BRP Conversion: Ghostbusters

[Old Man Sweeny]

Ahem! Here goes nothing:

(This is from the old WEG Ghostbusters. Truly a great box set)

Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night?

Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic?

Have you or any of your family ever seen a spook, spectre or ghost?

If the answer is yes, then don't wait another minute. Pick up your phone and call the professionals.

Ghostbusters!

Our courteous and efficient staff is on call twenty-four hours a day to serve all your supernatural elimination needs.

We're ready to believe you!

For those of you interested in working in a dynamic yet rewarding career in the fast paced world of supernatural elimination, please take this two minute test:

Do you believe in UFOs, astral projection, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trans-mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?

If your answer looked something like: If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say?

Then welcome aboard, youre hired!! Your keen mind, natural scientific acumen and belief in the supernatural is exactly what we need. Either that or you need a job.

The life of a fully licensed paranormal eliminator:

The bane of Insurance companies, City Officials, and of course Ghosts. Most likely before this you had a Real job ( what qualifies as a real job these days, is open to debate.) Now your day revolves around getting no sleep and running around with an unlicensed nuclear accelerator battling evil spirits and mouldy Babylonian Gods.

As a result, a great many of the people involved in ghost busting come from all shapes and sizes from all levels of the social strata.

The Catch? Well, during the course of you adventures you caused a bit of collateral damage. Scratch that you caused a lot of collateral damage. The EPA doesnt think too much of your cheap electronic lightshow either. You get to meet Government Officals too (Will try to get you arrested/sued etc) A good many ghostbusters are what you may call..... Eccentric.

The Tools and The Talent:

The Proton Pack . Or in techno babble: A Particle-beam weapon , a device that accelerates subatomic particles or atoms to velocities near the speed of light, focused into a narrow stream. Now what possible use could that have?

Look at it this way: A ghost is primarily an entity composed of a mass of negatively charged eco-plasmic energy. That being constant, the only way to physically affect them is to use a focused beam of positrons which upon contact with the average ghost binds them in the stream of particles.

Well, in theory anyway. As can be possibly imagined , a backpack mounted weapon with a battery half life of at least 5000 years will do more then scuff the paintwork. These babies are known to cause massive amounts of damage due to the gross inaccuracy and destructive power they suffer from.

( This is still a rough draft, will figure in the stats for the proton packs in a short while)

It comprises two settings: Attack, where normal damage is dealt by the weapon versus anything it hits, and Containment where after weakening a ghost or entity, said ghost or entity is bound in a particle stream ready to by moved into the trap.

Dont cross the streams. It would be bad..

Paranormal Science 101

Much like the genus of the animal and biological kingdoms, a basic means of identifying ghosts by class strata has been adapted. This has a two fold result:

1: Determine what is in the Bradleys Kitchen throwing stuff around and

2: Charge the appropriate fee.

Class 1: Undeveloped forms, likely insubstantial. Can interact with the environs by way of light, voice or sounds. Usually, contact with proton beams is enough to get rid of them.

Class 2: Manifestations focused in our realm of space time. Capable of physically affecting the enviroment. Appearance is vague, ethereal or incomplete. This class of ghost, can and will defend itself.

Class 3: Distinct human form apparent, most likely an anonymous haunting. Personality and emotions are evident. Ghosts of this class are difficult to deal with, most will have means of lethal attack and defense.

Class 4: Identity established. Human form and personality conforms to that while living ( eg Blackbeard, Caesar, Custer etc) Communication and research needed to combat manifestations.

Class 5: Ectoplasmic manifestations of definite but often non human form. Theory suggests that this class are formed in the wake of highly charged emotional events, or by ritual summonses. Caution advised as most ghosts of this class are ruled by base instinct and aggression.

Class 6: Ghosts from the lower life forms. Animalistic by nature, research is needed to fully understand the goals or purpose of class 6 manifestations.

Class 7: Advise extreme caution. Malevolent and powerful. Control over many forms, able to substantially affect the physical plane by force of will. Given that standard modes of control and attack are futile, the best defences to a class 7 are to prevent it from ever entering our world.

Rough draft, but will smooth it over in the next few posts. Feel free to chop,change,cut mangle and crit to get something playable!

[sladethesniper]

Why did I not think of this??

Fantastic write up for so few words. Please work on this :happy:

I really liked the ghost classes. I think this will work nicely in Deep Black, yes, very nice indeed!

-STS

[Old Man Sweeny]

Thanks amigo. Will whip up the sweat shop and make this a tad more playable.

Still, im only just re-tooling stuff that was in the original. Standing on the ecto plasmic shoulders of giants. Or something!

[Kairos]

Very cool! Didn't Sandy Peterson work on the original West End GB game? I loved that game in high school.

[Sutekh]

I, also, have played and liked Ghostbusters International and would like to see this conversion. The only problem I had was that the system was too “cartoony”. I think it would work better if it was run semi-straight, which converting to BRP would allow it to be played.

[sladethesniper]

Collect Call of Cthulhu!

Ghost Busters is already part of the Mythos!!! Just like Justice League is! Go Cthulhu!!

-STS

[NickMiddleton]

Very cool! Didn't Sandy Peterson work on the original West End GB game? I loved that game in high school.

Designed by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Greg Stafford IIRC and arguably never properly credited for the influence it had on WEG's Star Wars that followed in '87

Cheers,

Nick

[axe-elf]

BRP Ghostbusting

Proton pack

Weapon: Proton Pack; Skill: Proton Pack; Base: 05%; Dmg: 3d12; Attk: 1; Special: Impale;

Rng: 20; Hands: 2H; HP: 20; Parry: No; STR/DEX: 9/7; Mal: 97-00; Value: Exspensive;

SIZ/Enc: 8

Emit wiggely proton beam that affect ghosts. Has two settings, Attack and Containment. It takes 5 DEX ranks to switch. Attack with successful hit will remove d5 power points from ghost. Miss will damage surroundings. Ghost at 0 power points may be contained by containment beams, and by two or more of these beams guided to a ghost trap on a successfull cooperarive STR roll opposed to ghost POW. If failure, ghost escapes.

Ghost trap

A small box which stores and transports one subdued ghost.The lid is opened

by pressing a foot-pedal attached to the box by a twelve-foot length of tubing. As it opens, the ghost trap produces a luminous white cone of psychokinetic force which channels the target ghost into the trap. May sometimes need DEX roll to open correctly. After capture, transfer ghost to power grid.

PKE Meter

Detects location of ghost on successfull PKE meter skill roll (mental).

Ecto-Visor

May detect ghosts that have gone invisible.

Note about ghosts being ghostbusted

Ghosts act at INT or POW rank (whichever is higher) in combat round. Ghosts can dodge at POWx4. They can attack using powers or ghostly combat. Successful hit with proton beam interrupts ghostly combat.

[seneschal]

Just to give this excellent thread additional inspiration ...

Who ya gonna call?

[Merak Gren]

Designed by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Greg Stafford IIRC and arguably never properly credited for the influence it had on WEG's Star Wars that followed in '87

Cheers,

Nick

Indeed. The whole D6 phenomenom? Kick started by the good folks at Chaosium. I do like the Chaosium logo in the Ghostbusters Box.

[seneschal]

The Ghostbusters vs. ... The Nazgul! In this case, Our Heroes have nine ghosts to deal with, the leader of whom is also a powerful sorcerer. How would you stat up the baddies? Do they drive black SUVs instead of riding horses in the 21st century? Trench coats, broad-brimmed hats and dark glasses instead of cloaks? Do they carry some sort of gun instead of glowing swords? Maybe those Men In Black aren't UFO-related, after all.

Why are they here? The ring, of course. It was dug out of a lava bed by miners several years ago and has since made its way to a local pawn shop, where one of the player-characters' significant others has purchased it, not knowing what it is. Now there are creepy pug-uglies combing this side of town, not all of them supernatural. A mobster boss has noticed the hubbub and decided that if something valuable enough to cause a ruckus is floating around town, he and his boys should get their grubby paws on it. Another pursuer is a short, withered, homeless-looking old fellow with a lisp. It's Fellowship of the Ring meets The Maltese Falcon, the the adventurers are caught in the middle.

[Jeffrywith1e]