Veeky Forums, tell me if this setting for a TRPG campaign is bad. More specifically, -what- is bad about it

Veeky Forums, tell me if this setting for a TRPG campaign is bad. More specifically, -what- is bad about it.

>> Future. Not too far, just far enough for space travel via years in cryosleep to be possible.
>> A world on the fringe of civilized space is terraformed by American public/private cooperation.
>> They make sure they have rights to the world, so all other countries and corporations fuck off.
>> World is ready, colony is established.
>> Colonists who signed up are either essential to operation of the colony, or had to indebt themselves to come along.
>> Menial work is done by robots, but humans still have to work to pay off debts.
>> Society strictly regimented.
>> Trappings of freedom are kept for show.
>> You can spend money, have fun, etc, but you have no real freedom.
>> Generations pass.
>> Strictly regimented system of colony management no longer nessecary, but government doesn't want to let go of any power.
>> To keep power without being questioned, government continues to allow skin-deep freedoms, making up boogeymen to scare populace, and putting chemicals that placate population into water supply.
>> Most importantly, anyone who questions the government, or even has proof of its wrongdoings, is derided as being a conspiracy theorist, anarchist, neo-nazi, w/e.
>> They've indoctrinated the populace to the point where the public does this on their own now.

>> There are others on this planet.
>> Other colonists, crashlanded people trying to survive, escaped criminals, what have you.
>> Some are bad. Most are just people trying to survive.
>> Government constantly insists these people are out to get them to their own people.
>> To the colonists, government insists the whole planet is, legally, theirs, and they need to comply with them.
>> In practice, the colony and the outlanders live in peace, since there's a whole empty planet out there, and more than enough room.
>> That is, until resources are discovered where a major outlander colony is.

Cont.

>> Colony decides to go to war with them.
>> They are easily defeated.
>> Turns out, the outlanders who constantly fight raiders have a lot of experience programming robots to defend their colonies.
>> And, you know, actually fight.
>> Colony tries to get support from home corporation. They say that if colony leader can't handle this on his own, he'll be replaced by someone who can.
>> Desperate, colony leader investigates other options.
>> He finds one.
>> A nearby mountain holds a dormant volcano. Causing volcano to erupt would assure death of outlanders.
>> Colony can get their hands on a device to trigger and control this.
>> It will spill into their own lands, but if they evac people, it shouldn't be a problem.

>> Enter the players. A bunch of random fuckstick outlanders who happen to be together.
>> They somehow catch wind of the plan.
>> They know about the colony, and know how much it sucks.
>> They can try to stop the destruction.

How do they plan to extract the resources after the volcano erupts? Maybe if they destroy the resources, they will no longer see any reason to pursue their agenda.

I'm sorry, you're assumption seems to be that a handful of isolated outsiders are capable of defeating a major power that has consolidated control over the media.

In my experience, this is generally not the case. Generally outsiders cling together only so long as there is an external force to rally them together. As soon as they start making a claim on any sort of resource, factional differences drive a wedge between them and prevent any sort of effective resistance.

It ultimately depends on what the outsiders intend to DO with the resource that concerns us. If they have some sort of agenda outside of survival, they are going to have to share that resource with everybody in a way that makes the majority of outsiders satisfied.

This is the agreed upon method of resource allocation, the military continues to fight and the populace continues to support those who do in order to maintain their monopolies. Those resources must be distributed in a way in order to silence any meaningful dissent before they can present a unified front concerning any other powers.

This is, of course, assuming the outsiders wouldn't agree to share the resource with the Colonizing Power to begin with. Either they wouldn't trade for it or one or the other party thought the others offer unreasonable, which it may very well have been.

assuming they even broached the subject at all, that is.

Chances are with how loaded the scenario is to begin with, its a fairly black and white morality tail. The only twist comes when they fail, which of course, they are likely to do in real world context.

It's assumed that it's mineral resources, so it would be easy to clear away the rubble and start mining.

The external force would be the major colony. The outlanders, who give no shits about the media, band together. Although it would take convincing for anyone not in the immediate vicinity to help them out. Perhaps that's where the PCs come in.

I suppose some people could be trying to get off the planet, or otherwise manufacture a way to prevent the main colony from ever bothering them again.

The Colony could try and make an agreement to lease out the land from the outlanders, but this would imply that they don't own the whole planet, which would undermine their authority.

It is a pretty black-and-white, loaded scenario, with an obvious bias against the current American government, modern corporations. There's also the allegory of how the colonists are semi-willing sheeple for their overlords, but think they're free, like with politically correct culture combined with media manipulation in real life. Y'know, /pol/ shit.

>It is a pretty black-and-white, loaded scenario, with an obvious bias against the current American government, modern corporations. There's also the allegory of how the colonists are semi-willing sheeple for their overlords, but think they're free, like with politically correct culture combined with media manipulation in real life. Y'know, /pol/ shit.


So what then? Your story is going to provide us with what? Catharsis? Suppressing any real hope we might have of change by indulging in a fantasy, preaching to a choir of people who are already in agreement?

What does that accomplish?

If I wanted to indulge in power fantasy while pretending what I did made a difference, I'd at least think of something more clever than a scenario which immediately returns to the status quo once its resolved.

If you are going to reinforce the status quo while excusing your own reinforcing behavior, you're basically just jacking off.

Why would I want to hear a story thats been told a million different times, in a million different ways, without any insight as to how it relates to us today?

either
1) I'm jerking it to a power fantasy, after which I will feel weak and impotent for not adhering to my principles
2) I'm trying to pressure people into accepting my ideology, stir discontent, and generally make a nuisance of myself, until I get a response, after which I get a sense of smug satisfaction for having ruined what would have otherwise been a good day for some naive nitwit who thought you were going to say something truly novel.

The premise has zero novelty.
Its a coal miners strike.
IRL, government kills coal miners, everybody feels bad, then everybody goes back to what they were doing.

IRL, you would look to other options because armed conflict would guarantee defeat. The Colonists have unlimited resources and outnumber the outsiders by a wide margin, they have better training and better armaments.

Nothing about the character the outsiders display shows they have anything exceptional about them, not even a spirits e corps amongst themselves. They have no special weapons or talents, they simply defeated a superior force by demonstrating the Colonizers initial unpreparedness.

No reason is given as to why the Outsiders want the resource, what made them fight for it, or how they repelled the claim made by the Colonizers, and if their media perception by the general public of the Colonizing nation wasn't what caused them to back off, then what did?

They are better at using robots, but you said both the Colonizers and the Outsiders both use them, just the Outsiders to a better degree. Whats to simply prevent the Colonizers from doing the same thing? Why don't they use weapons of mass destruction if they are not held back by their own media? Its unlikely the outsiders would have access to such weapons.

Its a weak, lazy premise that you undoubtedly ripped off from either Eclipse Phase or Red Faction. Its a lukewarm idea that should be stopped dead in its tracks before it is allowed to gain traction, because it has absolutely no energy behind it, no lifeforce or verve, its garbage, a terrible, garbage idea and you should feel bad for suggesting such a creatively bankrupt premise.

I can guess at the sort of person you might be to suggest such a thing, but I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt and do you this one time favor of absolutely crushing, beyond any doubt, any hope you might of had at passing off this half assed notion as something someone else can (and according to you, should) build off of in this era of limited attention spans and middling, run of the mill ideas.

Get your shit together.

You think its fun being the guy who has to tell you your ideas stink, while listening to an endless parade of absolute garbage that other people shill to try and gain traction with other nerdkin?

Every day I half to listen to incredibly half assed ideas that people pass off as unique and original and every freakin day I get tired of it, I get tired of watching them, through their connections, politicking and backstabbing, get their projects forwarded with no hope of success, while watching a pool of potentially limitless creativity and creative labor get squandered on the most banal of ideas.

dude sometimes people are new at making shit up and we all start somewhere. I agree with a few of your points but curbstomping an attempt to draw because the shading wasn't quite right is one way to assure they won't try again anytime soon. relax. not everything is exceptional all the time, and that's okay, and critique is valuable, but theres no reason to spit in OP's eye.

Make a fucking effort. That's all I'm asking. Before you pitch something or try to impress me, just make a fucking effort.

Why should I be assed to support your ideas if you can't even give two shits about the outcome?

You don't have to listen to this shit, day in and day out, you don't have to listen to people and their shit ideas all day and how we should spend the money and divy up the pie and who should get what all before actually volunteering to serve in any capacity or actually DO anything!

Every kid on here just wants somebody to take their ideas and do everything for them, thinking that somehow somebody is just going to come along, swoop in, take care of all the hard work so they can snatch all the glory, and I'm Tired of it!

did you have a tough week at work man?

If somebody responds well to encouragement, you encourage them. If they respond better to punishment, then you punish them because its easier. That's how society works. We take the quickest, shortest route to personal growth and development, and we don't give a damn about what happens to the poor bastard on the receiving end, because he is a stranger and not part of our tribe, we could give two shits about him and would be just as content to let him die out in the street.

So before you lecture me for "curbstomping" this poor idiot, let me assure you that its not only in my best interest, its in his as well. If he doesn't learn now that society has Zero interest in his supposed contribution, he will go on thinking forever that not only was his contribution undervalued, but that his character were somehow at stake as well.

You see how you like it someday when you are living in a community that could give two shits about your well being and you are trying to promote your "cultural" contribution that has literally no objective merit.

This is what happens when a culture only values a person for what he does, instead of who or what they are.

We should all be so lucky as to live in a culture in which everyone shares in each others well being, instead of obsessing over our own self-interest and trying to fufill our need for acceptance with praise for meritous accomplishment, praise which is never forthcoming, not from your boss, not from your public, not even from an anonomous stranger online.

All you become is a Dispensary for others self gratification, some sort of machine that is tied to the self interest of those who are in power, who bait those underneath them in a grand pyramid scheme that seperates the worker from the fruits of his endeavors, and forces the talent to part from their ideas without any sort of recompense, not even praise, nothing but the cold empty stares of the uncomprehending masses.

i mean, you don't have to either.

you... you don't, right? is it like your job?

So yes, I murder this poor scrub, but that is only to make way for a talent greater than his to thrive the way it should, so that the garden isn't overtaken by weeds.

If he ever wants to succeed in his artistry then he needs to awaken to the worlds rude state of affairs and be shocked into producing something that others find worthwhile, not promoting the same endless cycle of manufactured ideas assembled by committees of yes men and relying on the mechanical momentum behind creative properties to pursue his future legacy.

Because in the end, what you say lies indelibly between the readers ears. It is the only legacy you will ever craft and it is the only lasting impression you will leave upon this earth, is how you will be perceived in others memory.

So if you DO feel the need to tell a story, try to make it memorable, so as to endear yourself to your listener and avoid another one of these rants, understand? DO NOT CONTENT YOURSELF WITH MEDIOCRITY!!

It is not my job.
It is my life.
Its all I have.
Like a shitposting robot who has adopted a bevy of broken things, this is the only family I have because they are the only ones I can trust not to lie to me.
Everyone else will tell me what I want to hear, to the very moment when the knife slips between my shoulder blades.

And you want to know what the one thing that makes a true friend? Telling people the truth when they need to hear it.

People who can't do that for you are not your friends.

You really are overthinking this. Me, I don't really want to learn anything from the media I watch.

Your mother and father can only tell you so many fairy tales before it begins to sound patronizing. They can only make up so many excuses for you. They can only hang onto nostalgia and the memory of who you were for so long before it becomes clear who you really are. That it was done by their hand is no concern to them, that they have done you in by not having instilled in you a sense of discipline is nothing to them, even though your entire LIFE hinges on their approval and respect, but their half assed approach and attitude towards life is not something you should strive to emulate, because ultimately, it is THEY who have failed at life, by aquesing to the unreasonable demands that they content themselves in their misery, when there is a more equitable way of life, filled with others charity and shared stakes in the community, that they will never know, because they are too caught up in their internal power struggles to notice the time ticking away, until one day, it is all gone, and you, having had nothing but time, will be forced to say goodbye, having never known those around you because they were never willing to go beneath the surface and try to add some depth to their character, enough so that they could engage you on another, deeper, more meaningful level, until, in the very end, all you were ever left with is a shadow of a personality staring back at you, someone who could never let you in because they did not keep a hidden, secret self.

So, anyway,
>TL:DR
>Boy, kids these days sure are shallow, am i right? (Laughtrack)

Nothing wrong with a world where the evil pain in the assis able to be clowned on by scrappy resistance fighter/mercenaries. Some games are grimdark, some games are power fantasies. The thing you should do for your game is to give players a story and some objectives. Build the world and the expose them to the factions through a series of missions before giving them a "do we save the world or nuke these assholes?" choice.