Ninjas and Superspies campaign setting idea

bathawk · Unread post by **bathawk** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 6:34 pm

Hey all, a while back I was thinking about Palladium's various settings and realized a common thread Dark Day in Nightbane, Chaos Earth for Rifts (or itself) the elf-dwarf war in Palladium, After the Bomb and Systems failure are obvious and so on

But what about Ninja's and Super Spies? I was thinking of a "Cataclysm" N&SS could expierience , and was looking for some input, maybe even for a Rifter article

I realize some of this may have some things in common with Marvel's Civil War and hope I coime off more as "inspired" than a "rip off"

"Earth" was basicly the same as ours in this N&SS world, chi abilities and high powered martial aretists "may" exist, but mainly kept a low profile. This changed in 1991, when at a press conference a reporter rushed on stage disarmed four secret service men before breaking Dan Quale's neck, the assassin attempted to escape, but was finally gnned down an hour later, but not before seriously injuring or killing 8 more agents.
The nation was in shock at such a high profile assassination. many "how's" and "why's" were asked. but to be frank, other than "abig newws day" for a few weeks public response began to fade

but three weeks later more "events" started occuring
--the French premier is kiled in a similar manner while attending a charity golf tournament.
--A Japanese CEO was killed while touring an auto plant
--a Paraguay ambassador to the UN was found dead in his office, no evidence of foul play was found in the healthy 38 year old's death video tapes of the embassy showed one more guard than personanel files could account for

The final straw was in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm a half dozen civilians sneaked into an American base in Kuwait, entered the barracks and started killing a marine platoon. It was a suicide mission, the base was on full alert after the first half-dozen kills, but the assaissins, unarmed were still able to kill all but 4 marines of the platoon before being gunned down
One prisoner was taken, and after two weeks of "interrogation" gave up that he was contacted by a mercenary group based out of New Zeland who had long ago discovered "mystic" martial arts were all too real and saw the potential in cultivating such abilities in soldiers,mercenaries and assassins. While theis group could not be connected to any other killings, other agencies, cabals, criminal organizations and armies began to follow suit. The cold War had just ended, but a new arms race, a "Martial Arts Race" had begun

The US didn't know how to respond Martial Arts had been a stple of self-defense classess and Bruce Lee films. NAd now the Authorities were seeing assassins at every tai-chi class and "kiddy karate" dojo. The US couldn't outlaw martial arts, how do you outlaw knowledge? There had been laws requiring martial artists to be registered as deadly weapons which the govertment ramped up considerably, but again at what point does akid who watched the teenage mutant ninja turtles too often o a woman taking a self defence "anti-rape" class become a lethal weapon?
The solution was three-fold
1. All martial art schools in the US who apply for a business liscence as such is required to report an overview of thier teachings as well as a list of thier students (this does about as well as the laws requiring waitressess to report thier tip money to the IRS)
2. an agency (for superspy characters) is formed to track down various schools of martial arts to catoluge them for official files, btu to also diplomaticly gain the support of various dojo's and monastaries. The hope is that if they won't train thier agents (exclusively at best) they can at leat help develop countermeasures for the goverment. compietiion is fierce worldwide as other goverments send thie rown agents, even agencies whose jo is to eliminate schools who don't play ball is unconfirmed.
3. another agency is formed to keep tabs on the martial arts community, while many of theese are boring stakeputs at "master taks house of kung-fu" or undercover operations t various djos, Thier primary concern is counter martial arts; shutting down other foriegn agencies "martial ops"

The world slowly becomes paranoid, there is no mundane way to 'test" a person for martial arts knowledge, the lunch lady at the UN can be a 12th level master of snake style kung fu, or the man you bumped into on the street might have just used Dim Mak or your business associate. While at the same time Martial arts exploration has developed ahlf dozen new style to keep up with the "demand"

.................................................................

SO there you go. ANyonme think this is a world wort h exploring? It's essentialy a lesspowerful version of a Supers campaign idea I had called Taocops (which could be a mega-damage Martial arts setting, we'll see)

thoughts?

oni no won · Unread post by **oni no won** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 2:07 am

I can't see a N&S setting where a big cataclystic event occured. I always pictured agents protecting their nation against something like that.

With N&S, I always envision it taking after, "Alias", "National Treasure", or Jacki Chan's cartoon show.

edited to add six million dollar man/woman. Gotta love those fembots!

Spinachcat · Unread post by **Spinachcat** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 2:08 pm

How about a great cataclysm behind the scenes? Things have gone incredibly wonky but the people are blind to what's really happening? However, the PCs know and their enemies know and the battlelines are certainly drawn clearly for them.

I would be loathe to include real world assassinations and alternate timeline stuff in modern day games.

Ten Tigers · Unread post by **Ten Tigers** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:07 pm

Actually Ninjas & Superspies can make for a great post apocalyptic setting. Normally mundane martial artists suddenly find their abilities heightened to a level that they are in the book. This is similar to the effect ley lines had on Rifts except there is no magic. Its all chi based.

Tinkerers would come into their own as they make all kinds of gadgets out of the wreckage of humanity. You could even keep the cybernetic aspect of the game. Now everything is just rusty and archaic looking.

I've done this before and it has worked out great.

oni no won · Unread post by **oni no won** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 10:06 am

Ten Tigers wrote:Actually Ninjas & Superspies can make for a great post apocalyptic setting. Normally mundane martial artists suddenly find their abilities heightened to a level that they are in the book. This is similar to the effect ley lines had on Rifts except there is no magic. Its all chi based.

Tinkerers would come into their own as they make all kinds of gadgets out of the wreckage of humanity. You could even keep the cybernetic aspect of the game. Now everything is just rusty and archaic looking.

I've done this before and it has worked out great.

Might as well just play RIFTS or Chaos Earth then. IMO, N&S works the best in modern or near future type settings. Beyond that and it startsto get corny.

Guest · Unread post by **Guest** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 2:05 pm

oni no won wrote:
Ten Tigers wrote:Actually Ninjas & Superspies can make for a great post apocalyptic setting. Normally mundane martial artists suddenly find their abilities heightened to a level that they are in the book. This is similar to the effect ley lines had on Rifts except there is no magic. Its all chi based.

Tinkerers would come into their own as they make all kinds of gadgets out of the wreckage of humanity. You could even keep the cybernetic aspect of the game. Now everything is just rusty and archaic looking.

I've done this before and it has worked out great.

Might as well just play RIFTS or Chaos Earth then. IMO, N&S works the best in modern or near future type settings. Beyond that and it startsto get corny.

I've had no problems using it for futuristic, space, cyberpunk, fantasy, historical, or time travel settings.

Colt47 · Unread post by **Colt47** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 3:04 pm

There will always be martial arts. Doesn't matter what time and place humanity is in, everyone is going to come up with forms of combat that will suit the situation, as well as the times. :-D

demos606 · Unread post by **demos606** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 7:22 pm

N&S and something like Nightbane or ATB are wonderful pairings.

Ten Tigers · Unread post by **Ten Tigers** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 3:53 pm

oni no won wrote:Might as well just play RIFTS or Chaos Earth then. IMO, N&S works the best in modern or near future type settings. Beyond that and it startsto get corny.

Might as well not. I'm talking about a good ol' fashion 1980's style PA setting, not Star Wars gone post-apocalypse.

Rifts and Chaos Earth SUCK for this kind of thing. WAY too much tech, magic, and psionics. Cut all those out and you might as well be playing Ninjas & Superspies. The combat rules of Ninjas is more cinematic anyway, and I detest the philosophy of using PPE and ISP as a sub-out for Chi. Why bother with all the work of cutting things out, converting to SDC, assigning AR's when all that has already been done.

For a classic PA setting, N&S with a pinch of TMNT/After the Bomb really is the way to go.

Grey Death · Unread post by **Grey Death** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 2:21 pm

Theres a free game (the name of which escapes me at the moment) that has a setting of a continuos EMP pulse has wiped out technology. Ammo has gotten low for guns. so that it is a rare thing. So martial arts are now the king for fighting. Seems like this type of setting would be sweet for an post-apoc N&SS game.