help me brainstorm for my new military/horror campaign

[green slime]

I find some of your premises a bit strange:

Predator, without the aliens.
Paramilitary organisations, without the Supersoldier feel.

Maybe I'm getting old. But why is everything so fantastic?

There are heaps of non-fantastic and semi-fantastic stories to tell. Try for something along the lines of Alias?

You just have to decide who the major bad guys are. It is easier if you give them a worldwide platform to stand upon:

United Nations (lots of various organisations here)?
Gnomes of Zurich?
Catholic Church/Presbyterianism/CoE?
Freemasonry?
Nazis (Past/Present/Cloned/South American/..)?
Soviets/Nationalistic Communists?
Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists?
Iran/Korea/Libya/
Ancient Time Travellers from Rome/Persia/Imperial China/Maya
NGOs?
CIA/NSA/FBI/MI5/KGB/...

Once you got the various organisations sorted out (whether they are for your players, against them, or neutral), you can easily concoct a multitude of complex situations for your players to get involved in.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

One trick you may want to try is something I did when I started my Iron Kingdoms game where the characters started out as members of a military unit going up against Cryx (armies of undead). So you can see the horror/military applications.

Sure, what I did was fantasy and you sound like you are doing modern, so there are some differences but there is something creepy I did that you might get some use out of.

We started by having the characters be part of a unit that was cut off from the main fighting force and had to contend with a Cryx military unit that found them. Describing the carnage they came across and the fact that they suddenly got assaulted by creatures their characters had never seen before was pretty scary. I had the lights low, described the mud, blood and rain coming down, stepping into squishy things that were once bodies and then having them look into the face of undead, steam automated horrors.

It did a nice job of setting the future tone. Maybe you could use something like that to open with? A flashback or basically telling them how they first came to experience the horrific nasties they will soon be fighting against.

 

[GlassJaw]

I find some of your premises a bit strange:

Predator, without the aliens.
Paramilitary organisations, without the Supersoldier feel.

Maybe I'm getting old. But why is everything so fantastic?

There are heaps of non-fantastic and semi-fantastic stories to tell. Try for something along the lines of Alias?

Perhaps my criteria should be edited to say "blatant" cliches.

I cited those references to illustrate game style, mood, and possibilities. I want a setting where alien horrors, fantastic technology, and magic artifacts are all possible.

Lots of good ideas here. I'm digging the nanobot/nanotech idea. I could introduce some kind of nanovirus, possibly alien in nature, that could have a wide range of effects on humans and/or animals: create supersoldiers, zombies, mutants, alien/human hybrids, etc.

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.

I like this idea a lot. Perhaps this could be coupled with a search for some kind of artifact, or a relic that was thought lost that has resurfaced. I've also always been curious about the Nazi fascination with the occult so maybe that could factor in somehow (although that could be deemed cliche).

Maybe the Germans found an artifact from the dawn of time in the cradle of civilization. During transport back to Germany, the artifact was lost (or destroyed its new "owners") and was lost in the sands of what is now Iraq.

 

[GreatLemur]

Lots of good ideas here. I'm digging the nanobot/nanotech idea. I could introduce some kind of nanovirus, possibly alien in nature, that could have a wide range of effects on humans and/or animals: create supersoldiers, zombies, mutants, alien/human hybrids, etc.

Ever seen Tetsuo: The Iron Man or its sequel? It's been a while since I have, but I think you could distill some damned cool nanotech-mutations-run-rampant bits from them.

Also, ever read The Invisibles? The protagonists there are more magically/psychically capable than you want your PCs to be, but their bizarre array of enemies (or, for that matter, allies) might be something you could mine ideas from, and the whole worldview and cosmology of the series should work pretty nicely for the kind of game you're planning.

 

[Cyberhawk]

One thing you could do is have creatures created by nightmares/dreams starting to venture into the real world. Keep it rare and send them all over the world to stop these creepy beasts that are showing up.

Not only do you have a bunch of different creatures you can use, but also you have the investigation angle as the PCs try to figure out what is going on. The actual thing could be a virus causing psychic flare ups, dream demons, dimensional rifts to a 'dream dimension'..

The really fun part is that maybe not all of the dream creatures are evil and some could help. But they may have wrong information. (ie a scifi virus dream creature could be completely convinced things are actually invasions from a mystical dimension)

 

[Stormborn]

Threshold was a mediocre TV series but had an interesting idea. Long story short: aliens send a singnal/probe that transforms DNA and rewrites human brains to have them begin the process of terrafroming earth into a world like their own.

For your game picture this - Nazi scientists pick up a fragment of an alien signal and, after a horrific first contact, begin to use it on prisoners with unpredictable results. Most die but some turn into supermen, others strange autistic geniuses. With the fall of Germany the recordings of the signal and the notes on the experiments wind up in US hands but in the post war years copies find there way into other hands (legitametly and otherwise.) Worse yet, several of the experiments survived the last days of the war and set up their own efforts to recreate the signal or otherwise act on it around the globe.

Flash forward to the mid-21st century. In the midst of global conflicts inheritors of the signal are using it to create violent, short lived, supersoldiers; mutate vast tracts of the dying rainforests; build super weapons; and otherwise make things very strange in the shadows of the world. Cults are forming around the signal, bits and pieces of it are winding up in otherwise inoccuous data, and a dozen theories abound among those who know and those who suspect about what it all means. Some of the signal inheritors have gained psionic powers and are manipulating world goverments or corporations for their own ends. Some are following the alien agenda, some are but have it wrong, some know it but are working toward their own ends - and its never clear who is who in all of that. Worst of all: human technology has finally reached the point it can pick up and record most of the signal (how much of most depends on what you want the consequences to be.)

So you have aliens who are not aliens. Body snatchers that dont really snatch bodies. Genetics/supersoldiers that aren't what it seems. Intellectual viruses rather than genetic ones. Lots and lots of strange stuff - and only as cliche as you want to make it.

 

[Eltharon]

I've been thinking of running a game based off a small government agency (the top secret ones) that deals with unexplained activity (like X-Files, but less aliens. (If anyone has ever read GURPS: Black Ops, its like that, but no over the top badass action.)
From that point, you can go anywhere. The players have to locate and track the paranormal, try to find a quiet method of dealing with it, and all the time dealing with secret cults, nazis, government conspiracies and other nasty things.
There's information gathering, intrigue, conspiracy, horror, and then, when everything else fails (or if your players just want horror/action, the players get to strap on ballistic vests, grab their holy water, bible, stakes, silver bullets, and assault rifles, jump into MH-60 Blackhawk Helicopters, and kick paranormal booty.
I was thinking of doing a writeup for this setting at some point, I'll put it up here if there's any interest.

 

[haakon1]

Bait and Switch

Start out with the campaign apparently going one way (X), then have it turn out that it was really Y all along.

-- As in, you think you are after vampires (or wolfman, or Cthulu cultists, or other wackos). Actually vampires are a type of alien/people who secretly know what's going that's protecting the planet. By killing the Head Vampire/closing down the cult of the tinfoil hat, you've exposed the world to destruction by . . . something else.

-- You're fighting in Vietnam/Iraq/WWII Italy. You find some ancient temple. You trigger something, and end up as time travellers into the distant past or distant future, open up a Stargate, yadda yadda. Perhaps you've BROKEN history in the process, a la "The City At Edge of Forever".

-- You're working for the DEA in 1980s LA, fighting the Crips for a few sessions. Then, the aliens invade/you find out the head Crip is a Hitler cloan/reincarnated Stay Puff Marshmallow man, or whatever.

 

[Tonguez]

Some weird supernatural stuff starts happening and they are sent to investigate/stop it. From here they embark on an around the world trip to try and stop the breaking of the seven seals during which they fight various supernatural creatures who are out to get them whilst unveiling clues that suggest that they are more than they seem

The supernatural creatures attacking them are a mix of angels, escaped demons, things emerged from the breaking of the seven seals and mad cultist. The truth is that the PCs are destined to break the seventh seal themselves at which point the become the five horsemen of the apocalypse mwahahaha