Ideas Are Easy

[ericthered]

The Phase War

Someone has discovered a technology that lets them shift matter out of phase with the universe, into a realm very nearly adjacent to it, where they can float and maneuver without obstacle, before re-entering at whatever location they find convenient. And they've found a lot of very convenient locations! Able to penetrate the most secure industrial, military, and political facilities, they have spun a web of threats and blackmail they believe will allow them to rule the world.

But conspiracies leave traces, and a small band of intrepid PC's has noticed something is off. The Investigators will need one eye on the trail, another eye on their backs, quick trigger fingers, and a good dose of luck if they are to track down and take down who-ever it is that commands the soldiers in the phase suits and free the world!
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Yes, a lot of this is wanting to run combat with that gimmick!

Originally Posted by dcarson

A friend of mine many years ago ran a Chivalry & Sorcery game where aliens had discovered Earth. Mashed up lots of written SF from the 70s and earlier (many years ago) So the Kzinti had built a base in Australia and then a allied fleet found it. When it was all over you had the Great Australian Sheet of Glass and lifepods all over the planet. Kzin, Tran, Dilbians, Thranx, number of others scattered around. The PCs only encountered Kzin and lizardmen but we knew that more was out there.

Yeah, its a fun scenario with a lot of variations! Mentally, I keep on coming back to it. I'm not 100% sure that I've got a good group for it, but maybe.

[ericthered]

This is more of a gimmic than a full setting, but a DF style setting where a world-altering calamity from somewhere else occurs about once a month. Demon invasions, all the dead rise from the ground, the sun is blotted out from the sky, wells of magic rise up in various places, the geography gets scrambled, most of the world burns... various world-ending disasters that never seem to actually get the job done, but keep the world stocked with monsters and ever-changing danger.

[RyanW]

Ideas are easy, especially when you just steal them from other people.

If you've seen the Dinosauria Animated series on YouTube, particularly the Making Of videos released alongside them, you might be aware that the series developed out of an idea the creator had for a video or series of videos to be called "All Days". That one would have featured a post-apocalyptic story set in the aftermath of an unspecified anomaly that caused all of Earth's history to come crashing together. The result is that the map is now a patchwork of modern ruins and prehistoric wilderness, and the original story would have featured a father saving his daughter from a tyrannosaur by luring a herd of mammoths to the scene.

I think it would make a good campaign setting.

[Lovewyrm]

Magic users are born with the ability, but every time they use magic their bodies get infused and changed by it, and if someone were to eat a magic users flesh, it would be an euphoric level of deliciousness, and also temporary conferring magical abilities to the consumer.

The more often and more powerful magic they cast, the more infused their flesh becomes, turning it into a double edged sword.

You can do something regular humans can't do, but you also turn into an actual delicacy and drug for everyone else.
Magic users consuming magic flesh just become extra powerful for a while.

In essence, a bit like the Highlander premise, only that anyone can benefit from offing a wizard.

[ajardoor]

The Cage of Truth and Consequences

Okay, a little idea for a mega-dungeon/setting.
First, we have two empires at war;
The Dragon Empire, which is basically Not!Fantasy!Imperial China.
And more relevant to the players, The Truth League, which is basically Fantasy!NotMedieval India except their state region is Zoatharianism, especially the bit where Truth is extremely important to their culture (to the point where lying can get you the death penalty in some cases).

The player characters have been imprisoned by The Truth League and got tossed into their favorite giant state prison, The Cage of Truth and Consequences. The Cage is a massive facility stationed all across a few islands with features like big mining operations (prison labor!), abandoned buildings, metal cages the size of hotels, farming operations (more prison labor!), hidden tunnels and the remains of what used to be here before the prison got built over it. The Dragon Empire also certainly has spies infiltrating here, not to mention whoever The Truth League captured and put here.
The Cage of Truth and Consequences is basically the mega-dungeon the players explore and fight in, and live in too (there is an effective "town" area, for the players to rest and buy stuff, in the form of a relatively tame prisoner block with guards who are just corrupt enough to okay a black market and services).

The various wings of The Cage are basically mega-dungeon "levels" or areas ("This is where we dump the political prisoners, this is where we dump the foreign drug cartel."). The constant threats to the players are a natural outcome of the usual pressure cooker environment that is a prison. The "monsters" are guards, inmates, loose wildlife, and other annoyances. Traps are a combination of crappy infrastructure, inmates getting creative and paranoid, guards trying to keep the prisoners out of restricted areas, forgotten infrastructure from before the prison was built, and intentional sabotage by Dragon Empire agents. The "treasure" is stuff like stolen supplies, contraband smuggled in, artefacts from the forgotten ruins of what came before, weird stuff mined out, raided small armories, improvised gear fashioned from magical creature corpses and salvage from crashed ships (air or water).

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by ajardoor

The Cage of Truth and Consequences

Nice.


How independent are the prisoners of the guards? Won't they get in trouble for crossing between areas?

[ajardoor]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Nice.

How independent are the prisoners of the guards? Won't they get in trouble for crossing between areas?

Technically, you can...if a guard says you're not allowed to. In practice, bribery or smooth-talking the corrupt and apathetic is easy.
And it's not like you can't just cross in secret or forge the paperwork. As long as you don't escape The Cage itself, no official cares who's violence-ing up the scum where and when.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Ideas are easy, especially when you just steal them from other people.

If you've seen the Dinosauria Animated series on YouTube, particularly the Making Of videos released alongside them, you might be aware that the series developed out of an idea the creator had for a video or series of videos to be called "All Days". That one would have featured a post-apocalyptic story set in the aftermath of an unspecified anomaly that caused all of Earth's history to come crashing together. The result is that the map is now a patchwork of modern ruins and prehistoric wilderness, and the original story would have featured a father saving his daughter from a tyrannosaur by luring a herd of mammoths to the scene.

I think it would make a good campaign setting.

This is, basically, Sidewise in Time by Murray Leinster, with a healthy dollop of, Xenozoic Tales, by Mark Schultz, for good measure. :)

Not that this is a bad thing, by any stretch.
Who doesn't like, "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenozoic_Tales

[Anders]

To Jerusalem!

In 867, a group of pilgrims from Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia set out on a pilgrimage to the Holy City. It will not be an easy journey - and to make it even harder the pilgrims have vowed to make the journey on foot as much as possible.

[ericthered]

Knights of the Beaver King


The Rivers and streams of the land are the home of the beavers, most industrious and organized of all creatures. Their King Belruian reigns from the great city-dam of Telsuvi, sending forth builders to tame waters both upstream and down.



But unflooded land and deep water alike hold dangers for beavers, home to uncivilized beasts that would hunt and destroy the beavers. The beaver knights must both dive deep into cold lakes and trek far over high hills in defense of their kingdom, facing the monsters that threaten them.



And not all threats come from without...


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Beaver-Knights can be run in a simplistic bunnies and burrows fashion, without technology, but it was originally envisioned with the knights wielding iron swords and spears and fighting monsters not limited to real animals.



Beavers are comfortable both on land and in the water, which is a big part of what I wanted to explore, and gives the PC's both more tools to work with and more possible enemies to fight.