Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Spirit of '77 Adventure Seeds




I was doodling a bit the other day and started coming up with one-liners I thought would make a good title for an adventure for Spirit of '77. These are in no particular order and may of them are clearly mixing some familiar things:

  • Land of the Lost Saucer
  • Space: 1977
  • The Outlaw Mary Tyler Moore
  • Interstate '77
  • Cloned to Run
  • Schoolhouse Rockets
  • The Poseidon Inferno
  • Any Which Way You Can Lose
  • Capricorn Dos
  • How the West was Run
  • The Galileo '77
  • The Shiner Syndrome
  • Kotter vs. Kotter
  • May the Magnum Force Be With You
  • The Computer Wore Racing Slicks
Now those alone might be enough to start your wheels turning, but here's what I came up with for them as I thought through it a little more. I may have individual entries on them down the road when the final rules come out.


  • "The Computer Wore Racing Slicks" - The world's first intelligent car is being tested - then it takes off! The PC's are hired to secretly (SECRETLY!) bring it back "alive". The car appears to have an agenda of its own and there may be more going on than simple advanced electronics. There are also other parties interested in acquiring the vehicle for themselves, some far less scrupulous than the party.
  • "Land of the Lost Saucer" - An old friend of one of the PC's, a crazy scientist, has been working on a wrecked alien spacecraft and its robotic crew. When terrorists interrupt his first attempt to power up the craft, the crew takes a journey to ... somewhere else. Somewhere with dinosaurs, furry humanoids, scaly humanoids, and strange crystal-filled pylons.
  • "Space: 1977" -  Organized crime has taken a crew of NASA astronauts hostage. They are the only ones trained to fly a new experimental spacecraft and with the launch only days away the agency needs them back, pronto! One of them may have escaped - and is now hiding on the tour bus of a famous rock band.
  • "The Galileo '77" - a massive, high-tech airship named "Galileo" is taking its maiden voyage from LA to Honolulu and the PC's are invited. While on board they get to know the other members of the inaugural passenger list and everything seems fine until a storm and a series of equipment failures force the airship down onto a strange island filled with strange, savage inhabitants. Can the PC's keep the peace? Can they get everyone working together to repair the craft? Can they protect everyone from the savage inhabitants?
  • "The Outlaw Mary Tyler Moore" - An old reporter friend of the PC's shows up on the FBI's ten most wanted list. Has this once happy big city girl gone rogue and fallen in with kidnappers? Is it case of stockholm syndrome? Or is there more to this than meets the eye? 
  • "Interstate '77" - in a nod to the wonderful 90's PC game Interstate 76 the team crosses paths with Groove Champion and Taurus for some automotive mayhem out west.
  • "Cloned to Run" - a new criminal gang is causing trouble back east and when the PC's intervene and get a chance to remove some perpetrators' helmets it turns out they are identical! A science experiment gone wrong falls into the hands of organized crime and it's up to our heroes to clean up the mess.
  • "Schoolhouse Rockets" - A high school auto shop class in the inner city has become affiliated with a powerful local gang. When the PC's intervene to save a kid brother, the gangs don't take it well. Lessons are learned and extreme property damage is inflicted. An ABC Afterschool special produced by Michael Bay.
  • The Poseidonworld Inferno - The PCs are on vacation at a massive underwater resort which suffers a few problems when a nearby underwater volcano erupts. Also, why is the robotic waiter looking at us that way?
  • "Every Which Way You Can Lose" - Clyde the Yeti has escaped and taken up with a trucker and part-time brawler out west. Add in a animal activists, corporate repo men, vengeful motorcycle gang, a legend ready to retire, and some rival girlfriends and things get complicated quick. (PC hooks include contact by the biologist or being old friends of the trucker) Lots of room for a sequel too.
  • "Capricorn Dos" - A fringe reporter friend of the PC's has photographic evidence that an astronaut who supposedly dies in an accident years ago is actually alive and living in Mexico. He wants the PCs to head south of the border and find out what's going on.
  • "The Shiner Syndrome" - In the wake of widespread reports about the appalling conditions of the big corporate breweries the best little brewery in Texas is trying to expand -  but the Big Beer Companies are trying to buy them out (to water them down like any other corporate beer) and the PC's are called in to help out and deliver a special shipment to a potential benefactor across the country.
  • Kotter vs. Kotter (double sequel) - A high school teacher meets himself walking into class one morning. A science prodigy with a thing for the teacher's wife accidentally clones the teacher instead. Ties back to "Schoolhouse Rockets" and "Cloned to Run"
  • "May the Magnum Force Be With You" - San Francisco's greatest inspector runs thinks he's investigating a series of grisly killings but this time the perps are Not From Around Here and this time the .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, may not be enough.
  • How the West was Run - A greatest hits adventure as all of the notable NPC's from all of the other adventures - and some new ones - come together for a "friendly" race across the country. A big "season finale" adventure that's going to take multiple sessions to complete. It should also lay the groundwork for some future encounters too. Featuring:
    • The Car from Computer Wore Racing Slicks 
    • The Mad Scientist from Land of the Lost Saucer who shows up in an unusual prototype
    • Groove Champion and Taurus
    • The High School crew from "Schoolhouse Rockets" has an entry - possibly the cloned teacher from K vs, K
    • The main NPC from EWWYCL (and Clyde?). The motorcycle gang will probably show up somewhere along the way too. 
    • Reformed bad guy from Shiner Syndrome shows up as another driver
    • Outlaw Mary could be an entry
    • A famous Russian race driver
    • A British secret service agent

2 comments:

Adam Dickstein said...

Love this! Sooo waiting for this game to come out. I have a few (dozen) ideas myself...

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Max:

Dipping a bit into the early 60's, for this one, but...

In a post-apocalypse wasteland, a group of passing vagabonds, and nomads find the wreckage of a dozen modified vehicles. Searching the wrecks, they find one survivor who tells them a cryptic story about a cache of pre-End of the World tech, supplies, etc.

Now it's a crazed dash for clues to find the location of the hidden treasure trove, and find it before the others do. Maybe the PCs team up, maybe they try to run each other off the road. Who knows? Plus, a local warlord is also after the cache, and has sent his minions after our (heh) heroes.

The Six Million Dollar Man from Atlantis:

An astronaut's re-entry vehicle crashes in the ocean, but way off course. The capsule sinks, and the space pioneer assumed dead.

Several months later, he appears out of the surf on a California beach. He claims to have been found, and healed by a mysterious undersea civilization with incredible bionic technology.

Now, stronger, faster, better, and able to breathe underwater, is he America's newest super-secret agent, or a spy for hidden, Atlantean masters?

East Bound, and Watership Down:

The heroes are in hot pursuit of a stolen 18-wheeler, and it's cargo of mutated vegetables. The trucker has the hammer down, and it's gone!

Can it be stopped before it makes it from the mid-west farmland to the coast, and the thieves who stole it take a boat to who knows where?

By the way, the thieves are hyper-intelligent rabbits.

You got a long way to go, and a short time to get there.

deuce said...

Every single one of these is great. :-) Let us know how your game goes.

~Dave of "Bob and Dave, The Spirit of 77 Guys"