Every week I take a random album and use it as inspiration for Power Ballad, my Feng Shui tabletop RPG campaign. This week’s adaptation was DEVO’s “Freedom of Choice.”
Power Ballad is a post-apocalyptic game set in a monster haunted world so dangerous that only the Doomed – tragic individuals cursed with dark power that will eventually consume them – can safely travel the wilderness.
Kid N’ Play – 2 Hype
2 Hype was the 1988 debut album from hip hop duo Kid N’ Play, whom I’m mostly familiar with from the House Party movies. It’s RIAA Gold Certified and hit 98 on the Billboard Top 200, but I’ve never sat down and listened to the whole thing. Fortunately I was able to find the whole thing on YouTube.
Track By Track
- Rollin’ With Kid n Play: Introduces the Duo. DJ Wiz is mentioned. In the video, Kid is doing gymnastics.
- Brother Man Get Hip: Kid and Play are survivors. Kid will glide and slide with pride, Play is along for the ride.
- Gettin Funky: Herby Luv Bug is mentioned. Play is fierce, will pierce your soul. A cobra, ready to strike. Kid n Play got soul power. Video has Kid in a 2 shirt, Play in a Hype shirt.
- Soul Man: Lots of drum imagery, tied to the heart and soul.
- Damn that DJ (The Wizard M.E.): The Wizard. Cuts it up enough to make the record bleed. Like a sniper, hit after hit, making the cut stick.
- Hype: A general dance number
- Last Night: Kid asks Play on a double date so he can get with a girl. Play dislikes his date, is insulting, but reconsiders in the end.
- Can You Dig That: Generally hyping themselves again
- Undercover: Guest vocals by The Real Roxanne. Mutual guilt around an affair. An emotional crime.
- Do the Kid n Play Kick Step: A dope move they invented. Turn and face each other, no need to crawl, son. Start kickin just like the Charleston
- Do This My Way: Time to make the floor burn
We don’t have a lot to work with here because a lot of the tracks are just “we’re great” style hype that don’t introduce many elements to work with.
Kid n Play
Kid and Play themselves are a pair of mercenaries from New Jack City, where they maintain a complex known as the Funhouse. Drawing a bit from the House Party movies here as that adds to their mythos. Kid draws his powers from an exceptional soul, and Play is more of a parasite, enhancing and reflecting that power. While they’re in sync, they’re almost invincible, but personal conflict between them leaves them vulnerable.
DJ Wiz
DJ Wiz is a wizard who draws his power from the Knife dimension – his magic is centered around deep cuts that can make reality bleed. He’ll have some acolytes, and a tower known as The Edge. Everything is a blade motif.
Hurby Luv Bug
A producer responsible for many New Jack style hit groups, Hurby in our game becomes a technomancer and fixer able to enhance and promote those who he takes up the cause of. He operates out of a warehouse factory full of weird techno-organic fixtures – in Kid and Play’s case, he’s strengthened their connection so that it’s less parasitical.
The Real Roxanne
A few years back there was a massive battle between all of the women named Roxanne in New Jack City. When the dust cleared, only one remained – the few survivors were forced to change their names to something like Judy or Pink. The Real Roxanne was in a relationship with Play, and had an affair with Kid, something they both feel guilt about.
Putting it All Together
The players return to the Helix (introduced in our Freedom of Choice session) to discover the place in shambles, obviously damaged in some kind of battle. The tower is heavily damaged, chunks missing from it, smoke rising from the top, but he can see scholars milling about clearing up the debris.
The High Scholar can fill them in – the Helix was attacked by a group of Cursed led by a duo in matching outfits, one sporting an impressive hi-top fade. They went to the top, where they kidnapped the geneticist Nico and stole her research.
Why? Hired by the De-Evolutionary, of course, our villain from the prior session. Unless we decide it was someone else later; Kid and Play don’t know who it was.
The characters will recognize them by their reputation – Kid Cooldown and Playboy. Formidable individually, but invincible together. They’ll also know that they’re headquartered in New Jack City, in the Fun House – but facing them head on would be suicide…
New Jack City
Not taken from the album, but inspired by Hurby’s New Jack style, NJC is a decaying post-apocalyptic city protected by a few technomagical towers that create barriers around inhabited sections of the city. There are any number of seedy bars and nightclubs the players might investigate in, using their skills Contacts aspect or Detective skill. Generally speaking they can learn:
- Their wizard is known only as DJ Wiz, a summoner with access to the elemental plain of blades. He can summon knife demons, and lacerate flesh from a distance. He has a tower in town known as the Edge.
- The technomancer is Hurby the Luv Bug, half man, half Volkswagen beetle. As powerful as he is physically, he’s a creative genius who has organized other merc groups over the years, but prefers to work behind the scenes. He built the towers that keep the city safe. He has a factory near the center of the city.
- People generally love Kid and Play. They’ve given a lot to charity over the years, and throw lavish parties at their Funhouse.
The Edge
DJ Wiz’s tower, the Edge, sits near the center of town in an area free from the protections the technomagical barriers offer. The interior is a large empty space; a staircase climbs the interior wall all the way to the top, with a magical altar in the center of the floor.
The Tower is protected by DJ Wiz and his acolytes. They’ll confront the players, and attack them if they refuse to leave – the acolytes with knives, Wiz with Blast spells that manifest as clouds of daggers.
If defeated DJ Wiz can reveal that Kid and Play’s power comes from Soul. Kid’s soul is as powerful as his righteousness, DJ has never seen anything like it. And Play has an ability that draws from Kid’s own soul. As long as they’re in harmony, you don’t stand a chance.
If intimidated, pressed further, he’ll admit that he’d looked into ways of weakening Kid if necessary… you’d have to shatter his self-righteousness somehow. Prove that he’s not the beacon of light he thinks he is. But Kid keeps everyone at a distance – except maybe Play. And Hurby – he’s know them since they were kids, maybe he knows more about who Kid really is.
Note: The number of mooks below is based upon my own 2 PC campaign. Increase accordingly with more players, maybe throw in more Featured Foes.
9 Acolytes: Knife 8
DJ Wiz:
Attack 13 Defense 12 Toughness 5 Speed 7
Blast (a cloud of razors): 9
Hurby’s Factory
Inside the factory is a wide space filled with machines. Guards are present; they will try to evict, then stop, the PCs. Luv Bug comes out in his exoskeleton to join the fray. During the fight big molten vats of liquid iron get spilled all over the floor. Everyone takes damage if they land; everyone takes 2 damage from the heat, landing does 15.
If it looks like he’s going to lose or the factory is threatened, Hurby will call a cease-fire. He won’t be happy about having to talk to the players, but he’s about more than this one group, this one plan.
6 Security: Revolvers 10
Chief Stilton: Guns-13 Def 14 Toughness 5 Speed 6
Colt: 10/2/4
Luv Bug: Guns 13 Def 13 Toughness 6 Speed 6
Tec-22: 8/2/1, Metal Fist 10
Resist: Strength 10
Things Hurby knows:
- He enhanced Kid n Play to strengthen their connection, but really it’s Play’s ability. The boy is a parasite, in just about every way. He can siphon off the Dark Lord’s power in you to enhance his own… Kid’s is strong enough that he’s not much diminished.
- They’ve even mastered a dual tech – the Kick Step – their biorhythms are so well matched they can sync their kicks together to grow their power to unheard of heights in an attack that few can resist.
- Hurby’s a broker of sorts – he enhances the Cursed. Makes them stronger. Brings them together. Helps them find their true potential. For a price, of course.
- He’ll help you bring them down – for a price. Call it a future favor. There’s no way you can stop them otherwise. They’re too powerful.
- The key is disrupting that connection. Like I said, Play is a parasite, but Kid… he’s too pure-hearted to see how he’s being taken advantage of. You need to shake that confidence. Get Kid down off of his high horse. You need to talk… to Roxanne.
Roxanne’s
Roxanne’s is a small but well-kept bar on the other side of the city. It’s owner, the Real Roxanne, is done with Kid n Play – or so she thinks – and keeps her business far from theirs.
With enough prompting, Roxxanne will tell the story about how she was with Play… but then, in a moment of weakness, she and Kid had an affair. He’s avoided her ever since, and they’ve never spoken about it. Frankly she thinks he’s a hypocrite, like he’s too good for her, but she didn’t hear him saying no that night.
She’ll agree to come with them to the Funhouse if asked.
The Funhouse
The Funhouse is basically an eternal house party in a compound that looks like a suburban two-floor built in a Brutalist style. Live music, entertained party-goers. Kid N Play are present and not interested in helping the PCs. If they start trouble, there will be trouble.
This trouble takes the form of the party-goers who will viciously fight to protect their heroes, for all the good it does them.
Kid n Play are tough foes. By default, Kid is an Uberboss and Play is a Featured Foe, both engaging in unarmed attacks. If acting in the same shot – and they can delay for this purpose – they can perform the Kid n Play Kick Step, a single attack roll that applies both their damage ratings against their target’s Toughness.
A nigh impossible fight… UNLESS Kid is confronted about his affair with Roxanne. This will shake his confidence and enrage Play to the point of trying to drain more from Kid’s soul than he should. This knocks Kid down from Uberboss to Boss status, and eliminates the Kick Step attack.
12 Party Goers: Unarmed 7
Kid (boss/uber variant):
Martial Arts 16/18 Def 15/17 Tou 8 Speed 1
+1 def vs ranged
Unarmed Strike 12
Back to the Wall – if attacked by 2+ PCs in any sequence, shot cost drops to 2
Play
Attack 14 Def 12 Tough 5 Speed 8
Unarmed Strike 7
