Scenarios where the investigators are "bad"

[trevlix]

A thought occurred to me when I had an idea for a scenario. In most of the scenarios I can think of, the investigators are brought in through a family member, being hired, or through circumstance (stumbling into the mythos). In these instances, they are more or less the "good guys". They haven't done anything malicious or wrong and those behind the mythos are what we could consider "bad".

Are there any scenarios that have been written where the investigators are the bad guys and those using the mythos would be considered "good" and are using it for their own protection or something along those lines?

I can think of a number of examples of where this could happen - the investigators are guards at a POW camp on the "wrong" side, they are members of an organization like the KKK, part of a mob, etc. With the discrimination and racism in the 20s, this isn't an implausible situation.

However, I can't think of any scenarios as examples of this. Are there any?

[PhoneCallOfCthulhu]

There's the Dark Mirror monograph which deals with playing cultists.

[maglaurus]

I can recall a handful of examples of this that have aired on Roleplaying Public Radio. I remember one put the characters at the controls of a WWI German U-Boat, another had the investigators working for Stalin in post-WWII East Germany, and a third centered on the Yakuza in post-WWII Japan. A fourth example, it wasn't a podcast game but something one of the contributors talked about, was a group of mobsters traveling to Louisiana (I think to hunt down a snitch) and encountering an Innsmouth-style town based on the local alligator population. This material is all easily accessible through RPPR and you can easily mine it for ideas--I know I have.

[Skyman]

Digging for a Dead God

Dead Leaves Fall...might fit depending on view point

[trevlix]

Thanks all! I'll be looking for these!

[Pookie]

The Unspeakable Oath #11 contains the scenario, "Cold War," in which the player characters are cultists. There is some flexibility in the scenario in that there some investigators also, so you could run an actual player investigator versus player cultists session. It is written for Cthulhu Now.

[trevlix]

I guess I wasn't thinking of anything where the players were cultists. More like they are on the bad side of a situation and are having the mythos used against them, not that they are cultists using the mythos...although a cult vs cult scenario would be interesting.

[eternalchampion]

Hmm I would say that nothing that has to do with Mythos can be considered "good". But...an interesting scenario where the players are not cultists (exactly) but are really bad asses is "In media ress" from "Out of the vault III".

[G.Roby]

http://alturl.com/vxf7j

is there no SPOILER tag here?

[Naked Samurai]

I was going to mention In Medias Res, as eternalchampion did. Characters come to as pre-generated escaped criminals who have already done some pretty nasty things.

You could add a 'good guy' Mythos use to the end of that scenario, by having some Delta Green or affiliated type of organization or agent come take them out (spoiler: unless they escape a different way) using a Mythos spell or other.

The problem with the concept - and it's an intriguing one - is that using Mythos for a 'good' reason will probably just look like Mythos for a bad reason from most players' points of view, unless they know their characters are truly awful people. Digging for a Dead God, also mentioned above, would go in this direction - where they are Nazis in Africa, I believe. You could add a Van Helsing type figure from the Allies hunting them down, who has some Mythos knowledge.

[trevlix]

'In Media Res' was the first one I thought of when I started thinking of this.

I guess "good vs bad" are the wrong terms to be using here, although I don't know the right terms to use. The best example I can think of is the first Pumpkinhead movie - Pumpkinhead isn't summoned (?) because the summoner is evil, its out of revenge for the (accidental) killing of a child.

[Skyman]

I guess "good vs bad" are the wrong terms to be using here, although I don't know the right terms to use. The best example I can think of is the first Pumpkinhead movie - Pumpkinhead isn't summoned (?) because the summoner is evil, its out of revenge for the (accidental) killing of a child.

OK now I REALLY think Dead Leaves Fall scenario fits what you want...just saying

[CAThompson]

Just about any noir/spy type thing could work. Part of it depends more on what the players want to play. Groups that come across the mythos and get involved can be anyone, organized crime, spies or any army/government. Half the scenarios can be switched around for players with "bad guy" backgrounds. Take The Haunting, Don Klamps could send his goons to a house he recently acquired to have them "deal with the bums who're keeping me from selling it."

Or, the CIA/KGB/MI-6/Everyone else is trying to capture/recruit a ghoul because one of them learned that this thing can eat people's brains and know all their secrets. Actually, there's a scenario as spies, criminals and corporations all jocky for the ghoul, we'll call him Arthur MacGuffin.

[ElijahWhateley]

This also comes up a ton in Delta Green. Depending on how you play your characters, you can be determined public servants or a modern American Gestapo. Either way you're likely to tromp over a lot of Constitutional rights and have some fights with whistle-blowers, internal/external/journalistic investigations, non-corrupt law enforcement, and other "good" guys.

Spoilers

It can get a lot darker if you play as employees of one of the groups other than DG, such as GRU-SV8, Pisces, or even MJ-12. The corebook speculates about the possibility of a party working for the Fate, which is about as bad as it gets.

[Naked Samurai]

Delta Green seems to specialize in Mythos-level events accessed not out of evil, but out of bad luck or too much curiosity. Artifact Zero and The Last Equation, for example. A Victim of the Art has the 'evil' more motivated - by an individual - but (spoilers) this person is not aware of it.

Those don't quite fulfill the request, I fear, where the evil is employed for morally justifiable reasons. It would be interesting to see more of those.