Another example. All phones have random conversations already in effect, two "NPCs" just talking randomly. And oddly. "I wish this rain would end" while it's sunny.

Sometimes phones make hissing noises, or static.

Make someone declare they saw a mudcrab the other day.

Calling 911 leads to the "summoning" of police officers, driving a firetruck. They arrive where the phone is, even if a PC doesn't give a location. They just start shooting at people.

>>7054225
Seen any... Elves?

When the NPCs attempt to uproot vegetation, they discover that the plants have no further root structure. Same phenomenon with uncommon animals; the insides are strange and inaccurate. When they open up a crab, mammalian hearts, lungs, and intestines spill out.

rolled 5, 4, 1 = 10

>>7054177
If you look up in the sky often enough, you will notice that some of the clouds are identically shaped.

Scraping the paint off of certain walls will reveal a shiny silver metal that cannot be damaged by anything you're likely to get your hands on.

If you order a pizza, you will get cheese and pepperoni only, regardless of what toppings you ordered. If you pick it up in person it will be fine.

There are no gun stores.

If you follow the electric or phone cables all the way outside the town, they go into the ground. If you dig them up, it turns out they're not actually connected to anything.
TV shows have advertisements for products you've never heard of, and the programming for every channel loops after a couple days with only the date changed.

Killing a NPC causes them to randomly appear somewhere else, with different clothes. Sometimes they will spawn in odd clothing. A man in a wedding dress, someone wearing a diving suit.

Some NPCs will totally randomly attack the PCs, usually poorly. Seeing them later they are mentally stable with no memory of the event.

All weapons shoot the same type of bullet. Even shotguns don't use bird/buckshot.

Some fire hydrants are facing the wrong direction, some cars have no steering wheel.

Television programs will just be one picture being zoomed in and out with backwards music

About how badly made is the town? How far do the aliens understand human culture? Do they construct the town out of popular media, or do they understand the physical world we live in?

My idea was that the horizon is perfectly flat instead of being curved (common in video games). The moon never seems to change phases, or it changes without any discernible pattern. Spend enough time, you notice that the stars NEVER change position.

>>7054316

OP here

Good ideas.

The aliens really don't understand much of anything beyond some physics. However, there are still "bugs"

Maybe pockets of bad gravity, for example.

>>7054305

These don't seem subtle enough in my opinion. If I was running the game, I would drop hints and see how long it takes the PCs to catch on. No lame dice roll awareness checks like "you notice the TV is the same," just subtle descriptions until they notice.

You can go in the internet, but every message board has server errors when you try to post or refuses to allow you to log in. Email messages go through, but the replies are uncharacteristic, as though someone other than the recipient was writing them.
Everyone you try to instant message will reply to you with circular questions, and eventually just tell you "go to bed, (your name)" over and over again. Even if it's afternoon.

rolled 1, 4, 5 = 10

>>7054269
Most of the people in the town trigger an "uncanny valley" effect when encountered. As if their eyes don't focus properly, or their voices are just slightly off-pitch. Little things.

Any alcoholic drink obtained in the town contains no actual alcohol, and is not flammable. It tastes perfectly fine, though.

The streetlights emit a dull violet light that stings the eyes. They come on for roughly an hour at a time, flicker blue for a few seconds, and turn off.

There is nothing new. No matter how long you spend in the town, there is never a single T-shirt with a slogan you haven't seen before, a special or a sale at any store or restaurant, a can of soda or a bag of chips that is not absolutely identical to everything that came before it.

The townies don't make human mistakes. It's more akin to a malfunction than anything else. They don't just slip; they fall right over, flailing around until the "Paramedics" come to take them to the "hospital" in the next town over.

When you start to pay attention, almost nowhere outside your house has light switches or electrical outlets.

>>7054356

But people don't do that. If the aliens were studying popular media, they wouldn't have humans randomly fall over. The aliens would have extremely good programming / simulation to prevent malfunctions from happening. They just don't have a good grasp of real human nature.

NPCs will spawn inside of walls, floors. They don't seem to notice the problem

Fire isn't hot, just a visual effect.

Trying to leave town causes the PCs to enter a fog...eventually exiting the fog approaching the town from the opposite side

Recorded media (cds, dvds, etc) play the same movie, and the same music. The music is randomly spliced into movies. So generic black-and-white movie goes black, plays a movie popular 10 years ago, plays a different old movie, plays an older song, etc.

All graves are empty, with caskets full of random knick-knacks

Mattresses use money as stuffing

Some paintings are upside down, or facing the wall.

Books are all blank, or have repeated words/sentences, example: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"

couples sleep in two separate adjacent beds.

>>7054383
"Don't make human mistakes" initially made me think that the poster meant that they just don't make the mistakes that you never see on TV. That is, they never slip, or fall, or accidentally knock over their glasses with the back of their hand. Everyone can open every bottle or jar with a single deft twist. Every time someone tosses another person something, they catch it.
That'd be kind of interesting, right?

Seconding the "all clouds are the same" idea, also every single leaf and blade of grass is identical, and some groups of trees have the wrong group of leaves.

All drinks of the same type taste exactly the same. All colas taste exactly like coke, all orange drinks, carbonated or otherwise, taste like generic orange juice, all beer no matter what tastes like Budweiser. There is no variation whatsoever in different types of drink. Maybe extend this to food as well; all pizza tastes the same, all cheesburgers taste the same, etc. Hell, extend it to everything with taste; all cigarettes are the same,

When butchered, prey animals (chickens, cows, etc) have completely ready-to-cook pieces of meat inside them. IE, cut open a chicken and there will be tenderloins, legs, wings, etc, already cleaned and cut, ready to be cooked.

Pencils never need to be sharpened, pens and markers never run out of ink.

Gas stations don't actually pump gas; when you set up the pump to activate nothing happens but the car still gets refilled and you still get charged.

Waiters, cashiers, drive through operators, etc always follow the company approved script and do not deviate no matter what.

Glass breaks as if it were wood, splintering instead of shattering.

Dogs use litter boxes

Bizarre meat like Buffalo or Ostrich are sold in grocery stores like beef and chicken. Also, all eggs are snake eggs instead of chicken eggs.

Changing rooms in clothing stores are actually bathrooms, complete with sinks and toilets.

Food is never under or overcooked, if you put food in the oven and take it out it is immediately cooked to perfection.

rolled 5, 2, 6 = 13

>>7054356
Townies always print; and they all have remarkably similar handwriting.

Your credit cards will always be declined for no discernible reason. ATMs will always be out of order, and refuse to respond to button presses. Anyone you ask will tell you that "it'll be fixed tomorrow."

Cell phones can only call numbers inside the town; any other number returns a generic "unavailable" message.

You get the same mail every two weeks. You never get bills.

There are no potholes, and if you do manage to damage the road, it will be fixed just after you go to sleep.

>>7054389

>All graves are empty, with caskets full of random knick-knacks
>Mattresses use money as stuffing
>Books are all blank, or have repeated words/sentences, example: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"

I think these are good. Most media won't have people looking inside caskets, mattress, or books. The aliens would have a poor understanding of these things and attempt to fill in the blanks with whatever.

We should try to step away from the "video game glitch" type problems, they aren't subtle enough and are unlikely to ever happen even if the aliens had poor understand of human nature. How could the aliens mistakenly have humans spawn in walls? That doesn't happen in movies, books, etc...

People will agree with you. Saying "Your mother is a whore" will result in "Yes she is" from a Priest, street thug, or random joe.

Criminals don't actually commit crime, dress like stereotypical burglars and are just chased by cops by police.

Everyone is creepily friendly.

Ambulance is written forwards on the ambulance, rather than in mirror writting.

the weather is uncharacteristically favorable for the time of year/unfavorable.

the news papers headlines are very dramatic for very mundane issues "CAT FOUND IN TREE" in huge bold font. Or the newspapers never mention other countries or have strange headlines "war with canada going well"

when ever the PCs try to wander out of the town they all black out and are found back in their beds.

all the food taste stale/taste metallic, even if it looks like it was freshly made.

watch the truman show.

oh and watch pleasant ville.

rolled 4, 3, 4 = 11

Here's a question that is bound to turn up sooner or later: What happens when you murder/rape/abduct and torture a Townie? Do they feel pain? Do they object?

>>7054458

Rape leads to consensual sex. Abduction leads to no protests. Murder causes respawning of the people, see >>7054305

>>7054407
>>7054415

I like these ideas (no OP by the way). It's mundane everyday stuff that all humans understand, but rarely shows up in popular media. The aliens probably wouldn't realize that the gas pump is pumping a liquid if they were basing their simulation on movies or TVs.

Same goes for tastes, they would have no way of simulation taste. Everything would taste really off.

>Here's a question that is bound to turn up sooner or later: What happens when you murder/rape/abduct and torture

rolled 3, 4, 1 = 8

>>7054472
What do you see if you dissect a Townie?

OP here, I'm going to take the subtle ideas and run them early. And throw in the occasional "video game bug" later when they figure it out.

>>7054492

You need to pull it off as subtle as possible. As a player, I don't want to realize that I've been in a simulation until the second session at the very least. If we are figuring things out in under an hour, it wouldn't be very exciting.

>>7054491

Townies are full of only blood. Like blood balloons, no organs. As per violent media vs. bloodless TV shows: Sometimes people will bleed profusely, insanely large amounts. Sometimes not at all. A prick of a pin will lead to bleeding of insane amounts, being shot sometimes leads to just a NPC falling over.

townies sometimes repeat words or syllables three times for no apparent reason.

>>7054508
No, being shot leads to them either falling back dramatically or stand there spazing, like movies from the 70s and 80s.

>>7054527

Lol, that's great.

Clocks are all synchronized and working

The sun should be very low intensity, people should be able to look at it for extended periods of time, it should give off little to nowarmth, and the shadows it creates should be strange.

>>7054545
And when asked the time, townies give it to the second. "Excuse me, do you have the time?" "It is 12:43:52." And they always do so without looking at clocks/watches.

People are always smiling, even at the obviously staged funerals.

>>7054574

Where would the aliens ever get this idea? No one is ever constantly smiling, in our movies, books, games, shows, etc...

The date is really fucked up. Example: "Excuse me, what's the date?" "November 41st, 1954"

Next day: "March 19th, 1976"

People can change emotions radically from the slightest provocation. If someone is screaming and crying and you do a tiny nice thing for them they're immediately happy and grateful.

All phone numbers start with 555.

>>7054623
THIS

Foreign languages don't match up with expected speakers. That mexican working on a fence? He speaks Russian

I had a DM run something like this without my knowledge of consent. put me and my character through some pretty dumb bullshit before I was like "OK dude, I know you're an amatuer DM and all, but this shit is whack. fuck this, I'm not playing anymore." he gets all indignant like I'm supposed to automatically think "LOL roll to disbelieve!" at every corner. in a fantasy game, I don't roll to disbelieve when I see a unicorn, because the unicorn is an accepted part of the fantasy genre. I just though he was doing some gay homebrew shit.

the next time he has my paladin chasing down a "corrupt priest," I go through 3 hours of bullshit just to work my way back around to the questgiver, who I had thought was suspicious, and asked a description of before. when I get there again, I go ahead and just ask "what color are his robes," when he replied "red" I'm like "FFFFFFUUUUUU- clerics of heironious wear blue and white you faggot!" and subsiquently hav eto chase down and kill a morbidly obese man that runs like a rabbit and rows a boat like a fucking machine. I was not amused, because it all just felt so "lol so randum" and like he was just pulling it out of his ass the whole time.

point being, be very careful with those kinds of worlds, as some players may not be as accepting of the experience. I, for one, didn't appreciate that dick trying to MINDGAMES me all night, when I just wanted to kill some monsters and shit...

People tend to do the Wilheim scream when in terrible accidents.

>>7054653

Good advice, anon. This plot will be ran for people that want something "creepy" and "odd"

Also the NPCs will sometimes randomly attack the players (just like the movies!) so there will be plenty of action.

This "slightly" reminds of of Professor Layton. We need some structures that emit "fear" to thw townies!

>>7054305
All television is Youtube Poop?

Sinks sometimes release steam.

Think of objects in this world as you would if they were in the sims.

The objects themselves emit emotions or wants of varying degrees. Say, if there is a couch nearby. The couch emits comfort-want/15.

Now, once you're in this mindset, think of all the stupid fucking shit sims do. Say an NPC is following you, and he sees a hot dog stand. His hunger score is low. He completely stops caring and goes to eat a hot dog. When told to follow the PCs again, he will set his hot dog on a nearby surface, walk off, and possibly go back for another hot dog. Just buying another one.

The people in the town all seem witty and clever. After a while, it starts to feel like any conversations between them you overhear are almost planned ahead of time. when you bring up odd choices in conversation, they laugh nervously before trying to change the topic.

You notice people tend to pause in conversations, usually after a joke or entering a room. After awhile, you realize they are pausing where a laugh track would go.

it would take some intense noticing but every home could turn lights off at the same time

they wouldn't do it all at once but this house would turn lights off at 9:03, 5 minutes later another one would one would and so on. Any families would have made it home by then.

No-one would ever stay out after they would any other time. If pressed to remain the NPC would become panicked and struggle to leave. If forced to remain, the person would remain until noone was watching him (including something as simple as everyone in the room looked at something else for a moment) and then simply vanish leaving whatever bonds held him. Obviously the person would have no memory of this the next day but may recall hanging out with the group until his scheduled departure time.

Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up is the most popular song in the entire town, with the video on TV all the time and the song being played on the radio constantly.

All remote controls are totally universal. A garage door opener will flip through channels if pointed at a TV.

>>7054821
oh man, imagine living in The Sims game? it would be madness!

nobody in the town complains about anything else.


the town is sparkling clean, so much so that even the garbages are empty all the time.

when asking about the history of the town, conversation is either generally about the states or it is turned to another topic

>>7054608
sounds like ANIMAL CROSSING

Oh. And as an ambience thing, distance the NPCs. If the PCs talk to them, NEVER talk as the NPCs. Simply tell the players that the person says the gist of whatever. Like
"What's the time?"
"The ordinary man replies that it is 1:00:52 PM"

I think people may be taking the pop culture thing too far and removing the surrealism that this is supposed to have

like people having a very limited range of knowledge they can discuss, or conversely having an extraordinary range of topicsin great detail they know. When a housewife can't explain how she made a sandwich or a farmer tells you in detail how the inner politics of corporation A and B are (which just happen to be your current investigation) you get disturbed.

Sunrise and sunset are at the same time every day. Just wake them up with an alarm a couple times until they notice. They'll assume you forgot it changes with the seasons and shrug it off. But the moon is always cresent/full. Never in between. Everything closes at the same time and everyone gets off work simulationously. Even the cops, nurses, and security guys.

If someone brings up anything weird, it abruptly changes. Like, the very next day it is suddenly normal but only in the way they mentioned.
Like, "Why isn't it ever cloudy at night?" That night is immediately overcast.

all NPCs have the same opinion for everything. They like the same food, "vote" for the same government, have the same dream car, same ambition, everything.

Wait are we supposed to make it completey obvious that this is not real or subtle things snowballing

there are no sewers

>>7055041

OP, I'm taking really subtle things will use them early. And things will become more obvious. Then when the PCs find out all Hell will break loose and physics asplode.

the town has a curfew. when it is enacted all, all lights in the town go out and any citizens on the street enter the nearest door, no matter where it leads.

upon opening the door they will find no trace of the citizen who entered it.

OP, you basically want Dark City. Aliens (pic related) build a town-onna-spaceship and experiment on humans. See also: that Jim Carrey movie where he desperately tries to avoid being typecast.

Suggestion: make it always night time. Don't go out of your way to tell your players that, let them figure it out (you'll be surprised how long it takes). Imagine playing Vampire: Bloodlines or the Thief series. Technically you're sleeping during the day, but that's never mentioned. It's just always night.

for the physics asploding part

see the Milkman level in Psychonaughts

>>7055035
>Even the cops, nurses, and security guys.

The PCs arrive at the firestation at 7:00pm, the doors are locked, looking closely joe notices the "Closed" sign.

Well i guess they're closed for now... lets keep going....

fire trucks painted blue.

Attempts to contact other cities or towns results in the same message being played. Like "You have dialed a wrong number" even though the PCs may know that it is the right number.

Animals behave oddly. Dogs will always bark if they 'hear' a cat. If the PCs recorded a cat meowing and distorted it to the point it is just static, dogs will still bark at it. Cats do not react to catnip.

Gunshots will always go the same distance and create the exact same sized hole, regardless of the gun used. Toys, stuffed animals and such are entirely hollow inside.

In an emergency the fire truck/ambulance/cop car comes from around the nearest corner, takes care of the emergency, and drives off around the same corner.

I don't mean they take that route, I mean it materializes/dematerializes at the point immediately beyond the corner.

>>7055035

I like the "repairing" of the flaws idea.

Also, the NPCs laugh at the wrong times, like when something serious is said, they laugh or smirk at the "sarcasm" of the comment.

Pop culture phrases are used in a literal context. Example: At the convenience store, when buying an item
the purchasing NPC will say, "I'd buy *that* for a dollar!" And then pays exactly one dollar for the item.
Example 2: Buying a burger, an NPC will complete the order by saying, "And I'll have it*my* way." The NPC will say something like, "Just the way you like it" when presenting the burger.

Chips in bags are always exactly the same shape, and never broken unless the PCs actively shake/squeeze/damage the bag. NPCs will always eat chips and fries one at a time.

Be subtle in your presentations. Don't always explicitly lay out the "errors" unless they're directly related to the current flavor text, and never make them directly related to the next block of flavor text. Spread them out, so the same error doesn't repeated constantly unless the PCs specifically ask about them and make an effort to watch them repeat.

Alternate good ones would be people doing normal things, but on strange days. Like mowing the yard in the morning, but on a tuesday. Or checking the mail on a sunday.

>>7055539
everyone eats fries with forks and knives.

>>7055558
MADNESS

See ''The Truman Show''

Lightbulbs glow, even when removed from the socket.

read The Tommyknockers by Stephen King. the way the people in the town act... yeah.

Go play fallout 3. There's a part that's just like what you describe OP

Fuckin' archived cause I love the ideas here.

Food all has the same bland flavor. Food that comes in cans or boxes will ALWAYS be consistant to that type i.e. Cereal A is exactly the same as Cereal B, despite one being Froot Loops and the other being Wheaties. All drinks should be tepid and tasteless like tap water

Similarly, anything that should have some minor variation or flaw shouldn't. All lightbulbs are of the same intensity, and never burn out or break. All flowers are flawless and vividly colored. All clocks are synced. All books contain the same "Lorem ipsum" text (obviously readable, but nothing more than a sentence or two repeated on every page).

Things only show superficial wear; a disheveled house has squeaky floorboards but the doors are solid as oak, an abandoned car has rust and grime but there's gas in the tank and the wheels are still inflated.

An utter lack of non-standard people. Everybody is white, physically fit (maybe a small variation in body mass, but nobody obese/skinny/muscular) and well-adjusted. Nobody has any quirks or flaws besides ones necessary for their role, and those are roles themselves; a burglar by night (should they meet one) walks the streets normally and without fear during the day, completely ignoring their nocturnal activities.

>>7057263
All events are scripted, and even in bad situations nobody gets seriously hurt or dies. The occasional "funeral" will involve a closed casket (maybe containing a prop skeleton), and if pressed, the "mourned" will be an aunt or a grandparent (or whomever) from "out of town." Hospitals are sparse, with maybe a handful of surprisingly healthy "patients" who never leave. There are only a handful of inpatient rooms, all on the same floor (if it's a big hospital, make the elevator go to, say, the fifth floor, regardless of the buttons pressed, and have all other floors each one big empty room), spacious and plain. NPCs killed by your PCs never get funerals, or even mentioned in the past tense. They just get thrown out with the rest of the trash.

Everyone only knows how to sing one song, do one dance, or play one song on any instrument, and it's the same one for everybody.

Newspapers, television reports, etc. don't always put the right emphasis on the right story. "Country A attacks Country Z" gets a bland, back-of-the-paper mention, while coverage of the local spelling bee gets the front page all to itself. Not always, just occasionally. For added creepyness, use the same "Lorem ipsum" text from the books for the article itself - only the headlines are anything but gibberish.

>>7057273
NPCs occasionally respond to other NPCs with the wrong response, or use the wrong tone. Again, not always, but like a video game sometimes their dialog "glitches".

Lunch is always at 12:00. Dinner is always at 6:00. Families will always eat at home. The people who are at restaurants will ALWAYS be at that restaurant, regardless of time. If they leave, they come back an hour later and order the same meal.

Finally, if these people are literal robots (or have some way of surviving without having to actually eat/sleep), then when they enter their home they stand in the entryway until they need to leave. If the PCs enter a home they will use the house as normal, but without them NPCs will never move from their position until they need to. Maybe a PC could catch an occasional glimpse of someone entering a doorway and other people just standing motionless inside. Similarly, they stand around in non-public areas like offices and bathrooms, but not in shops or building lobbies.

>>7054389 Books are all blank, or have repeated words/sentences, example: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"
Or the books are perfectly normal and there just isn't a huge variety of them.

Like you go into a library and every other book is either a Gideon's Bible or a Webster's Dictionary.

Very rarely, if you manage to catch a peek of someone indoors without them being aware if your presence, they won't be moving or doing anything. If you do anything to make them aware of you, they will start doing whatever it was they were supposed to be doing, and act like they were doing it all along.

Holy shit, I remember that thread. That was fun as hell to read.

One part of town every day there is a "scripted" crash event. The same man dies, over and over.

All cars drive the same speed, and obey all traffic laws.

Radios routinely play number stations, and songs that haven't been popular in years. The DJ is the same on every station.

The Internet is from a "frozen" state years ago, so you can only visit sites from circa 1999. Everything is there from that year from a certain day. So news sites reflect some day.

Here's a tangent idea.

Inside a sewer, or other tucked away area is a corpse. It belongs to a "real" person. He has a book talking about "this fake city", he was killed.

>>7054589
Aliens probably wouldn't understand the subtlety of human facial expressions. They might not even understand the concept at all.

Cushions, padding on couches and beds are absolutely rock stiff, as the aliens only visually reproduced them and were unaware and uncomprehending of "softness."

Toilet paper, paper towels, and soap never run out.

>>7057263
Bland food and bland drinks are probably on-par, like this guy. Also,
>>7057725
Nobody but the PCs would ever need to poop. Worse yet, maybe, there are no bathrooms, and the PCs wouldn't know where everyone shits. You pretty much never acknowledge pissing or shitting on television, and an alien wouldn't know about it unless they were there.

Also, fabrics would be of unusual texture. Clothes, flags, awnings, rags, and so on would be made of not-quite-right fibers, or maybe some sort of plasticine simulant.

No aircraft work, ever, and the town's airport never has leaving or returning flights. Just people milling about.

There is no wind.

>>7057918
Actually, the more I think about this the creepier it is.

>>7057823
There are bathrooms, but they are constantly filled with mist as if someone is taking a shower. There are no toilets, though, just a shub, a sink, and a mirror which is on the front of a medicine cabinet.

>>7057568
re: cars, like in old driving games like Midtown Madness, all of the cars just drive around the city, never stopping to let anyone on or off. They all obey the speed limit, and there's only one model of each of Sports Car, Sedan, Truck and Bus, in four different colours.
If you so much as nudge another car, it will immediately stop, and all the other cars behind it will stop with 4 feet between every bumper. They'll stay that way until you're not looking, and then all will be back to "normal."

There's a construction site in town where they have laid the foundations and a few supporting girders. There are workmen there every day but nothing ever changes. The blueprints for the building are laid out on a table in the middle of the site, but they look like a child's drawing of a house plus some apparently purposeless geometric shapes and some illegible notes.

Museums contain basically garbage. Not artifacts, but used soup cans.

Fans will work but there is no wind.

Furniture, cloth and fabric will not catch fire.

TVs, phones and computers can still run, but when the PC breaks them. It's hollow.

No children, anywhere. But there's schools...

>>7058197
Basically I think this theme is key, the whole "Where people aren't expected to look, there's nothing." Office buildings above the first floor have no floors at all, and are just tall glass towers. Restaurant kitchens empty room.

Basically I don't think it should take the PCs a long time to figure out that something's wrong, it's more the WHY it's all wrong that's disturbing.

Some doors have different appearances on each side. Metal on one side, wooden on the other.

Flashlights have an unlimited lifespan.

Fire extinguishers do nothing, and easily break if used as a weapon.