Brainstorming for a new DarkCon campaign

[ReHerakhte]

As mentioned in another thread, I'm working on a new campaign with the hope that I can get my gaming group into DC. One of the long term players voiced the opinion that she wasn't keen on DC because "it's too much like Call of Cthulhu" (we recently finished a CoC campaign and are now in another horror based game, Ravenloft run by the same GM as the CoC game).
This is something that I've discussed with people here before and taking all that onboard, I am emphasising the conspiracy, technology and extra-terrestrial aspects of the game to try and lessen the comparison to CoC.

As part of that, I have been going over the various cyberpunk and alien invasion RPGs I have with a view of using advanced technology to explain some of the supernatural experiences people have and I was wondering if you had any suggestions.
In the past I have used human tech to create haunted house experiences for the characters (infra sound, fake mirrors, cryogenic gases and speakers etc. etc. to create spooky feelings, faces in the mirror and cold spots, play strange noises and the like) and I intend doing the same for this campaign but also using the more advanced alien tech as well as human gear.

I already have a starting adventure in the works that involves a jukebox that every now and then gives out a fortune telling instead of playing music although this is very much a case of human high-tech (from a corporation seeking to discredit another corporation).
The jukebox fortunes are both good and bad, with the good being minor things such as having fines dismissed or speeding tickets lost in the bureaucratic process at the courthouse, minor wins in the lottery and so on - things that can be manipulated by the corporation once they have identified the person by way of various sensors hidden in the jukebox.
But the bad fortunes have escalated to people disappearing (and that's where the PCs get involved). The people are being "disappeared" specifically to cast the rival corporation in a bad light.

The whole point of all of that is to introduce the players to the ideas behind the game, corporations squabbling among each other, governments losing the authority and capacities they once had, factions playing off against other factions and technology being used to facilitate all of that - thus, hopefully, lessening the supernatural elements that could be used to draw comparisons with CoC.

So, what I'm hoping to brainstorm is various ways technology can be used to replicate the supernatural and keeping in mind that some of that tech will be highly advanced ET tech so there's definitely room for a little bit of the fantastic.

[ReHerakhte]

Had a random thought last night - how about a seer who really is getting messages from "elsewhere"?

Unknown by the "seer" however, is that the messages they get are delivered through a brain implant. The implant is a transceiver and sends audio-visual feed back to the group controlling the "seer", this way they can get basic info on the person visiting the seer then use whatever database the can access to find out real information, relaying some of that to the seer so that they seem to have genuine paranormal abilities.
The seer truly does not know where they get their information from, they just get voices in their head.

As a spin-off from that - the seer brain implant is just a testing device for a larger operation. The plan is to give various people brain implants so that they can be monitored or perhaps so that they can have specific notions conveyed to them as though it was "just a random thought in their head".
Perhaps the wider plan is to develop it into mind-control tech.

[Linden]

I think you're absolutely right in wanting to your DC game a separate identity from Call of Cthulhu. The first campaign I ran I had some difficulty getting out of of the Cthulhoid mindset. I'd run old CoC scenarios from magazines with only minimal work, excising references to tomes, spells and
insanity but keeping the story intact and shoehorning a DC minion in to replace the mythos monster. It took me a while to realise that what I was left with was Lovecraft with bits lopped off, not Dark Conspiracy.

A different sensibility is certainly needed. Emphasising the technology is a good one, although my experience is if you introduce Alien/Dark-Tek the players want to use it. This isn't necessarily bad as there's some fun to be had as they try to figure out what a particular item is and maybe encounter the unpleasant aspects like Feed/Control/Detection costs. Can be unbalancing though. I'd be very reluctant to let players get hold of one of the alien ray guns in the original rule book.

The other thing that occurs to me is using the game's signature trope that the old stories are true just not quite in the way we imagined. Thus the
haunted house you refer to is inhabited by a Haunt or a Bleak. They're not ghosts but they certainly act like them.

[ReHerakhte]

Thanks for the thoughts and feedback Linden.
I think I was settling into a mindset of "bare minimum" use of Darklings because I was perhaps too focused on detaching DC from CoC and I was actively thinking of scenarios without Darklings of any sort (I would use humans, human tech and Beasties).
But as you pointed out, one of the tropes is that our myths & legends of creatures and spirits are misremembered or misunderstood encounters with real creatures but creatures not of this world.

Given that I'm working from the alien invasion genre to create this campaign, I should stay in the mindset of thinking of the Minions as extra-terrestrial or the product of ET science rather than excluding those that are too close to being something supernatural.
I had decided to go with the idea of several competing ET species and given that I wanted one of them to be more like the n-Dimensional beings from the BBC TV series Invasion: Earth, the weirder Minions can be safely put into the ET bio-tech category I think (specifically, the bio-tech that n-D ETs used).
Off course, not forgetting the trope of retro-tech, my plans were to have a higher/more sophisticated tech available to the wealthy & corporations so that even among human technologies there were distinct differences (so as to further distinguish DC from CoC).

Something else I have been tossing around - Demongrounds and their creation. I am thinking of having some as deliberate attempts to terraform areas of the planet by certain ETs to better suit their needs (a thought directly inspired by the GURPS War Against the Chtorr book).
This sort of Demonground could more easily be defeated because it would be a relatively simple matter of just needing to kill off the alien flora & fauna.
This type of Demonground would co-exist with the traditional Demongrounds (those formed by the opening of portals to other realms)

Apologies for rambling & stream of consciousness posting, I find that going over this thread and even the act of typing out my response to you is helping sort out my thoughts for this.

EDIT: In regard to your comment about ET tech being perhaps too overpowered to give to a PC group, I think perhaps I'll do something like the District 9 movie - unless you have the correct (i.e. ET) genetics, some ET tech simply won't work for you.

[Marcus Bone]

I think you're absolutely right in wanting to your DC game a separate identity from Call of Cthulhu. The first campaign I ran I had some difficulty getting out of of the Cthulhoid mindset. I'd run old CoC scenarios from magazines with only minimal work, excising references to tomes, spells and insanity but keeping the story intact and shoehorning a DC minion in to replace the mythos monster. It took me a while to realise that what I was left with was Lovecraft with bits lopped off, not Dark Conspiracy.

This has made me think about the question of - what defines Dark Conspiracy? I think it is the distinct setting mixed in with the character's ability to actually 'fight back' against the threat.

I might put a few thoughts together on this subject...

[ReHerakhte]

I think you're absolutely right in wanting to your DC game a separate identity from Call of Cthulhu. The first campaign I ran I had some difficulty getting out of of the Cthulhoid mindset. I'd run old CoC scenarios from magazines with only minimal work, excising references to tomes, spells and insanity but keeping the story intact and shoehorning a DC minion in to replace the mythos monster. It took me a while to realise that what I was left with was Lovecraft with bits lopped off, not Dark Conspiracy.

This has made me think about the question of - what defines Dark Conspiracy? I think it is the distinct setting mixed in with the character's ability to actually 'fight back' against the threat.

I might put a few thoughts together on this subject...

This is a prime reason for me, the ability to fight back and maybe even win.
I haven't played a wide range of horror or conspiracy games and one thing that keeps me from playing more is that the two that I have played the most are Call of Cthulhu and Ravenloft (in a few variations each time we started a campaign) and they can be pretty lethal.
We have lost a number of PCs in CoC and been lucky to only lose a few in Ravenloft.

Both have been done by the same person, a very competent GM who has a love of horror, so he brings those elements to the game very well.
I wanted to run something with conspiracy elements and some horror elements but I also wanted the Players to feel something different to the constant dread of CoC and Ravenloft. The group is prepared to lose PCs in both those games.
Dark Conspiracy offers a good change of "feel" because they can have some hope of success against the monsters.