Thoughts on a Megaversal Super Campaign

[Captain_Nibbz]

I've been perusing my collection of Palladium books on my shelf the last few weeks, mulling over a few ideas and looking for some inspiration for the next game that I want to run. I was musing about the fact that you can use almost literally everything that the company has published in one setting/campaign and it got me thinking. What if you combined all of the settings, sourcebooks, worldbooks, etc into one massive mega campaign setting? This got the creative juices pouring and I thought that I would turn to the forums with some of the ideas and see if any of you had any insight that might help. In order to make this work some of the settings would need to be tweaked a little bit, but I don't think any of these would be concessions that would compromise the settings at all.

So far I'm thinking that the campaign would need to be divided into several different time periods in order for it to work. They are as follows:

The Age of Heroes (1920 ~ 1960)

This would be something mirroring the golden age of the comic book I think. This is where Heroes Unlimited would fit in with the first superheroes emerging shortly before the game begins. I figure give the players 40 years of in game time to muck around and save the day and what not. I also love the concept of supers in the WWII era, and then into the early years of the cold war.

I think that this is when research into MDC materials would begin (with them appearing periodically throughout the other eras) with the material being a direct response to the destruction caused by large fights between heroes and villains.

The Age of Spies (1960 ~ 1990)

This era would cover Ninjas & Superspies (and possibly Recon as well) as the players have the opportunity to engage in Cold War espionage and spy tactics, using Asia and that area as a base of operations for the conflicts.

The Age of Mystery (1990 ~ 1999)

I think that this is where Beyond the Supernatural would fit in with players investigating into various supernatural occurrences and what not, with some hints as to the coming of the First Apocalypse that will happen on December 31, 1999.

The First Apocalypse (2000 ~ 2001)

This will include System Shock (with some minor alterations) and will follow the characters through a landscape ravaged by the bugs from that book. I think this is also where the world sees its first massive implementation of MDC materials, as they are used to put the bugs to "rest" (though samples of queens and various larva are kept in a facility in Canada. I want these to eventually mutate either naturally or through experimentation into the Xiticix). It will also be near the end of this period that NEMA is formed, as a result of wishing to prevent another outbreak of this kind.

The Age of Rebirth (2001 ~ 2012)

Humanity crawls out of the ashes of their first apocalyptic event at the hands of the bugs. Using their now thoroughly tested MDC materials and other technological advances, humanity leaps forward in development faster than ever before with cybernetics and robotics (which have been in development since the Age of Spies) taking center stage. To be honest this is my least developed of ideas.

The Second Apocalypse (December 21, 2012)

With Humanity in a sort of Golden Age after the first apocalypse, everything seems to be looking up. That is until Dark Day occurs on the aforementioned date. The sun goes completely black for 24 hours and the events of Nightbane are kicked off. However, due to the paranoia of the world (that started during the cold war, and systematically developed through the First Apocalypse, and into the Age of Rebirth), the nations of the world think that this is some kind of ploy by each other in a move for dominance, and everyone nukes each other, triggering the Great Cataclysm (i.e. Chaos Earth). The coming of the Rifts during this time also has another unintended consequence of causing the dead to rise (Dead Reign/Chaos Earth: Resurrection). Everything is chaos and death and the world and all of its developments are leveled into nothing nearly over night.

The Age of Darkness (2012 ~ 2112)

This era would explore the time between the Great Cataclysm and when the original Rifts Core Rulebook was published. My thought is to take material that is listed in the history of the setting and use it to create adventures and plots. Eventually this would meet up with the time period of Rifts, and would move into that setting.

The Age of Chaos (2112 ~ ?)

The thought with this one is to use the Rifts books in their order of release to create a campaign. I'm not sure how long this time frame would go for, but I know that it would end with a climactic battle between the Nightlords (who were trying to use the Rifts to escape their imprisonment) attempting again to break free of their realm and into ours. Whether they succeed or not triggers the next phase. Regardless of the outcome, Humanity is nearly wiped to extinction, with the last vestiges taking shelter in a jungle in South America.

The Age of the Old Ones (? ~ ?)
If the Nightlords manage to escape their imprisonment, they rule on earth for an unknown amount of time, toying around and creating races and what not. This would serve as the set up for the Palladium Fantasy game down the line. Eventually they are defeated and put to sleep, but the world will never be the same.

The Time of a Thousand Magicks (? - ?)

As described in Palladium Fantasy. This would be followed by the timeline described in the Fantasy books, as the setting eventually evolves into that. I think that this would also be where I would fit in TMNT/After the Bomb. With the animal races (some descended from Nightbane, some from D-Bees, others mutated animals like the Dog Boys) being the survivors of the previous age.

The Age of Fantasy (? ~ ?)

This would be the final age, where the fantasy game kicks in and ends the cycle. The world would be built upon the ruins of ancient human civilization, with possible artifacts croping up from various time periods and what not. Humanity eventually makes a resurgence and starts repopulating the world.

This is basically what I'm thinking about with the progression. As I said, most of the settings would need to make some concessions, and I'm trying to figure out how some of the others would fit in.

Thoughts?

[Sohisohi]

You have a very interesting set up; I've only ever slapped things together as a general idea.

Spoiler:

I just lump up the golden age with beyond, hu, and spies: unspecified
Beyond marks Early Golden Age, since that's when psy is being investigated via MOM implants.
HU marks High Golden Age, this almost post-scarcity world is like a highly moralistic 50s silver-gold comicbook era.
Late Golden Age is Spies, humanity becomes suspicious of their neighbors (yet again) and "cold wars" pretty hard.

Chaos/AtB Earth: 300 years
Nukes are launched during/after the great cataclysm, radioactive magic pretty much speeds things up evolution-wise.
~100 years in the great exodus occurred, everyone who could just gives up and abandons Earth to join those in space... The great and all powerful sky god is created so those in space won't be plauged by the horrors below.

Rifts Earth
Follow the books, for Earth, with mutants and powers being more common... Most societies and knowledge didn't make it passed the Dark Age, so you can wholesale sweep away any "kingdom" from the previous books.
Space-wise, since some MDC technology made it upstairs, it's full on Robotech. I just have things play out like Universal Century Gundam. Space Humans are the most powerful players on the block, unlike the SDC races of HUalies and AtBaliens. The downside is humanity's infights and lack of FTL capabilities (which, at least, the SDC races have).

I've never been able to to incorporate Dead Reign, Splicers, Nightbane, Fantasy, or System Failure.

That being said, I'll steal your idea of the bugs attacking at the end of 1999; it just seems like a perfect set-up for humanity's Golden Age. A common foe, a reason to unite together as a people.

I likely won't be able to incorporate the last 4our.

Does RECON need mentioning? I don't think it offers any Alt-History, but if their are unique conflicts and factions then it makes sense.

11~12 years seems short for a golden age. I'm assuming that you picked 2012 for apocalyptic reasons.

Dead Reign just feels shoe horned, considering CE has its own zombies. DR events, around the failed defence of Chicago, just does not work with NEMA defending Chicago. NEMA and the Reapers are the same faction, narratively, so they both cannot hold the same stage as equals.
As an alternative, since brain bugs enslaves humans like zombies, you have the brains do something near their defeat that spawns the dead as we know them. At least this way the outbreak is limited to those enslaved and eventually the plauge is crushed via MD material.

I don't know enough about the ñightlords to offer aid, but your idea of using them to bring about fantasy is clever.

[Captain_Nibbz]

You have a very interesting set up; I've only ever slapped things together as a general idea.

I will openly admit that it was late when I posted this originally and so a lot of my ideas didn't make it into the original post

So to start, I'll address a couple of the questions posed.

Does RECON need mentioning? I don't think it offers any Alt-History, but if their are unique conflicts and factions then it makes sense.

My thought was that I could use the system in there (or at least some of the ideas in it) to help simulate conflicts and skirmishes during the Cold War. I'm not totally sold on the idea of including it since its one of the few games that doesn't actually use the Palladium system, but thought that I could maybe still get some mileage out of it.

11~12 years seems short for a golden age. I'm assuming that you picked 2012 for apocalyptic reasons.

It really does seem pretty short for a golden age, and thats something that has been bugging me as well. My thought behind it though is that the world has already developed well beyond what we have by this time based on some of the other more . . . interesting events that we ourselves didn't experience (i.e. superheroes and an introduction of alien tech via the bugs). I haven't worked out all the details yet, as I'm still doing research by reading through a lot of the books and compiling things together, but my thought was that this was more of the peak of the golden age rather than the entire golden age. I was thinking that the beginnings of the golden age would have their roots in the atomic era of the 1950's

Plus, if the world ends in 2012 I get to make jokes about that all the time with my players, and I know that will drive them up the wall. And then if the dark ages lasts about 100 years, then I've set myself up for nearly infinite Rush references, which will also drive them up the wall. Both of which are wins in my book

Dead Reign just feels shoe horned, considering CE has its own zombies. DR events, around the failed defence of Chicago, just does not work with NEMA defending Chicago. NEMA and the Reapers are the same faction, narratively, so they both cannot hold the same stage as equals.

This is a very good point. Originally what I had thought of was using the dead reign zombies as a way of supplementing and expanding the zombies found in CE: Resurrection. I was thinking of basically using them as total mooks for players to go up against to feel powerful sometimes. Or if it ended up being a lower tech game, then it would be a serious and overwhelming threat for them to deal with in a good old fashion zombie apocalypse.

You make a really good point about the Reapers and NEMA serving the same purpose though. My thoughts on this would be that maybe the two of them serve as competing factions that, while they have the same end goal, they go about it in much different ways which often put them at odds.

For instance, they both want to preserve and save as much as they can, but NEMA goes about it with an almost cold, surgical logic about doing the most good for the overall survival, which can often lead them to cut their losses and retreat in order to live to fight another day. On the other hand, the Reapers will do what they can no matter what, often fighting hoards to the death in order to rescue civilians and they see the members of NEMA as cowards, unreliable, selfish, etc. It could be an interesting take on it, allowing the two sides to work together sometimes, and in opposition at others.

As an alternative, since brain bugs enslaves humans like zombies, you have the brains do something near their defeat that spawns the dead as we know them. At least this way the outbreak is limited to those enslaved and eventually the plauge is crushed via MD material.

Could be a combination of both. I already have an idea for at least one facility that will be experimenting on the bugs that will eventually create the Xiticix. I see no reason why it couldn't be that there is a facility that was researching a way to save the people with the brain bug that gets hit near the end of the war with the bugs and starts a small scale outbreak of zombies that neither the humans or the bugs can control. I like this idea a lot. Could be that this type of bug is accidentally re-released during the cataclysm as well. Maybe via something like what is seen at the end of Return of the Living dead with the smoke and rain infecting others, except with larva or something being released by an explosion and being carried on the wind to scatter and infect people.

I don't know enough about the ñightlords to offer aid, but your idea of using them to bring about fantasy is clever.

I know a bit about them, but thats still something that I haven't dug too deeply into beyond the Nightbane core rulebook to be honest. The way they're described seems like they could be a decent substitute for at least some of the lesser Old Ones found in Palladium Fantasy. Not a perfect analogy for each other, but I think it might be something close enough that I could make it work.

I really like the way that you chose to incorporate Robotech and all of that. I think the idea of Rifts Earth being a quarantine zone while the rest of the solar system is still somewhat surviving and thriving is a cool concept. I haven't dug into the Three Galaxies, Mutants in Orbit, or any other of the space-based setting books yet, so is this actual cannon currently? Even if its not, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to steal it because I love those ideas.

I also really like the idea of putting TMNT/After the Bomb during the Age of Darkness rather than later in the setting. However, I was thinking that the technoplague from Splicers would also be during this time and would be one of the Golden Age techs gone horribly wrong (though I just ordered the Splicers books and they haven't arrived yet, so I only have very very basic knowledge of the setting). I'm trying to keep from overloading any one time period with too much material (outside of Rifts obviously, because that setting is a kitchen sink to say the least).

[Sohisohi]

My thought was that I could use the system in there (or at least some of the ideas in it) to help simulate conflicts and skirmishes during the Cold War.

I got ya, I still use Fantasy as a supplement for England even though I can't fit it directly into my own timeline of events.

My thought behind it though is that the world has already developed well beyond what we have by this time

Ok, I got ya, so advancement would begin around 1920.

You make a really good point about the Reapers and NEMA serving the same purpose though. My thoughts on this would be that maybe the two of them serve as competing factions that, while they have the same end goal, they go about it in much different ways which often put them at odds.

For instance, they both want to preserve and save as much as they can, but NEMA goes about it with an almost cold, surgical logic about doing the most good for the overall survival, which can often lead them to cut their losses and retreat in order to live to fight another day. On the other hand, the Reapers will do what they can no matter what, often fighting hoards to the death in order to rescue civilians and they see the members of NEMA as cowards, unreliable, selfish, etc. It could be an interesting take on it, allowing the two sides to work together sometimes, and in opposition at others.

that's a much better spin on the situations, it helps make the two groups distinguishable. One fights for humanity, the other fights to save their humanity.

I really like the way that you chose to incorporate Robotech and all of that. I think the idea of Rifts Earth being a quarantine zone while the rest of the solar system is still somewhat surviving and thriving is a cool concept. I haven't dug into the Three Galaxies, Mutants in Orbit, or any other of the space-based setting books yet, so is this actual cannon currently? Even if its not, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to steal it because I love those ideas.

I also really like the idea of putting TMNT/After the Bomb during the Age of Darkness rather than later in the setting. However, I was thinking that the technoplague from Splicers would also be during this time and would be one of the Golden Age techs gone horribly wrong (though I just ordered the Splicers books and they haven't arrived yet, so I only have very very basic knowledge of the setting). I'm trying to keep from overloading any one time period with too much material (outside of Rifts obviously, because that setting is a kitchen sink to say the least).

Mutants in Orbit touches on Rifts Earth, breaking down the factions up there. That being said, I go further by adding outposts on a few more planets (making humanity as solar power).

I'm always hesitant to include the viruses from Splicers/Reign, especially for Splicers.