The Secret World

Discuss the viability of TSW as a tabletop setting.

Thinking of running a game in this setting, or something similar. Thoughts? Suggestions? I've always liked the premise of the game, even though the execution left a lot to be desired.

Also looking to discuss any other setting with horror and fantasy elements and/or urban magic in a modern setting

World of Darkness, Chronicles of Darkness, Delta Green, Urban Shadows, Unknown Armies, and Dresden Files all deal with this to varying degrees. What are you looking for in a game, super gritty horror, comic book-like monster fighting, playing the monsters yourselves, what?

The Condemned series is a pretty good example, if you're at all familiar with that. I like the idea of a standard modern, urban setting, but oh wait, now there are cults and monsters and nightmares in my city of generic criminals.

In this instance, setting and atmosphere are more important than the nature of the gameplay, which I can modify to fit my needs if it's for the sake of a good setting.

I'd go with Fate and then just rip off whatever you want from TSW in terms of story. I'm doing this with some friends and its working really well. I'd say dont be so up front about the factions or the mechanics of the secret world. Let them stumble into it on there own. Also, the filth makes a great opponent.

to make it all hang together in my own campaign i've scrapped the idea that the filth is extra dimensional and said that its the rotten runnoff of the world engines. The world engines are the remains of the antediluvian civilizations' probability engine and are responsible for magic working in the first place. This idea carriers forward as the meta plot for the rest of the game.

I hope this helps.

Did you have any ideas how you were going to run it? like story or content wise? What were you going to focus on?

TSW is basically just the backbone of the setting. That's the world they're in, and I don't want to focus much on the factions, and don't want to focus at all on existing characters or events from the game.

So far, it's set in a fictional city full of criminals and corruption and the like. Gangs, dirty cops, corrupt politicians, the works. I think I'm going to do a vaguely slice of life prologue where my players make throwaway characters who are visiting the historical district the city grew from, and everything is normal, and end it with some sort of disaster that will most likely kill the characters (hence throwaways) and suddenly unearth the Secret World on a city that knew nothing about it. The actual game would be set six months later, with the poorer districts bordering on post-apocalyptic, the wealthy districts either in denial or actively covering it up, with quests being an assortment of investigation, combat, and puzzles, which can be criminal, paranormal, or political (i.e. The mayor and main news outlets are covering this up. Uncover it, or keep it a secret?).

Like TSW, I want to do puzzles that will encourage my players to do internet searches and whatnot to find solutions to things they don't know, because that's what you'd do in that situation, rather than them rolling a die and me saying "you're stumped." It's set in modern day; Google is available to you.

Is there a text which condenses the lore for me to read and understand it better than those bee bits?

>condensed lore
Ok, Cutting it down to the complete bare bones

>World/reality goes in cycles.
>Magic was the previous power in charge and what are now demons were the main thing.
>Anima happened next and we are the main thing.
>Filth is next and bees are the immune system of anima trying to fight back.

Uh, not quite.

>World/reality gets reset after a while, each reset marks a new cycle.
>demons were the reigning civilization of one of the previous cycles.
>each cycle, the Filth attempts to assert itself in reality i.e. reshape reality into how certain eldritch gods see it.
>each cycle, the system built to contain all this --- that is, the Gaia Engines and associate anima --- initiates a reset when Filth shit gets too crazy.
>problem is, each reset is a little less thorough and each cycle is a little more vulnerable to the Filth
>players in the game are agents of the "immune system" --- white blood cells are a good analog --- who are trying to stem the Filth tide
>it is heavily implied we will never win.

The distinction I wanted to make was that the anime/filth tug-of-war has always been around, and has always been the reigning metaphysical conflict.