If only...

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Mindwipe

Everybody in the entire world, for some (understandably) mysterious reason, has simultaneously lost all their previous memory (save for various memories necessary for basic function, such as speech). What cause this? Who am I? Why does the ground get black right here, but then return to green? Does that large thing tumbling towards me pose any threat to my--

I kinda think the adventures in this setting would be boring because you've now erased all the funny little details of life that make it worth investigating.  That's just me, but it's just sounds too off.

[SDragon]

Mindwipe

Everybody in the entire world, for some (understandably) mysterious reason, has simultaneously lost all their previous memory (save for various memories necessary for basic function, such as speech). What cause this? Who am I? Why does the ground get black right here, but then return to green? Does that large thing tumbling towards me pose any threat to my--

I kinda think the adventures in this setting would be boring because you've now erased all the funny little details of life that make it worth investigating.  That's just me, but it's just sounds too off.

But it gives a whole new set of details to make it worth investigating, which is what makes it fun. If that doesn't help, then keep in mind that people (read: NPC's) learn-- and re-learn-- different things at different rates.

[Haphazzard]

Mindwipe

Everybody in the entire world, for some (understandably) mysterious reason, has simultaneously lost all their previous memory (save for various memories necessary for basic function, such as speech). What cause this? Who am I? Why does the ground get black right here, but then return to green? Does that large thing tumbling towards me pose any threat to my--
The PC's are slowly getting their memory back as they meet people that were particularly important to them.  You have a dream where you got into a fight with your new friend, but you were wearing similar, but different outfits.  You were wearing some strange cloth around your neck and carrying a brown box with a handle when your friend pulls a strange tubular object on you and demands all your "money" (whatever that may be).  Suddenly friends are enemies and you're thrown right back into confusion.

[SA]

Gene Wolfe's world of Urth
Stunningly detailed and maddeningly ambiguous; beautiful, terrifying and mystifying.  I do not believe there is a better fictional world in existence, period.  Too bad attempting to make a campaign setting out of it would send you mad.

[LordVreeg]

Gene Wolfe's world of Urth
Stunningly detailed and maddeningly ambiguous; beautiful, terrifying and mystifying.  I do not believe there is a better fictional world in existence, period.  Too bad attempting to make a campaign setting out of it would send you mad.

Yes, but if you played in Celtricia, you'd be the only one who understood my external genesis of the Collegium Tortoris, my guild of torturers.  I borrowed heavily, even into making it a dying and strange place filled with ancient rules and ranks, run by aging masters and young, ignorant brats, all ignorant of it's former terror and glory.  I would have to agree that Wolfe's mad world would make for an incredible game experience.
I try to think of it in terms of an homage, but I am aware that it is also theft.

[SA]

...I try to think of it in terms of an homage, but I am aware that it is also theft.

Ghosts of Childhood Past[/b]
Those kids know what they're talking about.  When they talk about the monster under the bed, or the bogeyman in they closet, they're describing true and tangible things.  Thankfully, those creatures are only as villainous as a child's young mind can conceive them, and so they are rarely any true menace.

But then we grow, and our eyes are opened to real darkness.  Our monsters grow too, empowered by the new fears and perversions we discover with age, and though we often forget them, they cannot forget us, for we are their creators.

The PCs are "guardian angels", protectors of humanity from its multitude invisible monstrosities.  Alas, there is only one born for every child who genuinely believes in them, and so they are few.  They struggle against the beasts beneath the bed, the monster-sharks in the swimming pool and ghosts in the attic.

And sometimes, they meet a real monster.

[LordVreeg]

SA, why is it so many of your ideas would aslo make great graphic novels?  I mean, a lot of them.  Do your games all have this?  Or am I once again merely nuts?

[SDragon]

Okay, this is something I, personally, consider more of a setting idea then a complete setting, but by it's nature, it most likely could be used as a ready-to-go setting.

The Subject of my Thoughts

Magic. Disputes. Colors. Blind acceptance. What common thread do issues such as these share? The difference between a subjective reality and an objective one. The problem is, as far as we can tell, the very term "subjective reality" is an oxymoron-- or is it? What if the overwhelmingly vast majority of Reality actually is subjective? Neighboring nations wouldn't have kings until we were convinced that they did. For that matter, they wouldn't even exist unless somebody told us they did. Magic works, of course, but it only works because we think it works. Almost everything we know is little more then a self-created illusion so intense, that we don't even realize that we created it.

[spoiler=Please note...]This type of setting does have it's problems. One primary example would be the internal consistency of sensations, notably colors. In such a subjective world, one person's "red" could just as easily be another person's "green", and when three people refer to the sky as being three separate colors, obviously a problem occurs.

The other major problem in such a setting would be interaction between characters. How can one convey any information to another, if one's very existence is merely the figment of the other's imagination?[/spoiler]

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

This type of setting does have it's problems. One primary example would be the internal consistency of sensations, notably colors. In such a subjective world, one person's "red" could just as easily be another person's "green", and when three people refer to the sky as being three separate colors, obviously a problem occurs.

The other major problem in such a setting would be interaction between characters. How can one convey any information to another, if one's very existence is merely the figment of the other's imagination?

You could either do it solo, or you'd have to accept some amount of consistency but use a system where the players can dictate some parts of how the game world works.  I'm sure I've read descriptions of indie games where half the point of how they're played is that the GM isn't in control of every piece of the world.

[Atlantis]

sdragon, that sounds quite a bit like the book 1984

[SA]

SA, why is it so many of your ideas would aslo make great graphic novels?  I mean, a lot of them.  Do your games all have this?  Or am I once again merely nuts?

Dunno... might be because when I visualise them there's always a kind of painterly image in my mind.  I think "what if I made an illustrated worldbook or comic out of this idea?"

It helps me keep the writing reflective of the atmosphere.  At least I'd like to think.

You could either do it solo, or you'd have to accept some amount of consistency but use a system where the players can dictate some parts of how the game world works. I'm sure I've read descriptions of indie games where half the point of how they're played is that the GM isn't in control of every piece of the world.

There's bucketloads.  Over at indie-rpgs.com and story-games.com.  Really changed the way I look at rpg design.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Setting-wise or mechanics?

[SA]

Setting-wise or mechanics?

Our Wandering Kingdom[/b]
Beyond the Empire's cities of brick and stone, along meandering rivers and clasped in the wood's drowsy bower, our kingdom is nowhere and everywhere.  We are the landless people, the children of the trackless road, and we are the lords of our unbound castle, for not all who wander are lost.

Yours is a universe existent in the spaces between the civilized world, with traditions and truths that the common mind would call foreign, even monstrous.  They call you gypsies, witches, tricksters, river-rats, and your people profess to be all these things and more.

What it's about
Responsibility (to one's clan; to one's history) versus individual desire.
The familiar and the strange.  Prejudice and acceptance.
Old traditions versus new ideas.
Preservation and destruction.

What you do
Trade/interact with the people of the Empire.
War (normally not in the literal sense) and connive against other families.
Arrange marriages (and other gypsy politics), settle disputes, '˜discover' new territories.

[Slapzilla]

I've always wanted to run a campaign where everybody starts their characters and when they sit down to play, apply the Ghost template, because something terrible has happened....

I've also loved the Sky Pirate/Floating Island idea, for like, forever.  Then I played Skies of Arcadia and saw it done better than I ever could.

A journey down the river Styx.

Slave ship wrecks and a handful of unfortunates survive (the PCs) but so do a handful of well equipped Slavers.

Just not enough time to do them all.

[SA]

Well, your ideas 1, 3 and 4 could be combined into a pretty interesting adventure.  Heck, slap all four of them together and you get: a group of recently capured slaves on a sky-pirate galley are killed along with their captors when the ship crashes into a strange island.  They're all ghosts now, and they discover that this eerie island is in fact the mooring for Charon's (the afterlife ferryman) own flying ship, and an ancient astrolabe that charts the courses of the unearthly wind, Styx, which whirls through the skies toward Hades.

Oh, and that has got to be the awesomest avatar I've ever seen...