EN Publishing have just announced that their license to publish 2000 A.D. related products is coming to an end.
No real reason is given in the announcement. However we can speculate as to why until the sun goes down and still not know the truth. So I’m not going to even try.
What I will say is that this is a bloomin shame. I really liked the WOIN system they based everything on. I loved that the source books followed major classic story arcs.
However you will still be able to buy the current 2000 A.D. related products until March 2022, remaining stock levels permitting of course. Plus from Dragonmeet time next month there will be a half price sale on the rulebook.
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.
Ok this warning may be over dramatic but this post is here to record an idea down for a future session. I needed to capture it before I forgot all about it. So by reading this post, it may spoil an upcoming session for them.
I’ve been binge watching the tv series Scandal on Disney+. I’d seen it before but there are many things I like about it that warranted a second watch years after first watching it.
In Season 5 episode 21 there is a scene between the main character of the show Olivia Pope, her father Command (ex-head of a secret Government shadow organisation) and one of her love interests who also happens to be one of her fathers shadow agents, Jake Ballard.
Olivia is trying to help Jake escape from her fathers influence, and has turned up to take him away to “safety”. However a stand off develops with her father pointing a gun at Jake’s head. During this stand off Command says the following (I’m paraphrasing) “It may look like it’s my hand on the trigger, it may look like I’m pointing a gun at his head. But it’s an illusion. In fact it’s you whose doing it.”
That’s so cool.
Those words spoke to me. Inspired me.
I can use them, use this scene in a campaign.
The most obvious use would be in say a modern or scifi setting where there are guns. But I can see it working in a fantasy setting also with maybe a knife at the persons throat.
It could easily be the culmination of a rescue mission where the big bad replaces Command, the party replaces Olivia and the hostage replaces Jake.
I like how it adds a “final” twist to overcome for the party. It’s not an original twist. There are many examples of the kidnapper being cornered and holding the victim at gun point trying to save their own skin. There is a NCIS scene that comes to mind immediately for example.
But the word illusion also inspires. What if the person holding the gun/knife to the victim looks like one of the party using an illusion spell? Will it make them doubt who the real one is, mistrust the person, confuse?
How the party handles the situation will be interesting. I have no idea how it would play out, what the outcome will be. That’s something that’d be decided at the table at the time.
This recent video by Sly Flourish is one of many short DM advice videos that he has released recently. They are rather nifty, and brilliant for those with busy lives.
The reason I’ve embed the video and talking about it here is that I think this advice is pretty universal to which ever RPG system you are playing.
The three common quest models Sly briefly covers in the above video are:
Kill the boss quest
Recover the artifact
Rescue somebody
Sly points out that it’s the flavour that makes these quest models interesting. To aid in that flavour I think the adventuring party needs a patron of some kind. Whether that patron is a crime lord, guild leader, a fixer, wealthy, powerful, a corporation (I think you get the idea) they are a handy plot device to use to introduce one of the quest models above, and not just away to give the party useful equipment.
For instance they could have to eliminate a rival crime lord, steal a top secret device/plans from a rival corporation, or rescue hostages.
This isn’t the first time that Sly has talked about quest models. In the video below he talks about “The Three-of-Five Collection Quest”.
“The Three-of-Five Collection Quest” is a variation of “recover the artifact” quest. Sly also lists three other quest models within the above video, the “heist”, “kill the lieutenant” and “destroy the thing”. But in reality to the initial list from the quest models video we are only adding one new quest to our tool box.
Kill some-one
Recover the thing/heist
Rescue somebody
Destroy the thing
I would argue a heist is a variation of the recover the thing quest model, if not the same thing. I don’t see any difference between the “kill the boss” and “kill the lieutenant” quests. They are basically go kill some-one for some reason. So I think count as one.
UPDATE: adding a fifth quest model escort/protect someone/thing.
With these handful of quest models it should be easy to come up with quests for your campaign or even at a push on the fly.
Oh while I’m talking RPGs. It struck me as I was binge watching Leverage for the third or fourth time that the Leverage team is the perfect party make up for a cyberpunk (Red or Android) party.
I’m not sure what the mastermind role would map to, but they are basically the brains of the group. But every other role maps I believe. At a push this could be a D&D party too. What do you think?
The next sourcebook in the Worlds of 2000 A.D. side of the Judge Dredd RPG, Rogue Trooper has just gone up for pre-order.
It’s particularly good value getting the hardback from the publisher EN Publishing. As soon as you pre-order on their site you get the pdf straight away!
