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Monday Mashup #17: Psycho

The Monday Mashup returns with Hitchcock’s Psycho. This is another one that almost has to be a one-shot, unless you wanted to make Norman Bates an ongoing master villain — which is an interesting idea, now that I think about it. But I’m going to be thinking one-shot. There’s an insane villain, obsessed by someone who doesn’t exist anymore, and there’s a lonely location.

Now, do you cast the PCs as Marion Crane and helpless prey, or do you cast ‘em as the post-death investigators? I’m inclined to think the latter, although that turns it into a police procedural… which is in and of itself interesting.

My approach follows.

It’s D20 Star Wars, set post-Rebellion. The PCs get character sheets; they’re fairly low level Republic ops heading to a distant planet for a recon mission. They wind up stopping at a convenient star station on the way — but it’s deserted. And about half an hour in, the malevolent remnant Force-positive Empire Admiral kills them all.

The PCs get the second set of character sheets. They’re local police, and they have to figure out what happened and who did it. The tension is ramped up because they know full well what happened, and how dangerous the Admiral is. I’m seeing a cat and mouse game through deserted space station corridors…

4 Comments

  1. Rob Rob

    Nice. There was a late 1980s early 1990s Chaosium-published Call of Cthulhu adventure that basically *was* Psycho. Motel, murder, creepy mama’s boy. I can’t remember the name of it or which book it appeared in, though. I knew I couldn’t run it with my players because they would have just started the guns blazing the moment I went into my Anthony Perkins impression.

    How about playing My Life With Master with Norman as the PC and own his split personality (his mother) as the Master? (My Life With Mother…)

  2. The PC’s are children, and they each get a message that they are accepted by the foremost school of magic in the land[think Hogwarts]. But when they get there, it turns out that the school has been closed for centuries, ever since the immensely powerful headmaster[think Dumbledore] went insane and murdered everyone. But every year he sends out letters of acceptance, and there are always some muggle parents who fall for them.

  3. Monday Mashup #17: Psycho Hmm. I think I’d got with My Life with Master on this one, simply because I’ve…

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