign.

[rrank5377]

Changed my post when I read the whole description.

How exactly do you expect your players to beat an alien intelligence anyway? Do they have strong classes, are they tired to any organizations? Could be important.

To be determined. I've not figured out the specifics of the intelligence yet. Right now, the players just started act 2, so I have some time to work out specifics. A more firm answer to your question is kind of a two part answer:

First, this group is very creative. The least experienced gamer in the group has been at it for a little over 10 years. Most of us have been playing for 20+. So if I give them a very tough situation, they typically will find a creative solution that I never envisioned. It forces me to build a campaign that is loose enough to stand up to unforeseen actions while being robust enough to keep its level of intrigue and challenge. With this in mind, I have a high level plan for an entire campaign, but only figure out specifics one or two sessions in advance.

Second, when I build an encounter where they cannot win a straight up fight, I typically put in an achilles' heel. For example, in this campaign, the remote control chips utilized in the Zombie Juicers (act 1) are controlled utilizing a radio signal. If that signal is overridden, the chip is fried and the Juicer falls to the ground dead. The group discovered this and the encounter was very easy. There was no way they'd have won a straight up firefight. If they decide to do a straight up firefight, they're going to lose.

Another question that was asked was about other major players. The quick answer is that they don't know yet. This incursion hasn't been going on for very long. Relatively speaking, the strength of the enemy isn't very major, either. When I say an "army" of foot soldiers, they numbers are only in the hundreds, maybe a thousand at the most. They've done very little to draw attention to themselves by major players. Can they become a threat? Absolutely, but they're not there yet. Think of it like the Xiticix: for a long time they were all but ignored until they became a real threat.

[rrank5377]

Would be interesting to see a hacker specialist override the zombie controls. Or hell, a psionicist with Telemechanics should be able to search through the programming in order to find out how to control them with an advanced radio, or using Telemechanic Possession to control a zombie to move through their ranks undetected. Although I could see it being considered "alien" software, so I'd tack on the same negative effects that Mind Bond would.

Somewhat surprisingly, they didn't try. That said, the language would have been virtually indecipherable, so to do it would have been extremely difficult. Had the rolls been made, I'd have gone with it, though. The thing is, the Zombie Juicers required constant control. You couldn't give them a directive and let the AI take it from there, it wasn't sophisticated enough to figure out how to get from point A to point B without being told to put one foot in front of the other.