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A TTRPG idea inspired by Lynchian horror, embodying surreal suburban dread and the unsettling blend of media and reality. Pulled from my playtesting slush pile in memory of David Lynch. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 license. Credit “Rev from Thought Punks”. This was a beta playtest module. The formatting and presentation style reflects that. This also stands out as an example of minimalist worldbuilding.

Core Concept

The town of Wavelength exists in a strange limbo, an idyllic Upstate New York town that vanished from official records and maps in the early 1990s. Its existence has become a half-remembered myth, whispered about on long road trips and crackling through static on AM radio. Some claim to pick up ghostly broadcasts near where Wavelength supposedly stood, hearing fragments of soap operas, weather reports, or personal messages from those who lived there.

For those inside Wavelength, the town remains suspended in eerie perfection, a postcard-perfect snapshot of 90s small-town life. Quaint diners, artisanal crafts, and warm neighbors project an air of nostalgia… but the town has secrets.

Recently, televisions and radios have been infected with an omnipresent, enigmatic signal. Cryptic ads interrupt every broadcast, whispering impossible truths and surreal commands. Music swells out of nowhere, quelling any thoughts of leaving the town. Cryptic commercials, haunting soap operas, and surreal PSAs suggest the Static’s growing control. Some residents are even rumored to have vanished, replaced by eerie replicas speaking only in disjointed TV dialogue.

Players, each tied to the signal in a deeply personal way, must navigate Wavelength’s shifting reality, uncovering its secrets while holding onto their crumbling identities.

Player Hook

Each character has a personal connection to the signal, making their investigation deeply intimate. These connections could include:

• Hearing a lost loved one’s voice in a garbled ad, pleading for help.
• Seeing impossible depictions of their own future in soap opera snippets.
• Receiving unsettling, tailored messages through radio jingles.

The signal lures players in, offering tantalizing truths and supernatural powers. But the closer they get, the more it rewrites their memories, relationships, and even their physical forms.

Key Themes

• Identity Erosion: The signal corrupts characters’ self-perception and memories, forcing them to question who they are.
• Surreal Suburban Dread: Wavelength’s small-town charm contrasts with growing paranoia and uncanny horrors.
• Media and Reality Bleed: Broadcasts shape reality, and characters must interact with these phenomena to uncover the truth.
• Ambiguous Agency: Is the signal sentient? Malicious? Or just a reflection of their deepest flaws?

Gameplay Framework

Core Mechanic: The 3d6 Roll

Every action involves rolling 3d6, with each die serving a specific purpose (called “flavors” or dice labels):

• Degree Die: Measures success (1 = partial success, 6 = overwhelming success).
• Cost Die: Determines complications or costs (1 = severe, 6 = none).
• Static Die: Reflects distortion by the signal (1 = surreal, 6 = mundane).

Modifiers are added based on traits like Nature, Profession, Hobbies, and Quirks. After rolling, apply modifiers and interpret the results based on the fiction.

Character Creation

• Hook: What draws you to the Static? What do you see or hear in it?
• Nature: The core of who you are. Examples: “Survivor,” “Protector,” or “Dreamer.”
  • When in alignment: Add +2 to die of choice after rolling.
  • When in conflict: Add +3 to the Cost Die.
• Profession: Your role in Wavelength (e.g., librarian, mechanic, bartender).
  • When relevant: After rolling, rearrange the dice in any order.
• Hobbies (pick 3): Passions or skills unrelated to your profession.
  • When relevant: Add +1 to any one die after rolling.
• Quirks (pick 2): Unusual traits, some mundane, some supernatural.
  • At the start of a scene, roll 2d6, assigning one die to each Quirk. On a 6, that Quirk activates (examples: eerie theme music plays, your body distorts to walk on all fours, or you compulsively spout jingles).
• Background Details (write 3): Relationships, memories, or personal details grounding your character.

Mechanics of the Static

Static Exposure

When exposed to the signal, the GM determines the intensity of the interaction:

• Minor Exposure: Roll 1d6.
• Moderate Exposure: Roll 2d6.
• Major Exposure: Roll 3d6.

Gain 1 Static Point for every die that rolls 4 or higher.

• Minor: Listening to a cryptic ad on the radio or stopping briefly to watch a flickering TV broadcasting surreal images.
• Moderate: Watching a full broadcast that seems to address your concerns personally or deeply analyzing a broadcast for meaning or clues.
• Major: Being the focus of the signal’s direct attention, such as being spoken to directly by an anchor on a TV or being caught in a scene that is completed distorted into TV reality by the Static.

Powers from the Static

Characters with Static Points gain access to the hidden signs in the signal. These powers come in minor and major categories, reflecting their risk and scope.

Minor Powers (2 Dice)

Minor powers unlock at 3 Static Points. These are small, reality-bending effects that grant brief advantages. Roll 2d6 when using a minor power. Gain 1 Static Point for every die that rolls 4 or higher.

Examples of Minor Powers:

• Alter a Small Detail: Change a single object or memory in the immediate area (e.g., a flickering light turns solid red, a door briefly becomes a wall, or someone remembers an argument as a cordial conversation).
• Daring Insight: By bravely facing the signal with full attention for a second, you can glimpse unnoticed clues, hidden areas, torrid affairs, and other secrets in a location.
• Eerie Influence: Convince someone to act out of character using subtle, surreal persuasion.

Major Powers (4 Dice)

Major powers unlock at 6 Static points. These allow significant manipulations of reality at a cost. Roll 4d6 when using a major power. Gain 1 Static Point for every die that rolls 4 or higher.

Examples of Major Powers:

• Rewrite Reality: Change a large element in the environment, like turning a road into a river, erasing or introducing an NPC into a scene, or completely change the dynamic of a family feud.
• Erase or Implant Memories: Target one person, radically altering their memory of an event or relationship.
• Surreal Projection: Create a temporary illusion or construct that others perceive as real.

At 9 Static Points, only roll 1d6 for minor powers and 2d6 for major powers. Also ignore minor exposures and roll one less die for moderate and major exposures. The Static has begun to embrace you and it flows easily, too easily, through you. It constantly whispers in your mind, even far away from any screens or speakers, a portion of the signal finding its way directly to increasingly distorted soul.

Spending Static Points

Players can spend Static Points only during interludes between scenes to deliberately rewrite aspects of their character. This process represents an attempt to resist, or embrace, the signal’s influence, but it comes with risks.

• Determine Spending Limit: Roll 1d6. The result is the maximum number of Static Points you can spend during this interlude.
• Choose Rewrites: Spend points based on the following costs:
  • 1 Point: Change one Hobby or Quirk.
  • 2 Points: Change your Profession or a Background Detail.
  • Nature: Cannot be changed unless the character hits the Static Limit and is fully rewritten.

Roll a d6 for each thing chosen to be changed. On 1-3, change it to reflect growing closer to the Static. On 4-6, change it to reflect your personal will or what you think more truly reflects who you were before the Static trapped and rewrote the town. For signal-influenced changes, they are also accompanied by physical changes, initially simple things like hairstyles and clothing choices but eventually escalating into radical differences, almost becoming a different person.

Static Limit

If you reach 13 Static Points, you must rewrite your entire character, even your Nature and complete appearance. Everything but one background detail, a tenuous tie to the previous you, is altered. When rewriting your character, change things to what you think the Static wants or what is further away from your true self.

Assorted Advice

Spending Static Points

Treat spending as a chance for characters to direct their transformation. Frame it as a double-edged sword: while they can resist, they can never truly escape the signal’s grip. There is a random chance whether the transformations follow their will or lean into the mysterious goals of the Static. Use rewrites to develop surreal or thematic elements that deepen the story.

Using Powers

Encourage players to experiment with powers early, reinforcing the temptation to draw on the signal. As powers escalate, introduce moral and narrative consequences. For example, a small illusion might merely confuse a bystander, but a major reality shift could incidentally rewrite someone else’s identity entirely.

Exposure Rolls

Use exposure rolls to emphasize the dangers of interacting with the signal. Minor exposure should feel subtle and unnerving, while major exposure should be dramatic and unrelenting.

Dynamic Worldbuilding

The town of Wavelength evolves alongside the characters’ investigations. GMs should introduce surreal events tied to the signal’s influence, such as:

• The Laugh Track Incident: Characters hear sitcom laugh tracks during conversations, even in empty spaces.
• The Soap Opera Shift: Players reenact scenes from the signal’s broadcasts, with scripted lines and actions.
• The Product That Doesn’t Exist: A commercial compels a resident to build or sell a nonsensical item.
• The Uncanny Broadcast: A news anchor appears on every screen, reading out the characters’ secrets.
• The Repetition Effect: Players relive the same scene repeatedly, each iteration growing more distorted.

Collaboration and Mystery

Encourage players to work together to piece together clues, but introduce conflicting memories and perspectives to create tension. The truth should remain ambiguous, with players shaping its interpretation through their actions.

Gameplay Toolkit

This is a toolkit to help you craft a surreal, Lynchian experience in Wavelength. It includes templates for the town’s evolution, pacing advice, key events, escalating exposure scenes, and sample NPCs. Use this to guide the play through the town’s eerie descent into the unknown.

Templates for Wavelength’s Evolution

Wavelength begins as a nostalgic, picturesque town, but as the Static’s influence grows, it fractures into a surreal nightmare. Use the following phases to structure its progression.

Phase 1: Postcard Perfection

• Tone: Idyllic and welcoming with subtle undercurrents of unease.
• Environment: Pristine sidewalks, smiling neighbors, cheerful radio hosts.
• Signal Presence: Minor and eerie, like brief ads with strange phrasing, static interruptions.
• NPC Behavior: Friendly but slightly off, as if reading from a script.

Event Examples:

• A TV plays an old soap opera where one character eerily resembles a player.
• A commercial for a product the players owned as children plays on every screen in a diner.
• An NPC starts speaking only in television and radio quotes.

Phase 2: Fractured Reality

• Tone: The charm cracks; paranoia grows.
• Environment: Familiar locations subtly shift, streets curve impossibly, clocks show contradictory times.
• Signal Presence: More pervasive, NPCs speak in advertising jingles or reenact full scenes from TV.
• NPC Behavior: Neighbors act erratically, forgetting recent events or treating strangers as family.

Event Examples:

• A pedestrian repeatedly crosses the same intersection in different outfits.
• A weather report describes exact player actions happening as it airs.
• Reality’s color become over-saturated and everyone is dressed like a 50s sitcom.

Phase 3: Full Static Takeover

• Tone: The town becomes a surreal, shifting maze.
• Environment: Familiar landmarks melt into distorted landscapes, streets loop infinitely, diners stretch into hallways.
• Signal Presence: Ubiquitous, broadcasts directly interact with players and reshape reality.
• NPC Behavior: Most NPCs behave like TV archetypes, repeating lines or freezing when not “on screen.”

Event Examples:

• A sitcom laugh track loudly plays during a tense argument.
• An anchorperson on every screen reveals players’ private thoughts.
• The “channel changes” and the scene abrupt shifts completely in location, action, and tone.

Pacing Advice

• Establish Normalcy: Spend time grounding players in Wavelength’s initial perfection. Let them connect with NPCs and locations to make later distortions more impactful.
• Introduce the Signal Gradually: Begin with brief, eerie phenomena before escalating into more overt reality distortions.
• Create Interludes: Allow quiet moments between scenes for players to process changes, strategize, and rewrite their characters if desired.
• Escalate Tension Slowly: Build unease steadily, reserving major distortions for climactic scenes or critical narrative beats.

Key Events

Intersperse events like these throughout the campaign to maintain momentum:

• The First Broadcast: A character hears their name in a commercial or sees an unsettling reflection on TV.
• The Looping Scene: A day or interaction repeats with small, chilling changes each time.
• The Uncanny Anchor: A news anchor delivers a message addressed directly to the players, predicting their actions.
• NPC Vanishing: A well-known NPC disappears, replaced by a scripted replica or a memory gap no one else notices.
• The Static Ritual: TVs across Wavelength broadcast a synchronized, incomprehensible ceremony.

Escalating Exposure Scenes

Use these examples to reflect the growing influence of the Static and its effects on characters.

Minor Exposure

• Hearing one’s own voice on the radio, finishing sentences the player hasn’t said yet.
• A flickering TV shows a childhood memory in grainy black-and-white.
• Static floods a nearby screen when a player approaches.

Moderate Exposure

• A commercial plays, tailored to a player’s fear or desire, offering cryptic advice.
• A player’s reflection on a blank TV begins mimicking their inner thoughts.
• An NPC freezes mid-sentence, then resumes, as if nothing happened.

Major Exposure

• The signal addresses a player directly, calling them by name or revealing secrets.
• Time loops, forcing players to repeat actions while the environment changes around them.
• The characters find themselves in a TV show set, complete with laugh tracks and canned applause.

Sample NPCs

Populate Wavelength with eerie, Lynchian characters who evolve alongside the town. Examples:

Donna Whitfield, the Diner Waitress

Donna is cheerful, chatty, and knows everyone’s name and favorite dish, even visitors who’ve just arrived in Wavelength. She seems to embody small-town hospitality, always smiling and ready with a pot of coffee. As the signal spreads, her behavior grows increasingly unsettling: she begins repeating phrases verbatim from old sitcoms, her expressions freezing into unnatural, static smiles. When players interact with her late at night, she might serve invisible (but real) food or speak in voices that clearly aren’t hers, like a television switching channels mid-sentence.

Mr. Stanton, the Radio Host

With his warm, folksy voice, Mr. Stanton is a constant presence in Wavelength. His AM radio show is equal parts town gossip, classic hits, and quirky commentary, making him beloved by locals. However, as the signal intensifies, his broadcasts take a darker turn. He begins sharing cryptic messages that seem meant specifically for the players, warning them of dangers, revealing their secrets, or hinting at the signal’s origin. Occasionally, his voice is overlaid with static, or the broadcast cuts to chilling advertisements for products that don’t exist. By the time the players uncover more about him, they may realize that no one has ever actually seen Mr. Stanton in person.

Hank and Betty Rosewood, the Retirees

The Rosewoods are Wavelength’s quintessential elderly couple: inseparable, amiable, and endlessly curious about others’ lives. They love hosting impromptu garden parties and sharing stories of their travels (despite never leaving town). As the signal grows, the couple becomes increasingly surreal, sometimes speaking in perfect unison or finishing each other’s sentences with eerie precision. Eventually, the players may discover them standing in their living room, completely motionless, as if frozen mid-conversation. Later still, they might encounter them as life-sized mannequins, their features disturbingly lifelike. If “activated” by the signal, they resume speaking, but their dialogue loops unnervingly, repeating old conversations.

Mrs. Lindley, the School Librarian

Strict but kind-hearted, Mrs. Lindley always seems to be shelving books when the players enter. As the Static grows, the books in her library start whispering secrets, and she begins to speak in riddles, referencing events that haven’t yet occurred, or that never will. Eventually, she seems to vanish, leaving the library eerily empty, yet somehow always open. However, anyone making too much noise or disrespecting the space will be hushed by a disembodied voice, or worse.

Caleb Fischer, the Town Drifter

A quiet man with a perpetual cigarette and a knack for appearing wherever he’s least expected. Caleb knows things he shouldn’t and shares cryptic warnings that feel more like prophecies. As the signal intensifies, Caleb begins to glitch, flickering like an old TV image or speaking in overlapping voices. Eventually he begins to randomly appear and disappear in places, a full staticky flickering image of a man who increasingly ceases to resemble the original Caleb.

Kelly-Ann Fletcher, the Realtor

Bright and relentlessly optimistic, Kelly-Ann insists Wavelength is the perfect place to live. She tirelessly promotes homes, even those now clearly abandoned or inexplicably distorted. Over time, her “For Sale” signs start appearing in impossible places (inside locked rooms, floating in midair), and her smile grows unsettlingly wide, as if stretched beyond human capability. She begins to promise “brand new homes” available in “The Hidden Vistas”, with home viewers vanishing with Ms. Fletcher promising with 100 voices of a choir they’re “forever happy in their forever home”.

Clarifying Endgame Options

The endgame of Wavelength is deliberately ambiguous, allowing the GM and players to shape the resolution collaboratively. Here are four possible outcomes, each with variations, to inspire meaningful choices while maintaining the surreal tone.

Escaping Wavelength

The players discover a way to leave the town, severing their connection to the signal. However, escape comes with heavy consequences:

• Memory Price: To leave, the players must give up key aspects of their identities, such as memories of loved ones, their professions, or even their Natures. They will need to abandon all their loved ones and any chance of recovering their true self.
• Reality Divergence: Upon escaping, players realize the world outside Wavelength is subtly wrong: unrecognizable landmarks, altered history, or loved ones who claim the players never existed.
• Lingering Static: The signal has permanently marked them, manifesting in small, surreal glitches in their lives. They might see brief flashes of Wavelength on their TVs or hear its broadcasts late at night.

Confronting the Signal

The players pursue the source of the signal, uncovering its true nature. This ending offers closure, or deeper mystery. Possible natures of the broadcast to discover and confront:

• Government Experiment: A covert project designed to manipulate reality via media went out of control.
• Sentient Broadcast: The signal is alive, seeking to reshape the world in its image.
• Forbidden Family Ritual: The signal stems from an ancient, familial pact to preserve Wavelength at the cost of its residents’ humanity.
• The Incomprehensible: The signal is a manifestation of reality’s underlying fragility or some unknowable Thing From Beyond, offering no clear answers.

The Choice:

• Shut It Down: Attempt to destroy the signal, but at the cost of their own existence or trapping others in the process.
• Fuse With It: Embrace the signal, merging with it to become its new stewards, spreading its influence further.
• Compromise: Negotiate with the signal to stabilize Wavelength, but allow its continued existence at the edges of reality.

Embracing Transformation

The players give in to the signal, allowing it to fully rewrite them and their environment.

• Sublime Union: The characters become one with the signal, losing their original identities but gaining a surreal, godlike understanding of reality.
• Wavelength Rewritten: The town stabilizes under the signal’s control, transformed into a surreal utopia or dystopia.
• Sacrifice for Others: The players stay behind, fully consumed by the signal, but in doing so, they protect the rest of the world from its spread.

Bodhisattva Vow

The players discover their true original identities and a way to escape Wavelength, but instead, they choose to remain in the town to awaken and free others from the Static’s grip. This choice comes with significant consequences:

• Self-Sacrifice: The players give up their chance to escape, staying behind to help those trapped by the signal. Their own identities and memories begin to erode further as they fight to free others, risking becoming part of the Static forever.
• Transformative Struggle: As they try to awaken others, they face increasing distortions to their reality and personal selves, potentially losing their original essence in the process.
• Lingering Hope: Despite the risks, their actions might lead to moments of clarity or breakthroughs, where some residents momentarily escape the signal’s control, but at the cost of their own stability.

Additional Guidance for GMs

Establish early on what motivates each character to engage with the signal (finding a loved one, escaping Wavelength, or uncovering the truth). Use these motivations to shape the endgame conflicts.

Introduce dilemmas that force players to weigh personal goals against collective outcomes. For example, escaping may require sacrificing an NPC who is too deeply tied to the signal.

Keep the truth about the signal flexible until late in the campaign. Allow players’ theories and actions to shape the final reveal.

Offer answers that resolve immediate questions but introduce new mysteries. For example, players might destroy a device broadcasting the signal but find evidence of a second, more sinister source.

Encourage players to discuss their goals and weigh the consequences of their choices as a group. Use interludes to highlight individual transformations and their impact on the team.

Present multiple paths in the final session, but make it clear that every choice carries irreversible consequences.

The endgame should feel surreal and emotionally charged. Use shifting environments, cryptic NPCs, and nonlinear events to heighten the tension. Allow scenes to loop, merge, or collapse into chaos as the signal reaches its peak, creating a dreamlike sense of inevitability.

The endgame of Wavelength is less about providing closure and more about forcing players to grapple with transformation, sacrifice, and ambiguity. Regardless of the chosen ending, leave enough unanswered questions for players to linger on the experience long after the final scene fades to static.

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