Back in the 1990s and the Oughts, I loved conspiracy-based RPG settings and material. I devoured GURPS Illuminati, Delta Green, Kenneth Hite’s Suppressed Transmission columns, and so on.
But in the last decade, I’ve moved away from them. Part of it may be that I realized that how many conspiracy theories ultimately originated in antisemitic slanders. Part of it might be their mainstreaming by the resurgent fascist right and their supporters. And, of course, the great villains of our day perpetrate all their villainy in the open, rarely even bothering to hide what they are doing.
So I no longer enjoy settings where “The Conspiracy” and their schemes are the main focus of the setting. While I don’t mind having “small-c” conspiracies in a game, I don’t like it when there is a secret cabal of conspirators running everything.
How about you? Do you still enjoy Conspiracy-based setting, or have you lost your taste for them as well?
They’re being suppressed by a secret government agency.
I really want to get the old Illuminati “INWO” Card Game from Steve Jackson and play it, but the big boxes are way too much money on the ebay and idk anyone who plays.
Instead I’ve been playing Munchkin’s Fantasy variant.
If you haven’t read the Illuminautus Trilogy from Robert Anton Wilson you might get a kick out of it, it (along with Discordianism and The Church of the SubGenius) seem like clear influences on Steve’s Illuminati work (there is after all a SubGenius INWO expansion which I do happen to have, though I lack the rest), I think he knows it’s tongue in cheek.
@juergen_hubert@ttrpg.network @juergen_hubert@mementomori.social I would assume it will be cyclical and will return in some future era. I think there’s just too much real life weirdness going on that revealing that there’s lurking horrors just elicits shrugs at this point.
@juergen_hubert
Hmm I Play Unknown Armies or Delta Green from time to time but never as campaign usually as one- or few-shots. Overarching conspiracy so Not really matter.Plus, i find them quite boring. I much like macro Situations which a Dangerous rather then earth destroying plots.
How do you feel about Unknown Armies though? There’s kind of a conspiracy but also many small conspiracies…
Conspiracy theories were more fun when it was just a handful of lone cranks beating their own drum, before they got weaponised into QAnon and fascist/autocrat psyops. Nowadays, when you have older relatives reposting on Facebook about how Soros has lasers in space that will trans your kids to bring about communism, you don’t want to hear about the Illuminati.
I think Delta Green is still worth playing. They’re not a conspiracy of the “secretly running everything” type, just the “secret cover-up” kind, and honestly they’re kind of terrible at doing that most of the time.
The recently published campaigns, Impossible Landscapes and God’s Teeth, are both fantastic. The latter is very politically minded, with some horrors only possible in the story because of real-world atrocities of the Trump administration. It’s also the darkest fucking game I’ve ever played in, and would be way too much for most tables.
I think delta green is becoming more popular, if anything. There are a ton of quite popular actual play podcasts of it now (pretending to be people and get in the trunk are the big ones which come to mind)
I really like running it because the system is easy to run and teach, and there are oodles of free one shots for it.
The glass cannon network play through of impossible landscapes was an awesome listen.
@juergen_hubert That’s what they want you to think.
@juergen_hubert i’m worn out on the matter because of your aforementioned roots in slander and, at least here in the US, some of them have become reality (looking at you the now pervasive with the US Right wingers called Project 2025). maybe with time, i’ll heal and a general conspiracy will work. i just can’t right now.
@juergen_hubert @davej everything is so whacked, the conspiracy games look tame by comparison.
I feel the same. For me it’s even greater with occult and ancient-magic stuff like Indiana Jones or Uncharted. Loved those kind of stories but today I can’t ignore the harmful and anti-intellectual undertones (and with much of the newer stuff clearly anti-intellectual messages) of it.
