I have a setting, but not an adventure!

[Christougher]

After receiving The Ultimate Mentalist as a gift, I've become someone infatuated with the idea of running an ESPionage type game. But like the title says, I don't know exactly *what* to run. I need plot ideas!

[Lord Fyre]

Re: I have a setting, but not an adventure!

 

After receiving The Ultimate Mentalist as a gift' date=' I've become someone infatuated with the idea of running an ESPionage type game. But like the title says, I don't know exactly *what* to run. I need plot ideas![/quote']

 

Here are a couple of ideas you might try to jumpstart the creative process.

 

One system I ran across (and used successfully) it this idea:

http://www.steved.org/rp_rules_elvis.html I like Queen for Superheroes.

 

Another approach is to create a master villian and work out his/her/its grand plan. (By which I mean an overplot, that should spread across - and generate - a number for adventures.)

[Labrat]

Re: I have a setting, but not an adventure!

 

After receiving The Ultimate Mentalist as a gift' date=' I've become someone infatuated with the idea of running an ESPionage type game. But like the title says, I don't know exactly *what* to run. I need plot ideas![/quote']

 

Do you own Dark Champions? That would be the default genre book for espionage games I believe. If not, then start with a premise. Who is/are the 'bad guys' and what makes them 'evil' compared to the hero's 'good'?

 

OR what kind of technology is cutting edge and is in danger of abuse? I would recommend using all or some of the ideas in the 'Mental Gadgets' section of TUMe, maybe the govt scientists finally have found a way to artificially tap into the mental dimension and this could spell bad news for the populace at large... better yet, maybe some 'evil' syndicate (corporation, country, alien race) discovered it and plans on using it against human kind. One small information leak to the Office of Mental Phenomenon and you're off and running on an idea for your first game which could possibly branch out into a whole campaign.

 

I'm quick to answer with this because that's where I plan on taking my Terran Empire campaign. Hermetica is my 'bad guy' and they're in cahoots with... oh not so fast! I'm saving that bit for my PbP!

[Flames]

Re: I have a setting, but not an adventure!

 

Even if you've seen them before, see if your local public library has the movie Dreamscape available to borrow.

 

Certainly if the PCs are government agents, you can take any standard espionage scenario and insert psi into it, most likely in place of technological snooping methods. Instead of wiretapping or eavesdropping, characters sniff each other out psionically.

 

It should end with someone's head exploding like at the end of Scanners.

[Lethosos]

Re: I have a setting, but not an adventure!

 

Take a poke at WW's Subsidaries: A Guide to Pentex as a possibility--it's pretty creepy and well worth mining for an espionage-style game.

[Clonus]

Re: I have a setting, but not an adventure!

 

After receiving The Ultimate Mentalist as a gift' date=' I've become someone infatuated with the idea of running an ESPionage type game. But like the title says, I don't know exactly *what* to run. I need plot ideas![/quote']

 

What you need are bad guys. THen the plot ideas will flow naturally from them. For example:

 

Cold War Russians: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro03/web2/sfeidt.html

 

In 1969, US intelligence sources concluded that the Russian government was investing large amounts of time and money into development of 'psychotronic' weaponry, which included psychic spies. In response, the US government began research in 1972 into the viability of remote viewing as an intelligence tool. The program, originally the SCANATE program under the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was maintained for 23 years under various names. In that time, several hundred projects involving thousands of remote viewing sessions were completed. Psychics from this program were made available to several intelligence branches, including the CIA, the National Security Agency (NSA), the US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), the Army Chief-of-Staff for Intelligence (ACSI), and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). (8) The SCANATE program, eventually termed the STAR GATE program, combined active operational training in psychic intelligence gathering with intensive laboratory research. The laboratory component began at SRI in 1972. The researchers collected individuals who they thought showed natural psychic ability, with a minimum accuracy rate of 65%; 23 remote viewers in total were involved in the STAR GATE program. One of the fruits of this program was a set of instructions developed by professed psychic Ingo Swann, which supposedly allow any human being to develop the ability to remote view. This instruction set was used in the training aspect of the program. The National Academy of Science's National Research Council reviewed the program unfavorably in 1984, and the American Institutes for Research released a report in 1995 that stated a statistically significant effect had been demonstrated in the program, with a 15% accuracy rate, but which was overall a negative review. The CIA concluded that no useful intelligence data had ever been provided by the program, and terminated it in 1995. (8)

 

 

 

So a campaign set in the 70s could easily go with the Russians as the primary bad guys, sending psi agents to gather intelligence, tamper with the minds of powerful westerners, or use telekinesis to assassinate people. In a more modern campaign, the Russian psis could have rebelled against their bosses and be plotting to take over Russia.

 

Corporation of EEEEvil: A little telepathy goes a long way when it comes to insider trading and corporate espionage, particularly if you can achieve a monopoly on those abilities by tracking down and coopting or eliminating anyone with Mental Awareness.

 

 

 

The Order of the Silver Star: A secret society dressing up their psi powers in rituals that they superstitiously believe give them their "magic" powers.

 

The Asylum: Parapsychologists who run a mental institute as a cover for their program of identifying psychics so that they can then be "treated" for the voices in their head. Maybe they want to cure them by removing the relevant brain parts, or maybe they just want to condition them for later use.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: I have a setting, but not an adventure!

 

Hmmm... psychic bodyguard to important officials, like the President... throwing themselves mentally in the way of incoming psychic attacks, much as a Secret Service agent would with a bullet...

[TheMoose]

Re: I have a setting, but not an adventure!

 

Have a look at original, first 2 of The Necroscope books by Brian Lumley... Bit over the top on blood / vampires but whole E ("for ESPionage) - Branch in UK and Russian equivalent, "agents" and their powers plus history of the two in conflict...

[DerFrownmacher]

Re: I have a setting, but not an adventure!

 

Nice thing about psychics is that they can start to figure out conspiracies without a lot of outside help. Plot twists are always good. Maybe the organization whose raised and trained them and now sends them on missions turns out to be insidiously setting itself up for global domination, and a once-enemy resistance now poses the only chance of survival and success for the PCs? Pretty generic example, but you gotta start somewhere...