Take a chance

Summary:

Flip at your own risk.

Take a chance

Venomous mount 26 Feb 2021 19:55

Seeking Greenlights: Yes
Page Type: SCP article/SCP Tales
Genre (Optional): History, Drama
Elevator Pitch: The object resembles to be an ordinary penny and given with instructions on a small piece of paper.

• The paper states: Flip this coin back when children used to play, flip the penny in the air, catch, then slap it on the other hand. Will you take the risk?
• The person does not need to flip the coin if they don't want to.

Central Narrative: The penny was made in 1945 marking close to the end of WW2. On every midnight, (depending where the penny is located time zone alters) will suddenly disappear to a new part of the world on a flat service of any kind, supplied with the instructions. The coin can only be flipped by one person a day, after its single use, the penny will just act as a normal coin. If the coin lands on heads, then the person will seek what they most desire, riches, a happy family, be rid of diseases (cancer), or even escape death. There is however limits to it's power, the penny cannot grant superpowers, nor resurrect others from the dead. If the penny lands on tails, then great misfortune will come for the user. Can result in bankruptcy, loss of close loved ones, broken bones, or even death. The SCP foundation has tried numerous attempts to contain the penny from others making the foolish choice. However, the penny is incapable of being contained and will always be found in a different locations on Earth.
Hook/Attention Grabber: You have a 50/50 chance here. Are you willing to take that risk?
Additional Notes: This idea was inspired by business in today's times. Everyday people decide to weigh, Risk vs Reward. Either become rich, or face the consequences in a gentleman's gambling game.

Re: Take a chance

Impperatrix 27 Feb 2021 01:46

Hi! I'm Flight Officer Impperatrix!

+ Let's take a look at your SCP

The thing here is that you can have a great problem here. You're basing all the SCP narrative in logs about a person using the coin and then suffering from the result. Well, I have three suggestions:

1. Create a narrative around the researchers and/or the D-Classes that interacted with it. Analyze them and their lives and how they were affected.
2. Take some inspiration on SCP-3939 and create a format screwer. Think in a way to fit the 50/50 chance within it. Maybe this one will cause you a headache, but having different results depending on a 50% chance would be interesting.
3. DON'T write the SCP to be only a bunch of logs. That would be very boring.

As I said, suggestion #2 will be a big headache, but a format screwer based on luck would be interesting.

Anyway, good luck and good writing.

Re: Take a chance

Venomous mount 27 Feb 2021 19:53

Thanks for the review Impperatix and I am taking note on that now. However I am having difficulty about the log dates since I am still figuring out on each individual day, how will the foundation be able to find the coin in the first place across the world and bring it to the foundation to test out in under a day?

Re: Take a chance

cybersqyd 18 Mar 2021 10:51

[+] Open for crit

My central concern here is that the narrative you're wanting to tell is just, you explaining what the SCP does; and really what I want to see is the specifics of what you're wanting to do in the article: like, why does the SCPs existence matter? What actually happens as a result of it being used? When you write this as an article, what are you including beyond a description of the SCP?

If the coin lands on heads, then the person will seek what they most desire, riches, a happy family, be rid of diseases (cancer), or even escape death.

When you say 'will seek', you kinda imply this forces them to go looking for it and also that they might not get it; indeed, that this doesn't actually convey any ability to achieve this beyond what they would originally have had? Whereas later you say 'the penny cannot grant superpowers' which implies that it does actually help?