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Old 07-06-2010, 10:35 PM   #11
macphersonrants
 
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Default Re: Modern (Action!, Cliffhangers, ___ Ops) Weirdness?

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Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery View Post
More like the Cabal as it appeared originally in Horror, then? Less monolithic and less threatening, at least on the surface, though the potential for hidden layers, a la Hite, can remain.
Mr. Hite was kind enough to outline several different levels of the Cabal from a monolithic organization that controls everything, to a deeply fractured organization beset by other powerful groups.
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Old 07-07-2010, 12:23 AM   #12
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Default Re: Modern (Action!, Cliffhangers, ___ Ops) Weirdness?

Atomic Horro is my choice for this Genre. Later versions of it such as Johnny Quest and Ron Goulart's Challengers of the Unknown novel about the DC Comics team are really ideal for the sort of Modern Day adventure I like.
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Old 07-07-2010, 01:16 PM   #13
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Default Re: Modern (Action!, Cliffhangers, ___ Ops) Weirdness?

I like my pulp pulpy. That is to say, everything from fraternal brotherhoods of Vampires to a Hollow Earth filled with Dinosaurs.

I also tend to start small and get weirder; in the first adventure, perhaps the evil mastermind's lead henchman knows Pressure Points. By the time the campaign ends the heroes have just saved the earth from the saucer nazi's attempt to raise the continent of Atlantis, flooding the coastal cities of the world and bringing artifacts of unknowable power into their hands.
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Old 07-09-2010, 12:07 AM   #14
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Default Re: Modern (Action!, Cliffhangers, ___ Ops) Weirdness?

My current idea is to try to wed something like MI-5/Spooks with occult investigation and monster fighting- which I guess is fairly Delta Greenish.

What I feel like I need to work on is a coherent cosmology to base my monsters on. I don't really want to run a Cthulhu mythos campaign like Delta Green or something with aliens ala the X-Files or Conspiracy X.

I like the justifications for the supernatural you see in The Atrocity Archives. I'm thinking that you mate that with the general ambiance you get in Cold City and Hot War. Bad guys with a cell structure like in the Esoterrorists would work well with the general concept I have in mind. I'm also liking occult Nazis. What I still need to figure out is what is going to make the monsters tick and what overall feel or tone I want to give them. The human minions are easy, but I'm struggling with the supernatural forces behind them.
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Old 07-09-2010, 05:25 AM   #15
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Default Re: Modern (Action!, Cliffhangers, ___ Ops) Weirdness?

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What sorts and levels of weirdness do you like in your pulp through modern games?
What sorts of occult power options do you like?
Do you prefer Lovecraftian baddies or something more like Conspiracy X, WOD, or Cabal?
What sort of elements would sell you on a modern-ish secret magic, conspiracy, or horror setting?
Pulp game I have designed and played: their are greater powers, as in Indiana Jones, but they are independent of us (or judgemental, like the ark of the covenant), or only understood by villains on the road to their own destruction.
Heroes tend to survive due to skill, luck and even faith. 'With one bound he was free'.

My more modern games have a similar wierdness level; arguably better hidden, perhaps reflecting the widespread fall in belief in religion in the west; 'greater powers' are disguised as new scientific principles (the Large Hadron Colider makes a contact...), or a meeting with a group of opponents may be informed by their beliefs 'in opposition to the groups'.

An opposing group might be the victims of a charismatic preacher, and beleive themselves good Christians, Muslims, Shintoists, whatever.

This is an extension of the pulp 'mad scientist discovering a new ray' school of pulp wierdness, where the discoverer must fund his experiments into teleportation by getting theives into a bank vault without opening it...
-his thieves will wear the uniforms provided, pay lip service to his guidance, then act as normal for them, as there's money involved, even if they run a risk of materialising on Mars.

Hope this useful.
It's deliberately vague to avoid insult and to stimulate thought on your own usage.
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Old 07-09-2010, 11:27 PM   #16
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Default Re: Modern (Action!, Cliffhangers, ___ Ops) Weirdness?

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My current idea is to try to wed s

What I feel like I need to work on is a coherent cosmology to base my monsters on.
I don't know that you need to develop any kind of cosmology (I usually don't). Its more fun as a GM to be able to incorporate what is interesting and fun as needed.

That said developing a framework (or schema) is helpful. For example: Von Danikanism is true (ancient aliens) or that the ancients did create wondrous technologies (Tesla was right and he was an ancient Egyptian!) and/or powerful psionics (see the retconned Lensman stuff (I think it's in Triplanetary or First Lensman) with a breeding Eugenics program.....

Other cool pulpy ideas (as referenced previously) include Mad scientists creating undead or inter-dimensional portals creating "science based" horrors and demons that would be at home in traditional fantasy (liches, techno vampire (see *Peeps*), etc...) are also cool. The source material is rich and diverse.

As you can probably tell I'm actually rather agnostic about wierdness in any rpg setting as long as its fun for the GM and the PCs. What I would probably do is create a (very) rough idea (not something worthy of the title outline) of how things work and then tell the players that it was a "Black Ops"/Covert Ops Game, or a police procedural/investigator game and then let the wierdness begin. I would probably *suggest* that Occult (and related skills, advantages, disadvantages) would be a very good idea but things like *Illuminated* are out of bounds.

Just off the top of my head (with a double martini :))
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Old 07-10-2010, 01:02 PM   #17
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Default Re: Modern (Action!, Cliffhangers, ___ Ops) Weirdness?

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Other cool pulpy ideas (as referenced previously) include Mad scientists creating undead or inter-dimensional portals creating "science based" horrors and demons that would be at home in traditional fantasy (liches, techno vampire
This is a favorite of mine, as well. It's surprisingly easy to work some of the tropes and creatures of horror/fantasy into sfnal or pulpy settings, with the right slant. They may not be exactly like the traditional version...but the 'traditional version' is usually a two or three steps removed Hollywood version of some ancient legend, too, for that matter.
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