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[Gamerlord]

I've been on a horror movie binge the past few days and it came to me near the end that I don't think I've seen any 'serious' forum games centred around paranormal investigation, exorcisms and the like. This is the bare beginnings of an attempt to change that.

Tread Softly

A Game Of Danger And Consequences

First thing that comes to mind for this game: IF THE PCS FUCK UP, NPCS ARE GONNA GET HURT. If the NPCs get hurt, then people are gonna get angry with you. They'll disbelieve you and make your job harder.

Second, each of the players will have a 'class'. You don't get to change class except under incredibly unusual circumstances.

Spoiler: Priest (click to show/hide)

The Good Father. The guy you call in when you need the name of a demon who's possessed a person or to cleanse a house of ghosts and spirits.

Priests get Faith - probably the most powerful of the special stats the classes get. However, if it's lost, the road to recovering it is long and difficult. For example, a failed exorcism which claims the life of a little girl would most likely deplete most of the leading Priest's Faith. Any further attempts at exorcisms and the like while lacking Faith are bound to go horribly, horribly wrong.

Priests are specialised against Demons while weak against Esoteric Beasties. (See below.)

Spoiler: Medium/Clairvoyant (click to show/hide)

That Weird Chick. Mediums search for astral evidence of a haunting or spiritual activity, while also communicating with dead and trying to get them to move on.

Mediums have Will. Of all the stats this is the easiest to regain, but if lost can lead to nasty things happening to the medium in question. For example, a seance that ends with a pseudo possession might drain the medium who was the voice for the possessing spirit of their Will. Any further interactions with the supernatural while low on Will would risk permanent possession or insanity.

Mediums are specialised against the spirits of the dead - ghosts and the like, while hopelessly outmatched by Demons.

Spoiler: Rationalist/Skeptic (click to show/hide)

The Guy With The Equipment. Skeptics try to find physical evidence of the supernatural, with high tech equipment and knowhow.

Skeptics have Denial. Every overtly otherworldly act drains Denial. Zero Denial is absolutely fine - so long as you took your time getting there. Large drops in Denial can cause mental degeneration or derangement. So be careful with that Ouija Board for fuck's sake!

Skeptics are specialised against Esoteric Beasties. They are weak against ghosts and the spirits of the dead.

Spoiler: Believer (click to show/hide)

The Gullible Bastard. Believers are jack-of-all-trades. They are perfectly at home helping any of the other three classes out, but are ill-suited to going it alone.

Believers get Hope. If a Believer begins to lose Hope, then they grew less effective and more despondent. After all, if it's not going to work, why not do what the whispers say?

Third, every 'case' will be different. One mission you might be driving an ancient demon out of a voodoo doll, the next you might be trying to figure out what is driving so many people to drown themselves at an old lake.

Spoiler: The Restless Dead (click to show/hide)

Ghosts are the most sympathetic adversaries you will face. Some may not know that they are actually dead, others might just want to tell a parent, sibling or lover how they feel before they move in. But another might find that even though he's dead, he doesn't want to stop killing.

Dealing with a ghost or haunting is probably the simplest, if not safest mission that this game will involve. Just keep a level head and you'll be fine.

Spoiler: Demonic Incursions (click to show/hide)

Oooh boy. The Big One. Demons can be anything from a Persian Djinni to a servant of Beelzebub. Three things are universal. One, they are not, never were and never will be human. Two, their motives are NEVER benevolent and selfless. Three, they are tough. An exorcism won't always be enough.

Spoiler: Esoteric Beasties (click to show/hide)

Faeries, goblins, bogeymen, kelpies, 'little green men' and all the rest. 'Nuff said.

[Gamerlord]

Spoiler: Possession (click to show/hide)

You get a series of five rolls against the possessor. Your special stat is added to your roll, while the possessor's power is added to theirs. Any other maluses/bonuses are added directly to the end result (a +1 to a total of two failed rolls and three successes would leave you with four successes.)

Spoiler: Exorcism (click to show/hide)

This is the bread and butter of a Priest. It can be performed by a Believer, but the Hope of the Believer gets halved and converted to Faith which is added on like in Possession. Exorcism requires five rolls from the Exorciser, ten from the being that is to be exorcised and five from the victim. Exorcisms consist of three 'rounds'. Only if all three are won will the exorcism work. If they aren't won... I get to have some fun.

Spoiler: Clairvoyant Readings (click to show/hide)

A d20 decides this. But even if you succeed to get the information, an invisible d20 will be rolled for the accuracy of said information.

Spoiler: Skeptic's Gear (click to show/hide)

Except for video cameras, motion detectors and other stuff, all of the tech a skeptic can use is rolled into one d20 roll. I seriously just don't have the time to do it all individually.

[Gamerlord]

Reserved

[Skyrunner]

Oooh.

[Gamerlord]

Oooh.

Good oooh or bad oooh?

[Dorsidwarf]

Looks cool, but what do the class stats actually Di? Faith is powerful, apparently, but what does that affect?

[Gamerlord]

Basically the class stats are combined sanity/mana/energy scores. Lose them and you become a lot less effective and a lot more vulnerable. Faith is harder to lose than Will, Denial and Hope which gives Priests a boost for long term work while Will's easy come easy go ways give Mediums a short term boost. Denial is pretty much straight Sanity with a slight twist in that losing the points themselves is not harmful, but the rate at which they are lost is. Hope is also straight Sanity, but losing it makes being possessed and influenced harder to resist.

[Kansa]

This looks really interesting

[The Froggy Ninja]

Dave, albino, skeptic, damn fairies stealing my spoons.

[GreatWyrmGold]

My name is Marvin Ignotus. I am a hair under 5'4", fairly short but not puny. Brown hair, blue eyes, jeans and a sweatshirt. If you don't look closely, I don't stand out. Look closely, and you might notice the thin lines of symbols tattooed around my eyes, or the fading scar tracing from my cheek down my neck, or how I don't seem to blink nearly enough. I am a Medium, a Clairvoyant, a Mystic, a Seer, a Fraud--call me what you want, it doesn't matter.

My experiences with the supernatural started early. I come from a poor family, without a lot of support. I didn't lose much when I ran off at 16. I wandered, trying to earn money however I could. Around when I might have graduated high school, I discovered my showmanship and began using "magic" to earn my keep. I started with simpler tricks--a bit more than most people would be expected to know, but nothing earth-shattering. I bought little place in the town, made it a combination of house and part-time shop. I managed to be a bit less poor; I improved my act, adding things like fortune-telling and mind-reading to my repertoire. I'm still not sure when I first did "real" magic. What's the difference between magic and trickery, anyways? The two probably blended together without my noticing; I'm still not sure how much of my mind-reading is skill, how much is talent, and how much is subconscious spiritual contact. Regardless of exactly when and how it happened, I managed to become a bit of a locally famous figure for my excellent magic act, gaining a bit of notoriety after confounding one skeptic's attempts to discover my tricks. After this nice wave of fame...everything went downwards.
I was preparing for a private show for one of the major banking executives in the area, preparing to chat with the spirit of his deceased father, when somehow I instead came face-to-face with a minor demon. My house was destroyed, and I was injured. That's when I got this nasty scar. I tried to relocate, rebuild, but somehow a psychic caught in an unexplained fire loses a bit of business, especially coinciding with the discovery of one of my major tricks. Ever since then, I've been curious about the nature of spirits, demons, and the like. What are they? Why are they? How is it that they never get discovered by the mainstream world? Why am I able to contact spirits, but almost no one else can? Questions like these fill my brain these days, and I try to answer them.


If something about my backstory doesn't jibe with the lore you've prepared, let me know what the issue is and I'll fix it.

[The Froggy Ninja]

(Well I've clearly been outdone lets see if I can't make mine a little better.)
Dave D. Davidson is a weed of a man generally unnoticed but extremely intelligent skeptic. One day he was putting up some CCTV cameras when he saw a winged humanoid flying off with all his spoons! Being on the brink of scientific breakthrough he sold his house and most of his possessions and bought a RV and cutting edge scientific equipment. Now he goes across America searching for more of these "Fae".

[Imp]

Placeholder, I want in and will edit with character sheet.

Edited to add:

My name's Amelia Stout.  I'm a believer, and I always have been.  I'm not special, not smart, not fast or strong or anything.  But I love stories, and I love experiencing things.  It's the greatest thing in the world, you know, to just be there when something happens.  To just see it and feel it and know it.  It's like you're part of it, it's like you're special.  Even if you're not.

All these magical things, I know they're real.  They have to be, otherwise life's a bad joke with a worse ending.  But all this magic?  Even the bad stuff, it makes life worth living, it makes everything in the world magical and special.  I'm alright with that.

All I want to do is be around magic, you know?  I don't really want these things banished or laid to rest or made to move on - alright if they're like supernatural serial killers, that has to happen sometimes, but most of the time.  Most of the time. I just want them to be like us, you know?  Just like us, only different.  Special.  Wouldn't it be great to be friends with a ghost?  Or an angel?  Or even a demon?  Wouldn't it be great to go play hide and seek with faeries, to sing with a siren, to work beside a gnome?

I want to do these things.  I want to be friends with what's really special in the world, to see it, know it, be a part of it.  That's what makes life worth living.

Appearance/personality/background:  Caucasian, 5'8'', female, 28, bit overweight, brown hair, brown eyes, some college, vivacious, outgoing, good listener, perky, talkative, doesn't like silence unless she's waiting for something 'magical' to happen.  Has nearly endless patience where 'magic' might be involved, but really isn't interested in anything that she believes is 100% mundane.

[mastahcheese]

Joben did a game in this style.

I'll be making a character in a bit.
The Esoteric Beasts remind me a bit of the Spiderwick Chronicles.

[Remuthra]

Lovecraft-style knowledge. The more you know, the more danger you are in. But you have to learn anyway, because you might be able to use the information to survive, and to satisfy your insatiable morbid curiosity.

I shall character sheet, and I shall choose either the Rationalist or the Believer.

[mastahcheese]

My name is Cromwell Jackson. I'm a street magician, I walk the cities and perform my magic tricks for the crowds. They don't know how I do it, they don't need to know. They wouldn't even understand it if I told it to their faces. People are gullible, easily fooled, and quick to believe in things that don't exist. This "ghost hunting" business, if you could call it a business, is perfect for me. I get to walk in, pretend to be all "mystical" and get my pockets lined with cash for exploiting the ignorance of the average Joe.
Ghosts aren't real, they don't exist. Demons are just fairy tales told to little children and ignorant masses to make them complacent. Money is real. It's what really controls people, and it's owned by the real monsters in this world. The fact that they can lie to themselves and say that there are worse things out there than themselves makes me laugh, but if it gets me a slice of the cake, I'm in.
I've a pocket full of tarot cards, and an empty wallet. I can trade the mojo for money so fast, you'd think I'm a real wizard.