If only...

[Wensleydale]

Timeshare

So it transpires that, actually, time IS a mutable dimension. The scientists scoffed at those who tried it, the public made jokes as they drank in their bars - and YOU, criminal that you are, were conscripted to join the project.

And that's when you ripped causality.

Armed with only a packet of cigarettes, your wits, and time travel gone wrong, you and your fellow convicts must avoid dinosaurs, aliens, robots, and people from every point in history, future or past. And that's ignoring the mobs of angry, screaming people baying for your blood. Oh, and if possible, it would be nice to clear your name, mend the space-time continuum and stop the virulent futuristic disease outbreaks everywhere you look. But that's not all that important - Survival is MUCH more central to your being.

[SA]

Awesome stuff here, folks!  If we could flesh out a fraction of the ideas we're churning out we'd be... real geeks.

Wow.  Just, wow.  Combining late bronze-age with sentient plants, you could throw in some sort of "technology as magic" and have yourself a great alternative-fantasy setting.

Well, not terribly alternative.  Gene Wolfe was all over them crackers before some of us were born (see the Book of the Short Sun, particularly In Green's Jungles).

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Well, not terribly alternative.  Gene Wolfe was all over them crackers before some of us born (see the Book of the Short Sun, particularly In Green's Jungles).

Alternative to the ubiquitous "Tolkienesque" settings.

[SA]

*shudders*

Thankfully I think we're drifting steadily away from that ubiquity, such that (at least here at the CBG) "Tolkienesque" will soon be a welcome novelty of its own.

[Captain Obvious]

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...

Wow, I absolutely love that campaign idea. I've got to try it sometime...

Ditto. Seriously, if anyone ever wanted to run this idea, i'd love to play.

or this one...

Cold Turkey Villains
There was a time when you had this pitiful city siezed between your fingertips like a bug, and you'd squeeze and it would squeal its invertebrate squeal, and you'd laugh.  You were a lord then, with your death rays and your pain-gas.  If not for those meddling heroes you still would be.

But now you're on medication, and there's a court order.  Twice a week some pissant with a shit-kisser smile called Gary comes for your check-up, and Sally your bitch manager keeps lording over you how you used to be an "evil genius" and now she's making you mop the aisles.

You do try to be good.  The medication helps calm your nerves and quiet a bit of that "God Complex" they say you've got going on.  You've met a good woman, Ellie, and the two of you went bowling on Sunday.  If you stay on good behaviour then soon they'll let you move out of the shelter and get an apartment of your own.

It's hard, though.  Really hard.  You passed a thrift shop the other day, and in the window you saw a nice little satellite dish.  It's just the right size and shape, and it was only going for 15 dollars.  And old friends have rolled into town, with their blueprints and their blood money and their grandiose schemes.  You didn't want to, but they're so persuasive.

The radar's hooked up to the ionic discombobulator, and the family next door have already started screaming.

Just one fix.

I want to play that so much.

you could have so much fun with something like this.

[sparkletwist]

Jane Austen meets Tom Clancy
Warring, crusading, adventuring? How positively medieval. We've come far beyond that, dear. The Great Houses are at peace and we've never known more prosperity-- at least for the prosperous, but does anyone really pay attention to the underclasses anyhow? Oh, cynics will protest that our war has simply gone cold, due to the discovery of negative-material weapons leading to some new-fangled theory called mutually assured destruction. Of course, they're the type who also contend that our royal balls are rife with spies and assassins, our grand weddings are merely political alliances, and our benevolent king is secretly being manipulated by a cabal of necromancers. Nonsense! A refined, educated lady or gentleman will pay those ramblings no heed. Shall we dance?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Jane Austen meets Tom Clancy

So is this the Cold War in a past-type setting that has some big magic, or is it the Cold War in a modern-ish-type setting that has advanced by magic rather than science?

[SA]

So is this the Cold War in a past-type setting that has some big magic, or is it the Cold War in a modern-ish-type setting that has advanced by magic rather than science?

Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrel[/i].  Now that'll make for some cool roleplay.

[sparkletwist]

Jane Austen meets Tom Clancy

So is this the Cold War in a past-type setting that has some big magic, or is it the Cold War in a modern-ish-type setting that has advanced by magic rather than science?

Oh, a little of each, really.
The social context might be more traditionally associated with an earlier time, that is, a rather stratified society with a stuffy elite that cares little about the outside world, so from that I would take a "19th century" flavor (which is both more primitive than "modern" times but more advanced than your typical "medieval" D&D game) but the level of technological advancement could be anywhere. Regardless of the level of technology, it may have a certain "quaint" quality to us, regardless of advancement.

[SA]

A Game of Cosmic Treachery
The world is at war, though most of us do not know it.  It tears itself apart in its madness, and great armies of gods no man has ever seen spill their blood invisibly upon our streets.  They are far greater things, these gods, than the terrible sun that consumes the night, but their deaths are mere mutters on the wind.

You're a political figure in a strange fantasy world, who has been given the power to exact the will of the gods upon a world that has learned to defy divinity.  But the gods have but a faint stirring of strength and understanding to offer, so you're often left in the dark about your goals or how to achieve them.  Heck, you don't even know whose side you're on (or what the sides are!)

This is both awesome and terrible: awesome because it means there is virtually no way for you to be punished if you misuse their gifts to your own ends; terrible because the "enemy" has minions of their own, and you don't know who they are any more than you know your own distant benefactor.

PC stats/qualities are something like:

Personal - your own strengths, passions and power
Familial - the power and influence of your family
Political - the integrity of the institution to which you administer, as well as its inclinations
Arcane - the twisted goodies your unearthly benefactor gave you

[Slapzilla]

Mmm... who watches the watchmen?

You could assume the roles of any of the Horsemen of the Apocalype.  You could create new ones.  Vengeance, Nihilism, Fear.  You could be any of the Seven Deadly Sins.  Or any of the Seven Worldly Virtues.  You could be Batman AND Superman!  No, I'm not being facetious.  That would be COOL!

You could create faith, promote grace, and reward trust.  Hard to do as a group, but as a graphic novel... oooh!

[SA]

I had an idea like that.  Played a single session of it, using the Nobilis system (which is ideally suited to Sandman-esque roleplay); I thought it went well, but the players didn't seem too eager for a reprisal.

[Slapzilla]

Sandman occurred to me too.  The thing with that is I think there is not too much room for action, at least as far as the average RPG encounter goes.  I think it would be hard to maintain with more than two players.  Maybe not, but I wouldn't know where to start.

[SA]

Steampunk Wu Xia Cowboys
Seriously.  That would be my all time favourite action-adventure setting.  Ever.

[SA]

The Book of Travels

The campaign setting is basically the book.  Not detailed within the book, but the book itself.  It is a tome of sorts, like the ones one might find hidden away in some forgotten corner of an old library.  It's pages are filled with worlds, beasts, rituals and deeds.

You Will Need:
The Book
Three standard dice
Both the Major and Minor Arcana of the Tarot
Some paper and a few pencils

Play begins with each "celebrant" (player) stating their name and proclaiming their allegiance to an Arcana, for example: "I am Christopher Landiss of the Hanged Man".  They each then draw a card from the Major Arcana, which they may (with a few exceptions) Deny or Keep.  This process establishes the "Stars", that is, the relationship between the Spirit World where the Arcana dwell and the World of Shapes where the celebrants currently reside.

If a celebrant Keeps the drawn Arcana it becomes their guide into the Worlds contained within the Book.  If the Arcana is the same as their allegiance they are especially fortunate, while an Arcana allied with another celebrant proves troublesome.  Denying a card binds it to the heavens in the dark place between stars; another celebrant may command its rage against you with the right invocation.  You cannot Keep the World, but nor can you Deny it.  Thus it is placed in the centre as a reminder of all the things that might be.  Drawing the Devil (XIII) is especially dangerous: if you deny it, it will spell trouble for all until you work in concert to banish it or someone Keeps it ('Accepts the Dark') at a later point.

At any rate, do not work Summonings while the Devil is about.  It is the herald of the Beast.

It is left up to the celebrant to define (or interpret) their allied Arcana and their personal relationship to it, based on the card's name and image.  A great deal of the metaphysical conflict and cooperation between celebrants depends on those interpretations (e.g. Christopher interprets the Hanged Man as a symbol of self-abnegation and vindication through personal sacrifice.  Alice, in a previous Travel, Denied the Hanged man, and Louis used it against her as a source of humiliation and strife)

When that's done the celebrants enter into the Book.  Now, I have almost no idea how the interaction with the book would work, other than that the Travels are crafted by invoke the creatures locked within its pages (though they cannot summon them, for they live in ages distant from our own) and recalling the places and happenings it describes.  They can also roll the dice to summon Terrors, whose might is great, but who hold no love for humankind.  Be wary of an 18, though (triple 6's on the dice).  If anyone's drawn the Devil, it will open the Blood Gate to the Beast, who will wreak terrible strife.