A randomized writing prompt

Wow that is a long title for what will probably be a short post.

I got a tip over at dice.camp (It’s a mastodon server, check it out if you want to or don’t check it out I’m not the boss of you) for a command line shuffler that went through my ttrpg folder and shook out three random PDFs. What can be done with three random PDF names then? Mash them together and create something new of course. So what did I get? I got Troubleshooters (https://helmgast.se/the-troubleshooters/) Planescape (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape) and Judge Dredd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Dredd_(role-playing_game).

Cheerful Franco-Belgian comics, weird reality hopping doorway dependent city, and a fascist cop.

cracks knuckles

Sigil has a bunch of societies and factions. The same is true for Troubleshooters with secret societies trying to take over/destroy the world/the next town over. The same is ALSO true for Judge Dredd, where Mega City 1 is full of factions, and the cursed earth might as well be the plane of fire or some other equally nasty place. First off, when is the setting? Fantasy is out with two more contemporary setting dragging Sigil into the future. Actually scrap that, let’s replace Sigil with Mega City 1 straight away. Sigil and Mega City 1 has a lot in common regarding rulership, law enforcement, and rule. Troubleshooters is the odd one out here, so things need to lighten up a bit. Less fascism, more nefarious shadowy figure, think Lord Vetenari from Discworld. For an adventure in this kind of setting, we’ll take the cues from Troubleshooters and Planescape, and push it towards some kind of free agents with a good heart that tries to do their best under an oppressive regime. The Judges/Harmonium (Judges with a red colour scheme instead of black?) are totally our bad guys here. No identifying too much with them.

But on to the important parts! With a fragile frame in place, let’s go for plot. Our roguish handsome planehopping daredevils need to find a door to the Cursed Earth equivalent, let’s call it the plane of uhhh The radioactive plane! That’s fine enough. In the radioactive plane, the players need to defeat or ally with a gang of misshapen villains that has made the zone their home. They probably have information or a MacGuffin that would make life in the big city a little better for some people. To get to the band of misshapen bandits they have to pass a bunch of tests that could fit in all three settings without problem, like dinosaurs, weird flying machines and tests of intellect.

On the way back into the city things get problematic for real, as the nefarious overlord has found out about the venture and plan to block their way back into the city. But that’s probably something for the next session.