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RPGs / Delta Green: Terra Obscura
« on: August 22, 2016, 05:10:58 PM »
This is a post for a Delta Green game idea I'm developing. The premise is it would be a "monster of the week" style game, united only by the same group of agents, with maybe a subtle plot line running in the background.
Here's the pitch. Each scenario is inspired by one of the terms from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDetdM5XDZD1xrQHDPgEg5w
Thus far i have two stories.
Sonder: n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkoML0_FiV4
A high profile glamour cult similar to say the one started by a guy named Hubbard is secretly serving the whim of (enter mythos deity here) have figured out how to temporarily trigger psychic-telepathic powers in people in a very toxic and destructive way. They use it primarily as a recruitment tool. The idea of it is that it opens your third eye and you experience the vivid memories of others by simply touching or bumping into them. Mechanically it's an unnatural attack that causes sanity loss, BUT with the caveat that as you lose sanity, you gain bonds to people in the lives of those you bump into, and it reduces your bonds with the people in your life. This obviously makes conversion really easy, as they can wipe away the connections to your loved ones and replace them with a bond to the cult.
DG gets wind of this when after several kids newly inducted, murders his family for trying to take him away from the cult. While investigating I have the idea that an agent or agents will be urged to do one of the cult's wierd rituals similar to say e-reading. During this e-reading is when they use their mythos sorcery to activate this affect. While this is jarring, it's just as jarring as when they meet up with their DG buddies and suddenly find the effect still active and they experience one of their "Home" scenes and BOND to their family member. Ideally after all the madness I spread with this crazy effect, they decide to-hell with investigating and go into the compound to wipe the cult and destroy their dark tomes.
Onism: n. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people's passwords, each representing one more thing you'll never get to see before you die-and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.
I posted this idea and pooled some people for ideas on it on the facebook group, so some of you may remember this. A new drug has hit the streets in some city in the American Southwest. The investigation starts when two identical bodies have showed up. Essentially the drug Liao is being laced into drugs and is sending all the addicts of the region on magical time trips forward and backward in time. The long game of the drug-pin who is dealing the Liao is trying to get out of the life and liao is his ticket, to start a whole new life. He's just feeding as many people to the Hounds of Tindalos to cover his tracks, and so he can learn to control and master his travels. He's become very good at it, and rival cartels have come to call him El Muerto because they have killed him at least 2 times. The hounds are more of an obstacle to avoid. They will be stalking suspects and victims of the cartel, and those exposed to the time bending mythos. The bodies are also emitting x-rays. Which means they lit up like a christmas tree on the x-rays (san check). So those handling and examining the bodies now have residual radiation exposure that now attracts the Hounds to them as well. I enjoy the idea of the Hounds leaping from corner to corner of the hospital chasing someone down while an agent shoots it to little effect and makes several san checks. It's a setpiece i'm looking forward to.
At some point i hope to have the agents fall into a trap. He knows they're coming (cuz TIME TRAVEL yo) and lays a trap that totally gets them all to inhale or ingest liao and they all go on various terrifying, existentially disturbing trips forward and back in time. So many sanity rolls.
Tell me what you think folks.
I have a friend really into the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, and I think this may just convince him and some others to play some Delta Green one shots. I also don't think either of these make good starter games. I'm still trying to figure out that one.
In any event, is this a story theme worth exploring further? Is there one scenario you like more than the other? Feel free to look through the video links and see if you get any ideas for yourelf.
Here's the pitch. Each scenario is inspired by one of the terms from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDetdM5XDZD1xrQHDPgEg5w
Thus far i have two stories.
Sonder: n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkoML0_FiV4
A high profile glamour cult similar to say the one started by a guy named Hubbard is secretly serving the whim of (enter mythos deity here) have figured out how to temporarily trigger psychic-telepathic powers in people in a very toxic and destructive way. They use it primarily as a recruitment tool. The idea of it is that it opens your third eye and you experience the vivid memories of others by simply touching or bumping into them. Mechanically it's an unnatural attack that causes sanity loss, BUT with the caveat that as you lose sanity, you gain bonds to people in the lives of those you bump into, and it reduces your bonds with the people in your life. This obviously makes conversion really easy, as they can wipe away the connections to your loved ones and replace them with a bond to the cult.
DG gets wind of this when after several kids newly inducted, murders his family for trying to take him away from the cult. While investigating I have the idea that an agent or agents will be urged to do one of the cult's wierd rituals similar to say e-reading. During this e-reading is when they use their mythos sorcery to activate this affect. While this is jarring, it's just as jarring as when they meet up with their DG buddies and suddenly find the effect still active and they experience one of their "Home" scenes and BOND to their family member. Ideally after all the madness I spread with this crazy effect, they decide to-hell with investigating and go into the compound to wipe the cult and destroy their dark tomes.
Onism: n. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people's passwords, each representing one more thing you'll never get to see before you die-and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.
I posted this idea and pooled some people for ideas on it on the facebook group, so some of you may remember this. A new drug has hit the streets in some city in the American Southwest. The investigation starts when two identical bodies have showed up. Essentially the drug Liao is being laced into drugs and is sending all the addicts of the region on magical time trips forward and backward in time. The long game of the drug-pin who is dealing the Liao is trying to get out of the life and liao is his ticket, to start a whole new life. He's just feeding as many people to the Hounds of Tindalos to cover his tracks, and so he can learn to control and master his travels. He's become very good at it, and rival cartels have come to call him El Muerto because they have killed him at least 2 times. The hounds are more of an obstacle to avoid. They will be stalking suspects and victims of the cartel, and those exposed to the time bending mythos. The bodies are also emitting x-rays. Which means they lit up like a christmas tree on the x-rays (san check). So those handling and examining the bodies now have residual radiation exposure that now attracts the Hounds to them as well. I enjoy the idea of the Hounds leaping from corner to corner of the hospital chasing someone down while an agent shoots it to little effect and makes several san checks. It's a setpiece i'm looking forward to.
At some point i hope to have the agents fall into a trap. He knows they're coming (cuz TIME TRAVEL yo) and lays a trap that totally gets them all to inhale or ingest liao and they all go on various terrifying, existentially disturbing trips forward and back in time. So many sanity rolls.
Tell me what you think folks.
I have a friend really into the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, and I think this may just convince him and some others to play some Delta Green one shots. I also don't think either of these make good starter games. I'm still trying to figure out that one.
In any event, is this a story theme worth exploring further? Is there one scenario you like more than the other? Feel free to look through the video links and see if you get any ideas for yourelf.