prokopetz:

prokopetz:

prokopetz:

Concept: a tabletop RPG scenario where the player characters initially appear to be working for an SCP Foundaton-esque organisation that’s responsible for preserving the status quo by containing and concealing anomalous phenomena, except they eventually discover that the organisaton they work for is itself anomalous, and most of the “anomalies” they’re containing have been faked by a completely different clandestine organisaton which is, in turn, responsible for containing and concealing the first organisaton.

For bonus points, the big twist is that this is part of the natural life cycle of such institutions. Any organisation responsible for securing and containing anomalies must inevitably be compromised by its charges and become anomalous itself, upon which secret contingency plans for its own containment are activated.

So, when organisaton A starts to go downhill, organisation B – which exists for the sole purpose of monitoring organisation A – intervenes, assumes custody of any anomalous items deemed too dangerous to remain in organisation A’s hands and replaces them with fakes, sets up a new organisation C which is in turn responsible for monitoring them, twiddles their own memories to erase all knowledge of both the transfer of power from organisation A and of organisation C’s existence, and finally assumes organisation A’s role.

You end up with a whole nested series of anomalous secret agencies securing and containing each other, with only the outermost shell being aware of the overall picture. At the point in time that the campaign takes place, the arrangement is six or seven layers deep – and the layer responsible for containing the player characters isn’t even the outermost one!

@nav-taisser replied:

with the “next” organization taking the most dangerous anomalies, it
sounds like each layer is progressively scarier and/or more dangerous
the further “out” you go

Of course – that’s the campaign’s IC justification for why the challenge ratings faced by the player characters increase linearly over time.