Quote from: Ghostmaker;1123466Nobody made a reference to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Wow
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No ticket!

Having run a convention Call of Cthulhu scenario called "Zeppelins over Atlantis", I feel particularly able to say what happens!

A mid-air auction of occult memorabilia, hosted by the nazis to gain them international kudos (and possibly money) is interrupted as the zeppelin heads over Bermuda. An anti-nazi terrorist sets off a bomb which fizzles, but sets off an ancient Atlantean artifact and traps the zeppelin half way between the past and the present. The PCs must head down to the island of Atlantis as it suffers it death throes, locating an ancient artifact (the twin of the one on the zeppelin), convincing the locals to help them (or overpowering them), all whilst avoiding rampaging dinosaurs, volcanic eruptions, things from beyond sanity and irate/desperate Atlanteans.

I tried to fit pirates in somewhere, but the scenario only lasts 4 hours!

This happens..

[video=youtube_share;te7wDMGgnjw]https://youtu.be/te7wDMGgnjw[/youtube]

oooh anyone remember the sadly short lived FASA game Crimson Skies? One of my players had a console game based on the setting. Got to play it and was alot of fun. Though lacked the wargame element of the board game. Apparently there is also a PC version what is very different than the console one.

Interesting side note, I just noticed that the Justice Inc background info timeline actually mentions the Graf Zeppelin twice (it was big news in the 20s). It is of absolutely no consequence, but I may take it as a sign that I should try the system

The HQ for HERO games was in the same town where I went to high school so our RPG club did lots of playtesting for them (my first playtest was Autoduel Champions) and we played lots of Justice Inc back in the day. It's a fine game. Not really a "pulp RPG" as much as 1920s low point Champions which is cool if you enjoy running HERO (a very lite - and better - version of HERO compared to the current version). Among the ancient pulp RPGs, I'd rate Justice Inc higher than TSR's Indy Jones or MSPE.

If I did a Zeppelin scenario, I would have no hero types, just wanker normals (and I might run it as a LARP). After a fine moonlight dinner, a semi-famous socialite / fortune teller would be holding court with a seance. She goes into her trance and begins shrieking that the Zeppelin will crash at dawn, then falls into a coma. Now what? The captain assures everyone all is fine. Some passengers says she's a charlatan, but some say she's never been wrong.

Then I'd step back and let the madness commence. I would also try to slip in references to Led Zeppelin albums and songs.

And damn straight that balloon is going down at dawn!!!! Muhahaha!!! Or not?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123905The HQ for HERO games was in the same town where I went to high school so our RPG club did lots of playtesting for them (my first playtest was Autoduel Champions) and we played lots of Justice Inc back in the day. It's a fine game. Not really a "pulp RPG" as much as 1920s low point Champions which is cool if you enjoy running HERO (a very lite - and better - version of HERO compared to the current version). Among the ancient pulp RPGs, I'd rate Justice Inc higher than TSR's Indy Jones or MSPE.

If I did a Zeppelin scenario, I would have no hero types, just wanker normals (and I might run it as a LARP). After a fine moonlight dinner, a semi-famous socialite / fortune teller would be holding court with a seance. She goes into her trance and begins shrieking that the Zeppelin will crash at dawn, then falls into a coma. Now what? The captain assures everyone all is fine. Some passengers says she's a charlatan, but some say she's never been wrong.

Then I'd step back and let the madness commence. I would also try to slip in references to Led Zeppelin albums and songs.

And damn straight that balloon is going down at dawn!!!! Muhahaha!!! Or not?

I have to admit that I am warming up to Justice Inc. I think I'll use it if I ever run this. Did you play the "Gold Spike" and "Land of Mystery" modules?

Quote from: Trond;1123981I have to admit that I am warming up to Justice Inc. I think I'll use it if I ever run this. Did you play the "Gold Spike" and "Land of Mystery" modules?

I liked Justice Inc. I adapted the Gold Spike to Call of Cthulhu. It was a fun change of pace. I also used the Coates Shambler adventure included in the Boxed Set of Justice Incorporated. It was a fun mystery and easily adaptable to CoC. I have Land of Mystery, but never ran it. It needs a group of players who would enjoy the lost world tropes in tales like Doyle's Lost Continent and Burroughs' Pellucidar stories.

Quote from: Trond;1123981I have to admit that I am warming up to Justice Inc. I think I'll use it if I ever run this. Did you play the "Gold Spike" and "Land of Mystery" modules?

I've played and run the Trail of the Gold Spike! I never played Land of Mystery, but I was a huge fan of the Hollow World D&D setting by the same author. I could see HERO being good for the whole Lost World genre, but I'd probably use D6 instead. Although that's just personal bias because even though I ran Justice Inc, Danger International, Robot Warriors and Fantasy Hero, I never felt as comfortable using HERO except for Champions. Though Robot Warriors was our favorite mecha RPG by far back in the day.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1123273The Zeppelin is the last flight out from a country going through serious internal upheaval, as a successfully-executed coup is clamping down on the people. (For a simple morally straightforward game, they're Nazis or the equivalent; for an ambiguous intrigue game, maybe neither old government nor new usurpers are any great shakes, though they both have points.) The crew have gone to great pains to verify none of the passengers are particular political persons of interest, and have just been granted permission to leave....

... except one of the crew turns up a stowaway: a young woman, pregnant and dying in labour. She doesn't survive; her baby does. And it doesn't take much covert inquiring before it's realized this newborn infant is the last heir to the throne of the toppled government. To make matters worse, the craft is a good distance away from its home realm and has to pass through several nations of varying political alignment; the only way to get protection from their pursuers is to call for help, but anybody they call for help is going to have their own distinct ideas about what to do with this heir, some of which your people may not agree with.

What Do You Do?!

Interesting idea. Communists and Anracho-Communists were also very anti-royalty, and frequently as nuts as the Nazis. Would be more drama if some of them were actually on board.

That reminds me: some inspiration could come from the game "The Last Express" which is excellent and had some bad guys like that (and set on a steam train, not an airship, but equally crammed situation)

Quote from: Trond;1124849Communists and Anracho-Communists were also very anti-royalty, and frequently as nuts as the Nazis. Would be more drama if some of them were actually on board.

Indeed, especially if there was internal conflict over what to do. Somebody who may have no problems lining up a bunch of old men to get shot may still be unable to think about hurting a child. (One of my favourite scenes in both book 1 and season 1 of GoT/ASoIaF is the debate between Ned and Robert about whether to try to kill Daenerys once they find out she's pregnant.)

My first impression is that an adventure on a real world Zeppelin is basically a cruise ship scenario with extra steps. But that's just me being no fun.

So how about we put the Zeppelins on a Barsoomian Mars, and use them instead of the goofy antigrav tech of the Barsoom books?

Heck, go full Space:1889 with it.

For the purposes of avoiding math, let's assume that the lighter gravity of Mars and the thinner air largely balance out, so that the Zeppelins look like Earth zeppelins.

Quote from: Lurkndog;1125000My first impression is that an adventure on a real world Zeppelin is basically a cruise ship scenario with extra steps. But that's just me being no fun.

No. That is exactly what riding a zeppelin was. An aerial cruise ship. Which happens to be a giant fireball if exactly the right conditions are met. And is at the mercy of mother nature should she so take notice. And we all know how Mother Nature is... And you are hundreds of feet over land or sea so a fall is practically guaranteed death. Not maybee death. Unlike a boat. You are trapped on board with no way off till it gets close land or sea.

These things looked leisurely and majestic. But they were floating death traps waiting to happen and alot of people did indeed die in the development of these things. By the time of the Hindenburg the science of making them had gotten pretty good really and if it had not been for various factors it might have continued to fly just fine.

Finally got around to continuing an old Minecraft project that relates to this subject. I've been building a to-scale recreation of the Hindenburg. And I have to say I was amazed at the sheer enormity of it when getting to see it in its actual scale. Its freaking huge! Only like 50% done with it so far. Its a sloooow process assembling it.

Quote from: Omega;1125135Finally got around to continuing an old Minecraft project that relates to this subject. I've been building a to-scale recreation of the Hindenburg. And I have to say I was amazed at the sheer enormity of it when getting to see it in its actual scale. Its freaking huge! Only like 50% done with it so far. Its a sloooow process assembling it.

Hey that's interesting. You mean it's a digital model?

Yup the zeppelins were enormous in general. Here's Los Angeles, a zeppelin built by the Germans for USA (WWI war reparations). This was smaller than both the Hindenburg and the Graf Zeppelin, but still....