Freedom Squadron: The Armageddon Agenda
I've started running my "Freedom Squadron vs. The Toys That Made Us" campaign and I just realized that I’m running a campaign in which the only consistent player is myself.
That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?
“The Armageddon Agenda” is a metaplot and a separate recurring theme rolled into one series of Freedom Squadron adventures. As I run Freedom Squadron games as James Bond movies (with a cold open action scene that segues into an often merely tangentially-related main plot), the metaplot is covered in the cold open while the main plot carries the recurring theme.
In the metaplot, the heroes encounter an ominous harbinger of the world of Rifts®. At present, these are merely hints—a secret Argentinean lab experimenting in creating mutant felines, a prototype full conversion combat cyborg—but they’re intended to grow more obvious and direct as the adventures proceed. At some point, the (VENOM-controlled) president of the United States will call for the formation of a North American military alliance separate from the Trans-Atlantic Coalition and the UN—an alliance with the catchy name of “Northern Eagle Military Alliance.” Another adventure will lead to the heroes exploring a Rift. It’s all intended to lead to a crisis where the heroic forces of Freedom Squadron stop Rifts® Earth from ever happening.
(Or, at least, happening to their timeline.)
Meanwhile, the recurring theme is to mash up Freedom Squadron and its G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero-derived aesthetic with other classic toy properties. The first adventure in the series utilized VENOM Assault’s Transformers analogues, the Robo-trons, but the next adventure homages Barbie (and The Six Million Dollar Man, but that’s more of a throwaway joke). One of the NEMA-related adventures will introduce the equivalent of MASK (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand), another will do a spin on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I’ve even got an idea for how to do a kaiju story that doesn’t break the Freedom Squadron universe.
The weird thing is, though, that I’m very likely the only person who is ever going to see and appreciate the whole weird campaign. Robin will most likely get to experience most of it, but I’ll probably wind up running one of these adventures at a convention sometime, opposite a game she’s running.
I know half the players I’m not married to who were at the first session of this weird, secret campaign won’t be at the next game (coming up this weekend)—and the half who will be at the game on Saturday won’t be around for the next game during Xmas week. Who knows who will be in the game if I run one during Chupacabracon 2019? And what if I run a game at PAX South 2019? That’s likely to just be a bunch of strangers (unless Clint and Jodi Black want me to GM for them).
Is this weird? It feels like it’s weird. It feels like there’s something inherently wrong about a campaign where only the GM gets to see the full shape of it. And yet I can’t figure out any logical reason for this feeling.
It’s probably just ex-Catholic/Generalized Anxiety Disorder guilt and I should ignore it. I’m allowed to have nice things. I’m even allowed to have private things (that I’m compelled to share online). I can have this private joke of a campaign.
“The Armageddon Agenda” is a metaplot and a separate recurring theme rolled into one series of Freedom Squadron adventures. As I run Freedom Squadron games as James Bond movies (with a cold open action scene that segues into an often merely tangentially-related main plot), the metaplot is covered in the cold open while the main plot carries the recurring theme.
In the metaplot, the heroes encounter an ominous harbinger of the world of Rifts®. At present, these are merely hints—a secret Argentinean lab experimenting in creating mutant felines, a prototype full conversion combat cyborg—but they’re intended to grow more obvious and direct as the adventures proceed. At some point, the (VENOM-controlled) president of the United States will call for the formation of a North American military alliance separate from the Trans-Atlantic Coalition and the UN—an alliance with the catchy name of “Northern Eagle Military Alliance.” Another adventure will lead to the heroes exploring a Rift. It’s all intended to lead to a crisis where the heroic forces of Freedom Squadron stop Rifts® Earth from ever happening.
(Or, at least, happening to their timeline.)
Meanwhile, the recurring theme is to mash up Freedom Squadron and its G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero-derived aesthetic with other classic toy properties. The first adventure in the series utilized VENOM Assault’s Transformers analogues, the Robo-trons, but the next adventure homages Barbie (and The Six Million Dollar Man, but that’s more of a throwaway joke). One of the NEMA-related adventures will introduce the equivalent of MASK (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand), another will do a spin on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I’ve even got an idea for how to do a kaiju story that doesn’t break the Freedom Squadron universe.
The weird thing is, though, that I’m very likely the only person who is ever going to see and appreciate the whole weird campaign. Robin will most likely get to experience most of it, but I’ll probably wind up running one of these adventures at a convention sometime, opposite a game she’s running.
I know half the players I’m not married to who were at the first session of this weird, secret campaign won’t be at the next game (coming up this weekend)—and the half who will be at the game on Saturday won’t be around for the next game during Xmas week. Who knows who will be in the game if I run one during Chupacabracon 2019? And what if I run a game at PAX South 2019? That’s likely to just be a bunch of strangers (unless Clint and Jodi Black want me to GM for them).
Is this weird? It feels like it’s weird. It feels like there’s something inherently wrong about a campaign where only the GM gets to see the full shape of it. And yet I can’t figure out any logical reason for this feeling.
It’s probably just ex-Catholic/Generalized Anxiety Disorder guilt and I should ignore it. I’m allowed to have nice things. I’m even allowed to have private things (that I’m compelled to share online). I can have this private joke of a campaign.
I'm all about the journey over the destination. Ideally, I get to those arc-closing or campaign-ending moments, but I can count those experiences on one hand without using a thumb. In my mind, the main thing is what happens in our minds. Hell is other people and we can be mostly daydreaming, solitary nerds, no guilt and no regrets. FS is clearly a cool setting, which I picked up. Looking forward to seeing where it goes for ya. :)
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