Monday, July 29, 2013

I Can't Get This Out of My Head - UFOs

So ends my attempt to discuss Anime/Manga gaming...for now.

I simply can't maintain the enthusiam if there isn't much of a response. I can do it if I am talking about something I am currently working on or an idea I love that just hit me but for a general discussion I need feedback or I get distracted and want to talk about some else.

There are a number of something elses on my mind as a matter of fact. Some of them, I can't seem to stop thinking about.






Other than the Dogs, Faerie Folklore, Muppets, Smurfs, Star Trek and Superheroes, there are a handful of other things I am obsessively fascinated by.

One of them is UFOs.

I had an idea last year for the NaGaDeMon Challenge but wasn't really feeling it and because of other circumstances during that period of time, I couldn't drum up the strength of will or creativity to push forward. While the idea was new the subject matter was not. Not for me anyway.

I have long since wanted to create, run and/or play a RPG in which the PCs are the crew of a UFO, visiting Earth and creating all sorts of mayhem as extraterrestrials on a modern day Earth. Exactly what that would entail I don't know. Rather, I have some ideas but they keep twisting and changing.






One key factor would be the idea that the aliens have advanced technology but are really just run-of-the-mill joes. I see them as very blue collar people but with a Masters-of-the-Open-Road attitude and mystique, like truck drivers or the guys on Deadlist Catch. They could also be scientists but less Mr. Spock and more the people who try to tag wild life in the rainforests to follow their migratory patterns. Smart, highly skilled professionals but in the end, just doing their job.

I want to incorporate as well as parody the troupes of UFO reports, stories and movies, including everything from mysterious power failures to abductions, cow mutilations to crop circles. I want to examine the 'REAL' reason these things occur in a fashion that is both sensible and humorous.

I have read Chariots of the Gods waaay too many times. I have seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind even more often. I love reading about and watching all those Discovery Channel and Nation Geographic shows where they search for answers and after an hour of television say, "So, we still have no freaking clue".

I want it to be, all at once:

Close Encounters of The Third Kind, Destination Truth, E.T., The Extraterrestrial, Escape from Planet Earth, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Hunter Planet, Men in Black, Paranoia, Planet 51 and Teenagers from Outer Space.

And more than that.




Right now it's just an idea.

AD
Barking Alien







5 comments:

  1. This is a neat idea. What system would you use?

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  2. I am leaning towards developing my own. This is one of a handful of ideas I have been thinking of self publishing.

    I think it would be so cool to create a system inspired by/expanded from the original Hunter Planet game the way InSpectres kind of riffs of WEG's Ghostbusters.

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  3. So you want a crew of Greens. Are you going to have a Grey as an NPC "Political Officer"? Or are they going to be on their own, with no real idea of what to do, so they try everything in the hopes of coming up with results that will placate The Greys?

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    Replies
    1. I am not entirely sure we're on the same page but I think we're close.

      I do see the Greys as NPCs, the guys who run the show. They are the 1% and your species is the regular, working stiff.

      I want to work in the possiblity of lots of weird and different alien species (maybe having PCs design their own) operating along side some of the more famous/infamous or at least familiar aliens known to UFO mythology.

      The one time I played Hunter Planet, the drivers of our Flying Saucer, the Safari Tour Company and the Travel Agency that booked the flight were all Greys. The rest of us looked like Star Wars got busy with Men in Black.

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  4. 1) I claim the alien version of the croc hunter whenever you start running this. I have a vision if a gray saying "crikey that's a big one" that will not go away.

    2) I've long had a hankering to run a X-Com tabletop RPG - clearly this is the yin to your yang, or however that works

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