Soupup

Thank you. Anyone who has read just about any post on this blog or the Eureka rulebook knows that I think explaining not just the “what” but the “why” is super important for TTRPGs because, like, well firstly many people don’t believe there is a “why” but also if they misinterpret the “why,” since TTRPGs run on the brain of a human rather than a computer, misunderstanding the “why” will often mean the game just doesn’t fucking work.

This is an interesting question. I think the absence of any kind of VtM-esque “masquerade” is important to Eureka in several ways. I think it’s important to the themes as a game about solving “mysteries” with evidence-based conclusions in a realistic world where evidence is not always cut and dry. The fact that vampires and whatever else can have existed for at least a thousand years yet still be without consistent or widely accepted scientific documentation in the modern era, and how that can be the case even without a powerful systemic force actively suppressing this information - themes of confirmation bias, rigidity of worldview, academic arrogance, etc.. This is all very important to Eureka’s ideas of evidence-based discovery and particularly important in the context of crime investigation and the judicial system.

I also think it is important to the themes represented by most of the monsters, that there is no monster society or support network, there’s no one they know like them, no instruction manual for being what they are, officially they don’t even exist. Mundane normal people who don’t intrinsically understand their perspectives and yet still have the capacity to be there for them are all they have.

Going off that last point I think it’s important to the fact that their needs are not being met by conventional society. This makes it frequently necessary for them to meet their own needs by deception, force, aggression, and even sometimes outright violence with a real human cost in pain, suffering, and even death - and this in turn meaning they cannot often even (safely) talk about their situations to ask for help from anyone, it’s already too late to do so without confessing to a crime and facing the full sadistic force of the law. There is no community of people with similar situations and experiences. They are unknown, and if they were known they would be reviled.

I think the absence of a masquerade is important because despite all of this pain, suffering, and death, these monsters are inarguably not invaders/infiltrators, nor are they part of a shadowy secret flesh-eating cabal that antisemetic conspiracy theorists find comfort in blaming all their problems on and to whom mundane people are just ignorant livestock animals. They were born in this society or arrived to it in some way with no malicious intentions.

But all of the above is just me talking about why the “no masquerade” element is there in Eureka RAW; you’re asking if the game can still be played with this element altered, and I think ultimately the answer is yes, it would still be a functional mystery solving game and most of the Paranormal Traits themselves could still be used without a complete overhaul.

If I were to mod Eureka for a setting with a masquerade, here are a few things I think I would do or things I would at least consider.

There would be interpersonal discrimination on both a direct level and like even more importantly an economic level. Is anyone going to want to hire a vampire if they can’t come in during day shifts? Is anyone going to want to pay a vampire for night shift work? “Well, it doesn’t seem right to pay you extra for night shift work because you would be awake at that time anyway, and really it would make sense to pay less because nobody buys anything past 11:00 PM anyway.”

The Evangelicals would also have a fit about vampires being allowed to exist basically at all whether the Bible says anything to justify this or not (it obviously doesn’t but that never stopped them before). There would be hate crimes against basically any type of paranormal person. (This also made me think there would be all kinds of useless language put forward to. They won’t keep blood banks open past 1:00 AM, but they’ll sure as hell refer to you as a “person with vampirism” instead of a “vampire.”) (This also reminds me of a joke in Yvette Preux’s story where she actually prefers to be called a “revenante” but both the paranormal researchers she collaborated with and the short-lived real vampire community that briefly formed in New Orleans insisted that “revenante” wasn’t the correct terminology and she needed to call herself a vampire.)

There would be blog posts about how you should avoid giving kids certain arbitrary foods or vaccinating them because it might make them grow up to be a wolfman or a gorgon or a man-eater.

As a continuation of this here is a link to two relevant posts, one by @tormenty that actually is a Eureka post based on this very idea, and another probably not inspired by Eureka at all but that perfectly represents the ideas I’m thinking of by @meli-writes.

Submissions open: June 1st 2026

Submissions close: June 30th 2026

(But do not wait until the submission window to sign up for the jam or start working on your submission!)

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is an innovative investigative TTRPG about amateur detectives from all walks of life solving “fair play” mysteries with fixed truths, while also often dealing with interpersonal conflict.

The rulebook is available (for free) at this link. 

Eureka needs more mysteries for parties to solve, and this game jam is a community event to encourage fans to come together and write mystery modules.

This game jam is non-competitive, but any submissions the developers like will likely receive free editing consultation from the Eureka developers themselves and may be “canonized” with a link within future versions of the Eureka rulebook itself.

While you're working, and especially if you have questions, join us on the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club Discord Server. It's a club for discussing and playing all kinds of RPGs, not just Eureka, run by the creators of Eureka. You can also join our "Top Secret" Patreon Discord server and further support the A.N.I.M. team by subscribing for any amount to our patreon. We'll be happy to answer your questions about this game jam or Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy either way!

Here are the rules for submission:

1. It’s Okay to Submit Unfinished Work: Eureka mystery modules take a lot of work, and we don’t expect basically anyone to be 100% finished before the deadline. Submit your work, and then keep working on finishing it up even after the deadline is passed.

2. Working in Groups is Encouraged but Not Mandatory: This game jam is non-competitive and there is no monetary prize on the line. It’s perfectly okay to work solo or in groups. In fact, working in groups is recommended.

3. Follow the Guide in Chapter 5 of the Eureka Rulebook: Chapter 5 in the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook contains extensive advice, guidelines, best practices, and rules for the creation of Eureka mystery modules. Do not start working before you read it.

4. Modern, Mundane, and “Kolchakian”: One thing the library of available Eureka mystery modules lacks right now is a strong foundation of “baseline” adventures to which weirder, more unconventional mysteries can be contrasted. One of the main purposes of this game jam is to help rectify that. To this end, every submission to this game jam must fulfill at least two out of the following three criteria.

4a. Be “Modern”: It is often recommended, but not required, that Eureka adventure modules not take place within a specific year unless necessary. Whether the module takes place in a specific time period such as a decade or a specific year, it must take place in the “present.” That is, the 2020s.

4b. Be “Mundane”: Investigating a mystery is in and of itself of course an extraordinary circumstance, but by “mundane” here we mean the mystery does not involve uncovering elements which would be considered “paranormal” or “supernatural.”

4c. Be “Kolchakian”: This is a specific Eureka rulebook term that you will find a better definition of in Chapter 5 of the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook, but in short it means that the investigation will take the investigators across a relatively broad area with multiple distinct locations rather than all taking place within one location, and will typically utilize the Travel rules (found in Chapter 1 of the Eureka rulebook) for investigators moving between locations. Kolchakian mystery modules will always use the Ticking Clock rules found in Chapter 1.

5. Don’t Overdo It: Be careful of being too ambitious, especially if this is your first time writing a module like this! One murder or missing person already typically provides more than enough mystery solving to fill an entire multi-session adventure module. It is tempting to write about a serial killer or some other phenomenon with many victims, but if you do that then you’re looking at having to write multiple modules worth of information for just a single module. In the last game jam, many first-time mystery module writers started too big and burnt out before they were able to finish their work. Don’t bite off more than you can chew!

6. Consider Optional Rules and Expansions: You can consider this rule optional too, I just thought it would be a good idea to put it here and remind everyone that Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy has multiple optional rules and expansions. Consider utilizing the Heat rules if police are likely to be a factor for instance. Eureka: Extreme Conditions also provides rules for modules taking place outside of conventional civilization. You might also find inspiration by looking at Eureka: The Fanservice Files or Eureka: The XXX-Files.

7. Submissions Must Be Adventure Modules and Be Compatible with Eureka: This game jam is for mystery adventure modules to be run with Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. If you're unfamiliar, an adventure module is a guide for game masters to running a specific scenario for their gaming group. You can find an example of one made for Eureka alongside the rulebook linked above.

8. Third-person Verbiage: Avoid saying "you" when referring to player-characters.

9. Separation of Player and Character: Ensure that your module says "investigators" when it is referring to the player-characters, and "players" when it is referring to the real people sitting around the table, and don't get them mixed up. More information on following rules 8 and 9 can be found in Chapter 1 of the rulebook.  

10. Characters Can Be Bigoted, but We'd Rather You Weren't: NPCs in your module may express hateful attitudes, but we do not approve of hateful attitudes from submitters themselves. 

11. Stay Grounded in Eureka's Lore: Please keep your module within the bounds of what the world of Eureka offers. You can read more about this within Chapter 5. 

12. Submissions Must be 5,000 Words Minimum: There is no upper limit, so be careful not to overdo it, as long as your submission has at least 5,000 words. This is the bare minimum size. Most good Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy adventure modules are about 50-100 pages, as Eureka really stresses providing detailed information to the GM and players alike.

13. No Generative AI: Do not submit anything that has been created in whole or in part through the use of generative "AI."

14. We Don't Own Your Submission: Your submission is still your property. You can even sell it after the game jam is concluded if you want. Though if you do, we recommend you keep working on it a bit to polish it up, since one month is plenty of time to get a first draft out, but even the best submissions will benefit from some critique and further refinement and editing!

Additional Advice and Inspiration: Here are links to a few resources that might help you find inspiration. First, here is a tumblr post containing links to a variety of “mystery module pitches” that include as much advice and scaffolding for writing a particular idea for a mystery module as possible. Second, here is a link to a YouTube playlist containing videos that might provide inspiration for writing Eureka mysteries.

If you are already in the process of writing a Eureka mystery module, and that module does not fit within the guidelines set for this particular jam, don't worry! There will be other mystery jams in the future, and it's not like you even need a mystery jam's permission to make a module. It is recommended that you finish your current module before you attempt to participate in this jam, as working on two at once just increases the likelihood that neither gets finished. 

Finally, don't wait until June 1st to sign up for the jam or start working on your submission! You can, and probably should, start working now so you have something to submit for the jam. The submission window is just a formality, you should work on your module before it opens and still after it closes. 

usb: universal serial bus

usc: university of southern california

usd: united states dollar

*i use “competitor” here kind of hyperbolically because in reality, the market competition between any two non-D&D games pales in comparison to the competition between either of those games and D&D5e.

Anyway this is actually a great example of how it hurts creators that so many people do not consider TTRPG rules and game design to be, like, real and something that matters to the experience of play. People just see a “mystery solving” TTRPG recommendation request and recommend Brindlewood Bay because it has “mystery” in the description even if the person asking is clearly looking for more of a “trad challenge game” than a “story game.” Sometimes also when this is pointed out, they say mystery solving doesn’t work in trad challenge games A. because theyve only played mysteries in trad challenge games that didn’t have rules to support mystery solving or B. because “the players and/or PCs might get it wrong!” (Which is like saying “combat doesn’t work in trad challenge games because the PCs might die!”*

*I’m using this as an example of a ridiculous statement, but as an aside there are people who say this too.

Switchblade

This is a switchblade drawn by team artist @qsycomplainsalot for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, serving as an example of a weapon that deals 1 Penetrative Damage. 1 Penetrative Damage might not sound like much, but in Eureka, Penetrative Damage is very difficult to heal from, and can cause permanent crippling injuries, so even the minimum Penetrative Damage weapon is not to be taken lightly.

Honestly tho, in terms of lazy chill I don’t think anyone’s gonna beat this bear:

And let’s not forget the time an entire pride of ten lions decided to take a nap in a single tree