The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
[CYOA] Space Invaders: Axed before it's time.
Mojo_Jojo
We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered User regular
We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered User regular
I. Introduction
Nine days ago the leaders of the free world were simultaneously wiped out by a terrorist group calling themselves The Yellow Sign. Prime Ministers, Presidents, First Citizens and assorted staff. The power vacuum was incredible. Inexperienced politicians were forced into lofty roles, enterprising despots seized power. It was chaos.
And worst of all, The Yellow Sign don’t exist. The reality was much worse: First contact. Life beyond the Earth. Hostile life. They came. They saw. They destroyed.
A single craft that appeared at a major international peace summit in Basel, Switzerland. Unfathomable weaponry that left over a smoldering pile of radioactive slag. The craft was annihilated minutes later as it maneuvered to return from once it came. The full brunt of all available surface to air systems brought to bear.
Nine days. Covering the incident was a triumph of the scattered governments that remained. Panic must be avoided. This was an understandable and hateful act perpetrated by undefined extremists. If they came once what was stopping them from returning? It was a race against time.
When the extraterrestrials came back Earth would be ready. Armed and ready. They would not go quietly into the night. They would not vanish without a fight! They decided to to live on! They decided to survive!
II. What is this?
This is a Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) game. It’s sort of like a Play By Post but more freeform and with no defined player list. Every turn I’ll post an update, with a few options and then you lot get to decide what you would like to happen. With your choices determining the fate of our luckless planet. Anybody can jump in and have their say on the direction taken by the Earth Defense Agency in a given turn. I'll go for whatever gets a majority.
I also encourage you guys to post little side stories, or drawings or whatever. I’m just arbitrating. it’s your agency to run. Also, it helps me to know what you guys want so I can swing my options to fit that better.
This idea is something certain forums used to do quite a bit. I even ran one a while back,if anybody remembers it [http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/150613/cyoa-space-australia-game-set-match]it was the story of the future of humanity, or at least its criminals. It was called Space Australia. I think it came out okay[/url].
III. The Rules
Here's a brief explanation of a set of rules that I’m largely typing off the top of my head. It's not really important, but there will be some method to the madness. Generally, you can just go right to the latest post I’ve made, look at your options and vote for whatever sounds the most entertaining. That is A-Ok.
So do not feel obligated to open this spoiler. Those that do are in for a world of poor grammar and ill-considered ramblings.
Sometimes, we’ll want chance to play a part in what happens. In such cases, I’ll roll dice (3d6). That gives us a nice shaped curve between 3 and 18, where the extremes are pretty unlikely but you’ve got a solid chance of beating a 10. Situations will make that target number higher or lower, and you may get bonuses to those dice.
The game is divided into turns. Every turn you can perform a single action. Don’t worry about the length of “real time” this represents, it’s not important.
You need to be funded to stay as a global defense agency. The Earth is composed of eight government councils:
Europe
Middle East
Asia
Africa
Oceania
North America
Central America
South America
Each of these can potentially squeeze their combined budgets to fund the kind of shadowy extra-governmental agencies that have started appearing out of the woodwork. A fresh agency will only have the support one of the eight councils, but as they work hard and shoot aliens they can increase their funding allocation and even appeal to a broader audience. Each turn the agency earns [Sum of all funding levels] * €25M, + €25M income from your host agency, You start with level 1 funding with a single government council, for a total of fifty million euros a turn.
Beyond this there’s also Morale. Every region has a status that reflect how its people are doing and how much they suspect about the terrors that haunt the night. Ignorant people are happy people. Knowing too much (as happens when alien menaces seize the Eiffel tower) results in instability, which reduces income (as a funding level modifier) and if it gets really low can mean that something really terrible is about to happen. This starts are zero and goes to 1 (for super happy and productive people) to -1 (for when the bad thing happens). Funding from a region directly scales with Morale.
You also have a research income. This is a bit like money, but you put it towards specific goals that have certain costs. It’s also variable. So I’ll roll dice to decide how many research points you get per turn. You can increase the number and size of dice you get to roll by investing in this area.
Similarly you have an engineering income. This represents how quickly you can build ultra-high tech laser rifles and state of the art missile defense systems as not everything can be bought on the open market. Certain projects will have a cost in both funds and engineering. You pay the money up front and then each subsequent turn your engineering points add up until you pass the threshold and it’s production complete.
Beyond money, engineers and scientists though, you also have your feet on the ground. You start with five soldiers. One even starts at Rank I! That means he has a special power. Combat is quite simple, for each soldier I roll d20. I also roll a d20 for each enemy. Every unit has a target number. Beating that number means that they score a wound against an enemy, Wounds will be handed out randomly. There might be multiple phases of this. The reason that this doesn’t use the 3d6 bell curve is just an efficiency thing for me (one dice per unit makes potential large combats more straight forward for me to resolve)
A soldier with zero wounds is dead. A soldier with less than his maximum needs to spend a few turns in hospital to recover.
Fighting terrors from unknown solar systems doesn’t just strain the body though, it strains the mind. Soldiers also have a psyche score and this can go down from a number of things that aren’t quite attacks and we won’t go in to here. At zero psyche your soldier has freaked out. He’s panicking. Maybe he’ll try to seize the transport and return to the safety of the home base (leaving his friends to die), maybe he’ll just go foetal. Who knows! Psyche damage needs to be treated just like physical damage.
Soldiers will, be default, have 3 wounds and 3 psyche. Each time a soldier gains a rank he gains a random special ability. This is so you grow attached to them and become angry and sad when they inevitably have their brain eaten. Starting equipment for this squad are Combat Rifles (target number 10), except for one who has an autocannon (target 16 but fires three times)
I’m not sure we really need a map, but maybe I’ll do one for the home base. I should describe that a bit too really. You have a home base which you can populate with research labs, training centres, radar systems and all the other gubbins you like. These will be explained as you encounter them really but to start off you have:
Research labs [+1d10 RP/turn]
Engineering bay [+1d10 EP/turn]
Radar Antenna Array [Allows detection of enemy vessels]
Hanger [Can maintain/hold 2 aircraft]
Sickbay [Treats 1 wound or psyche damage / turn]
All very basic to start with obviously. You’ll have an assault transport and an interceptor in the hangar. The former being able to hold your entire initial team of five soldiers to investigate crash sites, landings and whatnot and the latter to cause crash sites.
The game is divided into turns. Every turn you can perform a single action. Don’t worry about the length of “real time” this represents, it’s not important.
You need to be funded to stay as a global defense agency. The Earth is composed of eight government councils:
Europe
Middle East
Asia
Africa
Oceania
North America
Central America
South America
Each of these can potentially squeeze their combined budgets to fund the kind of shadowy extra-governmental agencies that have started appearing out of the woodwork. A fresh agency will only have the support one of the eight councils, but as they work hard and shoot aliens they can increase their funding allocation and even appeal to a broader audience. Each turn the agency earns [Sum of all funding levels] * €25M, + €25M income from your host agency, You start with level 1 funding with a single government council, for a total of fifty million euros a turn.
Beyond this there’s also Morale. Every region has a status that reflect how its people are doing and how much they suspect about the terrors that haunt the night. Ignorant people are happy people. Knowing too much (as happens when alien menaces seize the Eiffel tower) results in instability, which reduces income (as a funding level modifier) and if it gets really low can mean that something really terrible is about to happen. This starts are zero and goes to 1 (for super happy and productive people) to -1 (for when the bad thing happens). Funding from a region directly scales with Morale.
You also have a research income. This is a bit like money, but you put it towards specific goals that have certain costs. It’s also variable. So I’ll roll dice to decide how many research points you get per turn. You can increase the number and size of dice you get to roll by investing in this area.
Similarly you have an engineering income. This represents how quickly you can build ultra-high tech laser rifles and state of the art missile defense systems as not everything can be bought on the open market. Certain projects will have a cost in both funds and engineering. You pay the money up front and then each subsequent turn your engineering points add up until you pass the threshold and it’s production complete.
Beyond money, engineers and scientists though, you also have your feet on the ground. You start with five soldiers. One even starts at Rank I! That means he has a special power. Combat is quite simple, for each soldier I roll d20. I also roll a d20 for each enemy. Every unit has a target number. Beating that number means that they score a wound against an enemy, Wounds will be handed out randomly. There might be multiple phases of this. The reason that this doesn’t use the 3d6 bell curve is just an efficiency thing for me (one dice per unit makes potential large combats more straight forward for me to resolve)
A soldier with zero wounds is dead. A soldier with less than his maximum needs to spend a few turns in hospital to recover.
Fighting terrors from unknown solar systems doesn’t just strain the body though, it strains the mind. Soldiers also have a psyche score and this can go down from a number of things that aren’t quite attacks and we won’t go in to here. At zero psyche your soldier has freaked out. He’s panicking. Maybe he’ll try to seize the transport and return to the safety of the home base (leaving his friends to die), maybe he’ll just go foetal. Who knows! Psyche damage needs to be treated just like physical damage.
Soldiers will, be default, have 3 wounds and 3 psyche. Each time a soldier gains a rank he gains a random special ability. This is so you grow attached to them and become angry and sad when they inevitably have their brain eaten. Starting equipment for this squad are Combat Rifles (target number 10), except for one who has an autocannon (target 16 but fires three times)
I’m not sure we really need a map, but maybe I’ll do one for the home base. I should describe that a bit too really. You have a home base which you can populate with research labs, training centres, radar systems and all the other gubbins you like. These will be explained as you encounter them really but to start off you have:
Research labs [+1d10 RP/turn]
Engineering bay [+1d10 EP/turn]
Radar Antenna Array [Allows detection of enemy vessels]
Hanger [Can maintain/hold 2 aircraft]
Sickbay [Treats 1 wound or psyche damage / turn]
All very basic to start with obviously. You’ll have an assault transport and an interceptor in the hangar. The former being able to hold your entire initial team of five soldiers to investigate crash sites, landings and whatnot and the latter to cause crash sites.
IV. Can I play?
Yes, just look at my latest post and tell me which option you want. Even better, do it in bold and red so I can see it.
For instance, if the last post ended with:
A - Build particle accelerator [€200M, +1d10 RP/turn]
B - Build Orbital Defense Node [€100M, +1 on checks to intercept incoming craft]
C - Build listening post (specify continent) [€200M, +2 on checks to detect stealth craft]
D - Focused Research [+1d10 RP]
E - Focused Training (specify soldier) [Check against difficulty 15 to promote]
F - Focused Diplomacy (specify continent) [Check against difficulty 13+Rank to improve funding]
You could say something like:
B: Our orbital network is too thin and it’s doing us no good if it’s not actually blowing up any UFOs
V. How do we start?
Well, we need to know where your agency came from. So that means voting on a faction type (a letter), picking a flaw (a number) and then choosing where you’ll be sticking your home base (vote with the name). Post your votes in bold and red so I don't miss them when I'm counting up the votes.
Like this: B 5 Africa
Also, it might be an idea to try and marry those three things into some kind of vision, that way you can try to sell your fellow voters on your vision.
Faction Types (what type of company/instituion was responsible for forming your agency?)
A: Church - All soldiers have +1 psyche
B: High Tech - All research (RP) dice are one size higher and you start with a more advanced set of labs [+2d12 RP/turn]
C: Criminals - Variable “host agency” income [1d10 * €10M rather than €50M], can spend money to directly speed up engineering projects [1EP = €10M]
Government - No internal funding, but level 3 funding from one council. A +2 on all checks to resist funding cuts.E: Media - The home region of the agency starts with elevated morale [+0.2]. A +2 on any checks to avoid any region’s morale decreasing
F: Private military - All five starting soldiers are Rank 1 (rather than one Rank 1 and four zeroes). Hired soldiers have a chance [difficulty 15] to gain a free rank.
Flaws (what are your agency bad at?)
1: Smiling accountants - All funding levels worth €20M rather than €25M
2: Bad blood - -5 on all rolls to increase funding for one specific council and their morale lowered by 0.5
3: Continental engineering - All engineering (EP) dice are one size smaller [Start with 1d8 EP/turn]
4: Commercial pilots - -2 on all aerial combat rolls
5: Medical cutbacks - Wounds/Psyche damage recovers at half speed
Home regional council (where are they based?)
Europe
Middle East
Asia
Africa
Oceania
North America
Central America
South America
Antarctica [This region has no council, so you won't start with any external funding]
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Mojo_Jojo on
+3
Posts
We must up our tech to protect ourselves, but there's no staunching the financial bleeding. Asia for available land and population density.
We have the money we need (hopefully), and the ruthlessness to kill some alien sumbitches
Also this:
Also this:
"Plata o Plomo? Mi amgios?" The group of sharply dressed gentlemen stood in a marginal circle in the den. The fire in the marble pit cooked and crackled to emphasis his words, but the saying almost fell flat. For too many years the North Americans have fought the supposed war on drugs and the wars with the middle east had just made moving product across the borders too difficult. Border state legislation even went so far as to deputize concerned citizens, which basically meant a bunch of red necks ran up and down the dunes shooting walkers and mules on sight.
This meeting was supposed to be about how the cartels were going to react to this new iron curtain, but rumors had it that something else was afoot. Something big happened in Europe and it had the whole world in a buzz. Phone videos of strange craft in the sky were pulled from eyetube almost as fast as they were posted and the Euros mentioned ships disappearing without a trace. Were it the authorities, it would all be splashed on the news as successful busts, but this... nothing.
"Why not both?" A newcomer spoke from the archway. "Power is shifting and in flux around the world, and it is not because of some extremist religious group. This is what has everyone in an uproar." He produced an Ephone and pressed play on the video. A tourist and his girl were taking videos in front of the Summit building when a large ship from those hollywood movies appeared. The bomb blast that was splashed all over the media was actually a beam of light from the ship as it annihilated the building.
"Gentlemen, this is no special effect. This is what actually happened in Switzerland. There are things in this universe that are much bigger than the piles of cocaine that we produce every year. Come the next few years, humanity will either be decimated or taking its first steps into the stars. And I for one will be there to exploit the hell out of the riches we find there. The only question is, are you willing to spend a little plata y plomo?"
C - the cartels are moving to capitalize on this venture.
2 - There is bad blood between the cartels and the funding nations after years of Drug Wars.
South America - is where the cartels are (Australia shined last game, its time for a new heroes!
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
We're going to need tech to solve this, and we can probably rig something up to compensate for poor piloting.
Research is easy when you have lots of test subjects resting in the infirmary...
Because nothing can possibly go wrong in a government funded research site in Antarctica! Or if it does The Doctor will rescue us!
I suppose I should do a bit of whoring out to the guys who played Space Australia in case they fancy this one too.
@Abdhyius
@electricitylikesme
@Virgil_Leads_You
@Roonie
@webguy20
@see317
@wilting
@Elderlycrawfish
@BobCesca
B 1 Europe
F 3 Antarctica
Basically, I want to be these guys when the aliens terrorists come again.
Also, looking forward to this Mojo, Space Australia was great fun!
B 5 Europe
Our bloody, traumatized troops need the best iPods money can buy. And Europe just because Tiphareth is the only other genius to go B5 so I'll support Europe!
so looking at the math:
smiling accountants compared to normal funding
level 1 funding is $20 or $25
level 2 funding is $40 or $50
level 3 funding is $60 or $75
level 4 funding is $80 or $100
I dont know if funding levels go up that high, but as we increase the levels, the loss becomes more dramatic.
I'd rather deal with one specific council (even if its our starting council) than loose so much cash ongoing.
I'd even be ok with commecial pilots over the accountants as there may be a possibility to catch the bastards on the ground.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
B-2-Asia, I'm thinking.
Our pilots are going to need retraining for lifter tech anyway, so...
Decision: B 1 Europe - A European research body with nightmarish bureaucracy? Done.
Numbers:
Funds: €40 [+€40/turn]
Research Progress: No project 0/0 [+2d12/turn]
Engineering Progress: No project 0/0 [+1d10/turn]
Agency HQ, Madrid
Distributed Research [+1d12 RP/turn]
Engineering bay [+1d10 EP/turn]
Radar Antenna Array [Allows detection of enemy vessels]
Hanger [Can maintain/hold 2 aircraft. Restores 1 aircraft wound / turn]
Sickbay [Treats 1 wound or psyche damage / turn]
Personnel
Active
Squaddie Steven Hiller
[10,3,3] [Gunslinger] [combat rifle]
Rookie Blain Cooper
[16x3,3,3] [autocannon]
Rookie Alan "Dutch" Schaefer
[10,3,3] [combat rifle]
Rookie Edvard Wolner
[10,3,3] [combat rifle]
Rookie Sander Halvorson
[10,3,3] [combat rifle]
Standby
None
Medical Leave
None
Specials
[Gunslinger] - On a natural 20 gains an extra attack
Craft
Assault lander [Unarmed, 2, 3] [Transport 5/5]
Interceptor [10x2, 4, 3]
Funding
Middle East +0 [Level 0] [Morale 0]
Asia +0 [Level 0] [Morale 0]
Africa +0 [Level 0] [Morale 0]
Oceania +0 [Level 0] [Morale 0]
North America [Level 0] [Morale 0]
Central America [Level 0] [Morale 0]
South America [Level 0] [Morale 0]
Antarctica [Level 0] [Morale 0]
Internal: +€20
Research
Narrative
Next
A: Send the assault transport to investigate the landing at Mut, Egypt, Middle East
B: Send the interceptor to the craft en route to somewhere in Europe
C: Send the interceptor to bring down that UFO heading for Canada
If you want, you can send out both aircraft. Vote AB or AC if you want to do that. Otherwise I'd assume that the assault transport will be deployed following a successful crashing of the appropriate enemy ship.
(I'm breaking up turns into combat and management sections. The idea being it should be easier for me and give you more control. So you'll do some fighting after you vote, then the next vote will be on selecting research and the like. Obviously there might not always be alien craft to intercept)
I suppose the head of the agency needs a name. As does the agency, it's a part of the ESAC, but it's not the same entity.
I may also need to host some bits and pieces on a google doc (a bit like the UFOpedia)
As always, feel free to ask questions or discuss things.
lets be proactive about this.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
If you really want you can select AB or AC. Otherwise, it's sort of implied that you'll be troops to the crash site (assuming you win). I will edit to clarify that.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
A and B, definitely. We don't know how much we can handle at the moment and, like I said to my girlfriend earlier, you find that line by crossing it.
Because they're coming for us.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Keep our boys at home and our interceptors close for now. I'd much rather our first ground encounter be with the shell shocked survivors who just got their ship blown out from under them then the possibly entrenched and prepared foes who've landed successfully and had time to set up who knows what in defenses.
As for directors, I'd suggest co-directors going by code names "Fish" and "Chia".
They've done well protecting Earth from aliens in the past, even the underwater variety.
As scientists we can only come to reasonable conclusions after comprehensive experimentation. So we must experiment by sending a response to every possible target. Even if our craft are utterly destroyed, it will lead to new data, new models to test, and further refinement of our hypotheses. It is a win win scenario.
Sure, it's win-win for you scientists, but for our interceptors (a limited resource) and our pilots (a very limited resource) and our ground troops (an irreplaceable resource), your win-win scenario isn't likely to be as popular.
I'm just as eager to get this going as you gentlemen are, but I'd like to bring some of our boys back in one piece so they can provide what are sure to be valuable observations of the enemy we face. Observations that we can't make from recovering corpses or wreckage.
If I am understanding this correctly (which may not be the case) it would be a good idea to start getting other territories on side as they could give us more money for research and blowing stuff up. So lets help out in the Middle East, it may bag us some bodies to autopsy and some influence with their ruling council, whoever that now is.
Also defend Europe! Its our home.