Will the real Purple Hand please stand up?

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Hyarion
Posts: 260
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:56 am

As I'm wrapping up my first campaign (which went really well), I have started thinking about some things to include in my next campaign. One thing I want to do is adapt another episode of the Twilight Zone and the one I had in mind is "Will the real Martian please stand up?"

Spoilers follow:
A group of people on a bus arrive in a diner in a driving blizzard because the bridge ahead is too dangerous to cross. 2 police officers also arrive because they were investigating a ufo they found in a nearby lake. When they come in from the cold, they realize that 7 people got off the bus but only 6 had gotten on. They realize that one of the patrons is an alien but cannot figure out who. They all become suspicious of each other, but it is all inconclusive and eventually they call the County Engineer who gives the bridge the all-clear and the bus driver reluctantly gets all 7 people on the bus despite his misgivings.

Later one of the patrons comes back into the diner and the cook asks him what happened. The bus and everybody on it drowned in the river due to the icy bridge, just as the bus driver feared, but the man himself is not even wet. He reveals that he is a Martian and is a lead scout for a colonization force coming to the area. Then the cook reveals that he is from Venus and that the Martian force has been intercepted and threatens the Martian scout.

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Some questions:
1) I had planned to have the PCs fill the role of the Policemen and have an interesting investigation between two rival cults (taking the place of the Martians/Venusians). But the big reveal happens after everybody else has left or is dead. How to get around that in the adventure?

2) Any other episodes that would work well for adaptation to an invention that I should consider instead?
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
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Orin J.
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Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2019 10:39 pm

i'd honestly handle the "after everybody else has left or is dead" by making the twist a "two-parter". the mystery of where the extra person comes from goes largely unsolved during the first adventure so the group feels unsatisfied, then the next adventure has the "extra man" happen to turn up somewhere he really shouldn't with the players catching him and whatever hell you feel like breaks loose when the other cult finds out the truth through a mole or whatever.
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Hyarion
Posts: 260
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2019 11:56 am

Great ideas, thanks Orin!
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
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