Day 4 of my Adventure Calendar! For 24 days, up until Christmas, I plan to release a lil bit of RPG content. Want to join as well? Join the jam!
Image: Future's Skyline by Michael Grodkowski
I always consider “making RPG stuff” a different hobby from “running/playing RPGs”, just like “worldbuilding” is a separate hobby in and of itself.
In that line, I’ve prepared/worked on many RPG settings/campaigns over the years, without any concrete plans of directly running them. Today, I’m going to share a weird little idea that’s been on my mind for some time:
Halo: Combat Evolved as a fantasy RPG campaign
Introduction
Halo: Combat Evolved is quite a meaningful game to me. I remember 10-year-old me going to the local toy store to play the demo repeatedly on the Xbox Store Demo Kit, being blown away by the openness of the Silent Cartographer, the skybox, and just the general vibe.
Over the years, I’ve used Halo as a tabletop inspiration quite a few times (including using Halo Reach‘s still amazing Objective: Survive prompt). Halo has many fantastical themes in and of itself, especially later in the series, but the simplicity of Combat Evolved has always stood out to me. So, running something that hits the *notes* of the game, without using literal ring-shaped space constructs, how do we go about doing that?
Themes & Feelings
Whenever I want to adapt something (a movie, a book, a game) to a TTRPG, I first look at feelings & themes: How does the source material make me feel? How can I convey that to a TTRPG? Let’s look at CE through this lens. I feel that it can be divided into three main acts:
Act 1 – Discovery and Survival. This covers the initial conflict, the discovery of the Halo ring, and the struggle for survival against the Covenant. It ends with the realization of Halo’s true purpose.
Act 2 – The Flood and Alliance Shifts. Introduces the Flood, and involves dealing with this new threat and possibly forming uneasy alliances.
Act 3 – The Final Confrontation and Resolution. The climax, the race to stop Halo from firing, and the final escape.
Now, let’s look at the feelings & themes:
- Discovery and Survival
- Uncertainty and Tension: The game starts with a sense of urgency and danger as the players are pursued by a powerful enemy.
- Wonder and Curiosity: Upon discovering the Halo ring, players are filled with awe and a desire to explore this mysterious artifact.
- Determination: Despite the odds, there’s a strong will to survive and fight against the Covenant forces.
- Comradeship: Building bonds with fellow survivors, emphasizing teamwork and unity in the face of adversity.
- The Flood and Alliance Shifts
- Shock and Horror: The introduction of the Flood adds a new level of terror and unpredictability.
- Desperation: As the situation worsens, players feel the pressure of an escalating conflict and the dread of an unstoppable enemy.
- Complex Morality: The possibility of forming alliances with former enemies (like certain Covenant factions) introduces moral complexity and difficult choices.
- Intrigue: Discovering the history and purpose of Halo leads to a deeper understanding but also more questions and challenges.
- The Final Confrontation and Resolution
- Climactic Tension: The build-up to the final confrontation is fraught with high stakes and intense preparation.
- Heroism and Sacrifice: Emphasize the heroic efforts required to confront the main antagonist and the potential sacrifices involved.
- Bittersweet Victory: Even in triumph, there’s an acknowledgment of the costs and losses endured.
- Reflection and Resolution: A time for players to reflect on their journey, the choices they made, and the consequences of their actions.
Okay, let’s put a pin in that for now!
Reskinning
Let’s reskin some of the core concepts and factions of the game, to put it in a more standard fantasy context:
Space
That one’s easy: the ocean. We keep ships, navigation, boarding actions, wreckage.
The UNSC
A large continent with a variety of nations has put ages of conflict behind it and unified into a grand kingdom. Calculations show that the sea enveloping this land might actually be infinite, so an age of expansion ensues. Small island chains are discovered and settled (equivalent to planets). Instead of a single ship (the Pillar of Autumn), using an expeditionary fleet of ships might make more sense. Spartans become Adventurers.
The Covenant
An alliance of races on a holy crusade to conquer the infinite seas. In Halo, each race fills a specific combat role. I think those can be quite easily converted too:
- Goblins as Grunts. Numerous cannon fodder. Possible comic relief. Dangerous in groups, but low morale: take out whoever is leading the pack and they tend to scatter.
- Kobolds as Jackals. Sneaky ranged crossbow-wielders, or perhaps with a shield/hand crossbow combo. Can duck behind their shields for a defensive bonus.
- Hobgoblins as Elites. Disciplined and skilled. Color-coded for convenience, with the high-ranking members being able to hold their own against adventurers in one-on-one engagements.
- Ogres as Hunters. Heavily armored, with big clubs and able to throw rocks, or perhaps even equipped with primitive artillery.
The Flood
Flood are basically space-zombies, so making them undead is the easiest solution. We could also lean more into their spore/infection themes by making them myconids.
The Forerunners
An ancient civilization of advanced elves. Easy peasy. Really good with magical artifacts.
Guilty Spark
A Warforged-like interface.
Halo
A chain of islands, featuring a variety of biomes. Something about them should reflect their artificiality; perhaps the biomes are clearly generated by advanced magic, with the borders between them being very abrupt. Perhaps make the islands consist of hexagons, making a hex map not just an abstract representation of the land, but literally the shape.
Throwing It All Together
Okay, let’s throw all of this together.
Act I
Pursued by an armada of ships belonging to the Pact of Shattered Shields (often just called ‘The Pact’), a small fleet belonging to the United Realms of Eardia flees into unknown waters after a devastating attack on one of their island bases.
They flee into a storm with the Pact in hot pursuit. The Pact boards the ship of the party, and the players get to meet the various races that make up the Pact in combat.
The ship gets hit by lightning, and the players find themselves marooned on a mysterious island, artificial in shape but organic in surface. In this part of the campaign, the focus will be on
- Exploration, as the players learn more about the weird ruins on the island.
- Gathering survivors (from both wilderness and imprisoned by the Pact)
- Gathering gear (from aforementioned ruins)
- Tension as random encounters with the Pact increase in intensity, indicating that time isn’t to be wasted.
The survivors are gathered in a defensible ruin, and a scholar among the group will inform the players that he believes that there might be a ‘weapon’ of some sort on one of the islands, based on his translation of murals he found.
The players gather all available troops and resources and sail a makeshift ship to a nearby island that is believed to contain a full map of the island chain (adapting The Silent Cartographer, with the party discovering a dungeon on the island).
In the grand finale of Act I, the party climbs/assaults a snowy peak, which is believed to hold the Arcane Nexus controlling the ‘weapon’. Inspecting this Nexus and deciphering the murals found there warn of an ancient threat hidden underneath the islands.
Act II
The party rushes to the dungeon containing the ‘ancient threat’, discovering that the Pact has beaten them there and already released The Swarm. A strange humanoid construct, calling himself the Steward appears, transporting them to an ancient subterranean archive to retrieve the key required to activate the Nexus. After retrieving this key, they are to head back to the Nexus to activate it and defeat the Swarm. On foot.
This act focuses on:
- Horror elements through the Swarm. I’d add ticking-time-clock mechanics, and perhaps lift stuff from Mothership, such as the Panic system which I’ve used for Enormous Locations before.
- A lack of resources, and a larger focus on survival. The trip back to the Nexus should feel desperate.
- Shifting alliances, by seeding encounter tables with multiple factions (Pact, Swarm & Survivors). Perhaps add a couple of interesting commanders to Pact troops, that can be bargained with. “I’ll get you to the Nexus if you can stop this”, only to be followed by “Okay we’re here, a fine time for betrayal” OR “You’ve shown me your honor, this threat is greater than our conflict, I will keep fighting by your side”.
Upon reaching the Nexus, we head into…
Act III
The Steward reveals that the Nexus’ purpose is to destroy all complex biomatter that could be resurrected to feed the Swarm, leaving the island intact but killing all on its surface – and probably the United Realms as well. A surviving scholar might reveal at the last minute that overcharging one of the island’s crystals could cause the entire island chain to be destroyed, instead, setting the stage for a final race to the exposed crystal and subsequent escape from the island. Insert a boss-fight against an angry Steward, and we’re off to the races.
This should be an all-out setpiece, with a ticking clock (perhaps in the form of Usage Dice; start with a D20, roll at regular time intervals, and when a 1-2 is rolled, scale the dice down one tier. When you reach 1-2 on 1d4, the Nexus is activated). Perhaps add an improvised sleigh ride down the mountain, and a wild mount chase to reach the final crystal. Escaping the island before the crystal/island explodes could involve rapid repairs to one of the most intact shipwrecks, or commandeering a Pact ship. As the island is destroyed, the storm dissipates as well, and our heroes sail off into an uncertain future…
Why… Write All Of This?
I know, right? I find it a fascinating idea to run something like this, but the actual effort involved is a bit too much in practice, I think. A lot of the beats only hit in contrast to setting a certain pace and vibe; for the shift to the Swarm to hit hard, Act I should contain multiple sessions of exploring the island and gathering a crew. Some more notes on running this:
- You could theoretically hide the fact that it’s the plot from Halo and see how it plays out from there, as an alternative-history type of retelling.
- You could explicitly call it an ode to Halo and run it for fans, and see where it goes from there.
- The above structure is quite railroad-y. I think it could still be done, if you have players that are down with that sort of thing.
- As for the system, I think the combat-heavy focus makes it more combat as sport than combat as war, so I guess it’d be 5e?
- I find the exercise of converting existing things into feelings/themes always fun to do.
- Maybe it gives you some ideas on how to convert some of your favorite things!
- Finally, I said I’d write 24 blog posts for December. I didn’t say they’d all be excellent.