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Looking for plot hooks - Tales from the loop, paranormal, stranger things inspired stories (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi, I am in the final stage of my D&D campaign, and as I'm tieing up the loose ends, I'm prepping the next campaign.

I like and have played with the Tales from the loop system (and have read, but not particularly like Monster of the week and Kids on bikes), but I don't like the sci-fi robot and dinosaur part of the setting.

In my previous campaigns I put a bit of sci-fi (the government doing experiments and a secret organisation containing anomalies) but I mostly went for paranormal events.

The hooks were by the SCP wiki (details in comments), and I would like to find something along those lines. Do any of you know some good source to look for such hooks? Sites, books, videos?

Thank you!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

SCP already seems like a great source. Its always fun to catch a glimpse of monsters as a teaser for that sort of game. I think some amount of sci fi can definitely enhance paranormal settings, but I understand not wanting to lean too much into that.

The Simon stalenhag books that the Tales from the Loop setting originated in may be very good inspiration for hooks. They have beautiful art with vignettes and stories from one or a few characters perspectives. Anything that is too sci fi can be swapped out for an equivalent paranormal phenomenon, or completely rewritten. The best part about them is that the stories are very minimal as to not distract too much from the art, this adds a lot of empty space for things to be added, which kinda makes it perfect for plot hooks. Also they art itself is gorgeous.

If you are looking for works functionally very similar to SCP, their sister site the Wanderer's library is much more fantastical/paranormal. It may be a step too fantastical, but adapting single elements from high fantasy stories is a good way to tease a deeper weirder world.

In podcasts you can checkout the Magnus Archives. It is a podcast about a fiction organization that is like a much less powerful and scientific version of the SCP foundation. Not much else to say than the stories are pretty good and might inspire good hooks.

My final moonshot recommendation would be... Take a stand ability from a weird random Jojo's bizarre adventure character, slap it on a hybrid of two cryptids, and you have a grade A paranormal creature escaped from a government lab. For example, a moth winged giant ape that can turn dead animals into other animals it can control, or maybe an alien loch ness monster that is appearing in multiple completely disconnected bodies of water by traveling through the reflections of a giant tower at the center of town.

Don't know if this is helpful or just rambling. Personally I think the tales from the loop setting is at its best when its a near 50/50 SciFi/paranormal so I wouldn't shy away from using tech to make things even spookier. Ghosts and machines don't mix well, but in a good way.