Ok, when I was a kid I watched "ultraman", and liked it WHEN I WAS A KID, so I happened to catch an episode of terrible ripoff of ultraman called ultra 7.

I suffered thru it for nostalgia's sake, and it had a plot element in it that could be a surprise campaign/adventure for some SF games.

Basic plot: A nice old man is running a push cart selling really neat toy laser guns to kinds in Tokyo at incredibly low prices. He just asks that the kids wear a strange looking pin while playing with the toy guns, claiming it's a company logo and he's starting up a toy company and wants the ads.

"Nice old man" turns out to be an alien running a scam to conquer japan turn it into a base for the invasion of earth. His race is too physically weak and small in number to conquer earth themselves despite advanced technology, (I know, I know.) so their plan is to use human children as their army. The "toy guns" are in fact quite real and powerful laser weapons, with a limiter on them that keeps them from doing anything more than beeping and flashing when the triggers are pulled, until a special signal is sent.

The pins are mind control devices and when activated will put the kids under the aliens control. They will first get all their freinds to pout on their pins, then get their now active guns and procees to take over japan, the aliens are certain that the humans could not fire on their own children so they're certain their plan would work.

OK, it may be a bit silly as is, but with some tweaking and editing it could be a valid SFRPG adventure or setting. In fact something vaguely similar to/inspired by this could even be worked into THS, a game notorious for being hard to make plots for. (Imagine the idea od a meme hacker deliberately targeting children with hidden 'mind grenades' designed to influence them in ways detrimental to their society. A rugue AI could do this to weaken human society in general, some TSA hackers might do this to retaliate agaisnt china,  a ghost might do it as an attack on the caliphate for it's stance on ghosts, etc.)

The hackers might even include weapon designs, broken down into parts and hidden in a variety of files and such. plans for explosives, poisons, destructive computer virii, etc.

The idea of specifically targeting children is a horrid one, but not without precedant in humam history, it could make a good storyline is handled right.

So, what horribly bad TV have you seen that had the kernel of a decent game plotline hidden in it's depths? Don't be embarassed to admit ou watched a horrible show, hell I just copped to watching an ep of ultra 7 to get this ball rolling.

Tangent: I've never seen Ultra 7 but it's not really a ripoff of Ultraman, it's part of the same "franchise". And many people in the know (not me, because I've only seen Ultraman) say that Ultra 7 was the best/most serious of the spinoffs.

Quote from: Elliot WilenTangent: I've never seen Ultra 7 but it's not really a ripoff of Ultraman, it's part of the same "franchise". And many people in the know (not me, because I've only seen Ultraman) say that Ultra 7 was the best/most serious of the spinoffs.

Uh, trust me on this, the original version was much better, in every way.