Reluctantly, Eileene told me about the new SpecTrek app she bought for her android phone-plus—reluctantly because it’s pretty dorky. The idea is your phone reports an outbreak of ghosts in your neighborhood and, using some map utility, selects a nearby spot where you can chase one down. When you arrive at the destination, you get a congratulatory picture of a ghost and a new location to run, jog, or walk to; keep it up long enough, and you’ve exercised.
Okay, so it’s really dorky. If it works, though, it’ll be well worth the negligible price and embarrassment. Admittedly, that’s a big “if;†Eileene has left a long line of failed exercise incentives in her wake.
But however dorky the idea, somebody’s gonna use it. Maybe a lot of somebodies. You never know what will become a fad. Which makes it an excellent RPG adventure seed. You could do it from inside or from without: either the PCs learn that people are disappearing/dying/going catatonic with fear and it’s up to the PCs to figure out what’s going on, or the PCs themselves are android enthusiasts who discover their new exercise app is actually tapping into the supernatural. Either way, it’s a natural mesh of traditional horror and modern technology, a natural fit for any paranormal investigation game like Chill or Bureau 13.
Probably best as a one-shot, but you could stretch it a bit with the dilemma of how to stop people from using it without letting them know why. If word gets out, after all, lots of people are going to rush right out and by the ghosthunting app. Gullible, superstitious people at first, then skeptics and the kind of people who read the Weekly Sun to goggle at what people will believe, and finally everyone when the evidence begins to mount. Presuming that a whole lot of gates to the ghostly realm are much worse than a few, and a few much worse than none, stamping the number down to zero would require some creative thought, and an elaborate, multi-session plan.
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