The Fourth Kind - A mystery RP that officially needs a name

This is an RP idea ever so loosely based on the movie, The Fourth Kind. You are a psycologist [maybe we could allow other different professions? Maybe later on as the story progresses?] who goes to a certain town [Of the player's choice from a list of preset towns] investigating the many recent and unexplained disappearences of civilians. Players will investigate these disappearences starting by hypnotising patients who 'have lost sleep'. The plot unfolds with each hypnotisim. Sometimes the hypnotism will bring back strong memories and make the patient behave irrationally as they litterally 'relive' the terrifying events during their sleep, in their mind.

PLOT SPOILER

Spoiler:

More ideas? Anything? Thoughts?

New Ideas/Thoughts/Anything

Quote :

Some common types of therapy are cognitive, behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, interpersonal, humanistic, psychodynamic or a combination of a few therapy styles. Therapy can be for an individual, couples, family or other group. Some psychologists are trained to use hypnosis, which research has found to be effective for a wide range of conditions including pain, anxiety and mood disorders

Players will put in their Character Sheets whether or not their character knows/has studied Hypnotism.

Rules

•No godmodding (and other obvious general RP rules).

•No unauthorised plot twists (take up all plot twists with the OP for authorisation).

•Hypnosis does not equal mind control. Do not treat it like that.

•Killing anybody counts as a plot twist.

•What's in the OOC stays in the OOC. The IC only knows what has happened in the IC.

•Running off to some random location counts as a plot twist.

Character Sheet

Name: [Character's name]
Job: [Character's job, Detective, Psycologist or something else (maybe?)?]
Bio: [Character's Biography] [Four sentence minimum]
Hypnotist?: [Yes or No]
Personality: [Description, short or long? Inculde: Reaction to Gore, Reaction to Disturbing Scenes and Information, Fighting Ability and reaction to combat, and authority] [Four Sentence Minimum]
Appearance: [Same as above] [Three or Four Sentence Minimum]

Pretty good. With something like this, you'll need to write out the entire plot in advance, though (for personal reference only, of course). Once you get that done it shouldn't be too hard.

Ok, thanks.

Should I have different jobs in this, eg. other then a psycologist?

An actual detective might be a good idea. Perhaps a policeman as well. In the real world psychologists would be dealing with fixing the trauma of the issue.

Yeah good idea... though, well... I'll just explain it...

The trauma of the events that the player needs to extract from the NPC is in the NPC's unconsious mind, so they really need to be hypnotised to have access to that information, which is the primary means in which the plot will unfold.

So investigators would be better trained for investigating these things, but wouldn't have the advantage of hypnotism... it might balance out...

I don't think many psychologists would be trained in actual hypnotism (although throw me a link or a reference if there is evidence otherwise). But they would be trained to unravel one's thoughts and get it out of them.

So for such an investigation we'd need all three. A hypnotist to get the witness into a calm, sub-conscious state in which they'd be able to remember the answers. A psychologist to get the answers out of the witness and make sense of what the witness has seen. And a detective to piece together all the clues and find the witness in the first place.

Quote :

Some common types of therapy are cognitive, behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, interpersonal, humanistic, psychodynamic or a combination of a few therapy styles. Therapy can be for an individual, couples, family or other group. Some psychologists are trained to use hypnosis, which research has found to be effective for a wide range of conditions including pain, anxiety and mood disorders

http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/about-psychologists.aspx

Maybe I should have a thing in the character sheet for whether the PC knows hypnosis/hypnotherapy ect.

I think you should throw that quote in the OP somewhere, just to help out character planning. And yeah, ask whether they can hypnotise or not.

Keep in mind that hypnosis only puts the subject into a relaxed, semi-conscious state. Despite popular depiction, it has no ability to do anything against the subject's will. It is good for giving the memory a boost and helping get over addictions and rehabilitation, which is what we want I'd assume (mainly the first one).

Would I really have made this revolve around hypnosis if I thought it could make and army of hypnotic zombies? Really?

Anyway, yeah good idea I'll just go and put that in the OC... OP whatever it's called...

I'm just mentioning it. It would be something to put in the rules so we don't have anybody attempting to make an army of hypnotic zombies.

Good idea.

Rules, now what shall we do for those? I have a few suggestions.

• No godmodding (and other obvious general RP rules).
  
• No unauthorised plot twists (take up all plot twists with the OP for authorisation).
  
• Hypnosis does not equal mind control. Do not treat it like that.
  
• Killing anybody counts as a plot twist.
  
• What's in the OOC stays in the OOC. The IC only knows what has happened in the IC.
  
• Running off to some random location counts as a plot twist.
  

Character Sheet Draft

Name: [Character's name]
Job: [Character's job, Detective, Psycologist or something else (maybe?)?]
Bio: [Character's Biography]
Hypnotist?: [Yes or No]

That covers the important parts. Be sure to throw in an appearance and personality (personality will be important in a crime/mystery RP) as well.

Okay

Name: [Character's name]
Job: [Character's job, Detective, Psycologist or something else (maybe?)?]
Bio: [Character's Biography]
Hypnotist?: [Yes or No]
Personality: [Description, short or long?]
Appearance: [Same as above]

Personality should also include traits which will effect the plot (ie. reaction to gore and disturbing scenes/information, authoritativeness and reaction in a fight). Just mention it when you make it.

As for length, that is up to you to decide. Make it at least a paragraph or two. Honestly I find it difficult to write anything more than that.

Name: [Character's name]
Job: [Character's job, Detective, Psycologist or something else (maybe?)?]
Bio: [Character's Biography]
Hypnotist?: [Yes or No]
Personality: [Description, short or long? Inculde: Reaction to Gore, Reaction to Disturbing Scenes and Information, Fighting Ability and reaction to combat, and authority]
Appearance: [Same as above]

One or two paragraphs should suffice as a minimum for both the Appearance and the Personality. I think your character sheet is pretty much complete.

Okay, thanks
Name: [Character's name]
Job: [Character's job, Detective, Psycologist or something else (maybe?)?]
Bio: [Character's Biography] [Four sentence minimum]
Hypnotist?: [Yes or No]
Personality: [Description, short or long? Inculde: Reaction to Gore, Reaction to Disturbing Scenes and Information, Fighting Ability and reaction to combat, and authority] [Four Sentence Minimum]
Appearance: [Same as above] [Three or Four Sentence Minimum]