help me brainstorm for my new military/horror campaign

[GlassJaw]

I've been pitching Spycraft to one of my groups You know who you are so stay out! ) and it looks like they've taken the bait. I proposed a few campaign concepts but there's one that everyone seems to really like. I've described it as a mix of the following:

Predator
Tomb Raider
A-Team
The Relic
Resident Evil
MacGuyver
The Thing

What I know I want the campaign to have:

It will be modern/near-future.
The PC's will be para-military. They will most likely be freelance but will have close contacts that they deal with frequently.
I want firepower and gunplay.
I want the ability to include non-human adversaries.
I want the campaign to span the globe and therefore be able to put the PC's in a wide range of settings and environments.
There won't be any caster classes. Any "magic" will be in the form of relics, tomes, etc.

I'm going to start off with a couple of simple and unrelated missions but I'd like to introduce some clues or campaign seeds and see what interests the players.

This is what I'd like help on - some possible long-term campaign story arcs.

Here's the catch: I'd like to avoid some of the obvious "cliches": alien invasion/body snatchers, genetic experiments/super-soldiers, virus breakout, dormant gods rising again, etc.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

 

[Pyrex]

I just watched Silk the other day.

The basic premise is that a group of research scientists who are developing a material as the basis for anti-gravity discover that it can also be used to view, photograph and (to a limited extent) interact with ghosts.

 

[mikelaff]

Off the top, I'd suggest some Charles Stross.

His Atrocity Archives is an excellent read. It's sort of a mash-up of modern espionage thriller with occult horror. Might be a good source to mine ideas from.

Fair warning: He does a bit of the moldy, old Lovecraftian "old Gods waking and seeking vengeance" bit - but he does it very well and puts a fresh and unique spin on it.

In a nutshell - his protagonist works for a secret British spy agency that defends the world from magic/occult threats. Your PCs could be the "cleaners" who work for this outfit.

One of the two novellas from Atrocity Archives is available for free online. You could skim it and see if it fits your bill.

I've been pitching Spycraft to one of my groups You know who you are so stay out! ) and it looks like they've taken the bait. I proposed a few campaign concepts but there's one that everyone seems to really like. I've described it as a mix of the following:

Predator
Tomb Raider
A-Team
The Relic
Resident Evil
MacGuyver
The Thing

What I know I want the campaign to have:

It will be modern/near-future.
The PC's will be para-military. They will most likely be freelance but will have close contacts that they deal with frequently.
I want firepower and gunplay.
I want the ability to include non-human adversaries.
I want the campaign to span the globe and therefore be able to put the PC's in a wide range of settings and environments.
There won't be any caster classes. Any "magic" will be in the form of relics, tomes, etc.

I'm going to start off with a couple of simple and unrelated missions but I'd like to introduce some clues or campaign seeds and see what interests the players.

This is what I'd like help on - some possible long-term campaign story arcs.

Here's the catch: I'd like to avoid some of the obvious "cliches": alien invasion/body snatchers, genetic experiments/super-soldiers, virus breakout, dormant gods rising again, etc.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

 

[Chaldfont]

I'm running a savage worlds game at Gen Con where a squad of US Rangers are sent into a suspected WMD site in Iraq in 2003 only to find out that the Iraqis have been meddling in things Man Was Not Meant to Know and the site is now overrun with Unspeakable Horrors.

You might start out with a private security group contracting with the US government or some multinational in Iraq or Afghanistan that gets caught up in some supernatural stuff. The survivors might then be approached by the government to set up an Anti-Paranormal strike team like a horror version of Rainbow Six.

 

[scourger]

Check out Weekend Warriors. I played a bit of it at a convention. It is really good.

http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2192&src=12to24footer

There is a follow-up, Fire in the Hole:

http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=20159&src=12to24footer

And a related Innana's Kiss:

http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2971&src=12to24footer

I ran Tour of Darkness for Savage Worlds along basically the lines you present. It is set in Viet Nam, so the technology is a little dated; but it is still relevant. I did not use the entire plot-point campaign, but some of the mini-adventures were great. One of my main bad guys was a Nazi vampire. The final conflict was between a dragon (with his lizard-men followers) and aliens (with their spawn) in a buried Cambodian pyramid--with the heroes caught in the middle! It was a lot of fun.

http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1514&it=1

 

[VirgilCaine]

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

MJ-12 from Delta Green might be down your alley, I think.

 

[Baron Opal]

Global Frequency, a limited run comic by Warren Ellis, deals a lot with global conspiracy and "cleaning up the messes that the governments and powerful get us in." There are two trades easily available I believe. The premise would work perfectly for a game.

Other ideas...

Nanobots go berserk and require a magical solution.

It is theorized that lasers of sufficient power moving in a circular / helical pattern at sufficient speed can stir the base vacuum. Like a spoon stirring a cup of coffee, a gravity well forms in the laser helix. Some fool makes it work, and a bit too well.

SETI finally picks up a signal. Unfortunately the translated information is a powerful meme that re-writes thought processes so that humans form a hivemind. All the aliens want to do is communicate and be friendly, but standard human thought is unable to comprehend them.

 

[Asmor]

Here's an idea... Create some phenomena which only certain people can sense, and link it to whatever hijinks you have planned. Examples:

Sci-fi: Invading aliens use psionically-based technology. Certain humans, while not psychic, are sensitive to the waves and can sense it.

Horror: Terrible beasts attract the attention of invisible imps which devour the souls of people slain by said beasts. Those who have been touched by death in their life have the ability to see these imps and, by extension, predict when the beasts will strike.

Fantasy: Magical ley lines permeate the world, and when magic is used it causes visible fluctuations in the ley lines for miles around. Some people are able to see the ley lines.

Gives you an easy way of generating plot hooks and an easy answer for why the characters are all working together/were recruited.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

There may be some rambling in this post!

Looking at it. You want non human adversaries. Some obvious contendors would seem to be:

Magic - raw power.
Magic - with a brain - demons and so forth.
Technology and it's automaton killing machines.
Technology and it's hodge podge of genetic freaks.
Aliens.

I'd be inclined to keep it thematically simple. Either pick 1, or pick 2 and set them off against one another. Given the firepower and gunplay angle, I'd be inclined to avoid magic altogether, but that's my bias.

Perhaps dress them up to look like something else? After all - any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisable from magic. (or something). Genetically and surgically modified 'demons'. 'Aliens' made in a factory somewhere.

It should be possible to spin one or more of those to avoid some of the normal cliches?

It's worth considering a steal from cyberpunk settings. Corporations outside of government control. Make interesting protagonists for good or ill. For a novel spin, it's the altruistic (and likely privately run!) corporate group fighting evil corporations/governments/vampires/aliens.

Perhaps bring in conspiracy theory material - there's a wealth of it out there. Molemen. Mind control satelites. The New World Order. Illuminati. Something in the tapwater! Etc.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Here's the catch: I'd like to avoid some of the obvious "cliches": alien invasion/body snatchers, genetic experiments/super-soldiers, virus breakout, dormant gods rising again, etc.

Not asking for much, huh? If we told the the rest of the stuff, we'd have to...welll, you know.

Let me think on this. I've got some ideas, but I need to finesse my way around the 'cliches'.

I did just get a copy of Spycraft 2.0 yesterday. Sweet book. It's got me interested in modern stuff again, and that's a surprise.