Need help with campaign setting!!

[Voobaha]

If you like Call of Cthulhu try picking up a copy of Pagan Publishing's excellent campaign sourcebook "Delta Green".

The PCs are part of an X-Files style conspiracy of agents hidden in secret cells throughout the nation. They alone know (some of) the truth about the Mythos, and use their status as Federal agents (of many types, from Postal Inspectors, to FBI agents to CDC investigators, etc etc) to insinuate themselves into Mythos-related crimes and try to save humanity.

All the while they're being threatened by groups (Mythos and otherwise) that don't want them to uncover the Truth.

It's a great campaign setting with TONS of cool source material. The Delta Green and "Delta Green: Countdown" sourcebooks are each chock full of 400+ pages of yummy protoplasmic awefulness. Really, they're some of the best CoC books ever made. Heck, if you wanted to, you could adapt it to Spycraft...

 

[bardolph]

sweeeeet...

 

[S'mon]

But "modern-day" does not a campaign make.

I've thought about trying to run one of the White Wolf "World of Darkness" games, but nobody in our group has ANY desire to be a vampire/werewolf/wizard/blah/blah/blah. To be honest, they are MOST interested in playing "normal" people, like "limousine driver" or "cocktail waitress." (no kidding!)

So, how do I weave an interesting campaign around "normal" people?

I suppose Call of Cthulhu (modern day) is an option. But my players aren't even that interested in "investigation" adventures. They don't care that much about finding clues and solving mysteries, they mostly like getting into trouble, and then trying to get out of it.

SO.......

I need ideas. I'd like some kind of conspiracy/xfiles/horror/cyber/camp kind of campaign, but I don't know where to start.

Any thoughts?

It's difficult to run a long campaign with 'normal' people. One possibility is the kind of 'mean streets' setting normally seen in Cyberpunk games, but also in classic films such as 'Assault on Precinct 13' - viciious street gangs, mobsters, extortion. If a player wants to be a cocktail waitress you could base an entire campaign against a new nightclub trying to survive and thrive in the face of all sorts of criminality, from extortion attempts to drunken clubgoers, friendly or bent police, etc. With an established setting you could then bring in eg horror elements if you wished - something like the Bronze in Buffy tVS, but with PCs as the club staff.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Another possibility that you might want to consider is Feng Shui - it might not be your cup of tea, but have a look at the Feng Shui game that Dr Midnight ran which is written up in the Storyhour as "Feng Shui - death in the chamber" or something similar.

Cheers

 

[Frosty]

I have this idea that I might use sometime. I like CofC but I think the monsters are silly. I'm not in the least impressed by members of an elder race toting electro-guns and or a sleeping squid with a bad morning temper. I realised that for my CofC-game I needed to come up with something freakier, in my humble opinion of course. This is what I came up with. (Don't tell anyone, okay?)

One of the largest corporations in the world is not entirely what it appears to be. On the outside the company sells diapers, food or something else seemingly innocent. (Akin to Procter and Gamble or that Dutch company I keeping forgetting the name of?) The characters have a reason to be connected to the company. Perhaps one is working in the reception and another is a sales-rep.

The characters learn piece by piece that there is something utterly wrong with the upper management. Perhaps the chairman of the board is unable to tie his own shoe-laces or the CEO turns out to be recruited from Type-Casting Inc. and is in fact a high priced actor. Moreover the characters find out that different chemicals are being added to the food products spread world wide. Each chemical is innocent in itself but the combination of drugs suggests something else. The chemicals enhance brain growth among other things. The drugs don't necessarily make people brighter, they simply makes their brains bigger (or tastier, whatever suits your style). It could of course trigger ESP-like abilities in subjects if it suits the campaign.

The whole corporation is of course secretly under the control of mind-flayers! There are but a few on earth and they feed upon the population. The mind-flayers come from a distant planet. On that planet the mind-flayers are fighting a civil war of holocaust proportions. More and more of them are looking for a place to flee and the mfs already on earth are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their "gold-mine" secret from the rest of them.

The characters investigate and will sooner or later find out the horrible truth. And when they do they realise that the earth mfs are humanity's last hope. The enemy of my enemy...

 

[Bagpuss]

I recommend

ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN.

You play every day people in an extraordinary situation, pretty much like any zombie-horror movie you've ever seen.

 

[evileeyore]

GURPS-IOU (Illuminati University): Steve Jackson Games, written by Elizabeth McCoy & Walter Milliken, Illustrated by Phil & Kaja Foglio

You really don't want this book. The setting is a wacked out college campus where reality is bent, if not outright broken. A great setting but not for what you want.



GURPS-Illuminati <fnord>: Steve Jackson Games (if that is a real company), written by Nigel D. Findley (if that is his real name), Illustrated by Ruth Thompson (if that is real art)

This game is what you want<resistance is futile>. Go buy it<now>. Support your local politicians<your mind is ours>while your at it. Ignore the black SUV parked on the corner<what SUV?>. Don't forget why the FreeMasons exhist<we control the vertical and the vertical>, and that Cthulu was buried for your sins...

Honestly, I really think Illuminati is the source book you are looking for. However I would love to see someone do War with Cthorr someday... I just don't expect it to be a long lasting campaign...

What do Cthorrians call a Nun? Lunch
What do Cthorrians call an 800 pound gorilla? Lunch
Waht do Cthorrians call people with bad speling? Lunch
What do Cthorrians call the Earth? Lunch

 

[warpmind]

If I were you I would try playing Kult. The system is quite good and the background is simply the best background ever.

I like a lot the concept of the game, but if you want to play in a "normal" real world you can do it too.
The only flaw of Kult is the samll amount of supplements available, but the Core book is the best RPG I've read to date.

 

[Tonguez]

Another idea for the 'Everyday hero" campaign is Civil Defense you've got movies like Daylight (Stallone) - cars tripped in an underwater tunnel and games like SimCopter (Police Helicopter doing med-evacs, traffic control and fire fighting).

This could be used to explain why your PCs are together (volunteer fire fighters) and then build up into something special (while trying to get out of the underwater tunnel they stumble across a non-human corpse and...)

 

[bardolph]

Volunteer firefighters!?!

Pure GENIUS!!!