Need help with example material

[Blahness98]

I have had this idea rolling around in my head the past few weeks for a modern game. The idea seems like a good one, but I cannot seem to find some example material to go along with it. My premise is that of a group of people (the players) doing things in order to save the world. From their point of view or the point of view of the person they are following, the acts they are doing are justified or "right" in their eyes. However, the rest of the world deems the acts that of terrorism, extremism or "wrong" drawing the attention of various three lettered agencies. So the group would be doing "good" but the methods would be "evil."

The closest thing that I could find was that of ZFT from the TV show Fringe. (Granted, this is what got me onto the premise in the first place.) From what I believe, the heroes would be anti-villains in my premise. They would be the agents of ZFT in this example, misled to believe they were the heroes but are instead helping to destroy the world.

What I am looking for are more examples to write a possible campaign with. Or more examples where heroes like the one above.

[kylania]

I stopped watching Fringe after a while so not sure what ZFT is, but there's always the plot line where "humans must die to keep humanity alive". The resource drain on the planet is too much to sustain so via eco terrorism, widespread plague or some other dramatic event the group is trying to save the planet/humans from themselves by killing off enough to keep things going. The Kingsman (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/) movie plot was similar to this.

There was also a Tom Clancy novel, Rainbow Six maybe?, where CEOs of companies were killed by the way their companies were damaging the environment. Like forcing some guy to drink down the toxic sludge his company was dumping into the ocean. Doing "good" by punishing those who were hurting others but doing so in an illegal way.

Or perhaps the players are convinced that some seemingly innocent kid is going to grow up and Make Things Real Bad Real Soon™ and need to take him out before that happens.

Or the players are working towards improving life for people via construction or infrastructure or technology or marketing the latest greatest app to people and really they are being misled and exposing a bunch of people to danger by what they thought was good but was really a plan for evil from some greater power.

Or the players are just tired of being the good guys and area causing chaos just because it's fun!

[Phystus]

So this would be sort of like Leverage, or The A-Team, but rather than helping individuals they would be working toward a more abstract goal? Or am I misunderstanding?

It sounds like it could be a pretty cool concept.

~P

[LordEntrails]

The Tom Cruz movie that they recently made into a TV series... The one with precognizsants... Anyway, where there is a police force that arrests people because of things they are predicted to do in the future.

Another movie, guy and a girl running from guys in a suits. Similar to above, can't think of it but it was an A list movie. sorry.

How about Agents of Shield? or X-Men? Where the govt. is after them because they are "bad" but they really are trying to do good? It's just that the bad guys have swayed public opinion or done bad in their name.

[Blahness98]

So this would be sort of like Leverage, or The A-Team, but rather than helping individuals they would be working toward a more abstract goal? Or am I misunderstanding?

It sounds like it could be a pretty cool concept.

~P

My idea is having the players believe that they are doing good, but in reality, they are the bag guys. Like to destroy the world in order to save it and rebuilt it better. And I just thought of looking through TV tropes and the best fit for the group would be Well-Intentioned Extremists (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellIntentionedExtremist). I completely forgot about that site and now have some ideas.. Time to get watching, reading and then writing..

[damned]

Im keen to see where this goes... :)

[TMO]

My idea is having the players believe that they are doing good, but in reality, they are the bag guys. Like to destroy the world in order to save it and rebuilt it better. And I just thought of looking through TV tropes and the best fit for the group would be Well-Intentioned Extremists (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellIntentionedExtremist). I completely forgot about that site and now have some ideas.. Time to get watching, reading and then writing..

I think the plot behind the Wayward Pines (https://www.fox.com/wayward-pines/) TV series (which was originally a book, but I didn't read it), might fit well with your general material requirements. The interesting issue for me is that you never quite know which side is right, even though it is rather clear that one side took the necessary steps to save humanity but did so at such an extreme cost.

[Mirloc]

Oh come on.. No one has offered up the X-Files? Possibly the most closely tied to the whole "saving the world regardless of how we look".