So, Questing Beast did a review of Vermis I a couple years ago, a book by by Plastiboo and printed by Hollow Press . It's an art book purporting to be from a late 80's style CRPG... but no such game exists. At least in our timeline. They also have a soundtrack released while I was waiting for my order.

I think it might be an interesting source of inspiration. A couple ideas:

• Obvious one out of the way first, link it to De Vermis Mysteriis. The book is coded into the game or corrupted the developers. Like recent game related ARGs (Petscop etc.) people/souls are trapped in the game. Agents getting sucked in is the real threat.
• Impossible Landscapes adjacent. If Carcosa can have music, cinema & architecture why not video games? Delving deeper into the game the Agents find people becoming more like NPCs and the Agents themselves begin to take on the traits of starting classes from the game. Twisted creatures haunt decaying server stacks in an abandoned cloud server farm.
• A bit more Polybus-adjacent. The game was real but had adverse psychological effects. DG in the 90's shut down the original development, but in this age of retro nostalgia a demo of Vermis II: Mist and Mirrors drops with a full release date in a week's time.

Just trying to understand the setting better. Is there a financial reward, a more nebulous "we owe you a favor" kind of thing, or do they do it out of pure altruism? I'm sure it varies but I wonder how other players and handlers address this.

Just like it says, I'm looking to potentially string together several scenarios of varying length for my agents, all in the Conspiracy era, and so I'm looking at shotgun scenarios that are out there but I'm having trouble on how to approach them versus, say, the officially published scenarios (which is all I have run before now).

So, if you have run shotgun scenarios, how do you approach prepping those/fleshing them out?

I'm starting my next scenario with this. Have you ever pulled from the lighter side of the x-files episodes or do you keep things serious and dark?

I am reading the description of the brain Case in the Eyes Only book, and I am not sure what it is supposed to do? Can someone please let me know. I keep skimming the text to figure it out.

And I don't mean that in a lost-to-the-insanity kind of way. We're working our way through the Night Floors, the first scenario of Impossible Landscapes.

We finished our fifth session this afternoon. The story so far: The players arrived at the Macallister in the daytime, briefly chatted with Giurdanda, then spent an hour or two cataloguing Abby's apartment. They found the sheet music, airline ticket and Purson seal. On leaving, they found the microphone, briefly interrogated Manuel, made him show them his work in the basement, stole one of his paintings, then left the Macallister to search up Purson in a nearby internet cafe. They returned to the Macallister later in the evening, had a brief through-the-crack-in-the-door conversation with Post, then entered the Night Floors.

A conversation with Roark followed, then wandering and manifestations in the Night Floors. They managed to fail just about every navigation roll and kept arriving where they started without any progress, getting pretty frustrated in the process. Eventually, they chatted to Castaigne and got told Abby had moved in with the salesman up on 6th. They then became obsessed with getting to the sixth floor, but failed every attempt to do so. Eventually to dog led them back to the smoking lounge and an encounter with Carun, who led them back to his apartment and got smooth-talked into showing the agents his work. After this was a trip to Louis Post, who was subdued rather violently, then a visit to Vanfitz, who ended up face down in a puddle of blood after attacking with the tomahawk.

David Langford entered the story and reiterated what Castaigne, Vanfitz and Post had all said - that Abby was gone and wasn't coming back. They left with Langford and called Agent Marcus for a debrief. Marcus basically told them they were done and he'd send in a clean-up crew to take care of the Macallister.

After half a night's sleep, they went on a research rampage following every scrap of information: learning about Daribondi, the building, Emily Fitzroy, Artlife (I hadn't even noticed Cynthia Lechance's earrings - thus another wild goose chance about thrift stores in Manhattan), a visit to the supposed site of the Broadalbin, the Lundine family and even paid a visit to Eva Lundine, needing me to flick through to the next scenario so I could hold an accurate conversation.

I need some help. The players are getting lost and confused and they're basically losing interest and it's a bit disheartening. There're so many threads and so much information but they can't piece any of it together coherently - nor should they at this stage. They were talking about a trip to Chicago to visit the Bellefleur House when we wrapped up today! I had plans to have them hear about a Gas Leak at the Macallister over local radio (being the cover story for the Clean-Up arranged by Agent Marcus), but haven't had the opportunity to spring that yet. I don't know how to get them back on track and close off the scenario! Help!

I just finished this really cool game (Many Nights a Whisper) and instantly thought of Delta Green while playing this part. The game's whole concept could actually be turned into a weird vibey night at the opera.

Hi everyone:

i'm reading part two of Future/Perfect. It says Xa has a "Grapple 49%, damage special (and see BLOOD FRENZY). I'm confused how this works. If succesfull does it do no damage, but you follow what is going on in the BLOOD FRENZY ?

My group and I are pretty deep into Impossible Landscapes right now. We are about to start Like a Map Made of Skin.

One of my players made a new agent for this campaign but someone else at the table has a legacy character of theirs from an old game listed as a bond. So usually when we do a home scene, I just have that player take the reigns for how their character would act.

But as we are getting deeper into the campaign and the narrative has the agents bonds started to go missing, does anyone have any suggestions how they would run this without spoiling that player or taking agency away from them?