Mixing Play Styles

[snake]

Hi.

Has anyone tried mixing play styles to create an particular type of campaign ?

I'm toying with:

1) XFiles type (Conspiracy/Horror)
2) Aliens type (Space Opera/Horror)
3) Indiana Jones or Robert E Howard Cthulhu type (Pulp/Horror)
4) Starship Troopers type (Military/Space Opera)

[Gatac]

Not strictly Spycraft-related, but I'm running a sorta-modified Stalker campaign on a different board. Instead of one Zone, there's six, and each one supports a different theme/play style. One is classical survival/horror, then there's suspense/mastery, adventure/exploration, specials ops/warfare, philosophy and Boldy Going Where No Man Has Gone Before.

Getting your four under one umbrella might be slightly harder, depending on which framing device you use. It'd probably have to be something like Rifts or Torg.

Gatac

[Crafty_Pat]

Also not Spycraft-related, but I'm working on an Adventure! game set in the 1940s using Masks of Nyarlathotep (the greatest Cthulhu campaign ever written) as the primary plot. It's essentially a very, very low-power superhero/noir pulp action effort with Cthulhu cults as the villains. Think Planetary meets Chandler with daredevils and men of bronze taking on crazy Chinese masterminds and sinister African Voodoo Houngans - all against the backdrop of World War II. This is about as far as I tend to go with cross-genre gaming outside full-bore multi-genre settings like Torg, which required a specific backstory to pull off.

What are you trying to accomplish?

[Aragathor]

Ok, I see that few people use SC here

Indiana Jones/(Pulp/Horror)

I wouldn't call Indy horror pulp, he's a rather iconic straight pulp hero.


Right now I'm preparing for a type of game that is very different from what I played earlier.
It will be a pulp/military/horror/espionage mix with the players taking the role of ahnenerbe and abwehr operatives, who try to use evil against itself by being at the right time at the right place with very wrong intentions (wrong for their own organisation, beneficient for the rest of the humanity).

Think about Wolfenstein with the hero wearing a black uniform with a red patch shooting through american/british/russian agents to blow up a portal to a future where nazis won the war. Twisted. 

[snake]

Thanks, guys , I take your points.

I don't think that I could mix more than two genres as you say without a multigenre (multidimensional ??) setting.  However, I think two a campaign mix of just genres (eg Space and Horror) would work esp an excellent system like SC.

I guess in the case of the Pulp/Horror blend, I am trying to accomplish the same thing as you are doing with Adventure and Masks.

I remember playing Call of Cthulhu scenarios such as Masks and Shadows and being wowed by the incredible investigative and Horror aspects of the game.
But the only disadvantage I felt with the system was the wimpyness of the PCs.

There I was, roleplaying in the prime era of the pulp heroes (thoughts of Doc Savage/Indy Jones/Phillip Marlowe in my head) playing some poor victim who got gobbled by the first Dark Young who came along. I am also a big fan of Robert E Howard and liked the way he took Cthulhu monsters and pitted them against tough two fisted opponents.

I also liked games like Pulp Hero and Adventure which covered the Hero aspects (gadgets etc) but lacked the Cthulhu horror. 
 
Chaosium were supposed to be producing a Pulp/Horror combo supplement called Pulp Cthulhu, which would have been incredible but it never emerged.

Similar to your campaign, I would want to see a Two fisted Great White Hunter or Gumshoe going head to head with an Mayan Priest of Cthulhu, trying to save his reporter girlfriend from being sacrificed to a Great Old One. 

Your game sounds spot on and I hope you have a great time with it. !! While I'm waiting for the SC Pulp campaign supplement, I will be combining SC and Adventure rules to run Pulp games.

Generally, I feel that sometimes, by combing best elements of two genres,you can get a better game, another example is the Espionge/Horror blend of Delta Green. 

[Crafty_Pat]

But the only disadvantage I felt with the system was the wimpyness of the PCs.

There I was, roleplaying in the prime era of the pulp heroes (thoughts of Doc Savage/Indy Jones/Phillip Marlowe in my head) playing some poor victim who got gobbled by the first Dark Young who came along. I am also a big fan of Robert E Howard and liked the way he took Cthulhu monsters and pitted them against tough two fisted opponents.

Totally a Lovecraft thing - cosmic horror versus adventure horror. I like both, but the latter will work much better for what I'm trying to accomplish with my game.

Chaosium were supposed to be producing a Pulp/Horror combo supplement called Pulp Cthulhu, which would have been incredible but it never emerged.

The product page is hard to find - it doesn't show up on their site search but I found it via Google. The book does appear to still be moving forward with the latest update indicating release "sometime in 2008."

Your game sounds spot on and I hope you have a great time with it. !!

Thanks!

While I'm waiting for the SC Pulp campaign supplement, I will be combining SC and Adventure rules to run Pulp games.

Should work pretty well for you. I've started playing with the system to further satisfy the genre - and prep for the pulp book, though that's a looooong ways off yet - and I haven't run into many hiccups at all.

Generally, I feel that sometimes, by combing best elements of two genres,you can get a better game, another example is the Espionge/Horror blend of Delta Green. 

This is especially true for veteran players, who have kinda "tapped out" the parts of the base genres they like.

[snake]

Ok. Thanks for the info Pat. Look forward to SC Pulp supplement.

Anyway in meantime, heres the 3 character concepts I am using to create my PC pulp heroes:

1) Count Ivan Zarnov. Russian nobleman, parents killed during Russian Revolution when he was a boy. Fled Russian with aid of servant. Learned to fight and Survival Skills. Spent time in Tibet learning Martial Arts and Mesmeric mental powers (to cloud mens minds). Swore to use powers vs evil such as killed his parents.
Moves like a dark phantom before strking his foes down with his swordcane.  Currently lives as weathy exile in San Francisco, leader of a band of mystery men.     

Inspiration: Michael Galatin in Wolfs Hour by R. Mccammon, Duke De Richleau in Devil Rides Out, The Shadow and The Avenger.   

(I was thinking Pointman for this PC but not sure)

2) Captain Rip Rogan. Wheelman. WW1 flying ace. During war he fought German Baron and superweapons like giant monster bats and superartilery guns.
After war, Rogan and his faithful sidekick, Spanner McCluskey, joined a Flying Circus and toured the USA, encountering his old nemesis again. They finally joined Count Zarnov as his pilot/driver and mechanic and as two of his mysterious band. Rogan has white scarf, leather hat and jacket and trusty Webley.

Inspiration: Biggles, Skycaptain, Jake Cutter in Tales of Gold Monkey, Pilot in People Time Forgot.

3) Spanner McCluskey. Scientist ??. Red Haired two fisted Irish brawler and mad inventor. Served with Rogan in WW1. Now he maintains the mystery crews vehicles and comes up crazy gizmos like Rocketpacks, Disintegrator guns etc.

Inspiration: Monk Mayfair, Mechanics in TOGM and PTF.     

[snake]

Hi, I'm gearing up now to run my Pulp campaign powered by Spycraft. I'm thinking of using the Templates from D20 Adventure - Daring, Psychic and Superhuman.

Has anyone done any conversions from Adventure to Spycraft at all ? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.
 

[Desertpuma]

I'm actually developing a home game (which I hope to use to help fuel my need to get a particular mission series done) that mixes elements of several play styles by blending aspects of Sliders & Stargate aka dimension hopping from a main central location doign explorations and the like.

It will allow me to expand ideas creating a multiverse if you will and Mastercraft will be crucial in attempting this. As more supplements are released, more dimensions will be discovered. I've already got one dimension where both Fragile Minds and Hostile Wilds will be used as Campaign Qualities together. ... I was debating calling it Pat's Horror mindscape 

As dimensions are opened up, then new character options will be made available for creating characters from those dimensions. So most genres will have at least one dimension available to them excluding of course the Romance genre. ... I won't even get into Happyland.

[TheTSKoala]

I actually love Spycraft because it allows me to do exactly that.  My current campaign (which is about to begin this weekend, providing noone gets hook'd for duty.)

It's playstyles are as follow:

Conspiracy - Someone, somewhere is trying to end the world.. ...we think.
Military - Rainbow 6 style team.
Horror - There's something lurking behind the Conspiracy.  ...it may be more than the boogeyman.
Comedic - Rush Hour-esque.  My players just tend to work it in.  It's great.

Not all the playstyles are in every scene, but the campaign as a whole has them.

[Krensky]

My SG-1 game is a mix as well. It's largely a military game, but there are elements of Lovecraftian horror, espionage thriller, counter terrorism, and some pulp (they're fighting space Nazis for heck's sake  )

[RusVal]

I'm actually developing a home game (which I hope to use to help fuel my need to get a particular mission series done) that mixes elements of several play styles by blending aspects of Sliders & Stargate aka dimension hopping from a main central location doign explorations and the like.

Sounds like a good idea for a Signs & Portents article!  Oh, wait a minute...

But yeah, dimension hopping is a good way to mix styles of games.

[Psion]

I've never quite had the opportunity to run it, but I pictured my X-com-ish campaign (x-files brand conspiracy + alien invasion SF) evolving into a neo-pulp game wherein the players seek out caverns and aquatic lairs of the grays.

[spinningdice]

I remember the theory that if you had enough GURPS books and couldn't think of a campaign you could just pull two off your shelf at random and create an odd setting.
Lets see - Napoleon & Warehouse 23...

[TheTSKoala]

I remember the theory that if you had enough GURPS books and couldn't think of a campaign you could just pull two off your shelf at random and create an odd setting.
Lets see - Napoleon & Warehouse 23...

Atomic Horror & Old West?  LOL.