Promptober Day 9: Found Footage

I’m super excited about today’s prompt!

Slasher Flick by Spectrum Games.
Here’s the Pitch: You’ve been asked by the paranormal research department of Miskatonic University to trek into the woods near Burkittsville, MD. You’re looking for an old 19th Century farmhouse that is allegedly a hotbed of paranormal activity. Your group has all of the investigative gear they can carry and 5 days worth camping supplies. Good luck. (Can you survive?)

I could literally do an entire Monster of the Week game based on this premise. The only catch is, it would mean the group would get to survive from one week to the next which would mean it’s not “Found” Footage. That said, my Des Moines Remote Viewing Society campaign is loosely based on the Found Footage idea. The original team was lost/scattered to the four winds following an undisclosed event to be revealed in later episodes.

I think what would make Found Footage playable as an RPG beyond a Slasher Flick one shot would be to have a team that investigates the footage that has been found around the world from these various mysterious incidents. That’s kind of the premise for Des Moines After Dark/Tales of the Des Moines Remote Viewing Society. We know the team investigated a lot of stuff. What we don’t know is what happened to the team three years ago that made them stop or where some of them went.

This genre is one of my absolute favorites of all time. I’ve been in love with the concept ever since watching In Search of… as a kid. When I went to The Blair Witch Project on a date I was blown away. I went on to see it nine more times in the theatre and several times since on video. (*Yes, of those nine some of them were dates. Long story there for another time.)

I’m also itching to do more Found Footage RPG stuff with Phoenix Lights, Area 51, and Missing 411: The Hunted as inspiration. A lot of freaky stuff happens in the Pacific Northwest of the US and in the Nevada desert in the real world to be sure. I’m into Ufology, ETs, and paranormal experiences in the real world, too. It’s one of the interests that bleeds over into gaming quite nicely.

The kicker with Found Footage in #ttrpgs is that the players know their characters are probably going to die. If they survive, they’re probably going to drop of the grid and never be heard from again. Otherwise, it’s not Found Footage, it’s just footage. Player choices really matter in a survival horror game.

Thanks for stopping by today. I appreciate you! Hope you’re enjoying #Promptober so far.