Weird Conspiracy Hero

[AlHazred]

After reading the Dark Champions book, I pulled out some of my old supplements from other games that I've never had the opportunity to fully use. They include things like GURPS Illuminati, Suppressed Transmissions 1, Suppressed Transmissions 2, GDW's Dark Conspiracy book, a host of Call of Cthulhu supplements, and others. Then I got involved with some discussions on RPG.net regarding the new World of Darkness book (which seems to focus on the same area) and C. J. Carella's Witchcraft (which can be found for free in PDF format). I feel a part of my brain that cries out to run the Weird Conspiracy Hero game that I've never had an opportunity to run (since many of my players are complete fantasy buffs).

 

It's something I've toyed with since reading Charles Fort's Complete Works at the same time as Danger International; TV shows like The X-Files, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and Strange Days have only stoked the fire. So, since I can't run it or play in it myself, I thought I'd ask if anyone else has had the opportunity to play or run something like this? Tell me what it was like, if it worked, if you'd do it again.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

I haven't been part of that kind of campaign myself. I do know that Michael Surbrook developed a campaign setting for that kind of game, which he has posted a lot from on his website: The Phenomena Department. The flavor is modern supernatural, but more light-hearted than many such campaigns like Delta Green.

 

Speaking of the estimable Mr. Surbrook, his RPG adaptation of The Montauk Project looks like a dandy basis for weird conspiracy gaming.

[John Desmarais]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

It's something I've toyed with since reading Charles Fort's Complete Works at the same time as Danger International; TV shows like The X-Files' date=' [i']Kolchak: The Night Stalker[/i], and Strange Days have only stoked the fire. So, since I can't run it or play in it myself, I thought I'd ask if anyone else has had the opportunity to play or run something like this? Tell me what it was like, if it worked, if you'd do it again.

 

Many years ago I ran a campaign where I pulled all of my plots from The Weekly World News - lots of wierd conspiracies there.

[sinanju]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

I feel a part of my brain that cries out to run the Weird Conspiracy Hero game that I've never had an opportunity to run (since many of my players are complete fantasy buffs).... So' date=' since I can't run it or play in it myself, I thought I'd ask if anyone else has had the opportunity to play or run something like this? Tell me what it was like, if it worked, if you'd do it again.[/quote']

 

Dude, that's pretty much all I seem to run!

 

What can I say? I really _like_ Mystic Wierdness in my campaigns. My campaigns, whether contemporary, pulp era, pirate-age, or long-ago fantasy, all seem to have a lot of magic and wierdness lurking in the dark corners.

 

It also has a practical benefit. Namely, my powergaming munchkinoid players (who all tend to be extremely pragmatic about handling potential dangers) can't instantly destroy the opposition until they figure out who/what/where it is. No matter how magnificently muscled or heavily burdened with city-leveling firepower they might be, until they puzzle out the mystery, they can't stomp the bad guys.

 

I'd also like to point out that there's no reason you can't throw some wierdness into a fantasy game. Cthulhu-esque horrors work just fine in a fantasy game, as do cultists trying to unleash or ressurrect some nameless Old One. One fantasy campaign I toyed with but haven't actually run yet was going to be set on Yrth (from SJ Games' original fantasy world). That world has a great desert, the site of the Banestorm, a gigantic magical ritual that went very badly. Canonically, it's just desert where it once was a lush forest (the elves had this mishap).

 

I decided that instead, it was going to be more like the weird west of Deadlands. A blasted landscape from which horrible THINGS were frequently emerging to terrorize neighboring lands. The PCs were going to roving agents of the King, empowered to deal with such things. They could have more traditional fantasy adventures too, but as often as not they'd be playing Mulder & Scully in a fantasy environment.

 

And really, once the PCs think they've got the magic system in a gameworld worked out, that's the perfect time to teach them that the world is not only stranger than they imagine, it's stranger than they CAN imagine. When the most learned sorcerors of the land go pale and remember urgent appointments elsewhere, that's when the fun really starts.

[AlHazred]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

I'd also like to point out that there's no reason you can't throw some wierdness into a fantasy game.

Hey, I agree completely. I said I didn't get a chance to "fully use" those supplements, not that I didn't use them at all. I think GURPS Illuminati is one of the best supplements I've seen, and I've used it as a guide to tons of stuff I've run, most recently my Golden Age Champions/Pulp Heroes game and my Harn Hero game.

 

And as to that last one, Harn is really set up well for that kind of Occult Weirdness. From the god Eder who is "trapped under the sea" to the mysterious psionic Earthmasters who left monolithic structures at "weak points" in the fabric of the universe, the setting cries out for that kind of campaign. My players are just now getting to the point where they can begin to appreciate some of that.

 

But I'd love to run a really nice modern weird conspiracy game. One guy on RPG.net is running a new World of Darkness game where the characters all work for a magazine called Freak Jersey. Here in NJ, we have a magazine called Weird NJ which is basically composed of people sending in their weird stories, haunted house tales, UFO sightings and the like. I think it would work great as an vehicle for at least the beginning of a campaign. And I think Dark Champions is exactly the sort of game to run it in.

[Agent 13]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

Here in NJ' date=' we have a magazine called [i']Weird NJ[/i] which is basically composed of people sending in their weird stories, haunted house tales, UFO sightings and the like. I think it would work great as an vehicle for at least the beginning of a campaign.

Those guys put out a Weird U.S. book through Barnes & Noble at Halloween. They also had a pilot on the History Channel, but I don't know if it's been picked up as a series.

[AlHazred]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

I picked up their book (highly recommended, by the way, if you like that sort of thing) but I didn't know about the pilot. I'd love to see that as a TV show, though I can't imagine it would achieve that much interest outside of NJ. Unless they extended the concept to other states, of course...

[zornwil]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

I'll try to remember to post a reference here to a write-up of a side adventure one of my PCs is having. It's heavily twisted conspiracy stuff and is reasonably isolated, at least in terms of what you need to understand it, from the rest of the game, so you will be able to read that by itself and possibly get ideas (or if you don't like it, ideas of what not to do!). If I forget, remind me around the first of the year, it's my intention to do it next week - we're on the verge of finishing it and next week is my time to get all my write-ups to date, and that's one of 3 or 4 to do.

 

My games tend to include a lot of conspiracy stuff, but it's usually just one feature enmeshed among the campaign. They're not often mystic, although the one mentioned above sort of is, as it involves the Catholic church and supernaturalism, along with high-tech conspiracy plotted alongside it by the AI, DEXTER, that has become the power behind one of the world's leading high-tech companies, ABC (Atomic-Bacterial-Chemical) Corporation, the major competitor to Stark Industries.

[zornwil]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

Oh, and a smaller, different campaign write-up here is re a Freemason conspiracy. I have notes behind this I could PM or e-mail you, if you're interested (no offense taken if you're not). http://www.realschluss.org/disavowed/issues/1_big_ideas.htm

 

(PS - the points weren't awarded because there's not much left to this particular storyline and they'll be awarded when the group reconvenes and can finish it out, it got late and we had to fold up, but unfortunately there was only like an hour probably left to play, I think)

 

PPS - one funny little thing I didn't call out in the write-up but is known to the players (but not all PCs) is that Jimmy Hebert is actually part (but only part) vampire. A couple comments make more sense given that.

 

PPPS - as I reread this, I also recall and should give credit that the Idea Man's string of bizarre ideas was contributed by several NGD members per my request, in order to get things I wouldn't think of and a nice variety.

[Basil]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

A couple more books for you, both unfortunately long out of print

 

Pandemonium! Adventures in Tabloid World from Atlas Games

Tabloid! from WotC; part of their "Amazing Engine" series which they, stupidly, dropped.

 

They are extremely similar; both are based on the idea that everything in the supermarket tabloids is true. Both play this for laughs, by and large, but there's no reason a GM couldn't change that POV.

 

 

Another idea: most of the rumors are false, planted by the govt/big business/the Masters Of Knowledge/the aliens/whoever. Finding the ones that are real is a major part of what the heroes have to do.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

Played in it in high school, back before I was really into the high weirdness. Lasted about three sessions. It involved the Templars and the Holy Grail &c.

 

Played in a somewhat-sequel run by a different GM (friend of the first). This one was more time travel and alternate universes, wherein we were tasked by SF writer John F. Kennedy (we got to meet his lovely wife Marilyn, IIRC) to travel back to 1963 and prevent the assassination of one of his alternates. It seemed more like pretty generic SFish action/adventure.

[AlHazred]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

For some reason, it seems to be very popular with the GURPS crowd. I own GURPS Illuminati, and both Supressed Transmissions books, and they're really good. I just don't like GURPS. If only my group played Weird Conspiracy. Or, are they playing it now...

 

 

[Iron Guardian]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

Currently I am running this type of Dark Champions campaign which my players seem to be enjoying:

 

1) I modelled it after Shadowrun, but supernatural horror was released into the world circa 2012 by a small occult coven calling itself DEMON. Their ritual wildly successful, they managed to release seven powerful demon-lords (each representing a deadly sin) who have since been slowly transforming their continent/kingdoms ala Deadlands;

2) As a result, scientific advancements in cybernetics, bio-engineering, genetics have rapidly increased due to subtle demonic influence. Demonic hybrids of humans, animals, and plants have also occured;

3) Player-Characters are allowed cyber-enhancements (from Star Hero), bio-enhancements, genetic engineering, demonic hybrid abilities, super-skills (per Dark Champions), and even supernatural miracles (per Deadlands' Blessed archetype);

4) Humanity in general is still fairly ignorant of this, rationalizing it as the continuing downfall, moral decay of society. And of course, there are the megacorps, which has allowed me to "borrow" ideas from Resident Evil.

I set the current year as 2050 AD, and so far the PC's have fought zombies, ghouls, ghoul-like dog creatures, bloodthirsty bat-things, something resembling RE's Nemesis, street/motorcycle gangs (unenhanced, competent normals), and even a soul-sucking demonic serial killer...of course, these were either covered up by the powers that be, or there were a lack of credible witnesses...pretty typical stuff so far (heh...heh...heh).

[Susano]

Re: Weird Conspiracy Hero

 

I haven't been part of that kind of campaign myself. I do know that Michael Surbrook developed a campaign setting for that kind of game' date=' which he has posted a lot from on his website: The Phenomena Department. The flavor is modern supernatural, but more light-hearted than many such campaigns like Delta Green.

 

That game was run for a bunch of late-teens, so.... I will be re-starting it, with many of the same characters and an even younger player than last time. Of course, she watches THE RING over, and over, and over, and....

 

Speaking of the estimable Mr. Surbrook, his RPG adaptation of The Montauk Project looks like a dandy basis for weird conspiracy gaming.

 

Note to self: Update this to 5th Edition.

 

I recommend the following:

SUPPRESSED TRANSMISSIONS

SUPRRESSED TRANSMISSIONS II

DELTA GREEN (both sourcebooks)

HELLBOY

PLANETARY

SILENT MOBIUS

HELLSING

FENG SHUI

GEOBREEDERS