The War Of The Worlds

Via Shawn: Tonight marks the 75th anniversary of the Orson Welles radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds, a hoax news broadcast that some listeners, missing the start, took to be real. Check it out at Mercury Theater (and quite a few more, including Dracula, Sherlock Holmes and A Christmas Carol) to see how it worked, and how well it worked.

Also tomorrow is the 21st anniversary of the one and only showing of Ghostwatch on BBC One, for the same reason.

And see a brief history of Midnight Ghost Shows for added period context. May have to set an adventure around one of those...

How to use hoaxes in games? The characters discovering one would be straightforward. Although that might end up a bit Scooby-Doo it would be one way to introduce out-of-context plot points into a game for one night only, like a haunted house in Cyberpunk for example. More trickily, the hoax could be aimed at the players - but bear in mind that, unlike Orson Welles, you are within range of having things thrown at you...