So I’ve been aasked to introduce to new people to the world of roleplaying games. I’m very grateful to be given this opportunity, because that means no bad habits from old-school players, and of course my choice fell on Monster of the Week.
Here’s my problem: As usual, I asked my players for a quote from a song or a movie to use as the essence of the story. What I got back was “Everything is awesome!”
Any ideas out there?
Mine mainly run to supernatural drugs, probably distilled from the spiritual essence of teenage fanboys or something like that.
Some kind of monster that brings happiness, inducing comatose-like states in its “victims” and draining them of something else. Victims just don’t want to do anything because they’re feeling great, and are probably connected into some kind of monstrous hive? Or network? It could be creepy if talking to any of the victims meant the monster could see you closed-circuit camera style.
Like Stepford Wives kind of thing.
Or, maybe, a monster that brings the fun. The dancing, singing, musical sort of fun that burns you up from the inside.
Yeah, there’s all kinds of great monsters out there that cause ecstatic happiness. Dionysus, naiads, trickster spirits… You could even invent your own, which has the ability to make people feel so happy they just stop resisting so it can eat them.
Okay…the traditional meaning of the word awesome is daunting or inspiring awe. A couple of ideas I have are:
1) an awe inspiring opponent Godzilla/Cloverfield or King Kong style or
2) an opponent that traps the heroes in a world of superhero wish fulfillment while using them for nefarious purposes. Either draining them of vitality/blood/braincells etc or compelling them to commit crimes while they think they are doing something else. Players could fight delusional opponents with godlike powers or find themselves trapped in their own minds fighting to get out but having Inception or Saints Row 4 style control over their world. Either one could be good as an introduction to gaming as superheroes and giant monsters are a universal part of the modern cultural heritage.
The PCs visit a town where something isn’t right.
People keep going missing but you know it’s ok… because everything is awesome.
Hey newcomer, have you tried our beer?
Brewed right here in Nice- population 4742…err 4740″
Now that you’ve had a beer, isn’t everything just awesome?
Things have really been great here since the Edisons came to town and bought the pub after old man Williams went missing.
… and they kicked the crazy old coot, Tesla, out of town. He was really causing problems!
A monster that’s helping people become enlightened and then rapturing them, so they transcend our mortal plane.
Someone is animating Lego figures to kidnap children.
Matt Schillinger : That is awesome.
To take it a step further, to defeat the Lego creations, you must find a specific Lego that is the Fetter of a child ghost. The children are being kidnapped to be playmates of the crazed child spirit…
Or maybe it isn’t crazed at all, just lonely.
Destroy the fetter to put the ghost to rest.
Alright, so you deserve to know how the game went down. It was nothing like I’d planned, threw me for a loop, and it all began with character creation…
Two of my players were from my regular group, and two had never tried rpg’s before.
I’d sort of expected the newbies to go with something they knew. I had NOT expected to end up with a tinkerbell-sized flying fairy, a temporally displaced shield-maiden from 873, an Arab divine sent to protect the fairy and an aging expert on the occult…
My plan for them to do some infiltration at a college had just died.
Anywho, the group decided that they worked for the SSA (Supernatural Security Agency) and were sent to investigate a massive and unusual snowfall that was centered on a small college town in the American Mid-West.
The town was indeed snowed in. As in completely covered, with just a few chimneys sticking out of the snow.
Fortunately, the inhabitants had dug tunnels to such an extent that they were essentially living inside a giant snowglobe. And everyone inside was extremely cheerful. There were christmas decorations everywhere, everyone was smiling, there was a lovely scent of pine, snow and baking cookies in the air… It was lovely.
To skip a few rather amusing details involving a disastrous teleport and the accidental death of a campus cop during a jailbreak, the group used a little magic and noticed that there was this glow going from all the inhabitants toward a frathouse on campus.
Invading the on-going, joyful Christmas party (they knocked. First time they did something sensible) tehy traced the glow upstairs where they discovered a group of men in red, hermine trimmed robes chanting around a circle filled with a warm glow and a dark figure.
They attacked and magically dissipated the figure, letting all the absorbed energy go back where it came from.
And so, by releasing the collected negative emotions of everyone in town, they thoroughly ruined Christmas 🙂
The end.
That’s a great holiday story! I may steal it in the future. 🙂
That is awesome. And it’s making me think about mashing up InSpectres and Monster of the Week.
I’ve long used the basic premise f Inspectres, tat of asking the players what clues they find. In my experience the story becomes more cohesive than if I plan it out.
I’ve done the same thing, Tore Vange , in a ghost-busters themed MoTW game. We’ve had two sessions, each monster was inspired due to PCs.