Brainstorm with me, /tg/.
I want to create a scenario that plays out entirely online. The characters never meet, they only chat and mail. The idea is of course to have a scenario especially suited to online groups.
The setting is modern mystery and horror. I want to finish this for DG, but at the moment it's pretty system agnostic.
The problem right now is how to structure it. How to create challenges from online resources? How to create a threat that keeps increasing the pressure while only appearing in web media? I don't want it to be
>Read the Wikipedia article and then report back for the next Wikipedia article.
Maybe the trail could start in the past, put well documented events into a new context, and end up presenting a looming danger right now that nobody else is aware of.
So... any ideas?
/tg/?
>>44024075
Will the PCs spooky stuff catch up to the PCs in the real world? In other words would it be structured in a way that you have the occasional solo session in between the group chat sessions? That could be a good way to induce some horror in the players if one day one of the guys just starts posting about some wild shit that happened to him the other day. Or if he just stops posting entirely.
I've been watching that anime Durarara lately. It's about a bunch of people, mostly strangers, experiencing some weird stuff with the backdrop of an internet chatroom. It might be worth checking out for inspiration.
If you're planning on sticking with the Delta Green angle I'd suggest making most, if not all, of the PCs Friendlies instead of Agents. Agents would have too many recourses and contacts to track down and deal with whatever the threat is.
There's also the inevitability that once shit really starts going bad the PCs are probably gonna want to meet face to face.
As for a threat that keeps increasing the pressure, the OP pic seems like a good place to start.
Also if you finish this before the end of the month you might want to consider submitting it for the DG Shotgun Scenario contest. It's a cool idea and if it comes together well it seems like the kind of thing that would do pretty well over there.
>>44027542
That's why I'm floating it.
Not sure yet it can be done.
Another thing I had to think of is the beginning of Utopia.
>>44027841
I forget people haven't watched it (silly them!)
It's about a message board concerned with some obscure graphic novel shrouded in mystery. Supposedly it was created by an artist living in an insane asylum. It's pretty cryptic with layers of hidden meaning and abstract panels. The first volume was published some time ago, but there are rumors of a secret vol. II. Now one of the regulars has invited the others to a pub for a first meeting, implying he has the second book.
It could be used as handout. A riddle cut into several pieces, each character gets one. They have to decide if they share. Maybe they also get a fake one to share if they so choose.
>>44024075
Maybe there's someone else in contact with all of the PCs; a DG agent, a shadowy figure in service to the threat or a mutual friend who's delving deeper than the PCs and pays for it.
To blatantly rip off William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, maybe some mysterious video clips are being leaked onto the internet and the PCs are on a discussion board trying to figure out just what the clips mean. They're all under a minute long and are released in no particular order but they all seem to be part of a whole. The film is shot and the supposed actors are dressed in a way that makes pinpointing the exact age of the clips difficult. The King in Yellow angle would be an obvious one to follow but maybe it's part of a Mi-Go experiment or a regular ol' MKULTRA style CIA brainwashing program.
>>44028336
Now you got me thinking about Videodrome...
>>44027542
I don't think individual sidequests are the way to go. Just because it messes with the pacing and depends a lot on session timing. But asides are certainly possible. Any side channel communication that doesn't take long enough for the others to get bored while listening to soundtrack.
I would want to prepare handouts in batches, with something for every player that the others don't get. This can be the result of individual research to roll for, or random messages from unknown or faked sources.
Ideally this would be run via video chat. But it should work for voice, text, or playing in person as well.
>>44028542
Asides were more along the lines of what I meant, yeah. Like the PCs are chatting and one of them gets a knock at his door, which is odd because the chat sessions are usually pretty late at night, and the other PCs are left to wonder what's going on while the other guy goes dark for a few minutes.
>>44028336
>someone else in contact with all of the PCs; a DG agent, a shadowy figure in service to the threat or a mutual friend who's delving deeper than the PCs and pays for it.
The more I consider this the more I like it. It cleanly fits in the DG setting, but could pop up in any other modern context. It neatly solves the quest giver issue, and with a little blackmail also character motivation. Then, when the thing gets agent X, it ratchets up the tension.
Another angle I would like you to comment on is PC secrets. They can't really kill each other, but betrayal is certainly an option, as are secret alliances. If you tell the players to keep checking their mailbox for handouts then they can also send each other private emails. You can imply this is allowed by telling them up front to BCC the handler in on any mails during the game. You could even set up freemail accounts for them just for the game and let them keep the webmail inbox open.
Anyway, they get private handouts. It is research results, messages from agent X, sources, bonds, ... What if one PC, let's call him the hacker, instead of research results gets copies of all the others' handouts (except for when he doesn't)?
Too much?
>>44028721
I'd say if the PCs are strangers on the internet and some weird stuff is going down I wouldn't be surprised if any of them got paranoid and wanted to do background checks on the others. I wouldn't force it but if it comes up let it happen.
>>44028835
I should prep pregens. That way I can have different dossiers on everyone to kick around, depending on what source was used.
Are pregens okay for Shotgun Scenarios? Or does it have to be generic. I guess it's supposed to be universal.
But then what advice can be attached to enable a handler to create dossiers on his PCs?
>>44028835
>>44028721
Forgot to add that doing that could get them too far away from the main threat but if it does there are plenty of ways to remind them that the main threat poses far worse consequences than a stranger blackmailing them.
>>44028946
>I should prep pregens.
That would definitely make it easier on the GM in terms of keeping the plot straight. As far as I know shotgun scenarios are ideally meant to be used as one shots, side missions, or campaign starters but I don't think pregens are frowned upon or anything.
>But then what advice can be attached to enable a handler to create dossiers on his PCs?
If they're with Delta Green in any capacity they'll have plenty of dirt to dig up on each other.
>>44024075
OP, your search for inspiration is giving me inspiration.
You could use some of the hot topics right now as hooks, such as terrorism and mass shootings.
An idea I had was to have all the players (they dont need to know eachother) recive an e-mail from an unknown source warning them not to go to work today. wheter they listen or not is up to them, but at their job, like the e-mail says, there is a shooting. part of hundreds of simultanious shootings that occur that day all with seemingly no link. players can either be caught in a shootout (they can try and escape, and props to them if they succeed) or witness it unfold on their new source of choice.
Just a hook for now, but has the potential to go in any direction based on what the players feed me and their reactions to the event,
their mysterious e-mailer can come back, and that can be a way of slowly bringing them together is this stranger tries his best to keep them one step ahead of the dangers that are unfolding around them.
who knows what the cauyse could be in the end. The King in Yellow, the Mi-Go, Sutter Cane's new novel/screenplay
any tips, ideas, elaboration feedback ect all greatly appreciated.
>>44029060
So the only instruction should be to prepare a list of things each character has kept from the others?
>>44029311
That is inspiring!
I wouldn't want it to polemicize between supporters and critics of the NRA policy.
>>44027841
Just do an ARG and tone down the difficulty. My Skype is ritualcaster if you want to talk over this with someone, I might be on later and now I want to do this and not tell anyone I'm doing it, just invite a lot of my usual party.
>>44029531
Naughty!
I don't Skype. But this scenario should work for anything like Skype.
>>44029471
I live in Canada so its not really a polarizing subject up here. My group can discuss these things without people losing their cool or being offended.
Could be fun to have them join up with some 'radial tinfoil hat militia' group who turn out to be 100% right about everything.
Also, Ive always wanted to do some sort of 'Canadian Innsmouth' with newfie fish people who live out on the island on the east coast.
Newfie-speak already sounds like Cthulhu messed with their language.
>>44029693
So M-EPIC vs EOoD?
I think you might have something there.
Canada, having never been there (wait! Niagra for 15 minutes), has always been kind of Fargo in my games. Or of course Alaska. Except for the big cities. Is this terribly wrong?
>>44029614
I feel like it's wasted if you don't have them jump around a lot. As a result of a group steam message from an unknown person, this thing happens in Skype, prompting a search to crack a code that uses a Wikipedia article as the key while someone else is emailing someone for information that leads them to a simple text trove of links to weird sound files that ultimately send them to some conspiracy forum where they're looking for a particular symbol on an avatar to go through that person's post history for a name while pictures of people on their trello board keep getting updated with X's drawn over them, some of the pictures belonging to the investigators themselves. Shit like that. Even fire up a voice changer on Skype to create a mysterious persona who helps when he can but can't say much and, oh, something is after him, so if we leave traces of our search he'll disappear in short order, maybe with some hints not yet given.
>>44029905
Yes, to a degree. Remember, this is just a shotgun shell. It shouldn't get too intricate. 3 steps are cool, 5 might be too many.
I imagine this being played via Roll20, teamspeak, or skype. The primary medium should remain open throughout unless the character has vanished. The trail through the interwebs is the clues which the players can discuss in chat.
>>44029893
a little. The whole great plains area is is fargo basically.
West coast is all big city city south and alaska up north. lots of mountains. ontario is basically same except instead of 'big city' its more 'urban sprawl' south and mountains north. east coast is basically all like Maine. Lots of potential for cool classic monsters like bigfoot, ogopogo, wedigo, skinwalker ect in the wooded areas (most of canada is empty. like 85% of it easily) lots of biker/east asian/south asian gang stuff in cities to work with. west coast (vanouver mainly) is like canada's hollywood (minus the whole beverly hills / desert/ lack of water thing)
lots of potential ive always thought.
I am not familiar with M-EPIC or EOoD. if it will bring more inspiration, could you explain?
>>44030001
Meh, I'm mostly brainstorming for a running campaign at this point, and 5 steps would make it a oneshot of it's tailored for a small group instead of a full ARG (because you either know these things or you don't, anything else is too tedious for such a small audience)
Reminds me of a shitty game called Martian Gothic, which plays like a clunkier version of the old Resident Evil games, but where you can switch characters.
The three characters are on a space colony, and all become infected with a strain of bacteria that essentially causes them to die horribly if they come within a few feet of each other. The whole game is about solving shitty puzzles by sending items and messages between your characters via the colony's retarded, defunct mail chute system.
>>44030400
That sounds surprisingly good
>>44030222
http://fairfieldproject.wikidot.com/esoteric-order-of-dagon
M-EPIC doesn't have a page on FFP, but it's basically Mounties vs Ithaqua. They use artifacts.
>>44030490
Cool, thanks anon!
And ya, that sounds like it would make for an awesome Delta Green campaign. Players as mountie in silly hats hunting down and being hunted by spirit/old one worshiping natives (who knows what goes on on the reserve... well besides the drinking...) and unintelligible newfie fish people.
My hook idea could even be used to leap frog to there. players deserting the big cities to find answers only to be faced with what actually goes on in The Woods of the Great White North.
I would play the shit out of that.
Now I wish a drawfag would draw up a picture of a mountie on horseback with a six-shooter fireing wildly at a wendigo worshiping native riding a cthullhian moose chucking spears made from human bones
>>44029471
>So the only instruction should be to prepare a list of things each character has kept from the others?
Maybe phrase it in a more vague way but yeah, the PCs should have information about them they'd rather not be made public.
>>44030795
>a mountie on horseback with a six-shooter fireing wildly at a wendigo worshiping native riding a cthullhian moose chucking spears made from human bones
I would pay good money to have that scene painted on the side of my van
So...
Agent X contacts some people for an operation. They may be friendlies blackmailed into compliance in an introduction scenario, or active agents called upon by someone who owns them for an off the books job. Each one is contacted separately. They cannot meet and only communicate online.
They receive or research regular individual handouts that paint a grim picture at least through recent history, shining a new light on well known events that can be researched on the internet for additional flavor. The crucial mystery will be unlocked by a piece of art like a comic that is split into several parts and distributed among the PCs.
As the threat is established, the initiating agent becomes less and less reliable and is eventually eliminated, leaving the PCs with the sole responsibility to fix things.
The players should have reason to distrust each other. As this should work with any characters, not just pregens, there should be secrets arisen from the scenario itself. Maybe one is set up as the traitor, another as the scapegoat, a third is the hacker who knows more than he should, and another could have more information about the subject than he can let on.
>>44033466
Sounds pretty good. Maybe give the threat a time frame and have the PCs be a good distance apart from each other. Like several states, even a country or two apart so meeting in person to deal with the threat won't be an option.
If the separation by internet is maintained throughout it will pose some issues for the showdown.
The final challenge would have to be one that has to be approached from different angles, giving each player an individual task to solve. I imagine something like Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, complex tasks on a timer that require communicating pieces of the puzzle through awkward channels because players can't just show each other what to do.
Maybe the reason why the information must remain distributed is that once it is accumulated it reaches a critical mass and takes over the reader. PCs have to pass san checks for the parts they get, but no one can pass all the san checks for all the parts of information taken together.
The information the players get might be mutually exclusive on a flavor level and only combine to provide answers on a technical level. This is becoming a math problem. But giving the players a communication problem to solve which has semantic misunderstandings built in seems like a fun way to go.
So for the showdown it would be reminiscent of that old impossible to play well cyberpunk staple of the hacker supporting the raid. Only all the PCs are 'hackers' supporting each other in a virtual 'raid'. The challenges need compartmentalized components with secret solutions. And the players must have reason to keep those secrets.
The challenge takes shape!
