What would be the best system for an SCP game?

>I made an entire campaign where the central premise was basically a city wide containment breach
why stop at a single city?
the implication is that the foundation is a global operation. if one of their opponents managed a multi-location strike powerful enough to allow even a small few breaches at each place the world is FUCKED. I did some outlining on a post-apocalypse based on that, but I never really got too far into that.

Because it wasn't a foundation breach

The games focus should generally be that you are the security team or research team exploring new anomalies. You are going to generally limit yourself to what SCP's you can do, because any item you can test in the controlled lab are going to be somewhat boring (but a good single day campaign or what not)

Typically you are going to want to have SCP's that are associated with a wide area - whether or not that SCP is in and of itself an alternate dimension, or is something as ubiquitous as an oil rig... The general play space will be just as important as the SCP itself, because it gives your players another layer to discover and test with (Ie did your players discover and properly test for spacial distortions, or did they walk 1000m from one end to the other, and take a left, and they are back at the entrance now?)

I know I'm not contributing to the "What engine" to use discussion, but just be aware no matter what you do you are pretty much going to have to focus on either MTF's containing breaches or the science team investigating new SCP's.

The SCP tales on the wiki provide a wealth of inspiration in this regard. They range from horror stories simply inspired by the tone of SCPs, to slice of life pieces about employees and agents of the Foundation, to first-hand accounts of containment failures and first encounters with SCP objects, and even to tales about the various other groups that exist in that universe(the Foundation calls them "GOIs, or groups of interest, and spies on them whenever possible). There's also the prevalence of the idea that the Foundation maintains a paramilitary branch of spec ops BAMFs divided into "Mobile Task Forces (MTFs)" who are assigned to aid in the initial containment of new SCPs as well as attempting to re-contain escaped ones. Fits pretty much perfectly into the idea of a party, and makes GMing EZ. Just come up with encounters and have the assignment handed down by an NPC.

Fuck, I might pick a system and run this myself. Sounds like a lot of fun to GM.

>no matter what you do you are pretty much going to have to focus on either MTF's containing breaches or the science team investigating new SCP's.
you forgot.
the foundation has a third notable group.
agents and teams of agents on the lookout for new SCPs, investigating oddities, finding the real anomalies before competitors do, defending finds from non-foundation personnel until an MTF arrives to bring the heat, handling the artifacts until the science guys get a hold of it, it's the most flexible and demanding job in the foundation, and aside from Class-D, the most lethal. an incautious agent just dies though, so it's not for stupid players.

>Fuck, I might pick a system and run this myself. Sounds like a lot of fun to GM.
DO IT FAGGOT.
DO IT AND COME BACK AND TELL THE STORY.
I WOULD READ THE SHIT OUT OF THIS IF YOU SPUN IT AS A NARRATIVE.

>agents and teams of agents on the lookout for new SCPs

But ultimately that is part of the research team as well - we're not talking "We've perfectly contained this area so now we can do science" - but like, getting told people keep going into this house and not coming back out... You have to go and investigate it.

But my point was you are limited to any SCP in the world, and crafting a play space around it, because "We found this book it's downstairs in the lab please investigate" it would be boring. This alone cuts out half of the SCP's that are present on the site.

Isn't Delta Green pretty much just like the SCP stuff/X-files? Seems like a good system to use. Though I'm not sure that has sanity. Could just hamfistedly add in the CoC sanity rules in or kinda homebrew it up yourself as a little addon.

>DO IT FAGGOT.
>DO IT AND COME BACK AND TELL THE STORY.
>I WOULD READ THE SHIT OUT OF THIS IF YOU SPUN IT AS A NARRATIVE.
Till I get the chance, I'm just going to brainstorm potential plot hooks. Personally I'd rather run a MTF party because I like dakka and they have almost enuff, but a field agent team sounds cool as fuck too.

>MTF Assignment: Sting operation of a meeting of the GOI known as "Are We Cool Yet?". Capturing GOI members alive is a priority, but use of deadly force is authorized. Capture and recovery of anomalous objects is also a priority. A Foundation deep-cover agent will be present among the GOI members during the sting, and should be identified by his callsign as well as a coded response.

>Agent Team Assignment: Investigate a new hippy commune/cult run by a mysterious individual claiming to have healing powers. There's a good chance it's homeopathy snake-oil bullshit, but experience has taught the Foundation to never take chances. Infiltrate the commune under cover and see what can be found, report back after a few weeks.

>MTF Assignment: CONTAINMENT BREACH. ALL HANDS REPORT FOR EMERGENCY RE-CONTAINMENT MANEUVERS. BE ADVISED, BREACHED SCP IS NUMB- The panicking announcer died mid-sentence, leaving the halls of the Site echoing with only the alarm klaxons and distant screams. Just moments ago the party was getting some rest in the Site's barracks. Now they have to re-contain an SCP they can only guess the nature of...

Fuck, this thread is full of good ideas

but the agents aren't the science team. they're the ones that say "people keep disappearing. why is that?"

they are ALSO the ones that look for and find the opposed forces like members of the Wanderers Library, or Marshal Carter and Dark or the Serpents Hand, or the GOC, or the other groups of interest to the foundation. in fact you could do a nearly totally mundane game on that aspect, just hunting down rival organization assets on behalf of the foundation

they ARENT mobile task forces, because those have specific purposes when they get made and named
they ARENT on the science teams, because they don't have any idea what the new anomalies do or how they function until they find them

they are spies, and investigators FIRST
fighters, hunters, and Scientists SECOND

the agents might hammer out some idea of the basics, "like how not to die" around a thing. they don't need to figure out "how" or "why" thats for the real science teams to figure out.

agents aren't the science team.

I think Delta Green was supposed to be "fighting the lovecraft mythos the game"

don't forget. if agents call out, the nearest MTF(s) scramble to get them cover, material resources, protect the first field science teams, repel GoI operatives sent in to take or re-take artifacts, etc.

so that's when the timer comes out on the game table for the party to list all the things they need to equip as a "scramble the team" moment.

it's what Veeky Forums is for, coming up with ideas

the arguing is just an unfortunate by-product

It's very similar to CoC (both are BRP-based) but the system is even better and simpler. Especially combat got improved.

I had an idea for an SCP awhile back that I would never want to write the article for, but a campaign about him would be interesting

>university professor
>learns how to construct basic memetics, can encode them in objects in various ways
>SCP gets wise to this
>He finds out about SCP (either during a confrontation or whatever) and manages to evade capture at first
>He is on the run and incredibly hard to track down because he has memetic objects on him that tell your brain to ignore him, he's invisible, doesn't exist, etc.

Could easily be a really good investigative campaign, since players would have to discover how the memetics work so they aren't privy to them, and you can introduce new memetics that force them to improvise or react differently

ie
>Party discovers dude is literally wearing a suit died with near IR ink that encodes "I Don't Exist" in your brain
>Devises perfect countermeasure for this, wearing glasses that block out wave lengths
>Entire party runs into apartment they believe guy is holding up in
>Stereo plays
>Party starts involuntarily vomiting and convulsing
>Had they devised a more involved plan with fail safes - like half the team in the van, or anticipating auditory memetics - they all would not be compromised right now

>Agent Team Assignment: Foundation analysts have found an interesting trend in their data: one small town in the Midwestern United States and a 20-mile circle of land around it has been completely devoid of anomalous activity for the past 200 years. Not so much as an anomalous object has come out of the place in the entire history of the Foundation. This is an anomaly in and of itself, the team is dispatched to investigate the town and find out why it's so incredibly normal.

...

actually, that doesn't warrant him getting his own special room and an SCP document for him.

it's grounds for hiring with the foundation, or being abducted by some group or other.

write it as a story instead of an SCP and put it in the website, it'll be more fun.

when did they raise the size on the image?

thats where you retire agents. so they can watch the town and report stuff in case of anything out of the ordinary.

every landmass has a couple of these places. they're like reverse ley-lines. abnormality actively avoids them there is no known reason why

>Creepy little girls who lead you to your doom are so common they warrant their own symbol

>agents aren't the science team.

I think you have some sort of view that SCP has some verbatim policy they apply to every SCP unless that SCP itself warrants them to change policy... But the reality is that every SCP has it's own very specific implementation of how that policy is enacted.

Even on the SCP Wiki the verbiage for field agents is very vague in how they do what they do - but one thing it's clear on is the second they have uncovered an anomaly they call in other people to deal with it. Whether or not they participate in the process is not really specified - but it's easy to assume that a field agent will be swept up in any number of anomalies just by the nature of SCP being SCP, or that they will have to be kept around during preliminary research simply because they are the most informed person on the subject. By definition of having been the only person to investigate it, they are the most qualified subject matter expert until the science team begins researching.

If they have spent all this time investigating this anomaly influencing everybody in a town, they don't just call in the science team and wish em good luck, then fuck off once they arrive. In some way shape or form they are going to be involved.

And even more importantly, you could easily justify why the science team and field agents are rolled into one investigative unit, so your players aren't constantly just switching characters arbitrarily, and only when their character actually gets killed by an SCP.

Unless, like you said, you could run a totally mundane game on the aspect of dealing with GOC or AWCY? But why the fuck would you even want to do that other than to mix up a long term campaign after months of getting murdered by spooky ghosts and extra-dimensional voids?

>Symbols compromised
>You are being watched
>Do not be taken alive

Is there a more terrifying affix then "symbols compromised" The answer is no.

>it's grounds for hiring with the foundation

Typically if you reject that offer it's not a good outcome for them, and depending on what he's actually creating or if he has made himself a memetic itself, he begins to approach SCP territory.

That being said the thought wasn't necessarily that HE was going to be the SCP itself, but the collective catalog of all his memetic items that have been created and contained. He would be associated with the number through standard conventions (If he was SCP-####-A, and his items are cataloged SCP-####-##, for example)

But the thought is that it's far more interesting as a story, like you suggest, or if you were to run a campaign on it, it would be a very easy way to have a mundane concept (a man hunt) have the anomalous properties, to get players into the mindset of what they have to deal with in the future.

If you get players thinking about possibilities and what-if contingencies, it might make them better off in the future dealing with more complicated anomalies.

>try jumping
>skeleton, but hole
>amazing chest ahead

>The "symbols compromised" symbol could be the only one compromised while the rest are accurate
>or maybe it's the other way round
>or maybe somehow it's both

I've thought about using SCP's before in a campaign, but thinking it over, it'd probably work best if it's a universe that has the SCP's(or rather some of them) but doesn't have the foundation around

Exactly. The second you see it nothing can be trusted

You could make it the starting of it - as in you just got the funding but have no fucking clue what you are doing. Think how Stargate Command was in early seasons of SG-1, they were like "LOL IDK" for a lot of the problems.

You could even force your party to write containment procedures (not as involved as the wiki, even just point form) after fully investigating the anomaly to mix shit up.

>Amazing trap ahead

The wiki links to the resized version. It was always that large.

>they don't just call in the science team and wish em good luck, then fuck off once they arrive. In some way shape or form they are going to be involved.

never said they did, thats what a debriefing is for, you explain all that you figured out in a clear report and answer any questions before you leave, and then you make yourself available later if there are more questions.

>science and agents
but no, maybe the first access science teams overlap with agents. the guys that come out with real equipment to do rigorous experiments probably aren't agents.

>But why the fuck would you even want to do that
it was an example, because agents aren't really doing the science. just the most basic shit.

I nominate
"do not be taken alive"
for that.

>he begins to approach SCP territory.
not really, remember the SCP regularly uses Memetic systems and safeties for some things.

>good story
imagine the reporting log of the team and the debrief questions
"and why did a third of you wear blind-folds as you approached the building?"

>teaches paranoia
also yes makes it a great training run.

>the world is FUCKED

I don't see why. The gribblies have been around longer than the Foundaton.

>MTF Assingment: The Foundation has recently contained an object that is the entrance to some otherworldly place, possibly another reality. You are assigned to explore the internal space while wearing helmet cams and tethers. Very little is known about this place yet, but the lab boys can prepare you for some of the more immediate hazards. Its a good old fashioned SCP dungeon crawl.

I think it would make more sense to have clearance level be purely a roleplay thing. The study of the anomalous and the occult are things still done by people outside the Foundation in universe.

>but no, maybe the first access science teams overlap with agents
>the guys that come out with real equipment to do rigorous experiments probably aren't agents.

I imagine any SCP that isn't perfectly containable is going to have some overlap of the field agents and any science team meant to deal with it. It's also kind of the exact anomalies you would be able to structure a campaign around

>we have reports of some monster in the sewer that is eating the town folk

Now determining if it's actually an SCP anomaly or not is going to put you at risk, and it'd probably be good to have a scientist on hand. Same could go for any sort of other anomaly, if you need to view the fields agent role as having a 100% confirmation of "We need to secure this" - having a few people on hand, like scientists or researchers, to help you get out of a pickle might be good at those later stages.

We still have to view this as a game, sadly. If you have a house you believe is an anomaly, you don't want the player to get enough reasonable belief it is, call in the scientists and call it a day. You want them to step in that door and find out for themselves.

Same level of design thought applies for DND. You don't just want players higher NPC's or whatever, or getting to the entrance to the dungeon and then turning back at the entrance. You want them in the dungeon.

Once you go too far into SCP story, it's scientists in a safe lab feeding D Classers to whatever they are researching. Adhering too close to a pure Field Agent philosophy of "find and pass off" isn't as interesting, and players typically don't want to just hand off or rotate between a number of different characters. I think you could easily find that balance between Field Agents and Science Team, where your primary goal is assessing what it is and overall safety level, before passing it off. You need to find that balance. Like with the sewer monster, confirming it's not just a serial killer puts you at huge risk

so then you have a field team that contains a science primary.

or you have the case of
>call it in
>"we found a thing."
>"good, now guard it, and figure out what it does while the nerds and MTF(Greek letter)(integer) get on route"

>Field Team

I think this would be a good term for it. You could combine the field agent elements as well as the preliminary science-ing. Maybe O5 tells you to confirm it's an anomaly or get a photo of it before they commit more resources on this. Maybe you go through all the steps, think everything out, and work out all the contingencies, and then at the end it turns out it is actually just an un-anomalous serial killer. It would be a nice twist, O5 would thank you for not wasting resources, etc.

There are other ways we could have really interesting stories which having a scientist on hand would be really useful.

>not really, remember the SCP regularly uses Memetic systems and safeties for some things.

But there are a number of purely memetic items, including that one SCP that's the SCP article itself which is a meme that makes you think it's a perfect SCP article, so you print it out and hang it on your wall.

>But what system would be best suited for this?
The Ghostbusters RPG.

The system itself is easy enough to use and could be easily and would provide you with what you need for this kind of game.

GURPS. The Black Ops book is pretty much SCP, with aliens thrown in.

Maybe Unknown Armies, minus the Adepts and Avatars and whatnot? Its sanity system is cool and unique, fits the narrative of hardened SCP operatives nicely.

Thank you guys for all the ideas and discussion! I'm glad I brought this up to all you fa/tg/uys, I'm glad the idea isn't dumb as I had feared. Sincere thanks from OP.

>MTF Assignment: CONTAINMENT BREACH. ALL HANDS REPORT FOR EMERGENCY RE-CONTAINMENT MANEUVERS. BE ADVISED, BREACHED SCP IS NUMB- The panicking announcer died mid-sentence, leaving the halls of the Site echoing with only the alarm klaxons and distant screams. Just moments ago the party was getting some rest in the Site's barracks. Now they have to re-contain an SCP they can only guess the nature of...

Alternatively, have the announcement system be automated, just a robotic voice constantly repeating the warning and SCP number.
But every time, it's a different number.

Also
>Wait, we have an SCP-1589? But this facility is only from 500-1000

Fuck you Veeky Forums and you too op.
Now I have another campaign I want to run. I really hate you all.

NEMESIS with the power system from Wild Talents thrown in to simulate SCP qualities (they're compatible out of the box).

How about; A city wide fight breaks out between sarkic flesh cultists and members of the church of the broken god, your mission is to stop the cultists and force the church members out of the area.

>symbols have been compromised

WHY THE FUCK AREN'T YOU RUNNING THIS WITH DELTA GREEN?

>they look like dogs
The serpents hand is doing some weird shit

>contact lost with command
>do not trust them

Could you link me to some .pdfs and sites to familiarize myself with Delta Green a little more?

Someguy made a scp cyoa.

I have the rule book, but the file size is too big, ill split it/zip it when I get home. But here's a direct link if YOU want to download it: google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.general-chaos.com/rp/CoC%20-%20DG%20-%20Rulebook%20-%20Delta%20Green%20Rulebook.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiAndaUlOPTAhUp0YMKHbhoDoAQFgg9MAM&usg=AFQjCNGIVRBrLWEsB9M5dYtwAgIgLMeLgg

>
Once you go too far into SCP story, it's scientists in a safe lab feeding D Classers to whatever they are researching. Adhering too close to a pure Field Agent philosophy of "find and pass off" isn't as interesting, and players typically don't want to just hand off or rotate between a number of different characters.
Obviously the solution is to file off the SCP name and make it a squad based horror game. Unlike other horror games, it's designed for players to be able to fight...so long as the threat is able to be fought. And that's where the horror comes from, not knowing if the target is something you can even threaten and even if you can -- should you?

Not a fan of its sanity system and I don't like percentile systems. Would rather run it with GURPS or something.

You can give san bonuses, due to the foundations stringent psych evals. And I don't know how to change d100 systems, maybe convert the values to a 20 system?

yes, but those items are abnormally powerful memes. they use weaker ones like self-kill memes all the time.

>But this facility is only from 500-1000
not how it works
too many objects cannot be transported, or are too difficult to transport, they mix-n-match things across a bunch of sites...

apparent expendability of it's employees aside, the foundation probably has some of the best employee healthcare out there...

sure, they'll feed D-class to stuff, but they have the tech and the resources to keep their real staff healthy...

>suitable systems

Paranoia (with a sanity system tagged on) for a fun version.
Dark Heresy for full on grimdark.

I can see the general idea for the graphical representation for most of those symbols, but what's up with "Do Not Be Taken Alive"? Is it a severed head? A pierced skull? Just can't wrap my head around that one.

>be spoopy SCP
>see silly science men scratching their symbols on a wall outside my lair
>Instead of meticulously scratching out the symbols and writing new ones, scratch "symbols compromised" in clear sight of the real symbols
>trolling the foundation has never been this easy

How the fuck would the monster know what the symbols mean? If it did then it can probably read minds, because there's probably a strict "don't talk about what the symbols mean during the mission unless you absolutely have to" rule among Foundation agents. And if the spoop can read minds they have bigger problems than compromised symbols.

How does anyone learn the symbols? It must happen because "symbols compromised" is a thing.
Hell, you don't necessarily need to know what every symbol means to work out what the compromised one is. Just copy the symbols you've seen at random, then when the agents next come along, you'd notice them writing "symbols compromised" after every fake set of symbols.

It'd take much more trial and error than most skips can afford, but it could work

its a symbol with no clear meaning out of context. that might well be the point.

this is only an example.
in the article this was just an example set, with every agent and MTF team having their own variations on at least a few of the symbols if not all of them.

modded ODnD.
Classes are Soldier(Fighting Man), Technician(Thief) and Psychic(Mage). Quick Charcreation means chardeath isn't as devastating, random stats and open ended system encourage lateral thinking.

>its a symbol with no clear meaning out of context. that might well be the point.

Somehow I feel that was not the case, because every other symbol is simplification of idea, object or situation.

BUT THIS ONE GODDAMN SICKLE WITH TWO HANDLES MAKES NO SENSE TO ME, ARRGHHHHHH

I bet that fucking symbol is an undocumented SCP, which fucks up with your idea of order.

>stay in the light
>stay in the darkness
>symbols have been compromised

It's basically saying, you should rather die than let the SCP take you alive. For your sake most likely

>GOIs
Laughing_merchant.jpg

it's an SCP; it could have always known what the symbols mean. or maybe it doesn't. maybe it never will. maybe it doesn't even have a mind to think with. maybe it didn't write the symbols.

Delta Green, I suppose.

GURPS

Delta Green

Alpha grün

Omega groen

Use Ops and Tactics

Epsilon Verde

yes he was...

whats your point?

Where is level 5 mission?

>GURPS or something.

GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier is a very similiar setting to the SCP. There was also a Pyramid article, The Bricks of Maru-Du, that had similiar mix of horror and espionage.

>danger on other side
>rooms move

Eh maybe? It seems like they kind of just start existing every now and again. The main issue would be all the dangerous ones escaping all at once. The sheer density would just destroy anything. Not to mention that they usually get caught all over the world one at a time.

...

>contact lost with command
>symbols compromised
>someone else is here

>flee this place
>path repeats

Level 5 can't be listed for security reasons.

Night's Black Agents

I'm imagining some agent trying to stick a sticky note with a field code onto a humanoid SCP as if said code was a kick me sign.

>DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT
seems reasonable in some cases.

Saved

Yeah but thats like a one off adventure, or will be so tightly controlled it only allows for one specific set up. Running different types of security breaches, between 106 and something harmless, will get old and repetitive quickly.

What we've been talking about is a full pen and paper style RPG with multiple outcomes, that range both from the mundane to the dangerously paranormal. If the party's primary objective goal is "Positively identify anomalies" - and give them a certain threshold of proof they need to reach for it to be a success and to pass it off to containment and research teams... You can get any number of amazing campaigns running from uncovering simple con artists / fraud cases, or pranksters, or murderers, to the dangerous immortal monster feeding on townsfolk, or a ghost possessing multiple towns folk for some end goal

Uncovering the mystery and doing all the procedural work would be half the fun, and coming up with a "plan" on how to conduct the investigations or get the final proof needed is all part of the fun, and more importantly, the entire point.

If your party manages to determine it's actually an anomaly, and not die in the process, thats a successful run. Your party could even have post mortem success if they perfectly made a "if we all die here is what happens" sort of deal. You could also run a campaign BASED on that as well - where a party assumes they are the first to investigate an anomaly, but another field team died in the process, and you are now using their notes hoping to make it back out alive.

>Don't be taken alive
>Guns are no good
>Do not look away

Probably a really fucking bad combination

Just look in the PDF Share General.

Here is a decent playlist for any modern horror game: youtube.com/watch?v=iw7LK1mP12E&list=PLE4A0595A547BDB28

Instead of using short scary tracks that don't repeat too well, you can also use long spooky ambient tracks like: youtube.com/watch?v=zmSKL1B1q-c or use long mixes like: youtube.com/watch?v=ppiGTLqfaWc

It means better dead than red, of course

Do quest based on Containment Breach game players could be either MTF send there or site staff or D-Class. Depending on who they are they would get briefed in all documents needed with featured SCPs (MTF would have best access, facility stuff depend on specific role they could only have some and would have scavenge for rest info, D-Class nothing beyond maybe SPC they interacted). You could print out those document and let players physically have them and read them. Depending who they are they would have goals of either securing site and containing all SCPs (MTF) , surviving and containing breach (Foundation members on site), surviving and escaping (D-class).