Operation Minotaur in Rifter 83

[Mr. Jays]

Also posted in the Rifter forum

Man oh Man. Where do I begin to say what an awesome adventure this is? And try to do it without too many spoilers?

Have you ever wanted to be in an Indiana Jones movie?
Do you want action and adventure? It's got it. Do you want lots of combat? It's got it. Do you want a dungeon crawl to find a mysterious lost artifact? It's possible to do. Do you only have a short amount of time to do a one-shot? You can run it that way. Do you want a stretched out adventure covering several sessions? You can do that. Do you want an adventure to fit into a greater long term World War 2 campaign? You can do that. Do you want horror? It's in there. Do you want a super evil villain who can come back to face the characters again? It's a possibility. Do you want a villain who sees the light and is transformed from an enemy to an ally? It's in there. Do you want inhuman creatures? They're in there too. Want new monster you can use in your own adventures? They're in there. Do you want realistic allies who sometimes squabble amongst themselves? Also there. Have you ever wanted your characters to meet real historical figures? In there too.

Hendrik has done an amazing job with this masterpiece of an adventure. I cannot praise it enough. I would even go so far as to say it would be a good starting adventure for players who have never played an RPG before to get them hooked on the hobby. But, you don't have to take my word on it. Read it for yourself, and you will know how much of a fantastic thrill ride a Beyond the Supernatural adventure can be.

[mrloucifer]

For those who've been enjoying Operation Minotaur, Hendrik, the staff of Palladium Books, and myself (the Host of the House of BTS) have some Halloween goodies for you!

Hendrik designed some very nice looking handout for the game, and they are now available to download at the House!

Click here to get them!

[Warshield73]

For those who've been enjoying Operation Minotaur, Hendrik, the staff of Palladium Books, and myself (the Host of the House of BTS) have some Halloween goodies for you!

Hendrik designed some very nice looking handout for the game, and they are now available to download at the House!

Click here to get them!

Thanks for these. I am thinking of running this or All's Quiet in Rifter 84 at Owlcon in February. This will be the first time I've run BTS so you're siteh as been pretty helpful as is but if I run this it will be great to have real copies of the documents.

Now I just need some good characters for this.

[Mr. Jays]

If it doesn't get cut, I included a new occupation for "All Quiet on the Western....What?" The citizen/soldier. This would be a good template for you to make characters with.

[Hendrik]

For those who've been enjoying Operation Minotaur, Hendrik, the staff of Palladium Books, and myself (the Host of the House of BTS) have some Halloween goodies for you!

Hendrik designed some very nice looking handout for the game, and they are now available to download at the House!

Click here to get them!

Thanks for these. I am thinking of running this or All's Quiet in Rifter 84 at Owlcon in February. This will be the first time I've run BTS so you're siteh as been pretty helpful as is but if I run this it will be great to have real copies of the documents.

Now I just need some good characters for this.

Hi there, Warshield,

PM me your email address. I can send you a copy of the pregens I used for Op Minotaur.

Kindest regards
Hendrik

[mrloucifer]

If it doesn't get cut, I included a new occupation for "All Quiet on the Western....What?" The citizen/soldier. This would be a good template for you to make characters with.

You can always add it to the House of BTS, my good man.

[mrloucifer]

For those who've been enjoying Operation Minotaur, Hendrik, the staff of Palladium Books, and myself (the Host of the House of BTS) have some Halloween goodies for you!

Hendrik designed some very nice looking handout for the game, and they are now available to download at the House!

Click here to get them!

Thanks for these. I am thinking of running this or All's Quiet in Rifter 84 at Owlcon in February. This will be the first time I've run BTS so you're siteh as been pretty helpful as is but if I run this it will be great to have real copies of the documents.

Now I just need some good characters for this.

Hi there, Warshield,

PM me your email address. I can send you a copy of the pregens I used for Op Minotaur.

Kindest regards
Hendrik

You can have those pregens added to the House as well, my German brother from another mother!

[Warshield73]

If it doesn't get cut, I included a new occupation for "All Quiet on the Western....What?" The citizen/soldier. This would be a good template for you to make characters with.

This would be a huge help as I was trying to decide which occupations I could actually use for these. BTS doesn't even have modern military skill packages so creating it for this would be tough.

If it gets cut I hope it is something you can add to House of BTS.

[Mr. Jays]

If it doesn't make the cut, I certainly will. I also have the pregens from said adventure. "Geo" in fact, was Hendrik's character.

[Hendrik]

OP MIN PREGENS: I cannot publish the characters anywhere. Would have loved to include the pregens in the Rifter article as I went to a lot of work making them, and for the same reason we cannot put them up at The House, mein lieber Bruder. I used era photography from Time magazine and so on as character portraits etc. Helps to get into the era and for private use its ok but not for publishing.

ALL QUIET ... PREGENS: Would love to see them, Kyle!

SOLDIER CITIZEN OCCUPATION: That will be fantastic to see! I am sure it won’t be cut.

SOLDIER „OCCUPATION“ WORK-AROUND: I am saying something to that effect in my article in Rifter 83, Warshield1973. You can also use the police occupations, they work fine. But really most soldiers or SOE operatives were pretty normal Joes and Janes with only a few weeks of training. See Op Minotaur for a table for extra skills. Not new skills, but for civilians to get some military skills as free add-ons to represent wartime training.

[Mr. Jays]

If it doesn't get cut, I included a new occupation for "All Quiet on the Western....What?" The citizen/soldier. This would be a good template for you to make characters with.

You can always add it to the House of BTS, my good man.

I may do that. I will probably release my pregens as well. I just want to wait until Rifter 84 is out first.

[Warshield73]

OP MIN PREGENS: I cannot publish the characters anywhere. Would have loved to include the pregens in the Rifter article as I went to a lot of work making them, and for the same reason we cannot put them up at The House, mein lieber Bruder. I used era photography from Time magazine and so on as character portraits etc. Helps to get into the era and for private use its ok but not for publishing.

First I want to thank you for the characters, they are outstanding. I spent some time this week looking them over though and I'm pretty sure that all of the pictures are beyond there copyright. If you were trying to make money on them I am pretty sure all you would need to do is cite where the pics came from but putting them on a free website shouldn't be a problem but I understand being cautious.

ALL QUIET ... PREGENS: Would love to see them, Kyle!

I have realized recently that the best thing you can put out there for GMs is pregens. I am actually warking on a google site to post my better ones so people can use them. Probably starting with Robotech then Rifts / Phase Wolrd. I have seen and played in some great BTS games at POH and I really wanted to run these at local cons. But, I haven't played much and never GMd it so trying to run them was going to be a lot of work. Getting Pregens and having the adventures in the Rifter cuts that work to about a quarter so thanks guys.

SOLDIER CITIZEN OCCUPATION: That will be fantastic to see! I am sure it won’t be cut.

SOLDIER „OCCUPATION“ WORK-AROUND: I am saying something to that effect in my article in Rifter 83, Warshield73. You can also use the police occupations, they work fine. But really most soldiers or SOE operatives were pretty normal Joes and Janes with only a few weeks of training. See Op Minotaur for a table for extra skills. Not new skills, but for civilians to get some military skills as free add-ons to represent wartime training.

I love the idea of a citizen soldier idea, I could see these being the normal people in the group making them more fun to play. I did see the additional military skills in the Rifter, this is actually a really good idea for something like WWI or WWII since, as you stated, military training was at minimum.

[Warshield73]

Quick question, and this is for Operation Minotaur but I would love to see this for All's Quiet as well, I have to write a description for players on the convention website to get them to play in the game. This description has a character limit, I believe that limit is around 450 but the site isn't open yet.

I am currently rewriting the description given before the intro, about a cross between Indiana Jones and the Dirty Dozen. But does anyone have a good description for this? This has always been my biggest problem with running convention games, I hate writing the short descriptions.

[Mr. Jays]

Quick question, and this is for Operation Minotaur but I would love to see this for All's Quiet as well, I have to write a description for players on the convention website to get them to play in the game. This description has a character limit, I believe that limit is around 450 but the site isn't open yet.

I am currently rewriting the description given before the intro, about a cross between Indiana Jones and the Dirty Dozen. But does anyone have a good description for this? This has always been my biggest problem with running convention games, I hate writing the short descriptions.

Mr. Lucifer wrote this:

“Think Indiana Jones meets The Dirty Dozen on a horror trip and you are in the right frame of mind to GM this adventure. Follow me back to the war-torn 1940s with an evil greater than many supernatural enemies, dark secrets and a mystery worthy of a tall tale”.

Operation Minotaur was conceived as a 4-6 hour gaming one-shot for the Palladium Open House 2012 and designed to showcase one of the many options of how to play Beyond the Supernatural (“BTS”). Contrary to the far more frequent mystery or detective type BTS game, this adventure offers an action packed and epic fight of good versus evil against the historical backdrop of World War II.

[Warshield73]

Mr. Lucifer wrote this:

“Think Indiana Jones meets The Dirty Dozen on a horror trip and you are in the right frame of mind to GM this adventure. Follow me back to the war-torn 1940s with an evil greater than many supernatural enemies, dark secrets and a mystery worthy of a tall tale”.

Operation Minotaur was conceived as a 4-6 hour gaming one-shot for the Palladium Open House 2012 and designed to showcase one of the many options of how to play Beyond the Supernatural (“BTS”). Contrary to the far more frequent mystery or detective type BTS game, this adventure offers an action packed and epic fight of good versus evil against the historical backdrop of World War II.

Thanks, this is the stuff from the Rifter that I am working from but I appreciate the help.

[Hendrik]

“WW2 action Beyond the Supernatural game: Think Indiana Jones meets The Dirty Dozen on a horror trip and you are in the right frame of mind to play this adventure. Follow me back to the war-torn 1940s with an evil greater than many supernatural enemies, dark secrets and a mystery worthy of a tall tale”.

This is actually super close to the blurb I used to „advertize“ the game at the POH 2012.

[Mr. Jays]

Quick question, and this is for Operation Minotaur but I would love to see this for All's Quiet as well,

Blood, death, and the supernatural in the trenches of World War One. You have been asked to form an elite squad to investigate sightings of unusual creatures located in No Man's Land.

[Warshield73]

Thanks to everyone, this will help a lot. Now I just have to decide what Rifts games I'm running.

[gaby]

Looks Great,I try ti get it.

I Hope the Next some issues can show New Pcc,New Magic spells for BtS,Magic items and weapons and New Psionic powers.

What do you Hope Next BtS,s things in Rifter will be?

[Warshield73]

Well, all four of my games were accepted at Owl Con and as usually I'm the only person running Palladium. Signup hasn't started yet but I've already gotten a few emails from people who have played with me before wanting to know what this game is so hopefully when signups do start I will have a few.

It's scheduled for Friday night of the con and I will let everyone know how it goes.

[mrloucifer]

ADVICE: Don't tell them that the adventure is from a book; you know some bunko will find it and read the adventure ahead of time.

[mrloucifer]

and as usually I'm the only person running Palladium.

I used to be a solo Palladium rep at my local con, but that was fine as that meant people who knew the game or the company would look for my stuff and guarantee players would show.

Eventually I inspired others and now I have competition.

[Warshield73]

ADVICE: Don't tell them that the adventure is from a book; you know some bunko will find it and read the adventure ahead of time.

Never. I will tell people after the game in case they want to buy it but never before.

A few of the players I get at Owlcon do subscribe to the Rifter so I did consider changing the title to avoid the problem above but I figure if any of them have read it they would get it from the description or pick up on it during the game.

and as usually I'm the only person running Palladium.

I used to be a solo Palladium rep at my local con, but that was fine as that meant people who knew the game or the company would look for my stuff and guarantee players would show.

Eventually I inspired others and now I have competition.

Well you are better or luckier than I am because for 10 years I have been the only Palladium GM and on years when I didn't go there were no PB games.

My biggest thing is I would like to play in a game here or there. in the last 12 years the only Palladium games I have played in were at POHs. That's it, every other time I GM.

[Mr. Jays]

Come to GenCon. Plenty of us run Palladium Books games there.

[Warshield73]

Come to GenCon. Plenty of us run Palladium Books games there.

Gen Con I have to admit the two times I have been there I run 4 games and then the rest of the time I go to seminars and panel discussions. So yes I could have played there but I preferred the panels.

[Warshield73]

So Owlcon was last weekend and I ran Operation Minotaur. I set the game for max of 6 players but we had a lot of cancelations (both players and GMs) at the con this year due to the virus. As a result even though the game sold out in January, it was the first Friday game to sell out, I ended up with just 4 players. Despite this the game went great.

I had to cut large amounts of the scenario for time (I did everything up to parachuting onto the island in the first 20 minutes) but we did manage to get through the whole thing. The group as a whole preferred sneaking around, they only fired there guns at the end during the raid on base, and avoided most encounters.

I did have to do some improvising though. The player landed 2 days before the ritual and decided to raid the base the next morning, which I think was largely due to me skipping too much info, so I had them meet a German deserter from the base. A good catholic German boy who was terrified about what they were doing and told them all about when the ritual was coming and how the base would be nearly empty. This allowed me to streamline a lot of the adventure and was a good way to for the players to use skills (interrogation) and powers (telepathy) to get information.

A few notes:
- I found a lot of photos and ran a slideshow for the players as we went through. General Montgomery, 1940's British soldiers, the Caproni Ca.133, WWII, parachutes, maps of Crete, what German barracks and bases looked like, even photos of the actual ruins of the palace on Crete. I played them on my tablet and it really aided in the immersion.
- A sketch of the German base would have been helpful. I had a hard time creating one from the description and the two different descriptions in the Rifter were inconsistent. A few details would have been nice too as I had to stop and think when the players asked how tall the guard towers were.
- The PDF of Rifter 83 was wonderful. I was able to cut and paste sections of the text into a script that allowed me to really keep the game flowing. I only had to open the actual Rifter a few times. Huge time savings during the game.

Overall the players loved it and I know at least one of them bought the PDF of Rifter 83. I will definitely run more BTS in the future and I will probably do "All's Quiet" from Rifter 84 at this con next year. If I do more cons this year, which seems unlikely but never know, I will definitely run Operation Minotaur at those as well.

Thanks Hendrik, great work on this.

[Mr. Jays]

Sounds like it went really well for you. I'm glad. I cannot wait until you try All Quiet on the Western....What?!

[Warshield73]

I don't get to do very many cons anymore. For a few years I was doing 2 or 3 cons a year in this area but most were sci-fi and comics conventions and the gaming at those were always hit and miss. As it is all I do is Owlcon.

If I do a different convention this year I might run both games but as it is I have probably run Op Min the only time I will and I will run All's quiet next year.

Both games have inspired me to create some WWI/1930's/WWII era characters for Heroes Unlimited to run something in this era. They will be super low power level characters but I am really looking forward to this. So next year it is possible that I will be running WWI BTS and WWII or 1930s HU.