Eternity RPC Board
04-28-2019, 12:03 AM
Department 7
A paranormal espionage RP series
I've had another idea for an RP, one I've been mulling over for a while now and working out how it will go while I write up stuff for Gundam. This new one is based on a series of old roleplays and characters I did in my younger days, inspired by some stuff in a d20 book I got in high school. I never ran any games from it, but it's served as inspiration for several characters and roleplays in the past, and I'm interested in using it again for this.
IN essence, the setting is the exact same as Siora. Or maybe Earth. Everything is normal and familiar, the sky is blue, we like cars and computers, politics makes everyone mad, etc etc. People laugh and love and die, and governments do as governments do, but not everything is exactly as it seems. Reality is what we make of it, a construct created by group consensus, if subconsciously - where multiple points of view come together to create a general picture, a common "truth" such as the sky is blue, families are desirable, or all men are created equal - and what we call reality adapts accordingly. Anyone who disagrees, who tries to break that consensus, is simply mistaken, insane, or even dangerous.
So is the extranormal more normal than we give it credit for?
There have been all manner of great humans with a little "something extra" through the ages: great prohpets and sages, epic warriors, charismatic leaders with a little "extra" sense who were maybe occasionally "ahead of their time." Since Victorian times the possibilities of the paranormal and the unexplained were thoroughly explored by so many societies and governments; of course aliens, psionics and all manner of other anomalous things don't officially exist, and in fact a huge mountain of scientific evidence has accumulated over the decades that have systematically debunked all manner of aliens, monsters, fortunetellers and ESP. The status of such things as pure fantasy is a direct result of actions taken in the shadows to keep the world at large oblivious to the grim unreality that doesn't want seen.
The Organization:
That's where our heroes come in. The Paranormal Science Investigations Unit (or just PSI) is a small and secret service with a long history of investigating and protecting the American public from all manner of extranormal, unexplainable, or anomalous phenomenon. Its directive, ultimately, is to watch, regulate, and control paranormal phenomena that may pose a threat to the general wellbeing of the public and the fragile perception of reality as we know it. Over the years they've drifted between the auspices of different government services, existing as a line-item in the various departments under health, defense, education, environmental protection, among others, receiving funding in secret and reporting to very few people who "need to know." One thing has remained constant, and that has been its commitment to investigating and containing extranormal affairs from public view, and uncovering and silencing the hidden forces that would seek to discover and use these anomalies for their personal benefit.
Our heroes are part of PSI Department 7, the field investigations unit. You have all been selected based on a certain set of traits and aptitudes to perform the job of PSI field agents, to study and confront these paranormal phenomena and protect the taxpaying public at large. There are six other departments beside Department 7:
D-1: known as "Central", this is the top of the organization, the need-to-know and descision makers
D-2: known as "Personnel," this arm focuses on recruitment, training, research, and..."oversight" of the other departments.
D-3: officially known as "Administration," but mainly called the "Library" or "Archives," this branch is in charge of logging, maintaining and protecting the records of operatives, their missions, and the data and activities they have uncovered.
D-4: "Supply," this branch focusses on developing, testing, acquiring and storing the tools, munitions and, well, supplies that are needed and requested by the other departments.
D-5: Officially called "Communications," this arm's entire job is to monitor field activities, fix screwups and provide cover stories for paranormal events and their effects that might impact or get noticed by the public. Please don't make more work for them.
D-6: The Emergency Response Team, this arm is an elite squad that swoops into and cleans up situations that demand an immediate and heavy-handed approach.
D-7: The Field Investigations Unit "Operations" where our heroes work, which is the largest and most varied in their scope. If it's not a job for the other departments, it usually falls on the agents of D-7.
All the departments (except D-1) are technically equals, but D-7 agents likely only ever deal with D-3 and D-4 on a regular basis; D-1 is far too insular and above Operations, the oversight "spooks" in D-2 are given a wide berth, the public work of D-5 keeps them away from the secretive work of the others, and the band of brothers in D-6 tend not to cavort with the people whose "screwups" they have to fix.
The Heroes:
You are an agent of PSI in Department 7. The RP will begin with you being relatively fresh from a transfer from training with D-2, perhaps having served with a minder for a time beforehand.
This is the part I'm not entirely certain on yet. I was planning on having the rp be a little more tabletop influenced, but still focus on writing over bogging things down with dice rolls. IN essence, I'm thinking of having people select from a few preset skill "types" when they make characters, which I will use in a randomizer to determine whether or not certain people might pass or fail certain critical or divergent points in the plot to make things less scripted on my end (and hopefully for anyone playing, as well). Other than that, this would act like a normal character-vased roleplay.
Assuming your characters survive, there might be progression. If I use levels, they'll be an indication more of your progress and experience in the organization, rather than, like, a representation of absolute power. Beyond that, I don't completely know how progression would work, but you'll probably get better at doing things if you do things. Right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's it, I guess.
I'll add more if I think of it. Most likely a character sheet, since we need them things.
As always, let me know of interest.
And questions.
And suggestions.
I guess a couple core questions are:
When/where should this take place?
I was thinking Siora. Like, PSI is part of the FSB in Nyland kind of thing. Sal wants it in the real world, because we know about that world. I'm fine with either, I just thought having it in Siora would tie nicely to everything, but it makes little difference to my plots either way.
How heavy into tabletop stuff should we lean?
Now, However heavy we lean won't be too heavy anyway, because I want the focus on the writing anyway, but it will affect the kind of stuff we put on character sheets, and how important "leveling up" is. We have credit cards (and, like, your equipment is likely provided), so don't expect phat loot regardless, but am I gonna need to set up hard numbers for stats, skills, and abilities, or am I just giving general descriptions of what characters can do? Should I even make these set-stat "archetypes" to choose from, or just let people make up vague (and likely incomplete) descriptions of what they can do...?
That kind of thing.
Anyway, hope people like it and are interested, as I've been itching to get back into some of my old RP worlds for some time.
A paranormal espionage RP series
I've had another idea for an RP, one I've been mulling over for a while now and working out how it will go while I write up stuff for Gundam. This new one is based on a series of old roleplays and characters I did in my younger days, inspired by some stuff in a d20 book I got in high school. I never ran any games from it, but it's served as inspiration for several characters and roleplays in the past, and I'm interested in using it again for this.
IN essence, the setting is the exact same as Siora. Or maybe Earth. Everything is normal and familiar, the sky is blue, we like cars and computers, politics makes everyone mad, etc etc. People laugh and love and die, and governments do as governments do, but not everything is exactly as it seems. Reality is what we make of it, a construct created by group consensus, if subconsciously - where multiple points of view come together to create a general picture, a common "truth" such as the sky is blue, families are desirable, or all men are created equal - and what we call reality adapts accordingly. Anyone who disagrees, who tries to break that consensus, is simply mistaken, insane, or even dangerous.
So is the extranormal more normal than we give it credit for?
There have been all manner of great humans with a little "something extra" through the ages: great prohpets and sages, epic warriors, charismatic leaders with a little "extra" sense who were maybe occasionally "ahead of their time." Since Victorian times the possibilities of the paranormal and the unexplained were thoroughly explored by so many societies and governments; of course aliens, psionics and all manner of other anomalous things don't officially exist, and in fact a huge mountain of scientific evidence has accumulated over the decades that have systematically debunked all manner of aliens, monsters, fortunetellers and ESP. The status of such things as pure fantasy is a direct result of actions taken in the shadows to keep the world at large oblivious to the grim unreality that doesn't want seen.
The Organization:
That's where our heroes come in. The Paranormal Science Investigations Unit (or just PSI) is a small and secret service with a long history of investigating and protecting the American public from all manner of extranormal, unexplainable, or anomalous phenomenon. Its directive, ultimately, is to watch, regulate, and control paranormal phenomena that may pose a threat to the general wellbeing of the public and the fragile perception of reality as we know it. Over the years they've drifted between the auspices of different government services, existing as a line-item in the various departments under health, defense, education, environmental protection, among others, receiving funding in secret and reporting to very few people who "need to know." One thing has remained constant, and that has been its commitment to investigating and containing extranormal affairs from public view, and uncovering and silencing the hidden forces that would seek to discover and use these anomalies for their personal benefit.
Our heroes are part of PSI Department 7, the field investigations unit. You have all been selected based on a certain set of traits and aptitudes to perform the job of PSI field agents, to study and confront these paranormal phenomena and protect the taxpaying public at large. There are six other departments beside Department 7:
D-1: known as "Central", this is the top of the organization, the need-to-know and descision makers
D-2: known as "Personnel," this arm focuses on recruitment, training, research, and..."oversight" of the other departments.
D-3: officially known as "Administration," but mainly called the "Library" or "Archives," this branch is in charge of logging, maintaining and protecting the records of operatives, their missions, and the data and activities they have uncovered.
D-4: "Supply," this branch focusses on developing, testing, acquiring and storing the tools, munitions and, well, supplies that are needed and requested by the other departments.
D-5: Officially called "Communications," this arm's entire job is to monitor field activities, fix screwups and provide cover stories for paranormal events and their effects that might impact or get noticed by the public. Please don't make more work for them.
D-6: The Emergency Response Team, this arm is an elite squad that swoops into and cleans up situations that demand an immediate and heavy-handed approach.
D-7: The Field Investigations Unit "Operations" where our heroes work, which is the largest and most varied in their scope. If it's not a job for the other departments, it usually falls on the agents of D-7.
All the departments (except D-1) are technically equals, but D-7 agents likely only ever deal with D-3 and D-4 on a regular basis; D-1 is far too insular and above Operations, the oversight "spooks" in D-2 are given a wide berth, the public work of D-5 keeps them away from the secretive work of the others, and the band of brothers in D-6 tend not to cavort with the people whose "screwups" they have to fix.
The Heroes:
You are an agent of PSI in Department 7. The RP will begin with you being relatively fresh from a transfer from training with D-2, perhaps having served with a minder for a time beforehand.
This is the part I'm not entirely certain on yet. I was planning on having the rp be a little more tabletop influenced, but still focus on writing over bogging things down with dice rolls. IN essence, I'm thinking of having people select from a few preset skill "types" when they make characters, which I will use in a randomizer to determine whether or not certain people might pass or fail certain critical or divergent points in the plot to make things less scripted on my end (and hopefully for anyone playing, as well). Other than that, this would act like a normal character-vased roleplay.
Assuming your characters survive, there might be progression. If I use levels, they'll be an indication more of your progress and experience in the organization, rather than, like, a representation of absolute power. Beyond that, I don't completely know how progression would work, but you'll probably get better at doing things if you do things. Right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's it, I guess.
I'll add more if I think of it. Most likely a character sheet, since we need them things.
As always, let me know of interest.
And questions.
And suggestions.
I guess a couple core questions are:
When/where should this take place?
I was thinking Siora. Like, PSI is part of the FSB in Nyland kind of thing. Sal wants it in the real world, because we know about that world. I'm fine with either, I just thought having it in Siora would tie nicely to everything, but it makes little difference to my plots either way.
How heavy into tabletop stuff should we lean?
Now, However heavy we lean won't be too heavy anyway, because I want the focus on the writing anyway, but it will affect the kind of stuff we put on character sheets, and how important "leveling up" is. We have credit cards (and, like, your equipment is likely provided), so don't expect phat loot regardless, but am I gonna need to set up hard numbers for stats, skills, and abilities, or am I just giving general descriptions of what characters can do? Should I even make these set-stat "archetypes" to choose from, or just let people make up vague (and likely incomplete) descriptions of what they can do...?
That kind of thing.
Anyway, hope people like it and are interested, as I've been itching to get back into some of my old RP worlds for some time.