Best System for Ghostbusters? and let's build ghosts!

[Shades of Eternity]

It's Halloween season and honestly, from all the media, the ghostbusters has one of the greatest monster manual never written.

So besides what system to use and why?, let's brainstorm some ghosts?

since I'm working on Manitoba right now, I'll start there:

Lady Laurette​

• Personality: Lady Laurette is a tragic figure, both deeply sorrowful and erratically obsessed with her mission to guide the lost souls of the city. While initially helpful, she can become increasingly manic and unpredictable, her guidance often leading to peril as her fractured memories blur the line between past tragedies and present threats. She is haunted by the memories of her devotion but has become lost in the "Cathedral of Noise," a metaphysical reflection of the chaos and sounds that engulf St. Boniface.
• Abilities:
  1. Ethereal Song: Her voice can travel through any sound wave in the city, making her presence known through radios, public announcements, or even street performers. When she sings, the volume and nature of sound around her change, rising to eerie, unsettling tones that can disrupt electronics or cause physical disorientation.
  2. Memory Maze: Lady Laurette can warp reality within certain areas, creating a confusing, labyrinthine space filled with echoes of the past. Adventurers may find themselves trapped in a dreamlike vision of St. Boniface, where timelines and events blend together.
  3. Secret Whisper: She reveals hidden relics and knowledge, but it comes at a cost. These secrets can be immensely powerful, but misinterpreting them could lead to ghostly traps, or worse, unleash long-buried spirits tied to the city’s history.
• Encounter: The Ghostbusters might pick up strange EVP (electronic voice phenomena) recordings around the Cathedral and soon realize Lady Laurette is using sound to communicate her desires. She’ll first appear as a calm and sorrowful nun, but as the encounter progresses, her presence becomes more intense and chaotic, her whispers transforming into overwhelming cacophonies. The Ghostbusters would need to outwit her by either deciphering her messages or finding a way to break her connection to the Cathedral’s "noise."

The Conductor​

• Personality: The Conductor is stoic and obsessive, driven by a singular mission: complete his final run. He speaks in cryptic railroad metaphors and doesn’t take kindly to interference, viewing the living as mere obstacles to the completion of his journey. However, there’s a touch of compassion in him, especially when it comes to lost souls—he views himself as their guide and caretaker, though he can’t see that he’s actually trapping them in a never-ending cycle of limbo.
• Abilities:
  1. Phantom Train: The Conductor commands a spectral train that can manifest at Union Station or on any old railway track in the city. This train moves through both the physical and spiritual realms, able to travel through solid matter or dimensions, making it a potential means of accessing forgotten or unreachable places. It appears out of thick fog or steam, its whistle an ominous sound that echoes through the night.
  2. Ticket to Nowhere: Boarding the train without permission (or a valid "ticket") could result in being trapped in a spiritual loop, endlessly traveling on the spectral railway without destination. The Conductor can temporarily trap the Ghostbusters in this loop, forcing them to relive fragmented visions of the city's past, all while they search for an exit.
  3. Trainyard Poltergeist: The Conductor can summon spectral train cars, rail spikes, and debris to hurl at intruders. He controls the Union Station environment, using old equipment, flickering station lights, and ghostly echoes of past passengers to intimidate and confound the Ghostbusters.
• Encounter: The Ghostbusters might first catch wind of The Conductor when they receive reports of strange trains appearing out of nowhere at abandoned stations. A mission to investigate Union Station would reveal flickers of the ghostly railway. As the Ghostbusters try to trap The Conductor, he’ll challenge them with his spectral train, attempting to trap them in his looped journey or assault them with ghostly train cars. The key to defeating him might lie in helping him finish his final run—perhaps he needs to deliver one last lost soul to its destination.

Optional Twist: Ghostly Connection​

Both Lady Laurette and The Conductor are somehow linked. Perhaps Laurette’s whispers hint at the lost souls trapped on The Conductor’s train, and vice versa. To fully stop either, the Ghostbusters may need to interact with both—perhaps Lady Laurette’s fragmented memories are the key to guiding The Conductor’s train to its final stop, or maybe The Conductor carries relics from the Cathedral of Noise in one of his spectral cargo cars.

Their stories could interweave across multiple adventures, offering the Ghostbusters opportunities to piece together a larger supernatural puzzle involving the restless spirits of Winnipeg’s past.

************************
let's hear yours‽

 

[overgeeked]

The one and only Ghostbusters RPG from West End Games in the ’80s is still pitch perfect for running Ghostbusters games. There have been endless copy cats and clones over the years, but none as good as the original.

 

[Baba]

There’s Inspectres. I’ve only played it once, and that was almost twenty years ago, so I can’t really give it a fair evaluation. But I remember it as fun, and it is very much inspired by Ghostbusters. The characters run a franchise trying to make a living out of hunting ghosts. It’s built around a concept of letting players improvise explanations to the mysteries they are presented with. DriveThruRPG

 

[Morrus]

Well, the Ghostbusters RPG is the obvious choice.

It’s decades out of print, but Awfully Cheerful Engine is very much inspired by it and currently available.

www.awfullycheerfulengine.com

 

[payn]

PF1 haunts are pretty controversial, but im all about them.