Modern Game Ideas - Looking for help

[Spadec]

I am creating a modern era game that takes place in our home city using PC's that are created from our own likeness. The question I have is that I need some sort of cataclysmic type event that can take our mundane world and change it into something both horrifying and magical. Ideas I have considered are:

• Supernatural (TV Show) type setting where the PCs are exposed to the the SuperNatural world that has always existed but the viel just wasn't torn
• Ancient artifact has been discovered that works much like a magic supression device that blocks all magic energy for 2500 miles and when it is discovered it malfunctions revealing a land of mystical magical wonders and horrors.
• Some sort of cthulhu type monster emerges from deep hibernation buried underground and is disturbed by deep military excavation during a bunker creation thus bringing forth everything else that comes with evil mystical creatures.

These are just some rough brainstorms that I had and I am looking for any input here. Bring your ideas criticisms etc. I am open to any and all recomendations!!

[Walsingham]

If you're going to choose you need to be more elaborate on what you want the IMPACT of the Event to be, and what you want the subtext of the Event to be.

 

I mean, do you want everyone to be reduced to animalistic levels? Do you want an over-turning of the World Order? Do you want to criticise the EU, or MacDonalds, or Jemaah Islamiyah?

 

Define that and you will probably write your own Event.

[Spadec]

If you're going to choose you need to be more elaborate on what you want the IMPACT of the Event to be, and what you want the subtext of the Event to be.

 

I mean, do you want everyone to be reduced to animalistic levels? Do you want an over-turning of the World Order? Do you want to criticise the EU, or MacDonalds, or Jemaah Islamiyah?

 

Define that and you will probably write your own Event.

So what I am trying to acheive is just generate the setting, to introduce magic and establish a background for why Magic, mystery, montrous creatures and the like are now showing up in our world. I see what you are saying regarding the "Event" defining everything and that is true I guess I am looking for opinions on which of those scenarios I mentioned would be most appealing. Or if none of them would appeal to you as a pc what ideas you would have to make this huge impact in the world as we know it?

 

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post.

[Walsingham]

No problem. It's always interesting to assist when others create.

 

I would suggest, purely for consideration, that people like fantasy and like apocalypses because they:

 

- Provide a change from real life

- Provide a stark contrast with real life

- give the opportunity for the player to act out a fantasy version of themselves, echoing the above

 

So, the life people want, lived the way they want to.

 

~

 

Therefore I guess the question becomes what you think bugs people about real life, what they like and what they'd like to be doing. Have your your apocalypse tapdance on it.

[melkathi]

One question is to what extend you want magic to alter the real world. Will it be a setting where the majority of people are not aware of magic and everything is covered up? Or will it be a True Blood type setting where supernatural creatures have come out of the close but are still managable? Or did a gate to hell open and the world is being overrun?

Will only the players be able to recognize the supernatural?

In the end you know your friends, we don't. So only you can guess what would be fun for you to play.

[Spadec]

I think I have decided to make it loosley based on the Supernatural show for my background and setting. I will do without the main charachters and their storylines and effects on everyday things but I like some of the lore and I think the setting fits well as we are based in the Midwest. I looked over the books for that RPG setting though and dislike the system so I am going to use the True20 system and hope that works out well. I am hoping this will work well for us but now I am just looking to get inspired

[melkathi]

I didn't like that show

But keep us updated on how it goes!

[rjshae]

How about this: CERN completes its energy upgrade and begins performing experiments. Unfortunately, an extremely unlikely quantum event occurs, triggering a brief quasi-inflationary epoch lasting less than a picosecond that subtly alters the laws of physics in the local group of galaxies. Quantum states in the human brain are now capable of causing strange, magic-like phenomenon. Ancient artifacts that once held a mystical appeal to people are empowered with the ability to amplifying certain mental states. Creatures from other realms end up populating the Earth. Cats and dogs start living together... the state of bizarreness just seems to keep ramping up, with no end in sight.

 

[Akimotos]

check out The Strange made by Bruce Cordell and Monte Cook.

"Explore mysterious worlds hidden just outside our reality in this new RPG using the story-based Cypher System of Numenera"

it's not released yet, but it will give you some ideas... some more info on the strange:  http://www.thestrangerpg.com/  and http://www.numenera.com

[Walsingham]

What if there is no magic, but an ergot like fungus has fused with the human mind. That is to say everyone's as high as a kite. And they THINK magic is everywhere.

 

Not sure what the implications of that would be.

[Nepenthe]

I think I have decided to make it loosley based on the Supernatural show for my background and setting. I will do without the main charachters and their storylines and effects on everyday things but I like some of the lore and I think the setting fits well as we are based in the Midwest. I looked over the books for that RPG setting though and dislike the system so I am going to use the True20 system and hope that works out well. I am hoping this will work well for us but now I am just looking to get inspired

 

... A bit late to the party, but Spycraft and Fantasy Craft should also work really well for what you're trying to do here due to their modular nature and focus on "cinematic" type action that fits movie/tv series inspired games well.

[rjshae]

I'd skip the supernatural and just use supertech. AI computers, nanotech, robots, GMOs, cloned extinct beasts, cyborgs, aliens, time traveling disaster, micro big bang inflation, asteroid/comet impact, run-away evolving computer virus, attack from a parallel universe (Fringe), a world war, massive EMP, ... the list is endless.

[Nonek]

I once had a game where a comet appearing in the Solar System heralded an awakening of phsychic power in the inhabitants of Earth. The comet was due to crash into the Earth and all manner of weirdness and doomsday cults were born of this event, including an extremely popular movement claiming that the comet was merely a vessel holding their God, and we were to be blessed with his manifestation. Turned out they were right, but it wasn't divine more diabolic, and when the comet exploded in Earths atmosphere thus releasing it the world changed.

 

Cue magic, high tech, a real and proven God for the masses to worship, and the heroes who were investigating why this being was frozen inside a prison hurled from the other side of the Milky Way. It was pretty nice, somewhat like X-Com crossed with the Spanish Inquisition

[Walsingham]

I once had a game where a comet appearing in the Solar System heralded an awakening of phsychic power in the inhabitants of Earth. The comet was due to crash into the Earth and all manner of weirdness and doomsday cults were born of this event, including an extremely popular movement claiming that the comet was merely a vessel holding their God, and we were to be blessed with his manifestation. Turned out they were right, but it wasn't divine more diabolic, and when the comet exploded in Earths atmosphere thus releasing it the world changed.

 

Cue magic, high tech, a real and proven God for the masses to worship, and the heroes who were investigating why this being was frozen inside a prison hurled from the other side of the Milky Way. It was pretty nice, somewhat like X-Com crossed with the Spanish Inquisition

 

That sounds awesome! did you make it yourself?

[Nonek]

Fairly much, though the players decided on their own roles as sceptics, initially I was just interested in a setting where a proven deity existed, and how that would impact the world.

[darthdraken]

You evee heared of shadowrun????.

A slightly future time period where corperations rule. Humanity laws are broken and magic has returned to earth. Including elves dwarfs dragons wraths trolls orcs etc.

Mixing tech with magic and a ak47

[Walsingham]

Shadowrun - and I've never been quite clear why it went wrong - is total arse.