I thought others might be willing to help compile a list of hooks for scifi role playing.  Lets shoot for 50?  I'll start off with five from my recent Firefly games:

• A group of death cultists smuggle members on board the party's ship; they plan to fly the ship into the nearest star in a ritual sacrifice.
• A shipment of hogs to a rim world offends a militant religious sect; they imprison the crew as "Bonded servants" to make restitution for their crime.
• A swarm of crop gorging insects erupts into a plague of biblical proportions on an agricultural world; fortunately a stranger arrives who has a spray that can deal with the swarms.  He proves its effectiveness and then begins selling the concoction to the locals.
• A crew member wins a cupie doll in a border world carnival.  Really a small, sophisticated robot, the doll attempts to commandeer the crew's ship during their next sleep cycle.
• An isolated moon of recluse dirt farmers has placed an order for a shipment of indentured servants though they refuse to pay the agreed upon price upon delivery.  During negotiations or attempt to collect the full amount owed, it becomes apparent that the xenophobes intend to cannibalize their new labor.

Over at GeekDO we had a good discussion while listing "shocks" -- technological changes that imply science-fiction stories. Most of these are a step in the direction of a hook, and developing the hook is somewhere between obvious and easy. Have a look if you're keen.

Quote from: Halfjack;378949Over at GeekDO we had a good discussion while listing "shocks" -- technological changes that imply science-fiction stories. Most of these are a step in the direction of a hook, and developing the hook is somewhere between obvious and easy. Have a look if you're keen.

Thanks!

After humanity discovers the remains of an Ancient, highly advanced culture, that mysteriously disappeared long ago, some people form a religious cult that believes the ancients were wiped out by god for advancing their science and technology too far. They believe that living beings are not to become too godlike and will be destroyed by god if they do, so they form a fanatic religious group dedicated to halting technological advance. Add in a charismatic leader and you've got instant trouble.

 Along a similar theme, some groups declare genetically engineered or modified humans to be abominations and not people at all. All sorts of interesting shit cam come from this.

 True artificial sentience and intelligence is finally created. Let's avoid the usual "frankenstein" and "skynet" scenarios and assume this new form of intelligence doesn't feel some need to destroy it's creators and simply wants to strike out on it's own and find it's own way, or even cooperate with it's creators as a partner, not a slave. This could be more interesting than the usual "Must destroy all humans." plot.

7.20: "Baby Gro-Bags" - sometime in the future Scientists have figured out ow to make custom infants for couple -OR- how to change babies after parents have conceived them and alter them closer to a married couple's preference. All of the above in a high-tech /bio-tech bag sort of thing.

The 'adventure' hook could be the players having to resue a stolen baby in a bag - OR they are the ones assigned to steal an infant.


The above idea was actually an unfilmed script intended for the "Max Headroom" TV series.

EDIT: Correction it WAS filmed, but never aired on American Television. Guess I'll have to buy the DVD in August when it finally gets released.

- Ed C.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(TV_series)

A few more. Where I've blatantly stolen an idea from a book or movie, source in brackets. Some are hooks, others are more adventure background ideas.
10. A colony on a distant planet goes quiet. Xenomorphs are implicated (Aliens)
11. After being patched up from a serious wound, a character discovers they have been implanted with a cortex bomb and are blackmailed into performing criminal acts.
12. A mindwiped criminal finds their original personality resurfacing after contact with a telepath ("The Second Trip", Robert Silverberg).
13. A representative of a previously unknown alien race makes contact with characters, offering access to previously unknown technology in exchange for their assistance with a (dubious) mission.
14. Terrorists/cultists break into an experimental AI installation, intending to reprogram it (perhaps with a cult leader's consciousness).
15. A series of gruesome murders occurs due to the presence of a shapeshifting creature, getting ready to replicate itself (Something Is Out There).
16. Genetic engineers create a new race of mutants with god-like powers who begin to take over the planet (background of: Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods).
17. A character deceased beyond the reach of normal campaign medical treatment is resurrected by alien creatures -in exchange for performing some service for them.
18. PCs are visiting orbit on a ship which terrorists attempt to hijack, to make an attack on an orbital station (e.g. taking a power station that beams energy directly to collectors on the surface and turning it into basically a gargantuan laser cannon.
19. Terrorists develop a biological weapon targeted to a particular ethnic group (e.g. making anyone with blue eyes go blind (or brown, for neo-nazi types).
20. A PC's communicator begins picking up weird messages - of a conspiracy, police channel, plotting AIs, whatever - making it of possible value to competing organizations/ warning PCs of a coming attack.

21. PCs make first contact with an alien race. The specific aliens who are in contact with them belong to the alien eqivalent of a cult / science project / top secret army organisation / terrorist group / whatever. Will the PCs be smart enough to realise the alien civilisation is not the sort of monoculture often presented in poor sci-fi and that "their" group does not, in fact, represent the entire species?

22. The above in reverse. Aliens make first contact with the PCs and they might or might not realise they're not representative of humanity as a whole. How do the PCs cope with this situation?

23. Humans are terraforming other planets for colonisation, possibly destroying some primitive indigenous life in the process in some cases. Aliens appear on some colonies and start "terraforming" them to their own specifications, which happen to be incompatible with human biological needs.

24. Someone claims to be a brainwashed android with recurring visions and dreams ("imperfectly deleted data streams") which point to some great danger or evil. However, known robot industry is not capable of creating such perfect copies of humans, and all medical examinations show the person to be a normal human.

25. Aliens show up and claim to have been the gods and monsters inspiring Earth's various historical religions. Possibly it was them who seeded life on Earth in the first place. In exchange for that they make some slightly unpleasant but not entirely outrageous demands. They have some evidence to back up their claims, but it's neither 100% convincing nor provably false.

26. A huge asteroid is detected on a collision course towards a heavily populated planet, which must be evacuated (to one or more neighboring planets and moons, in the same star system) on relatively short notice. PCs must help with the evacuation, whether for profit or for personal reasons.

26a. Shortly after impact, another celestial body is detected, on a collision course with another planet in the same system! Clearly something fishy is going on. Is it possible that the Scary Dogmatic Aliens have unearthed the fabled Transgalactic Mass Driver of the ancient Planet Slayer civilization? And how do you stop them from lobbing huge rocks against heavily populated worlds?

Just reported rponting10 as a possible spammer.


- Ed

Quote from: Koltar;400697Just reported rponting10 as a possible spammer.


- Ed

A possible spammer?

Hi guys,

I´ve been running BUGHUNTERS RPG system for some 16 years and throughout this time I kept my missions on the paper and on a computer. Recently I thought that it might be a good idea to share these with others who are either playing Bughunters (in my opinion awesome RPG for Aliens and Starship troopers fans) or other sci-fi RPG. I´ve set up Patreon account, where I post my adventures (I will also start AD&D section) and see how many people will be interested in more posts. They are not adventure ideas, but detailed descriptions. You can alter them to fit your game systems that you are running - doesn´t have to be necessarily Bughunters game. Enjoy and please let me know what you think :-)
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4027639

:Jones: