My Submissions To The 2022 Shotgun Scenario Contest

The 2022 Shotgun Scenario Contest has concluded. The winner scenario was Take The A Train by Bird, the second place and people's choice winner was Saturnalia by mellonbread. Two great scenarios that deserved to win, both were also among my votes.

There were a lot of other cool scenarios among the 53 entries. You can find all of them in the contest document or in the Fairfield 2 wiki.

I did not have time to playtest them, but I also wrote and submitted two entries to the contest, Applied Hypergeometry and Biodynamics. In this blog post I want to talk a bit about them and how I came up with them.

Applied Hypergeometry

One reviewer correctly identified that Applied Hypergeometry was inspired by Laundry Files novels. In the Laundry Files universe magic and math (or rather computation) are equivalent. Running certain algorithms is the same as performing a ritual. I'm a fan of all things math and/or computer science so a lot of my scenario ideas revolve around similar themes.

When I started collecting notes for Applied Hypergeometry I wanted to write a pure "weird math" scenario, but I found it hard to attach interesting gameplay to the ideas that I had, at least within the confines of a shotgun scenario. Only when I combined some of what I had with another idea (the neuro-cognitive warfare research group) it started to become something that is playable. However, this meant that the "weird math" angle got pushed in the background instead of being the center of the scenario.

I don't remember where I first heard of neuro-cognitive warfare, but it is a real thing, though not as science-fictiony as in the scenario. I took it in that direction because that gave me a chance to add some unusual weapon prototypes. Inspiration for those came from things like Havana syndrome or the Moscow Signal.

Something that is not well explained in the scenario is the connection of the main bad guy with Tsathoggua. I chose Tsathoggua because the Handler's Guide mentions that they are the most accessible Great Old One and willingly share hypergeometric knowledge. For someone who's mind accidentally got opened to the influence of the Great Old Ones it seemed like the perfect entity to commune with.

Tsathoggua by Nottsuo

But how would the Agents learn of all this? Some reviewers were rightfully skeptical about the discoverability of the backstory. If I would run this scenario I probably would have the bad guy tell them what happened, while he tries to recruit the Agents to his cult. But I did not write that in the scenario text, which is a problem for other people that want to run this.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this scenario, as did the reviewers. There are definitely parts that I think are good, like the sci-fi weapons or the events that happen at the company while the Agents are there. But it does not seem to be as runnable for other Handlers as it should be.

Biodynamics

The core idea for this scenario, biodynamic farmers unleashing a Mythos threat, first came to me when I was thinking about possible hooks for the 2022 Night At The Opera Scenario Contest. One of the prompts for the contest was "This Poisoned Earth", which made me think of the weird practices of those anthroposophic farmers. I decided to do something else for that contest, but I hadn't forgotten the idea and finally began working on it for the Shotgun Contest.

I was unsure what the Mythos threat should be. Originally I thought it should be something with horns, because biodynamic farmers fill their useless preparations into cow horns and bury them on their fields. But then I read about the ground-up quartz crystal that they fill into those horns and of course such a crystal could have been a Lloigor stone. Because the stone is pulverized I also had a great excuse to reduce the Lloigor special abilities to a manageable amount. The themes of cancer and depression were also useful to construct a hook and an in media res opening scene.

One reviewer remarked that they rather would rather not have the anthroposophists be Germans, because the players might chase a Karotechia red-herring. But if players immediately jump to the conclusion that a Nazi wizard did it whenever there is a German person in a scenario, then it's their own damn fault. :)

As an aside, a number of high-ranking Nazis were big fans of anthroposophy, so the Karotechia red-herring could be developed to be more than just a red-herring. E.g. the Karotechia could have been the original owner of the Lloigor stone and somehow it ended up in the hands of the anthroposophists.

Biodynamical agriculture is very popular in Germany, so it made sense to me to make the NPCs Germans as well. But it could be changed without problem, e.g. there are biodynamic wine-growers in California that could be used as a replacement.

I built the monster that is the "final boss" around the Lloigor theme of cancer and I am quite satisfied how it turned out. Of course having a monster fight at the end is a bit cliche and I feel that the last part of the scenario could have been a bit more fleshed out. I would have liked to add an option to solve the scenario without violence, but I did not have the word count to do anything substantial.

I think of my two entries Biodynamics is definitely the better one. It also got better reviews and maybe someone even voted for it. I hope that I can run these scenarios soon and then I will post an update about how that went.