Modern/Urban/Conspiracy campaign setting and/or plot ideas

Dr. Phibbs McAthey

So I've been enlisted to GM a month of once a week play sessions of Conspiracy X 2.0. This will be our first experience with the new system, and more than half of the players' first experience with a tabletop RPG in a modern setting.

Feel free to use the thread for other moderny systems and campaigns as well; as far as I've seen there's little in the way of non-play by post or 4e threads lately.

One of my players helped me come up with the basic premise I'm toying with, that of the (fictional, not based on any current or past) President discovering the existence of Aegis, the illuminati-esque government-agency-so-secret-that-not-even-the-government-knows-it-exists devoted to protecting the United States from the potential alien and supernatural menace, and consequently the existence of aliens and the supernatural.
The group more than likely has to silence him, permanently. Now, I'm toying with the idea of him going crazy over the whole thing, literally, possibly kidnapping his daughter, believing only he can keep her safe, and making outrageous, terroristy demands of Aegis in exchange for his silence. That or his insanity leading him towards an intense study and self-training in the occult and becoming a supernatural focus or demanding to be let into Area 51 or somesuch and abusing alien technology for his own benefit. While not the deepest plot ever, I think it could be wrapped properly in 4-5 sessions to everyone's satisfaction and still be a lot of fun.
The problem is this. How do I make this stretch beyond a session?
In my mind, I might be able to get a session out of the players investigating the White House and/or DC as to the President's whereabouts, but I know two of my players, possibly three, out of 5, will get antsy, wanting to shoot something or blow something up. So a session devoted to investigation may not go over so hot.
Any suggestions as to where to go with this?

RiemannLives

Just a couple things to think about based on Shadowrun (another modern / near future style of game):

Every single Shadowrun game I've played in, across at least 4 different GMs, has completely stalled out due to pacing problems. These generally fall into three buckets:

1) Overplanning in combat. Guns are lethal. Exceedingly so. Thus in any case where combat was anticipated it always devolved into 4+ hours of real-time "planning" trying to figure out how to get through it without getting killed. The rule system promotes fear-based game paralysis.

2) Splitting the party. A problem in any RPG regardless of genre. In a modern setting there is usually the one character with all the computer skills. Shadowrun, with it's hacking mini-game, greatly encouraged entire sessions of the GM and the hacker guy off doing their own thing while everyone else plays Mario Kart.

3) Overplanning out of combat. This is the real killer. A modern or near future world has just too many ways to track and monitor what the characters are doing. It's damn near impossible to do anything interesting without getting caught. So more 4+ hour planning sessions as to how to avoid the cops, motion detectors, security guards, surveillance cameras, cell-phone triangulation tracking etc....

DarkPrimus

Best way to avoid overplanning is to have whoever's giving them the missions give them time to prepare, but also put them on the clock, so if they spend too much time talking about what they're going to do, you can say "Oh by the way you only have X amount of time left" in order to get them going.

Dr. Phibbs McAthey

Well, I doubt, save for one player, that overplanning will be a problem. In the past, running previous ConX games, other than straight investigation, the games tended to play out fast and loose, more like an action movie, with car chases and such (one of them infamously tried to jump from the group's jeep onto the MiB sedan that they were chasing, and missed. The only reason he survived, I ruled, was because he had a 5 in strength, the highest humanly possible). And the rolls tended to favor them in doing so, oddly enough. But pacing will be my biggest obstacle, I think. One of my thoughts to try and throw some action into the mix would be during the course of the investigation phase maybe the NDD (the 'rival' secret government conspiracy that allies itself with hostile aliens) wants the President to go public and/or make a scene or something and so they have a hit squad taking out the group before they get too far into things. I dunno.

And now, I think all but two of the people playing want to just not play or something. One because he feels like we've been spending all this time lately playing DnD and he's been working on that character so now he just wants to focus on it. Another because she's worried that the one person who'll take the leadership role will mess shit up just to be messing shit up and/or to throw a wrench in whatever I have planned for the session, as he is wont to do. And my wife was never really that interested in playing anyway, and especially not with the previously mentioned instigator.
Yeah. The social drama of my group is the stuff of legend. We all get along great outside of roleplaying games but it becomes this big backbiting dance when the tabletop happens. But that is a topic for another time and thread.

Hahnsoo1

Rival organization with an opposite agenda always works (a time-honored staple of the genre). Or even a rival organization with the SAME agenda, but based in a different country. Give them a similarly crazy name like Locus or Prime or Optix, have them peripherally involved in your previous sessions (not enough to steal the spotlight, but enough to let the PCs know that they exist), then throw the PCs and NPCs into a warehouse for a rootin' tootin' gunfight. That should get the combat twitches out of their system.

The most important thing in a conspiracy-oriented game, in my opinion, is the concept of the "onion" or "gears". Whenever you do a MAJOR REVEAL on a secret, it turns out to be the puppet of another secret. Which subsequently turns out to the be the puppet of another secret. Which subsequently turns out to be the ruse to cover up for another secret. It's cheesy, but it's true, and that's part of what makes a conspiracy game "tick". You are always a tiny cog investigating other tiny cogs nearby you, and you never get to see the big picture. Or if you do, you die.

On a separate note, Shadowrun is definitely not the game to throw a novice PC to the wolves. It takes a gentle and experienced GM to help develop a new runner so that they can get with the "flow" of the game. It also takes an experienced GM to toss out the Matrix rules and develop a faster and simultaneous system of hacking that doesn't detract from the game. I find it easier to make Shadowrun like episodic television (like Stargate)... you go to the meet, you get in trouble, you get paid/karma. But I was never much for multiple session arcs of bland doom and drawn out plots.

Dr. Phibbs McAthey

Hahnsoo1 wrote: »

Rival organization with an opposite agenda always works (a time-honored staple of the genre). Or even a rival organization with the SAME agenda, but based in a different country. Give them a similarly crazy name like Locus or Prime or Optix, have them peripherally involved in your previous sessions (not enough to steal the spotlight, but enough to let the PCs know that they exist), then throw the PCs and NPCs into a warehouse for a rootin' tootin' gunfight. That should get the combat twitches out of their system.

The most important thing in a conspiracy-oriented game, in my opinion, is the concept of the "onion" or "gears". Whenever you do a MAJOR REVEAL on a secret, it turns out to be the puppet of another secret. Which subsequently turns out to the be the puppet of another secret. Which subsequently turns out to be the ruse to cover up for another secret. It's cheesy, but it's true, and that's part of what makes a conspiracy game "tick". You are always a tiny cog investigating other tiny cogs nearby you, and you never get to see the big picture. Or if you do, you die.

On a separate note, Shadowrun is definitely not the game to throw a novice PC to the wolves. It takes a gentle and experienced GM to help develop a new runner so that they can get with the "flow" of the game. It also takes an experienced GM to toss out the Matrix rules and develop a faster and simultaneous system of hacking that doesn't detract from the game. I find it easier to make Shadowrun like episodic television (like Stargate)... you go to the meet, you get in trouble, you get paid/karma. But I was never much for multiple session arcs of bland doom and drawn out plots.

Awesome, that actually got the gears turning (pun not intended).