Something Rotten (2019)

From publisher blurb:

ADULT THEMES/TRIGGER WARNING: Rating: 18+. This scenario is for Mature Players Only. The game deals with issues of torture, prisoner abuse, sexual exploitation and sexual violence. There are NO graphic descriptions of any of this. It does include NPCs who have been completely traumatised by it, and perpetrators who have been getting away with it for over a year.

While on checkpoint duty on Hilder Station, the PCs come across a face from their past, and realise they’ve stumbled into a conspiracy. Their CO will send them to investigate. This is a two part scenario. The first part is investigation on a space station. The second part is going undercover on a planet where the PCs were previously stationed (Nueva Cuba). If their cover is broken, both people on their own side and the enemy will want to kill them!

If you want to play this as a standalone adventure, rather than using it in a campaign, then military police characters would be a good fit.

The scenario is mainly about investigation, talking to people and snooping about collecting information on people’s crimes and misdeeds. There is potential for fights of the ‘cops versus bad guys’ sort during an arrest or police raid, but no warfare.

Something Rotten is a system agnostic (i.e. systemless) military science fiction scenario. Nothing is statted up – the idea is you use your favourite system and/or slot it into a campaign in whatever setting you fancy.

The scenario is hard-ish science fiction, so the assumption when running the adventure is that there are no energy weapons. Think bullets and body armour, not lasers and forcefields. The PCs will be assumed to be firing bullets, shells, missiles, and grenades. Missing from the setting are artificial gravity, tractor beams and psionic powers. You can, of course, write these high-tech and science-fantasy tropes back into the scenario, but you might have to alter the enemy’s tactics to take account of them.