SCP Foundation - Best System for Playing?

[DM Nate]

I'm planning to take a break from my current campaign once we finish our current story arc, and I have a few ideas brewing on what world I'd like to use to change things up a bit. One of them involves the SCP Foundation (http://www.scp-wiki.net/ for those unfamiliar) and playing as an agent of this X-Files-esque organization.

What game system would be appropriate? I want the players to have less agency than in a normal D&D or Shadowrun campaign, but more than in a typical Call of Cthulu campaign.

Is there a system that seems to fit the bill? Or should I take one like Call of Cthulu and just adjust the atmosphere and mechanics a bit?

Thanks for the help and ideas!

[The Random NPC]

Depends on the position the player's will have, if they'll be D class personnel, you could try Paranoia.

[jaydubs]

I'm not sure which system would be best. But running into an object that actually switched the system mid-campaign would be a pretty cool way to break the 4th wall.

[Milodiah]

I'd say Delta Green, which uses the Call of Cthulhu system and lore but centers on an organization which could be considered a rag-tag and underground version of the Foundation. With some simple tweaks you could strip the "illegal conspiracy" part and replace it with the Foundation itself.

If you're saying "X-Files" as an example of the atmosphere you want, Delta Green is literally perfect for what you need. You may even consider just running it as is.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm going to say Paranoia.

[The Glyphstone]

Paranoia for D-class shenanigans, Delta Green for Field Agents or MTFs.

[DM Nate]

I had considered running the characters as D-class personnel, but it would be hard to reconcile with the "successfully terminated at end of month" clause. I was thinking low-tier agents, fresh from recruitment, with a slow introduction into what the Foundation is and what it's up against.

As such, it sounds like Delta Green is just the sort of thing I need to look into. Thanks!

[Milodiah]

Delta Green happens to be my favorite RPG of all time, so if you have any questions or need any help just send me a PM. If you use the official character sheet, for example, there are tweaks that either need to be made due to errata or should be made due to widespread houserules/common sense, but I don't want to throw up all that information just to clutter the thread.

Also, Countdown is the only other book you should consider getting in addition to the base book unless you really want to get the rest (they're not bad, they're just not worth what you pay for in my opinion). Countdown makes the game worldwide instead of just Americans, and since SCP is worldwide I recommend looking into it. It also has optional rules for non-Cthulhu-Mythos psychics, which I feel could come in handy for your needs.

[Sith_Happens]

New World of Darkness 2e might actually be perfect for this.

[The Grue]

Eclipse Phase? Firewall pretty much is the SCP Foundation.

[Milodiah]

Eclipse Phase? Firewall pretty much is the SCP Foundation.

The only issue is Eclipse Phase is pretty far sci-fi, DG is set in '97 and damn easy to update to today.

[The Grue]

The only issue is Eclipse Phase is pretty far sci-fi, DG is set in '97 and damn easy to update to today.

Sorry, I wasn't aware we were having a "My RPG Is Better Than Your RPG" competition.

[Milodiah]

Sorry, I wasn't aware we were having a "My RPG Is Better Than Your RPG" competition.

...no, I was saying that he doesn't need a sci-fi system. I also like Eclipse Phase.

[Alent]

I've never played the system, but I'd just like to suggest SCP-682 should be built using Exalted rules, no matter what system you're actually playing.

[DM Nate]

I've never played the system, but I'd just like to suggest SCP-682 should be built using Exalted rules, no matter what system you're actually playing.

Eh...I'm really not a big fan of 682, as I find him a bit...unimaginative. Still, I'll be including him simply on account of how important he is to the SCP universe.

[Mono Vertigo]

New World of Darkness 2e might actually be perfect for this.
Yeah, all SCP - objects, beings, places or phenomena - can all be reasonably fluffed/statted as Gadgets, Infrastructure/Occult Matrices (Demon: the Descent), or Mage shenanigans (Mage: the Awakening - yeah its 2nd edition isn't out yet but the 1st edition should be enough). NWoD lends itself well to X-Files-like campaigns with an all-human party, and has a more serious atmosphere than Paranoia.

[DM Nate]

Has anyone played both Delta Green and NWoD and can give suggestions which is more appropriate for different takes on an SCP campaign? I would have players as new field agents, reconnoitering paranormal locations home to SCP objects, animae, or both. Later on, they will deal with being in a MTF tasked on taking down a particular SCP (such as Able) or defending against a breach (such as from 682). At higher levels, they'll be dealing with memetic dangers and Keter-class SCPs.

[The Glyphstone]

DG is a Call of Cthulhu game. Emphasis on Sanity, and going nuts when you Know Too Much about Things That Should Not Be Known. WoD is gothic horror on a more personal level, emphasizing that whatever you do, you'll only make the situation a little better in your local area and probably die in the process.


Now that the suggestion's been made, I think NWoD 2e might actually be a better choice. A big integral part of being an Agent in the Foundation (as opposed to a disposable D-class) is Knowing Things; you need to know what an anomaly is capable of, how dangerous it is, and how to contain or control it, all in blunt and flavorless bureaucratic legalese. Trying to play the Foundation straight in a CoC ruleset would leave every employee as gibbering madmen before the month was out; take NWoD 2e core, and use Breaking Points to module when things are just too whacked for any human to handle.


Though I would avoid using the Heavyweights like -076 and -682...they're not interesting. The only thing you can do with them is fight, with horrendous casualties, until they're beaten back into submission; a 'victory' is likely TPK in disguise, and even at best just returns status quo rather than accomplishing anything. Keep them as background material; maybe the campaign starts in the aftermath of -682's latest rampage, which was more destructive than usual because it evolved atomic fire breath or something which created a lot of job vacancies.

[DM Nate]

Good advice. I'll keep those things in mind as I craft the campaign. Just one question...

Are we cool yet?

[Tengu_temp]

I had considered running the characters as D-class personnel, but it would be hard to reconcile with the "successfully terminated at end of month" clause.

This clause is not canon anymore, and wasn't a part of many people's head-canon for years. It's unnecessarily grimdark, goes against the Foundation's principle of not wasting resources, and makes no logistical sense because there are only that many death row convicts in the world. The most common thing people go with these days is that D-class personnel is on rotation, and gets assigned to a new SCP every month, usually after administering amnestics. The "they get terminated anyway" thing is a lie sometimes told to new researchers so they won't feel so bad for doing human experimentation.


Eh...I'm really not a big fan of 682, as I find him a bit...unimaginative. Still, I'll be including him simply on account of how important he is to the SCP universe.

You're not alone. 682 is the most overrated SCP (it's a boring indestructable lizard), followed by 231 (using rape for cheap shock factor) and 076 (Gary Stu who can fite gud).

[DM Nate]

This clause is not canon anymore, and wasn't a part of many people's head-canon for years. It's unnecessarily grimdark, goes against the Foundation's principle of not wasting resources, and makes no logistical sense because there are only that many death row convicts in the world. The most common thing people go with these days is that D-class personnel is on rotation, and gets assigned to a new SCP every month, usually after administering amnestics. The "they get terminated anyway" thing is a lie sometimes told to new researchers so they won't feel so bad for doing human experimentation.

As I'll already be cherry-picking which SCP are "canon" in my universe (as some are downright mutually exclusive), this does actually make enough sense to include as well. Who knows...I might have them start out as D-class and have them promoted to junior agents after they halt a site breach, or something.

[Tengu_temp]

Oh, I'm not actually saying the PCs should play as D-class. That'd be pretty boring if you ask me; agents have actual freedom and agency, all D-class personnel can do is listen to orders. And I don't think it's possible for them to get promoted at all; they're death row convicts, would the Foundation really put them in positions with any kind of freedom or authority?

[DM Nate]

Oh, I'm not actually saying the PCs should play as D-class. That'd be pretty boring if you ask me; agents have actual freedom and agency, all D-class personnel can do is listen to orders. And I don't think it's possible for them to get promoted at all; they're death row convicts, would the Foundation really put them in positions with any kind of freedom or authority?

Not without some backstory shenanigans. Perhaps they've had amnesiacs administered so they don't remember being D-classes until an important reveal, or something. For now, it's just brainstorming material though.

[The Glyphstone]

Good advice. I'll keep those things in mind as I craft the campaign. Just one question...

Are we cool yet?

No. No we are not.

AWCY is really, really hard to do well. It's too easy to turn them into the 'psychopathic hipster' caricature, when the best AWCY creations are either completely harmless (but still need to be contained because anomaly), or accidentally/innocuously dangerous. Things What Kill People In Ironic Ways really sells them short.


And yeah, remember the primary rule of the SCP Foundation...'Nothing Is Canon, and Everything Is Canon'. Everybody has their own interpretation of things like D-class disposal, or even which SCPs actually exist in 'their' version of the Foundation. As far as your PCs go, rather than trying to make them elevated D-class, I would have them be the usual sorts of people the Foundation recruits - cops, FBI agents, particularly nosy but unusually skilled private civilians. People who discovered or stumbled upon the hidden world of weird, and chose to take the metaphorical red pill (as opposed to the literal amnestic* blue pill).

*Amestics cause amnesia. Amnesiacs suffer from it. Though taking this incredibly common mistake literally can go in hilariously grimdark directions too.

[Milodiah]

I've played DG and O-WoD, if that helps, but I do still know a bit about nWoD. Just a few (really) specific points I'll weigh for you:

Skills and Combat: DG ~ WoD. Overall there are pros and cons for both.

I think DG has better specialization in skills than WoD ; you get more believable character archetypes in DG instead of WoD's "4 dots in Computers or Technology makes you a nigh-omnipotent nonspecific tech whiz". In DG, 60 points of Computer means you're a competent hacker, or 60 points in Signals makes you a damn fine radioman. Only a few complaints I have for BRP/CoC skills is the splitting of melee skills and other niche tasks, which WoD doesn't suffer from.

However, the nonspecificity can also be pretty helpful. The attribute + ability setup means there's always something the ST can pull out of his ass if a player wants to do something off the wall, unlike DG where anything that isn't a skill is probably going to just be INT x 5, or DEX x 5, or STR x 5...etc.

Combat-wise, I think DG edges out WoD by a slight margin, WoD combat is designed to be spiced up by all sorts of supernatural abilities, and straight humans without even Hunter stuff tend to be "generic mook" targets, whereas DG is meant to stand on its own with a minimum of supernatural things on the players' side of the battlefield. DG is slightly more deadly than WoD, a single .45 slug to the chest can and probably will kill almost the entire bell-curve of human characters and a shotgun is pretty much game-over, whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you.

Inanimate artifact creation: DG < WOD. There really aren't all that many concrete mechanics in CoC/DG for doing so, it pretty much consists of "your creativity". Any sort of effect you want, you pretty much just have to write up in paragraph form. Not overly familiar with how WoD does it, but if it does it at all then it's probably better. The Green Box Generator (http://www.palinola.com/projects/lab/greenbox/) is a handy tool, but now that I think about it it's really not system-specific, just ignore and/or incorporate the Cthulhu-y bits that pop up and you've got everything you need. Besides, you have the "Random Article" button on the Foundation Wiki...which I will admit to having used on occasion myself...

Salvageable Setting Details: DG > WoD. From what I know about White Wolf, if you choose to say "there aren't vampires and werewolves and fey", then 90%+ of their fluff is gone. DG has quite a few organizations that can and will mesh beautifully with the SCP lore: Majestic-12 is interested in alien diplomacy, Delta Green itself is a vigilante version of SCP that operates in secret using recruited government employees, PISCES is a British intelligence agency that's been completely co-opted by (Keter-class) alien parasites, etc. etc.

If I think of anything else, I'll post it, overall I still say DG and not just because I love it, but I can definitely see how nWoD would be usable. Honestly, if you have experience with nWod and not CoC, then I'd actually say "run what you know how to run", which is one of my big opinions on RPG systems.

[Tengu_temp]

No. No we are not.

AWCY is really, really hard to do well. It's too easy to turn them into the 'psychopathic hipster' caricature, when the best AWCY creations are either completely harmless (but still need to be contained because anomaly), or accidentally/innocuously dangerous. Things What Kill People In Ironic Ways really sells them short.

The best AWCY SCP is 1802 (http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1802). It made me laugh when I realized what the twist is.

[Sith_Happens]

The best AWCY SCP is 1802 (http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1802). It made me laugh when I realized what the twist is.

What's the twist?:smallconfused:

[Tengu_temp]

The construct is a parody of the Foundation itself.

[Alent]

The construct is a parody of the Foundation itself.

Ah, right, Skip is the pronunciation of SCP. Heh.

[DM Nate]

At this point, I'm leaning towards DG overall. I don't mind coming up with extra content for a game, and in fact use a lot of homebrewed or adjusted rules for the systems I play.

As for content, I'd really like to do something with the Church of the Broken God. I love the atmosphere of the related SCPs, and it wouldn't be hard to set up multiple missions concerning them.

[Sith_Happens]

Note that Milodah's comparison is specifically based on oWoD, which, not to be too harsh, makes it completely irrelevant as no one was suggesting oWoD. nWoD, by contrast, recently introduced (and Demon: The Descent expanded on) the God Machine, which is basically a worldwide network of SCPs working towards some unknown goal.

[DM Nate]

So...not unlike the Church of the Broken God?

[Mono Vertigo]

I'm pretty certain you could insert the Church of the Broken God in the NWoD fluff and literally not have to change a thing. Cult that might bring the end of the world: check; creepy cultists that sometimes have powers/bizarre talents: check; unique and dangerous artifacts: check; exposure to weird phenomenons can lead you to develop powers and side-effetcs: check; a philosophy revolving around the worship of a Machine that's also a God and Broken: triple-freaking-check...
(The God-Machine is not stated explicitly to be broken, but it's theorized more than once, and makes a lot of sense.)

[1337 b4k4]

I don't have any personal experience with the system, so I'm just going on the things I've heard and seen, but would Dread possibly work for this?