As a referee, have you Scooby-Doo'ed them?

[Old_Dr_Skull]

As a referee in Traveller, have you ever blantantly Scooby-Doo'ed your players? By which I mean, have you ever had a mysterious monster turn out to be a crooked real-estate developer in a rubber mask trying to drive off snoopers? I'm sorely tempted to do a full-blown Scooby Doo for my first or second adventure in an upcoming campaign.

 

[Rraurgrimm]

Actually, we had:

Part of our ongoing GURPS Traveller campaign set in the Islands Cluster (from the Trillion Credit Squadron adventure but using a post-conflict setting) was a visit to Esperanza. The local charismatic dictatorship under the Lord Protector had a few problems on a high-pop world with rivalry amongst the countless political and government institutions so the ressources to deal with sudden outside threats were scarce and not really spent in an coordinated effort. When - during a diplomatic event involving our characters (as minor guests) who grew up outside the Reft in the Imperium - a so-called 'bat-wing' appeared and apparently bumbled a hasty attempt on the life of the Lord Protector, it was our characters who noticed that

a) those bat-wings strongly resemble a known major race: Droyne! As the rather isolated Islands Cluster within the Reft did not have much outside contact until recently, few if anything was known about that race. According to rumours and some history snippets, the first settlers did encounter that race but either drove them off-planet or eradicated them.

b) something with that particular Droyne/bat-wing was weird. The movement did not match what the characters knew.

After a thorough investigation and some they not only happened to learn about a hidden Droyne enclave that managed to survive partly thanks to the natural psionic talents but who also were only used as potential culprits. They also found out that someone with access to vast resources tried to make it *apppear* as if bat-wings/Droyne were the ones responsible - using f. e. the body of a real Droyne that had been imported in a low-berth to be found or one special operative wearing the guise of a Droyne in a kind of powered armour mask. The current theory amongst our characters is that there was a plan to destabilize the already struggling local government even more with several staged events. Showdown was inside the remains of a former theme-park called 'Bat-wing land'. Things might have erupted into a nasty civil war - if it hadn't been for our meddling characters.

Admittedly, we did not manage to find out who was the real organization behind all that... yet-

 

[rancke]

I have a half-finished adventure somewhere in my files where it appears that a house is haunted by ghosts. The owner is convinced that someone is using holographic projectors and other electronic shenanigans in a attempt to hoax him, so he hires the PCs to find out who and how. Turns out that the haunting is done by the psychic imprint of a powerful psionic adept who was killed in the house long ago.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

I have a half-finished adventure somewhere in my files where it appears that a house is haunted by ghosts. The owner is convinced that someone is using holographic projectors and other electronic shenanigans in a attempt to hoax him, so he hires the PCs to find out who and how. Turns out that the haunting is done by the psychic imprint of a powerful psionic adept who was killed in the house long ago.


Hans

Or in other words it IS a ghost and more of a reverse Scooby-Doo.

 

[carlparl]

Does this count? My players went looking for a psionic institute. They found someone that took them to a test facility for a fee. The test results were positive - they all did well. In the end, though, it was a psionic in the next room giving the results, and they were being scammed out of their money.

I don't think they ever caught up with those guys, either.

 

[rancke]

Or in other words it IS a ghost and more of a reverse Scooby-Doo.

Ah, but it's a scientifically plausible <cough> ghost.

Well, a Science Fictionally plausible ghost.


Hans

 

[Enoki]

As a referee in Traveller, have you ever blantantly Scooby-Doo'ed your players? By which I mean, have you ever had a mysterious monster turn out to be a crooked real-estate developer in a rubber mask trying to drive off snoopers? I'm sorely tempted to do a full-blown Scooby Doo for my first or second adventure in an upcoming campaign.

Wouldn't the far more common "Let's split up and search" followed by the monster slurping up the party, females first of course, be more in keeping with the movie tradition....?

 

[Enoki]

Does this count? My players went looking for a psionic institute. They found someone that took them to a test facility for a fee. The test results were positive - they all did well. In the end, though, it was a psionic in the next room giving the results, and they were being scammed out of their money.

I don't think they ever caught up with those guys, either.

Given the general law level of the Imperium a twist would be it is a ruse by the Imperial Secret Police to catch psionics and they all end up in prison with cellmates named Bubba.....

 

[jshiggin]

Given the general law level of the Imperium a twist would be it is a ruse by the Imperial Secret Police to catch psionics and they all end up in prison with cellmates named Bubba.....

But why? If you're a psionic, you're not going to bother going to the "psionic institute" for testing....

 

[Blue Ghost]

As a referee in Traveller, have you ever blantantly Scooby-Doo'ed your players? By which I mean, have you ever had a mysterious monster turn out to be a crooked real-estate developer in a rubber mask trying to drive off snoopers? I'm sorely tempted to do a full-blown Scooby Doo for my first or second adventure in an upcoming campaign.

Nope, a real monster was a real monster. We seemed to fight a lot of terrorists and pirates for some reason... not sure why that is.

 

[Enoki]

But why? If you're a psionic, you're not going to bother going to the "psionic institute" for testing....

If you're psionic you should know better..... "It's a trap!"

So, as usual, the innocent get persecuted and the guilty go free......

 

[Hyphen]

I have a half-finished adventure somewhere in my files where it appears that a house is haunted by ghosts. The owner is convinced that someone is using holographic projectors and other electronic shenanigans in a attempt to hoax him, so he hires the PCs to find out who and how. Turns out that the haunting is done by the psychic imprint of a powerful psionic adept who was killed in the house long ago.


Hans

Ooh, I've had a nastier thought - you could "Stone Tape" them! (Look up Wikipedia for the one-shot TV show.) Creepiest thing I've ever seen - Ok so it was 1974 & I was young & impressionable, but I've never forgotten it.

The psychic impression is stored on the "stone tape", masking the original recording from hundreds of thousands of years ago. The recording, 'natch, engages all the senses (being psionic), and can even be perceived by psi-shielded individuals (although you may allow them to be more in control of their perceptions). Feel free to throw in images of whatever Lovecraftian eldrich horrors, Primordials, Ancients, whomever you want - although the disembodied lights (eyes?) that ever pursued the heroine were worse, in many ways, because they left it to your imagination as to what she eventually saw...

Sorry, I know this is a reverse-Scooby, but I think if it could be played well it could be pretty cool...

 

[77topaz]

Ooh, I've had a nastier thought - you could "Stone Tape" them! (Look up Wikipedia for the one-shot TV show.) Creepiest thing I've ever seen - Ok so it was 1974 & I was young & impressionable, but I've never forgotten it.

The psychic impression is stored on the "stone tape", masking the original recording from hundreds of thousands of years ago. The recording, 'natch, engages all the senses (being psionic), and can even be perceived by psi-shielded individuals (although you may allow them to be more in control of their perceptions). Feel free to throw in images of whatever Lovecraftian eldrich horrors, Primordials, Ancients, whomever you want - although the disembodied lights (eyes?) that ever pursued the heroine were worse, in many ways, because they left it to your imagination as to what she eventually saw...

Sorry, I know this is a reverse-Scooby, but I think if it could be played well it could be pretty cool...

Definetely scary-seeming, from your recount and the Wikipedia article...

 

[Icosahedron]

But why? If you're a psionic, you're not going to bother going to the "psionic institute" for testing....

If you're psionic you should know better..... "It's a trap!"

So, as usual, the innocent get persecuted and the guilty go free......

IIRC, the point of the Institute was to take 'latent psionics' and train them to use their dormant powers, Obi Wan style. Not all of the psionic skills lend themselves to 'knowing better' even if they were developed (eg teleportation) but even a latent telepath might have no more than a vague 'bad feeling about this' until he'd been trained to sharpen his skill.

 

[McPerth]

Well, it's not exactly this, but the AZ The Day of the Glow (JTAS 16, page 40) goes more or less to this direction, making the players think they are fighting a horde of vampires, while in fact they are just in the middle of an outbreak of a disease.

And I think to remember an adventure for T2K in a Challenge (sorry, I cannot give you exact reference right now) where some cases of rabies were presented such a way that the most likely thought to come to player's mind were to be fighting werewolves.