1001 insane game ideas

[Nomadic]

I don't know about the rest of you but I find myself randomly hitting upon ideas all the time. Just last night while doing my normal janitorial work I thought of 5 more. So I decided to start making a list of ideas I would love to play in games. Most of em I'll probably never use... but hey they're their if anyone else needs an idea too. If you're like me in this regard I encourage you to add to what I hope might become a repository of random, yet awesome game ideas.

#1 - Just your average ordinary everyday zombie infestation
I've seen something sort of like this done before and thought of another version. You get your players together and you set out x bags where the number is equal to how many players you have. You have the players roll a d20 (if you tie with someone you both have to re-roll) and then pick their bag of choice by pointing to it and then grabbing it (no shaking or feeling to find out what's inside). They pick in order of the highest roll to the lowest. The bags have various items in them, wallets, keys, pocket knife, money, etc... etc... and constitute what the player character is carrying with them when the game actually starts.

The game is a zombie apocalypse in your home town with the pcs being friends hanging out when it starts. They have to survive as best they can through the havoc. Maps are easy to come by since they already exist in real life and you can probably pick up a few at a local grocery store. Possible ideas include the player saying something about a certain area they know in real life and then rolling to see if their character knows about it (and can then act on that knowledge). The real fun is getting to see your town go to hell and interact in places that you know about and possibly visit all the time in real life.

#2 - Tribal surprise
The group are members of a tribe. One day someone "displeases the gods" by desecrating a shrine in favor of their own favorite deity. The next day they see flashes in the distance and hear great crashes and rumbles in the distance. Nothing the tribes priest does seems to make it stop. The gods are fighting and now the transgressor as well as a group of mighty warriors/village criminals/etc must brave the great distance through the harsh landscape to bring a gift to the gods and placate them directly. The group sets out towards the flashes. As they travel they come across ruin and destruction as well as terrifying pale beings with strange artifacts that propel detestation. Eventually the group arrives at the source of one of the flashes, the ruins of a vast village of strange gray stone. If they haven't gotten it by now the description should make them realize that they are members of a tribe on earth and what just happened was a massive nuclear exchange. At this point you have the chance to make this a stepping stone off into a post-apocalyptic game.

#3 - Whoops I tangled reality
Think I said this before once but I remembered it last night and wanted to post it here. Basically a dieing reality was saved by a mighty wizard who "cemented" it in place, halting its fade from existence as it raced through the dimensions creating phantasms in other worlds (an explanation for ghosts perhaps) and being torn apart slowly itself. Unfortunately he cemented it on top of our reality. The players were somehow pulled through into that reality instead of being stuck in stasis in the reality now below it. They now have a choice... to let their world be stuck forevermore, frozen in time... or to hunt down a way to separate the two dimensions again (inevitably destroying this world even as they save their own).

#4 - City of the future
The players are members of a group gathered to test a time machine. However there is a malfunction and the time machine creates a destabilized field in the fourth dimension. Everyone in the time machine is transported x years into the future with people farther away getting transported less far into the future until it reaches a certain distance beyond which the destabilizing influence creates a burst that destroys all life on the planet. The group comes to with their machine controls a smoking pile of slag and them dazed and confused. They walk out into an alien landscape filled with strange creatures and tribes descended from the people who were transported only a short distance into the future. They now struggle to survive in a very strange world, perhaps looking for a way to go back in time and stop the disaster from happening. The man who created the machine was right next to it when the disaster happened so he might even still be alive at this time (perfect chance to quest for the needed parts to create a new machine).

#5 - It is your destiny
Not a campaign idea but still something that could be used in a game. Basically you have a chart and when the players create their characters they roll against the chart (the chart having one option for each person playing...maybe a few extras). They don't get to see what the results mean. The chart can have all sorts of destinies on it. Maybe they're a fallen demi-god who will rise to power again in the end, perhaps they are the illegitimate child of a ruling monarch, maybe they are destined to take up the sword of legend. Through the games you drop them clues and hints that get stronger as time goes by. They can choose to fight their destiny and forge their own or they can follow it. Not until near the end though do they discover fully what it was.

[Stargate525]

#6 Life
I've never gotten a group willing to play this, and I've always wanted to.

The players each submit three characters they'd like to play, filling in a basic chart. (race, gender, class, background strokes, etc.) Each aspect is then placed into its own pool of all the submissions, rolled for, and then the final, randomized character is given to the players again to play.

#7 Immortal with Consequences
The players are immortal. They aren't invulnerable to pain (killing blows knock them down for a few days, eternal suffocation in a coffin is a possibility), and they continue to age. The campaign centers around the search for an anti-aging process, or a means to kill themselves once and for all.

#8 Who are you?
The players are the same person, from different realities. Different choices and different circumstances, but all brought together by some strange happenstance.

[Nomadic]

I absolutely love #8...

So I've collected a few more yet again while working at my job today.

#9 - An ode to Wesnoth
The players create a hero by spending so many points to get certain attributes and abilities. They then get so many points to spend on minions and summons. The map is a large hex grid with different terrains the give different bonuses/penalties to units standing on them. The players duke it out trying to be the last one standing. It is basically a very complex version of chess mixed with fantasy and/or sci-fi rp gaming (on that note roleplaying is encourages... now what chess game have you ever played where you got to roleplay the pieces?).

#10 - Honey I teleported the gamers
The players are each given a short quiz that asks them a series of questions relating to their talents and abilities. The DM collects them and adds them up with each category corresponding to an in-game attribute. They are ranked from highest to lowest in score (ties become player choice) and assigned to their respective ability scores (so in DnD terms if you ranked 1st in dex you might get 18 dex while your 3rd placed wis might get a 14). The game then begins.

The players find themselves teleported into the game world through some means. The fun is in roleplaying how they feel they would react to such a situation and getting to grow and build their alternate selves into heroes.

[LD]

>>now what chess game have you ever played where you got to roleplay the pieces?).

Battle Chess? :)

Both in Game form and in RenFaire form.

[Superfluous Crow]

#11 - Modern Magical Realism
Think Tim Burton or Pushing Daisies. This world is in essence our own, but while the world has murders and crime it is all viewed from a skewed, humorous and absurd angle. Rare diseases, unlikely circumstances, and overly complicated murders and accidents are all common. Characters are caricatures or otherwise heavily dosed with opposing quirks. One or more of the characters might possess a magical ability the game revolves around (e.g. Ned's death-reviving touch from PD og the peculiar state of Edward Scissorhands). Descriptions should be vivid, colorful, and extreme.

[Nomadic]

#12 - Let there be light... wait, where's my light?
The world has finally come to an end and the PCs are mighty heroes of renown. One day their patron deity and ruler of their afterlife comes to them. "I have chosen you each as you are the mightiest ones to have ever walked the world that is no longer. I wish to craft a new world but I do not have the materials required and it is forbidden for me to leave this plane of existence. Thus I am sending you out on a quest to retrieve for me these things so that we may bring about a new world." With these instructions the group goes forth to retrieve all of the required materials, fighting epic deific battles. In the end the world gets made and the players characters become its new pantheon (with possibly their deity as the over-god).

[Superfluous Crow]

#13 - The End of War
The players play soldiers who escaped a martial massacre with their life, and crossed the mountains back into their war-ravaged homeland. They are poor, thirsty, down-on-their-luck, and their equipment and morale is in bad shape. Perhaps the players find a livelihood in the devastated country; perhaps they embark on a journey for gold and glory that is way out of their league. I was thinking somewhere along the lines of Joe Abercrombie meeting Serenity.

[Nomadic]

#14 - Jailhouse Rock
In a dystopian future where aliens rule the world with an iron fist/tentacle/other appendage the players are children living at a breeding center (where the aliens breed and raise people to use for slave labor and amusement). Life in the camp is rough and they have to deal with gangs, hateful guards, and all manner of other nasty things. One day there is a slave uprising, they take the chance and run for it, escaping in the confusion and out into a very strange land. The game focuses on their survival in the wastes (both urban and otherwise), scavenging supplies, eluding/fighting aliens and the other beings out there. It might eventually turn into a case of them forming a rebellion and fighting to drive the aliens off their world.

[Superfluous Crow]

#15 - Heist
The players are high-profile thieves who stage daring heists in their attempt to acquire amazing quantities of material wealth. The players each have a specialty and design plans to dodge guards, cameras, alarms, cunning traps and devices, and the ubiquitous laser nets.

#16 - Survivors
The players are victims of a terrible accident (storm, plane crash, teleportation malfunction) which leave them stranded on an isolated and deserted island. The survivors have to explore the island, evade potential hazards, and eventually they must make their escape from that dangerous place.

[Mason]

#17- The Others
As a nod to Lost, (and number 16) the players play the 'creepy mysterious guys' terrorizing/hindering/ confusing a group of otherwise normal people in a secluded setting, like a deserted island, or a lost colony on a far-away world. The PCs help build the devious plot surrounding the reason for there harrasment of the group of people, with help from the DM and previous sessions outcomes. "Flashback" sessions are a must.

#18-Historical Sci-fi Nonsense
The PCs are historical figures culled from the ancient world, and brought to an alien planet, where they are asked to demonstrate their qualities for greatness. This might include Alexander the Great battling hordes of robot creatures for statistical data, or Cleopatra helping an alien minister outsmart a more powerful enemy. The aliens might even place the PCs in different eras of time then their original, in order to change somthing about history, again for analysis, the PCs might also have to go back and 'un-change' what had previously been changed. The PCs might eventually grow tired of these games and want to return home, which is politely refused. This leads to the PCs working together to figure out how to get back to their respective times. In any case, Googling 'paradox' is a must for each session planning.

[limetom]

#19 - Philosophy
The PCs play various concepts based off of philosophical (or religious-based philosophical religions).  For example, a Bayesian Empirimancer (nod), a Daoist Pirate (other nod).  Characters could wield legendary (and silly) weapons like Occam's Razor or Hume's Fork.  Quests could involve things like arguing at length with other party members on the nature of the hot dog prop placed in front of the players.

Also, the DM is a solipsist.


(See also this similar, old thread: If Only...)

[Nomadic]

#19 - Philosophy
The PCs play various concepts based off of philosophical (or religious-based philosophical religions).  For example, a Bayesian Empirimancer (nod), a Daoist Pirate (other nod).  Characters could wield legendary (and silly) weapons like Occam's Razor or Hume's Fork.  Quests could involve things like arguing at length with other party members on the nature of the hot dog prop placed in front of the players.

Also, the DM is a solipsist.


(See also this similar, old thread: If Only...)

You've been reading dresden codak haven't you? ;P

Actually this would be an interesting game to play I think.

[Superfluous Crow]

I think there are rules out there on the great internet for actually playing a Dungeons & Discourse game.

[limetom]

Risus[/url] would be perfect for this.

[Superfluous Crow]

You're right. Those rules aren't really particularly interesting...
But yeah, Risus might work as a system for setting up a lot of these games :)
At your (american) conventions do you gamemasters showing off their own indie-game creations and such? Or is focus mostly on the big commercial and published systems?