Brainstorming for a Sci-Fi Noir Game

[Zombra]

I want your ideas!

I'm planning to run a single story P&P game with a couple friends of mine modeled on Red Harvest, or if you haven't read that, then Yojimbo, or if you haven't seen that, then Fistful of Dollars. Basically the PCs are in an isolated town with a delicate power balance, and they wreck the balance and everyone ends up killing each other.

My intent is to have a substantial roster of NPCs, all of whom have various secrets and levers the PCs can pull to trigger events and turn them against one another. I am looking for ideas for characters and most importantly relationships, secrets, and hidden motivations that can be brought to light and spark conflicts. I figure we have some creative people here, maybe it would be fun for you to throw out some ideas.

Example: some years ago, the local police chief once framed a prominent citizen's brother for murder in order to protect the real killer. At the time everyone believed the frame, but if the citizen found out the truth, he would use his influence in town to take revenge on the chief. Perhaps the real killer would want to stop the PCs from revealing the truth, or would want to silence the citizen after he found out, or take out the chief for failing to hide the evidence.

Or an idea could be a lot simpler, like a brother who is resentful of the local pimp who turned his sister to prostitution, and has been waiting for a chance to take a crack at him.

I just want to get a lot of ideas so I can have a long list of characters available to pit against each other, to give the PCs plenty of opportunities to incite mayhem. I can't promise to use every idea, but anything will help. Also note that I don't mind ripping off the classics.

The setting is a military base and fuel mining colony during a cold war with an alien race. (The colony is all-human, maybe some robots, but no aliens.) The power groups are: (1) the military, (2) the civilian police force, (3) the wealthy corporate mining concern, (4) the local criminals who provide the vice network for the entertainment of the other three groups: gambling, drugs, prostitution, etc. All of these groups are corrupt to some degree and all have internal conflict as well as potential conflicts with each other. The closest thing to a "good" group will be the military - or at least the PCs won't want to leave the military base a smoking crater, because without the military the aliens will invade - but taking out their corrupt leadership will still be a good thing.

Not sure how the PCs will be initially involved yet - perhaps they will be military sent to investigate something only to find out about widespread corruption, then resolve to clean up the town by any means - or maybe they'll be private investigators hired to research something fairly innocuous, but their very presence lights the powder keg and then they decide to stick around and make sure it explodes the right way. I have yet to have that meeting with the players to decide.

tl;dr:
What are some cool characters to have on a space colony, that can be manipulated into attacking other characters for hidden or obvious reasons? Why haven't they done anything before now? What are good levers the PCs can pull to spur action?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. Here's hoping there are some good "bored at work" idea men out there. Induldge yourselves. Also, if you know of any good sourcebooks for this kind of thing, let me know.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

My suggestion: don't fudge rolls.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Hmm.. why is the military nearby if there are civilian police force and a private mining industry there as well?

It'd help coming up with military characters to understand their reason for being there. Is it just a supply depot that purchases fuel from the mining company? I'm going with the assumption that it won't be an overly strong military force if that's the case.. just a few rifles, pistols, and other light vehicles (besides the big wheels for hauling shit of course).

The setting doesn't make much sense for noir style action but I could be wrong. Unless the mining company does secret tech research in the mine tunnels or something along those lines.

 

[Zombra]

The military base is there strictly for planetary defense against the aliens (who haven't been seen for 9 years). They maintain and monitor the sky scanners and the two defense ships (one always in orbit, the other grounded for maintenance, rotating every x time units). That's all these guys do - the human government is so paranoid about aliens (after the destruction of several colonies) that the military has to be dedicated to external threats. Having them also be the police for the colonists would be considered a distraction. So the base is small, not a lot of guys, but they have overriding authority because fate of the human race. I liken them to the guys in the nuclear silos during the 80s, sitting there next to a phone with their finger on a button for 10 years, going crazy, terrified the phone's going to ring.

But yeah, you're right about the military not being super tough on the ground. The war has been fought strictly ship-to-ship. They're trained in ground combat too because who knows, but it's not their raison d'etre.

The colony isn't just the mining company - there is a modest settlement there with farmers, shop owners etc. as well as the vice district, initially there to serve the miners but growing into a town in its own right. The corporation doesn't own the planet or anything.

The fuel mine is a private corporation but they pretty much have one customer - the military. The corporation makes a killing. Their employees are of course overworked, but well paid, so the town has to deal with all these super stressed out guys from both sides coming in to get drunk and blow off steam, and the civilian police are under a lot of pressure not to be too strict (ever see that movie Outland?).

The corporation having some secret operation in the tunnels? Not bad, I'll add that to the brainstorm list

Thanks for the interest!

 

[Ninjerk]

Sounds like you're talking about this place as if there are dozens+ of people?

 

[Zombra]

I'm thinking the whole colony is maybe a thousand people. Enough that a lot of people know each other, but it's not weird to see a stranger on the street. Maybe 100 military, 300 mining co., the rest farmers, colonists, & criminals. I don't know, I'm terrible with setting population numbers.

 

[Zombra]

And yeah, the more I think about it, the more Flunklesnarkin is right - there needs to be some serious corruption happening behind the curtain - otherwise any PCs who showed up and made the situation worse would just be assholes. There has to be something really problematic (though not immediately obvious) here that can be fixed by knocking out the bad guys.

I was initially thinking that most of the action would take place in the vice district, some problem between the criminal element that could be fixed by wiping them out as in Yojimbo et al, with the whole military thing being more or less a backdrop. But now that I talk all this out it'll be more fun to involve everyone.

Also, it's OK and even great if there are multiple big problems, as long as knocking out the bad guys doesn't make anything worse. A certain level of C&C is okay, but I don't ever want the players to think, well we shouldn't do this drastic thing to fix a problem. So maybe the miners are up to something and the military is also up to something. I'll simmer on this.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Hmm.. this is a space colony.. how about a demoted military officer stationed on a mining asteroid as punishment for a failure during previous alien battles. Could be so butthurt he secretly wants to help the aliens to throw off players expecting the cliche gungho officer out to clear his name.

Could add a group of stranded miners from a destroyed generation ship who are trying to work off debt to get off the rock?

 

[Zombra]

Nice ones. This is a small but important station, not sure if it would be a punishment to be stationed as commander here, but could easily work for a lower rank guy.

And yeah, I had the idea that passage was expensive since space fuel is at such a premium. The generation ship refugees idea is very cool. Not sure how to work it into a strong versus type conflict, but it's going on the list

 

[Ranselknulf]

Toss in a semi sentient AI trying to increase it's computing power to become fully conscious?

 

[Zombra]

Haha, classic, but I'm going to stay away from computer/AI characters. Want to "keep it real" with just humans. I mentioned above there may be robots, but if so they will not be "people", just autonomous tools.

 

[Tzaero]

You want Aliens and corruption?
Make em Ferengi.

 

[Zombra]

Ha, nah. The aliens are just a plot point to set the scene; they won't be appearing in the game. The idea is to have it be a sci-fi setting, but all focused on human problems and human conflicts. Instead of the "honorable alien race" (such as TNG Klingons) to represent that concept, there will just be people, each of which may or may not be honorable, and so forth. A deceitful Ferengi isn't an interesting mystery, but with humans, "Is he lying?" is a meaningful question.

 

[Ninjerk]

The PCs could be investigators of some sort. Would give them a good plot reason to be able to talk to people with any level of power on the station.

Another thing to consider: in the real world, if someone fucks up in a big way but it isn't criminally negligent or outright unlawful, you sack them and hire someone else. On a small, remote mining/defense station, you pretty much are stuck with who is there and who is on the way (provided you don't have FTL travel, and even then things take time). I should think the unavailability of replacement labor (of varying degrees of expertise) would necessitate being able to punish people in ways that don't cripple the base's output (provided you go with mining as something non-trivial that they're doing), and anyone who is punished for big fuck ups knows they're not going anywhere for awhile.

How do you integrate that into the game? Investigations related to duty logs, accident reports, etc. Documents could be forged so people aren't where they appear to have been if things are stolen, someone is mugged/jumped, etc.

You could also see a sort of "prison economy" on a base like that due to limited supply of comforts (assuming you're not on some terraformed thingie or naturally habitable planet).

 

[Tzaero]

How about this, and i'm ripping off Outland for this first bit.
The mining corporation is using local criminals to smuggle stimulants to the miners, however they are getting fed up with their leader who keeps pressuring them for a bigger share.
The local security is getting leant on to nab the leader however they're recently come across evidence the millitary has ties with the smugglers.
The outpost is commanded by a rather paranoid commander who, fears he being drawn too much into the business of the local criminals, and is stocking smuggled weaponry High Command is reluctant to allocate.

 

[Jaesun]

Is there a PnP setting where Aliens invade Earth?

 

[Night Goat]

Is there a PnP setting where Aliens invade Earth?

Gary Gygax's Cyborg Commando

 

[Night Goat]

Also: Call of Cthulhu
Cthulhutech (warning: it's shit)

 

[ERYFKRAD]

An arms dealer would be the happiest dude on this planet, I guess, as long as people are wanting to fight.

 

[catfood]

Is there a PnP setting where Aliens invade Earth?

There's a setting for Savage Worlds called Necessary Evil. The schtick is that aliens invade the Earth, all the super heroes die defending it so now the only thing standing between the invaders and humanity are the super villains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSbplhKwzWM

Personally I've never played it but it sounds fun.

 

[Zombra]

An arms dealer would be the happiest dude on this planet, I guess, as long as people are wanting to fight.

Yeah, I think there are a lot of weapons on the colony, but it's not like open warfare in the streets. More like a pot that's almost ready to boil over.

 

[oscar]

- Criminals in the vice district (or could be legit businessmen, I'm unsure how strict of a place this is) run a popular boxing operation among the miners. A long undefeated champion however has been dominating the sport and frankly turning it a bit dull. NPC has placed a big bet on an up-and-coming (though in truth still not able to take on the present champ) fighter and wants the players to make sure the fight goes his way as the odds are very long. NPCs could: intimidating the champion into throwing the fight (risks the champ laughing off their threat), sabotaging him (drugs or some sort of sci-fi gadgetry), offer him a share of the cut (this could be from the PCs own pockets or a share of the winnings: Too high and your employer will be pissed and too low and the champ will refuse)

- A trouble-making rabble-rouser among the miners is stirring up discontent towards the corporates and demanding higher wages, better conditions etc. The corps want you to discretely waste him. If it looks too suspicious however a riot could be triggered amongst the miners. Otherwise they grumble and grit their teeth but give up and go back to work.

 

[Zombra]

Nice ones Oscar - I especially like the underground fighting ring. Great way to connect the miners and the crime district. A union leader is also a good 'power player' character to have in the mix. Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[tuluse]

How about this, and i'm ripping off Outland for this first bit.

Do this, watch Outland if you haven't. Then think what would a western set in space starting Sean Connery do.

Also just think about logical outcomes of bad situations. If a criminal organization has 12 guys and the sheriff is all by his lonesome, well it doesn't matter if he's honest and brave, he's not going to be able to do anything.

The PCs could be the equivalent of US Marshals sent in to bring order.

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

maybe have an overarching narrative whereby the alien invasion was a huge gummint scam to maintain a terror footing for reasons and you have to work it all out by gathering snippets of evidence from all factions and christ i dont know youre the creative thing you work it out