Re: [WW] Monsters,Creatures and Weird Science

[Allan Seyberth <darious@darious.com>]

At 04:07 PM 6/18/2001 +0000, you wrote:
 >Thats my theory on it as well. I am of the beleif that if the see wierd
 >critters to much, they become jaded to it. I do not plan on having any wierd
 >critters show up until at least 3-4 sessions into the game. And even then, I
 >plan on suprising the PC's. No investigaton of the wierd, no build up. Just
 >walking along(or low crawling) and *WHAM*, critter. I want it to be the type
 >of thing where the PC's stop, look around at each other and say as one
 >"RUN!!!" (like that will happen). But that is just me. ;)

You might want to give them a touch of what's happening early on.  A 
hook.  One of the tricks to horror is the tension/release cycle.  Where you 
introduce something abnormal - briefly, out of the corner of the eye sort 
of thing - and then go for a bit of normalcy.  Even with everything thing 
appearing normal, that one off-note key will still echo in the back of 
people's minds.  And then you  add another off note, but this time reduce 
the amount of time of normalcy before the next note.

That way you can spread out the use of the supernatural, lengthening the 
amount of time before the player's characters get "jaded" to it.

 >And after that, I will still not introduce very many critters into my games,
 >takes away from the War that is the real horror anyway.

One of the most BRILLIANT adaptions of the adventuring party concept into a 
setting has to be Pagan Publishing's Delta Green.

The concept is simplicity itself, but it answers all of the problems of 
modern horror roleplaying - ie why do these folks keep on running into the 
supernatural, and why don't the big guns (ie the government) come down and 
respond to these threats?  How to easily integrate new characters without 
necessarily having to replay the whole "intro to horror" bit over and over 
and over again.

For WW I would imagine that after having been exposed to the supernatural, 
the survivors of the encounter would be introduced to a certain gentleman, 
perhaps British or maybe American, who has need of the players for the 
OSI.   The missions you go on are classified at the highest level . . . etc.

After having been thrown into several commando style raids against 
supernatural targets (Guns of Navarrone meets X-files), some of the players 
may figure out that OSI stands for the Office of Supernatural 
Investigations.  Yes - it has the same letters - that's on purpose.  That 
way any reports of the supernatural, er, Axis psychological warfare 
tactics, get sent back to the OSI (special) and routed up until someone 
there hands the only copy of the report to the OSI (supernatural).

That is a great reason to keep having the players encounter the 
supernatural, and it easily allows the CO to try out different things 
without having to figure out how to get the players to realistically 
stumble into it - this week the OSI sends you to the deserts of Africa, and 
the next it is behind enemy lines to investigate a certain laboratory, and 
the next is off to the Pacific.  Maybe next time they have to investigate 
something in the Allies camp - say Templars or even a certain Stuart  tank 
that rides around with the Stars and Bars flag on it.  :-)
And above all, the earthlings, er civilians, must not know.

And, of course, every once in a while the PCs have to fight their way 
through the front lines, so you can keep the fact that there is a major WAR 
on fresh in the minds of the players.  But I figure most of the time they 
have to go in quietly so as not to arose suspicion.

You could even throw in a few scenarios about going behind enemy lines and 
working with the enemy - "I am a soldier and an honorable one, Herr 
Lieutenant.  This. . . this thing they are doing, but not come to 
be.  Victory at that cost is no victory."

I do like the haunted tank one though.  I can see the introduction of the 
game starting with that - the tank wipes out the rest of the unit, leaving 
just the PCs who then get introduced to the man from OSI.

And because I'm an evil GM, possibly even killing one of the PCs - on that 
note, the "Kid from Philadelphia" or "Just About to Ship Home" hindrances 
are worth what - 8 to 10 points in DL terms?


-------------------
Allan Seyberth
darious@darious.com
Deadlands fan site - http://www.darious.com/

The real truth about children is they don't speak the language very well. 
They're physically uncoordinated. And they are ignorant of our elaborate 
ideas about right and wrong.
                 -P.J. O'Rourke