Dream Games You May Never Get to Play or Run

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

anything not mundane. My main point was trying to do something more "hard scifi", but I'm not certain how to do that

So it needs something weird to hook player interest, but the field is open.

Any idea about themes to perhaps hint at a useful direction? Supernatural vs. tech, for instance -- secret magic cabals. Rebels vs. the evil empire -- or the benevolent empire, as the Klingons (or Federation) try to overthrow the Organians that are oppressing them and dictating every aspect of their life? Mutations are spreading through society with associated disruptions? Post-scarcity bliss is disrupted by a few bad elements, necessitating a Dirty Dozen of heroes giving up their life of luxury to save it for the others?

Another angle for not-mundane might be grandiose scope, as with the Stephen Baxter space opera (the Xeelee books). It's all tech and science, but a lot of it gets to be way out there (with billion-year plans to throw galaxies around as weapons, those near-C drives start looking pretty mundane...). I suppose "hard" would be debatable, since we don't know quite so much about a lot of the extremes of large and small and cosmology.

[Minuteman37]

Another less developed idea I've had and would love to run assuming I have the right group is a game set in the 1940s Warsaw Jewish Ghetto. The players are relatively average Jewish citizens trying to resist Nazi rule and not get shipped off to a death camp.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

So it needs something weird to hook player interest, but the field is open.

Any idea about themes to perhaps hint at a useful direction? Supernatural vs. tech, for instance -- secret magic cabals. Rebels vs. the evil empire -- or the benevolent empire, as the Klingons (or Federation) try to overthrow the Organians that are oppressing them and dictating every aspect of their life? Mutations are spreading through society with associated disruptions? Post-scarcity bliss is disrupted by a few bad elements, necessitating a Dirty Dozen of heroes giving up their life of luxury to save it for the others?

Another angle for not-mundane might be grandiose scope, as with the Stephen Baxter space opera (the Xeelee books). It's all tech and science, but a lot of it gets to be way out there (with billion-year plans to throw galaxies around as weapons, those near-C drives start looking pretty mundane...). I suppose "hard" would be debatable, since we don't know quite so much about a lot of the extremes of large and small and cosmology.

More for GM (my) interest, but you're point still stands ;) Some of my players definitely like ideas I don't (and vice versa). My best friend can easily do a pretty mundane modern campaign that I'll just find boring after awhile.

A theme is a good idea to focus on. I like "forbidden tech" in any tech level and it sounds especially intriguing in very high tech.

Another one; I'd love to do a pokemon or pokemon-inspired campaign, but after trying it for a day, I've realized it's a lot more than I know how to do yet.

[Phantasm]

A game I may never get to play in: a Monster Hunters vampire hunting game where the humans in the party outnumber the vampires. Generally, the PC vampires tend to outnumber the PC humans in the games I'm in by (3 to 6) to 1... with me as the 1. :(

Seriously, it's supposed to be "those who hunt monsters", not "monsters that hunt". :(

[Boomerang]

I really like the idea of playing in a GURPS Steampunk campaign but I can't see that happening. Next best would be to run it myself but somehow I have never found the time.

[acrosome]

Option #1-- Low-powered Monster Hunters or maybe Black Ops, a la Delta Green or early Laundry Files. I never liked how ludicrously powered a standard Monster Hunters game is. You shouldn't need to be an angsty fallen angle to be able to take on the Forces Of Darkness (TM)- you should need nothing more than your wits, an M18 Claymore or two, and a little luck.

Option #2-- Any well-done long-running sandbox. High on the list is low fantasy or a less cinematic (e.g. no mutants shooting lasers out of their eyes) AtE game that's more like The Morrow Project or The Sydney Campaign for AFTERMATH! A tramp mercenary space freighter scenario like the almost-default Traveller campaign would be great, too, but it would have to at least make pretensions toward a bit better suspension of disbelief. I've been toying with ideas for all of these for years.

[Boomerang]

Low powered is definitely my preferred option both as a player and as a GM.

High powered games can be fun, but I find you really need to understand the rules better in high powered games and that extra complication gets tedious after awhile.

[TGLS]

An alternate worlds game where different worlds have different stating assumptions (i.e. just ST or Lifting ST + Lifting Skill, etc.), that also apply to visitors.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

The Rough idea is that the game would start off as a gritty World War 1 campagin teaching the horrors of War. The PCs who survive will be honord as the allies top Special forces team, and everyone becomes a decorated Vet.

Meanwhile an international group of scientists experimenting with strange energy suffer a lab accident, some of them die, others missing, those who remain are forever changed with extraordinary intelligence. Members including, Nikola Tesla (missing), A French Officer with Nazi sympathies, An English Doctor/Lord with an intrest in the Arcane, two German Scientists, and an American Engineer and soon to be industrialise with a pension for REALLY BIG BLIMPS.

World War Two kicks off as it did in our timeline, but those two german Scientists are designing the Nazis some "Strange New Tech" TM, the Day Germany invades France That French Officer who is now a Colonel do to demonstrated Hyper Compadance defects,

Sorry read this again and this jumped out. The timeline is baffling me. The Franch officer mentioned as "A French Officer with Nazi sympathies" (presumably around the end of or during WWI) is the same officer who at the beginning of WWII is a Colonel due to hyper competence? There were 21 years from the end of WW1 to the beginning of WW2, and in that time it is entirely plausible that a non-hyper competent officers would advance from Lieutenant to Colonel or even (low ranking) General.

[edk926]

I just want to run a game where I can plausibly use every single character I've ever made when bored.