Strange Tales New England Playtest

[BedrockBrendan]

Been working on a game called Strange Tales New England (I'm juggling a few possible titles now so that is tentative). I have had playtests for it for over a year, mostly one shot sessions or short 10 session campaigns as that is primarily what I had in mind for the game. But started a longer campaign meant to be 33 sessions. It is a modern, New England, monster of the week RPG, that is built on the same system as Strange Tales of Songling. I am pretty much setting all the adventures in my backyard and doing a mixture of modern horror blended with New England legends (so it is a pretty even mixture of real folklore and stuff I've invented whole cloth).

Here is the blog entry on it

 

[CRKrueger]

2022 Monster of the Week, that's interesting.

Usually any group that investigates X-Files type stuff either belongs to one of those ancient societies going back to antiquity, is part of a government (or ex-government conspiracy), or a plucky group of adventurers financed by someone.

Does the game have a setting or is it a framework that you use to create your own campaign setup.

In 2022, I think an interesting candidate for a X-Files team would be Corporate Private Military Contractors.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

2022 Monster of the Week, that's interesting.

Usually any group that investigates X-Files type stuff either belongs to one of those ancient societies going back to antiquity, is part of a government (or ex-government conspiracy), or a plucky group of adventurers financed by someone.

Does the game have a setting or is it a framework that you use to create your own campaign setup.

In 2022, I think an interesting candidate for a X-Files team would be Corporate Private Military Contractors.

X Files and the Exorcist were two big influences. You could certainly do corporate private military contractors. The nature of the investigators is largely up to the players when the characters are created. I've had teams that were FBI agents like the X Files or groups that were paranormal investigators with a youtube show. And plenty of ragtag groups thrown together by fate. I've also had teams that were formed around an exorcist through the Church. There aren't formal organizations in the book. I didn't want something like a fictional order that the players can pick from. But there are supernatural organizations in the setting section that can be investigated. The party is whatever the group wants to be. The only thing I have been asking in my playtests is that the party have a reason to investigate the paranormal together, whatever that reason is.

There is a setting but it is also set up so the GM can build their own 'backyard world'. My setting is basically 33 paranormal investigation locations in New England (like the Bridgewater Triangle in the blog entry) and a setting premise. And I have a large monster section. Like I said above it takes a cue from stuff like the X Files and the Exorcist, but also Lovecraft, Hawthorne, and local New England Legends (especially stuff I have direct knowledge of from site seeing). There were a number of other influences too. The Witch Trials also an important influence.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

Getting very close to release of Strange Tales New England. I just reworked the adventure section (the original sample adventure was not the best introductory adventure to the game, so I made a new one. Talked about Madness in the game last night (was a late night podcast)