The Strange/The Strange Phenomena Records/The Strange Archive
An RP where GMs can GM but not really be ‘The GM’
The X-Files, Ancient Aliens, The Dresden Files, Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Tales From The Darkside, Tales From The Crypt. Any of those shows and concepts in general served as inspiration for the foundations of this project. Strange things. Unexplained phenomena. Urban legends. Conspiracy theories. UFOs and USOs /unidentified submersible objects/. EBEs /extraterrestrial biological entities/. The esoteric. The metaphysical. The unthinkable! If you want to dive into it. This would be the place.
The SPR
The Strange Phenomena Records, aka the Strange Archive, or simply known by its operatives as The Strange.
It is a privately funded and privately run non-profit organization dedicated to discovery. Its field of purview – unlimited. The Strange’s operatives are experts from all walks of life who want more than the ordinary everyday proceedings. Who believe the world is infinitely stranger and more wonderful than we could ever imagine it. Who think that the current societal system has dulled our sense of wonderment and has left us blind or willfully ignorant to the marvels of our world.
But in this new 21st century and thanks in large portion to the world wide access to information a climate has been created for willing souls to explore that which was once considered ridiculous and absurd. And even though the majority of people in the world today still consider it thus, there are those willing to suffer the ridicule for the price of discovering the wonderful. Who gladly and willfully dive deep into the records of the Strange Archive in the hope that they will unravel the mystery.
The Strange is an international organization with branches almost anywhere in the world and operatives officially licensed as private investigators. They are all governed by the Founder and receive their funding from the budget of the Strange which is rumored to be coming out of the Founder’s personal pocket as The SPR is a non-profit organization.
Any and all information held within the Strange is publically accessible!
Are you one of those brave souls still full with wonderment? If so, then welcome to The Strange.
The Founder
The Founder is the mysterious founder of the SPR and the one calling the shots. Little is known about the Founder. It is largely assumed the Founder is a woman. No one has ever seen her in person. Anyone who has ever been in direct contact with her has only ever done so via audio with voice distortion present. She is considered a mystery, much like the ones the operatives of the Strange attempt to unravel on a daily basis. The Strange does contain a record within its archives labeled ‘Loc#846-32_N/A*The Founder’. Various operatives have added information to the case file over the years, but no one has ever managed to discover anything of substantial value.
How things will work in practice
If the little snippet above has captured your attention, allow me to explain the concept of this little brainchild. My vision for this is a sandbox type of a world where responsible GMs get to play with the most outlandish of ideas and concepts out there that might not have warranted their own RP, or said GMs simply didn’t have the desire or time to run it. And anyone who does not wish to do so will be welcome to simply participate as regular operatives.
As stated by the snippet. We will be operatives of the Strange. An archive containing any and all sort of records on all kinds of strangeness that isn’t accepted by mainstream anything. We, the players, will be responsible for adding records to the Strange /though I’ll probably start us off with a number of premade ones/. Should one of us want to add a record to the archive, they will pitch their idea to the group. If the idea receives no less than 3 /three/ likes, the record will be added to the Strange /you can go completely fictional with this, or explore a real life point of mystery/. Less than three likes gets added to the Strange, but won’t receive funding for an open case /new subplot to be run/. Zero likes gets the idea into the archive as an obscure footnote.
From that moment on the pitcher of said idea becomes its RM, or record master. That person is responsible for running that specific subplot. The RM will have a system of mechanics at their disposal. One that will be detailed below and will be adhered to by all of us. It will be a simple system with few key dice rolls, cuz dice just add that tid-bid of craziness and unpredictability to a game
Meanwhile other players, possibly the ones who’d liked the pitch, will join the RM as their research team and will go with them on that particular adventure. Respectively an RM can join another RM on their search for discovery as an operative. I will only appoint RMs people who I know I can trust. I’m sorry if that is not to your liking, but if I let unknown variables run amok the project, none of us are gonna have fun.
As for the aforementioned mechanics. Dice rolls will happen. When it is time to begin work on your Strange record case you will meet with the Founder of the Strange and pitch, this time IC, your case and she’ll decide what aid to impart your team with. Mechanically this will translate to rolling d20+/a d6 for each like of the OOC pitch/, with one free re-roll on nat1 /cuz those just suck and we don’t need to make our game that much difficult and unpleasant/ and a bonus d4 to be added to the overall result of the roll on a nat20. That result will be divided by 3, rounded up, and that number will be your aid in d6 dice to add to any rolls anyone on the team may need to make during the mission. If at the closure of your case you haven’t spent all of your aid dice, they will be added back to the budget of the Strange. So spend your aid dice!
Other rolls will involve player skills. Skills will have modifiers /for general skills the modifier is a d4 die roll; for trained skills - d6 roll; for specialized - d8 roll, should a player posses a paranormal skill like telepathy, clairvoyance, etc - a d10/. The results of the modifier roll will be added to the 3d6 roll and will compete against a DC /DC reference table bellow/ set by the RM for the respective challenge /if the RM wants to make any rolls as a player they may confer with me and I’ll set the DC for the encounter/.
Considering the topics that will possibly be explored in this project, I’d make this an advanced experience. Which means a certain level of maturity in the way we act IC and OOC. As well as realistic portrayal of actions, thought processes and the like. If I deem things going off the rails, I will enforce this requirement. This means I may butt in RM plots that are not mine.
You will be required to post at least once a week and if you are participating in multiple record plot lines, you will be required to post at least once a week for each of those. So manage your records-load wisely.
Task Difficulty Table
Task Difficulty Description Target No. Guidance
0 Routine 0-6 Anyone can do this basically every time.
1 Simple 7-8 Most people can do this most of the time.
2 Standard 9-10 Typical task requiring focus, but most people can usually do this.
3 Demanding 11-12 Requires full attention; most people have a 50/50 chance to succeed.
4 Difficult 13-14 Trained people have a 50/50 chance to succeed.
5 Challenging 15-16 Even trained people often fail.
6 Intimidating 17-18 Normal people almost never succeed.
7 Formidable 19-20 Impossible without skills or great effort.
8 Heroic 21-22 A task worthy of tales told for years afterward.
9 Immortal 23-24 A task worthy of legends that last lifetimes.
10 Impossible 25 A task that normal humans couldn’t consider (but one that doesn’t break the laws of physics).
DC exceeded/unmet
When the DC for a roll is exceeded or unmet by five /5/ or more you either get an IC bonus or a disadvantage at the RM/GM’s discretion.
Bells and Whistles
The Strange Archive HQ
Leap Castle (pronounced “Lep”) in Coolderry, County Offaly, Ireland, is the official headquarters for the Strange Phenomena Archive. It is one of Ireland's most notoriously haunted castles. It has been privately owned since 1991, when musician Seán Ryan bought it and began restoring it. The Strange acquired the castle from him as well as the surrounding land. Nowadays the castle has been fully refurbished on the inside. It houses the Founder's office and other, cozy work spaces with state of the art equipment. The exterior of the castle is being maintained, however the ruined look preserved for aesthetic purposes.
Subterranean Facility
The actual archive lies deep beneath the surface in a state of the art, subterranean facility where all hard copies of records are being kept. It also houses all servers of the Strange, where the information is stored in digital format. The subterranean facility is accessible only to operatives of the Strange and is protected by several layers of bio-metric locks. While the digital records of the Strange Archive are free for public review on the SPR site, hard copies of records can be viewed after an approved request. But only for records that have no current active investigations.
The Strange has e-dossiers on all of its operatives that are stored on the SPR servers as well.
CS Template
Switch out only the color code '02b62a' with your own.
Active/RetiredA hard copy dossier for the operatives is also kept within the subterranean facility of the SPR.
Each operative is required to complete a private investigator training course and obtain a license, before being able to go out into the field in any investigative capacity on behalf of the Strange. Once licensed operatives receive their PI credentials as employees of the Strange.
The Strange Archive Index
After some consultations with trusted individuals we came to the conclusion that for logistic purposes there should be one mother thread, which will serve as The Strange's HQ and various daughter threads to house the different investigations operatives of the Strange are conducting.
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