DarkMatter d20?

[wingsandsword]

You know, I always thought the alternate energy company idea was supposed to be a cover designed to throw off suspicion.

I always thought it was. A think tank/alternative energy institute is a lot more credible in some people in the general public's eye than some paranormal investigation outfit. They can send out agents to look into spooky things all they want, but some slick PR keeps their public face being mostly a respectable think tank looking into ways to improve humanity, with an emphasis on alternative energy (but also interested in agriculture and the impact of pollution on human health).

The original Alternity book kind of made it clear that the Hoffman Institute was actually a Grey/Fraal plot (by a rogue group of the Itlan faction of Fraal) to prepare humanity for what will happen in 2012. Dr. Nakami founded the institute under another identity back in 1917, and he's run it from the beginning, just changing identities every few decades (the original book implied that Dr. Nakami was planning to fake his death in 2009 and create a new identity to run the institute).

I haven't been able to make it to my FLGS, so I can't say what the new version says, but if it's mostly a reprint of the same flavor/setting material, they probably have that in there somewhere.

 

[Roudi]

The original Alternity book kind of made it clear that the Hoffman Institute was actually a Grey/Fraal plot (by a rogue group of the Itlan faction of Fraal) to prepare humanity for what will happen in 2012. Dr. Nakami founded the institute under another identity back in 1917, and he's run it from the beginning, just changing identities every few decades.

d20 Dark*Matter maintains this notion.

 

[reanjr]

It's rather unlikely that bringing someone in to re-write all that material would have improved it -- for supporting evidence see the Psycho remake.

I'd say so. IMO, D*M is the best single product TSR/WotC ever produced. Monte Cook and Wolfgang Baur are fantastic.

 

[Katowice]

The real Hoffman Institute:

http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/

 

[jaerdaph]

The real Hoffman Institute:

http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/

When D*M was first being marketed, it was originally spelled the HoffmaN Institute. Because this organization already existed, it was changed it to the HoffmaNN Institute we all know and love.

 

[ssampier]

The real Hoffman Institute:

http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/

It's just a cover. But we're on to them

 

[arscott]

hoffmanninstitute.org redirects to the WotC website. It'd be awesome if they did something with that

 

[jaerdaph]

hoffmanninstitute.org redirects to the WotC website. It'd be awesome if they did something with that

WotC had a Hoffmann Institute Web site at that URL when Dark*Matter first came out.

 

[reanjr]

hoffmanninstitute.org redirects to the WotC website. It'd be awesome if they did something with that

They used to:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010516224700/http://www.hoffmanninstitute.org/
(takes a looooong time to load for some reason)

I remember there used to be a little blurb that would disambiguate between the "real" Hoffmann Institute and the fictional H.I. from tabletop role playing publisher, Wizards of the Coast.

 

[reanjr]

Oh, at one time I also had a website that let you log into the OSIRS server and check case files. It was pretty slick in terms of authenticity and features but was dwarfed by another project's usability and community.