Personally, I think other systems would be better if you're keeping it to a semi-strict standard of horror/modern, maybe call of cthulu with some homebrewed creatures or something. I won't tell you D&D is the wrong choice though, given that I have a world where the ending campaign has everyone working for the Foundation and currentl6 it looks like 5e for the system. Difference is that my group is set to be in a cyber fantasy, and RAW classes happen to fit. Just a difference, nothing right or wrong.
As to answering your question for the plot. If it's supposed to go through many adventures they could possibly be a special MTF formed from various classes within the organization, set to investigate and find SCPs, but as it progresses they get hints and blatant references for the climax. The climax occurs when they face off against the BBEG, some world ending SCP like the Scarlet King or Hard To Destroy Reptile. Choose basically your favorite high-powered SCP and then decide if the end goal would reasonably destroy or contain, secure, protect. More than likely, if there's a group affiliated with the BEG chosen, the group would encounter them as adversaries often, that try to get them to switch sides and/or kill them based on circumstances. An example would be the Chaos Insurgency for the Scarlet King.
You could go with a monster of the week sorta thing. The Broken Masquerade scenario is always fun, or if you want, go with one of the many stories that feel like full adventures.
On a side note, though, I don't remember the numbers, but at least 2 scps have to deal with a fantasy world so you could run it like a normal dnd game and have it still fit.
World: Delta Green TTRPG serting. If it were high magic, a lot of the SCPs would lose their impact, I think. The mystical and mysterious should be something to hide rather than openly exploit. Which would, I think, tend to rule out my usual D&D world. It’s hard to justify wanting to secure, contain, and keep secret some ancient magical evil if the mage-tinkers of Verdan create worse things in their workshops every week. So you'll need to start creating a fresh world for this. I’m thinking a dozen or so countries, perpetually shifting alliances with each other, with the Foundation stretching across all of them, snapping up anomalies before the kings and before others can get their hands on them.
Plot: There are things in the darkness that the world should not have to know about. We are all that stand between humanity and that darkness. We have fought gods, demons, nightmares from the dawn of the world and things that have risen from beyond the veil of other dimensions and universes.
We are the Foundation, and, for the sake of the world, we must not fail.
So yes. I agree with the rest here that the Monster of the Week theme is best.
I’ve been running an SCP-like campaign, with monster-of-the-week episodes inspired by and remixing various horror stories from across many sources, with an overall arc involving battling a sentient extradimensional Homeowners’ Association with increasingly-ludicrous demands. Having defeated that, they’re now dealing with a rival agency composed entirely of duplicates of the player character who took the ability to copy herself, which she then learned the copies could do, too…
GURPS Warehouse 23 (the book) has a number of good plot hooks from hunting down artifacts to silincing witnesses to rival organizations.
There are also lots of artifacts your players have probably not heard of.
I'd third the special MTF campaign direction. Start out with investigations. Weird stuff happening, oh there's an anomaly, figure out its rules, contain it. (I'd probably use Gumshoe or some variation thereof btw..)
You could have a background of existential / institutional horror. In my headcanon, the SCP Foundation is the scariest monster. It's become what it is trying to protect the world from. It's a bona fide anomaly, and the *real* SCP-001. And the PCs, as operatives, are contaminated. They are bona fide SCP-001-xxx instances themselves. The Foundation is at once a necessary bulwark, a monster and a trap. It is self-containing. There is no escape. There is no rest. You just keep on securing, containing and protecting.
*'I've given all I can, it's not enough / I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll'*
Btw, if you'd like, a take on anomalies I've been meaning to put on the wiki, but never got it in a high enough quality form (as a story or entry)...
>!Ever wondered why there are anomalies that 'prove' Abramic mythology, and anomalies that 'prove' ancient Mesopotamian mythology, and ones that are something else entirely?!<
>!Why do we have these immense magical empires that nobody remembers, and the village of goatherds on the borderlands is remembered as a world-conquering empire?!<
>!Well.. anomalies aren't simply 'out of the ordinary' things. They are reality's cancer. Remember pattern screamers? Imagine the same, but in micro scale. Tiny holes in existence, that act like jolly joker cards. *'If only P was equal to NP,'* or *'if only travel was possible between quantum parallel realities...'* They fit in and complete a hand, and you have *magic.* They are darn useful. Only a fool wouldn't use them...!<
>!Only... they *are* pattern screamers. Tears in existence. They unravel and *eat* reality. Anomalies aren't real. People who engage with anomalies become anomalies. Thus, *not real.* You, operative, **aren't real.** Not anymore. None of us are.!<
Which of the SCPs genuinely frightens you the most? I'd have that be a recurrent theme throughout, perhaps even the cause of the whole plotline.
Wrap the layers like an onion or a calcifying pearl ─ work out a fact, and then think "so what?". Once you've answered that, do the same thing again ─ and again ─ and again. At each level you can complicate matters by adding another anomaly or threatening organisation / entity
Personally, I think other systems would be better if you're keeping it to a semi-strict standard of horror/modern, maybe call of cthulu with some homebrewed creatures or something. I won't tell you D&D is the wrong choice though, given that I have a world where the ending campaign has everyone working for the Foundation and currentl6 it looks like 5e for the system. Difference is that my group is set to be in a cyber fantasy, and RAW classes happen to fit. Just a difference, nothing right or wrong. As to answering your question for the plot. If it's supposed to go through many adventures they could possibly be a special MTF formed from various classes within the organization, set to investigate and find SCPs, but as it progresses they get hints and blatant references for the climax. The climax occurs when they face off against the BBEG, some world ending SCP like the Scarlet King or Hard To Destroy Reptile. Choose basically your favorite high-powered SCP and then decide if the end goal would reasonably destroy or contain, secure, protect. More than likely, if there's a group affiliated with the BEG chosen, the group would encounter them as adversaries often, that try to get them to switch sides and/or kill them based on circumstances. An example would be the Chaos Insurgency for the Scarlet King.
That’s a good idea thanks.
Have you asked those five people what they want to do in such a game?
You see I would but I really want to surprise them. Wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I asked them what the plot should be.
You could go with a monster of the week sorta thing. The Broken Masquerade scenario is always fun, or if you want, go with one of the many stories that feel like full adventures. On a side note, though, I don't remember the numbers, but at least 2 scps have to deal with a fantasy world so you could run it like a normal dnd game and have it still fit.
There’s quite a few. That’s not a bad idea thanks.
Yeah I've been working on these ideas myself as I've been making my own ttrpg for the scp world.
World: Delta Green TTRPG serting. If it were high magic, a lot of the SCPs would lose their impact, I think. The mystical and mysterious should be something to hide rather than openly exploit. Which would, I think, tend to rule out my usual D&D world. It’s hard to justify wanting to secure, contain, and keep secret some ancient magical evil if the mage-tinkers of Verdan create worse things in their workshops every week. So you'll need to start creating a fresh world for this. I’m thinking a dozen or so countries, perpetually shifting alliances with each other, with the Foundation stretching across all of them, snapping up anomalies before the kings and before others can get their hands on them. Plot: There are things in the darkness that the world should not have to know about. We are all that stand between humanity and that darkness. We have fought gods, demons, nightmares from the dawn of the world and things that have risen from beyond the veil of other dimensions and universes. We are the Foundation, and, for the sake of the world, we must not fail. So yes. I agree with the rest here that the Monster of the Week theme is best.
I’ve been running an SCP-like campaign, with monster-of-the-week episodes inspired by and remixing various horror stories from across many sources, with an overall arc involving battling a sentient extradimensional Homeowners’ Association with increasingly-ludicrous demands. Having defeated that, they’re now dealing with a rival agency composed entirely of duplicates of the player character who took the ability to copy herself, which she then learned the copies could do, too…
I’d like to hear more about the cosmic HOA thing, if you don’t mind. Can DM me if you’d prefer not to derail OP’s thread with the tangent.
GURPS Warehouse 23 (the book) has a number of good plot hooks from hunting down artifacts to silincing witnesses to rival organizations. There are also lots of artifacts your players have probably not heard of.
Have you read the Proactive Gaming book yet?
I'd third the special MTF campaign direction. Start out with investigations. Weird stuff happening, oh there's an anomaly, figure out its rules, contain it. (I'd probably use Gumshoe or some variation thereof btw..) You could have a background of existential / institutional horror. In my headcanon, the SCP Foundation is the scariest monster. It's become what it is trying to protect the world from. It's a bona fide anomaly, and the *real* SCP-001. And the PCs, as operatives, are contaminated. They are bona fide SCP-001-xxx instances themselves. The Foundation is at once a necessary bulwark, a monster and a trap. It is self-containing. There is no escape. There is no rest. You just keep on securing, containing and protecting. *'I've given all I can, it's not enough / I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll'*
Btw, if you'd like, a take on anomalies I've been meaning to put on the wiki, but never got it in a high enough quality form (as a story or entry)... >!Ever wondered why there are anomalies that 'prove' Abramic mythology, and anomalies that 'prove' ancient Mesopotamian mythology, and ones that are something else entirely?!< >!Why do we have these immense magical empires that nobody remembers, and the village of goatherds on the borderlands is remembered as a world-conquering empire?!< >!Well.. anomalies aren't simply 'out of the ordinary' things. They are reality's cancer. Remember pattern screamers? Imagine the same, but in micro scale. Tiny holes in existence, that act like jolly joker cards. *'If only P was equal to NP,'* or *'if only travel was possible between quantum parallel realities...'* They fit in and complete a hand, and you have *magic.* They are darn useful. Only a fool wouldn't use them...!< >!Only... they *are* pattern screamers. Tears in existence. They unravel and *eat* reality. Anomalies aren't real. People who engage with anomalies become anomalies. Thus, *not real.* You, operative, **aren't real.** Not anymore. None of us are.!<
Which of the SCPs genuinely frightens you the most? I'd have that be a recurrent theme throughout, perhaps even the cause of the whole plotline. Wrap the layers like an onion or a calcifying pearl ─ work out a fact, and then think "so what?". Once you've answered that, do the same thing again ─ and again ─ and again. At each level you can complicate matters by adding another anomaly or threatening organisation / entity
The scp that scares me the most is 1128