As an added bonus, I’m willing to bet that it made your group look more closely at real-world news, because of what happened in-game.

Then I would use the new conspiracy to fuel my material for several sessions. My first attempt at doing this, set the central mythology for my 2 year campaign. The news stories centered around a campus shooting in NJ and the death of the inventor of Prozac. It turned into a conspiracy about the creation of Combat Aggression Drugs and eventually explained a number of school shootings around the country.

Which I think brings me to one final point. When you do use news articles as story material, be sensitive to your group, and don’t use stories that may offend anyone. In my example above, I used several very real and tragic events to create a story for a game. Outside of my group this may seem very insenstive, but I knew that my group would not be offended, and I never made light of the events.

“Mysterious Aerial Bars of Light Near Brawley California”
“Joan of Arc ‘Relics’ To Be Tested”
“Vietnamese Man Hasn’t Slept since 1973″

Any one of those could be a hook for a great adventure, and there are much more there!

For the others, a simple google for something like “paranormal news” will bring up tonnes (the first being, not-so-surprisingly, http://www.paranormalnews.com). There was one that I had bookmarked but lost that I loved, that was a forum where all kinds of people posted paranormal happenings in their own lives and their own theories about goings-on but sadly I have lost it. Note, though, that ForteanTimes.com has a forum section including one called “It Happened To Me” where people post about something weird that occured and others speculate about what it might have been. Examples from there: “Hearing Conversations in my Head Just Before I Fall Asleep”; “Animal Children”; “Dogheaded Men”; “Can Machines Become Evil”; and, in a particularly enigmatic heading, “Charlie.”

Dave: Any links along those lines that you’d care to share?

Roger: Great link! You should see if you can get those published more widely — I’d recommend contacting Expeditious Retreat Press, as that seems like it would be right up their alley.

I’ll also be making your e-zine the subject of a minipost in the next few days.

http://roger.carbol.com/rpg/K_CE/K_CE.htm

(Did I mention it’s free?)

Your article is mostly about using the /plot/ of real events, which certainly is a good idea. I find the news is also a good source for inspiration for characters, locations, items, et cetera.