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I like coming up with ideas for campaigns. In fact, I like it much more than actually running most of them. As such, most of my ideas will probably never see the light of day (and for some of them, that's likely a good thing).
But it occurs to me that there are probably other people with this same affliction. Which made me curious what kinds of ideas other people have come up with that will probably never make it to being a game. And of course, there's always the small chance that someone will see one of the ideas, say "Hey, that sounds like I could run with it," and then they can ask to run it.
So, to start off the discussion, here's an idea of mine:
The Champions' War
The Age of Lost Omens has ended. The Last Age may well have begun.
The demons were the first to notice the disruption in the flow of souls. When fresh souls ceased streaming into the Abyss, they immediately swarmed to the Boneyard to investigate... only to find it in ruins. No more did the deadly moon of Groetus hang over it, no longer did Pharasma judge souls. The demons found only scattered, disorganized psychopomps, desperately trying to put some kind of order back in place amongst the ever-swelling number of lost souls. The hordes of the Abyss wasted no time in taking advantage of the situation.
This, of course, drew the rest of the Outer Sphere's attention, and soon the forces of every deity had invaded the shattered plane, each fighting to 'save' the souls destined for their realms... and some seeking to seize a few extra while they were at it. A tenuous truce has developed, but it is a fragile one, frequently broken, drawing ever more forces into its enforcement and evasion.
On the Prime Material, the first sign of this expanding chaos was the sudden loss of divine power flowing to Pharasma's priests. (Not many people knew any priests of Groetus, so it took some time before anyone noticed their sudden loss of connection had happened at the same time.) At first they tried to hide the absence of their divine patron, but it was not long before they were forced to divulge the truth.
Since then, it is not only the afterlife that has suffered. With the deities focusing more and more of their attention on the shattered Boneyard, the Prime Material has increasingly been left on its own... save that the chaos in the beyond leaks through to the mortal realms.
It may be more than two thousand years since the death of Aroden, but Golarion still remembers the upheavals of those dark times. Now, there are those who say the destruction of that age was only a foretaste of what is now happening. Demons and angels appear in broad daylight in city streets, locked in combat, their battles killing any bystanders that cannot flee fast enough. Titanic storms make their way inland, traveling over mountains to soak deserts with decades worth of rain in a day. The shining cities of Numeria, once thriving under the watchful eye of their Iron Goddess, now find themselves fighting horrors thought banished a millennium ago.
And through it all, volcanoes erupt and the ground trembles, for the Rough Beast smells the stench of a dying universe, and rages that he is not free to kill it himself.
Only one light still gleams in these dark times. Partly freed from the strictures of former agreements, the goodly gods have chosen a handful of their servants to fight back against the madness engulfing Golarion. Blessed with divine power, and reincarnated upon death due to their deities' watch over the realm of the dead, these champions are the Prime Material's last hope to avert total annihilation.
But what the goodly gods have done, the dark ones have done also, and these champions may soon find themselves facing their dark mirrors...
So yeah, the basic idea of this campaign would be, it's the Apocalypse, everything is falling apart, and the PC's are the only ones who can maybe save something. The central unique mechanic would be reincarnation--when the PC's die, they show up in the Boneyard among their deity's forces, their deity looks them over, says something like, "Why don't you try that again as a Hound Archon?" and sends them back as a new race.
Of course, they'd have to face enemies who also get to do the same thing, and it's a bit unclear just how and what they're supposed to do to save the world... but there are so many problems to solve, they can jump in and start trying to save something while searching for bigger solutions. I'd probably go for a kind of Saturday morning cartoon/anime hero feel to it, maybe throw in one Mythic Rank (but probably no more) to really hammer home the whole "Last hope of the universe" thing.
It seems like it'd be a fun game to run, if I could pull it off... but there's no way I'll have the time and energy to do it justice. Even though I spent the time to write all of this out. XD
So, who else has some unusual ideas they'll never play? Comments on ideas are welcome, too, as are requests to use them.
Other ideas that I feel like sticking here so they'll be somewhere other than my head:
*Wrath of the Righteous with all PC's being dragons. Because what's more awesome than dragons fighting hordes of demons?
*Something with a party of awakened birds. This is something I joked about with a friend many years ago, but it would be fun to run (and Nevermore is too short to count).
*An Eidolon campaign. The basic idea is that the PC's would consist of a group of outsiders who were all summoned by the same NPC (using NPC-only magic, clearly). So basically, they'd be going along, doing their own thing on the planes, and then all of a sudden, BAM! They're on the Prime Material helping fight a dragon or something.
The core idea here would be that the PC's would be getting part of two stories--something happening on their home plane, and something happening on the Prime Material. Of course, getting summoned would interfere with trying to solve the problem on their home plane, but it would turn out that the two problems weren't as separate as they first appeared...
*Not so much a campaign idea as a concept I'd like to include in a campaign idea--asymmetric PC's. To explain this, let me tell you about Cheshire. Cheshire was a shapeshifting housecat that I played in one urban fantasy PbP back in college. But at first, the PC's didn't know I was playing him. Basically, as the game went on, I'd PM the GM and let him know what my character was doing about what the rest of the party was doing at a certain time, and then he'd report how this strange cat kept popping up in the PC's way. Eventually he revealed himself and the GM revealed I was playing him, and he kind of became the party's 'guide to the supernatural world'.
And then the campaign died, as so often happens.
Anyway, the concept of one or more PC's with different 'starting conditions' than the rest appeals to me. I'd like to incorporate it into another game sometime, but haven't had the right game to include it in yet.
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I've always wanted to play in a themed PC group, where all of the PCs were all the same class or race. In fact, I started a thread about it, last year, that was pretty fun to read.
I found out that there's already a thread for this topic up a level.
I've always wanted to play in a themed PC group, where all of the PCs were all the same class or race. In fact, I started a thread about it, last year, that was pretty fun to read.
I GMed one of those and it was a blast. Murders's Mark (of Crows). It was an all tengu group going through a module and they were great!
Hmm
I GMed one of those and it was a blast. Murders's Mark (of Crows). It was an all tengu group going through a module and they were great!
Hmm
Indeed! Your table was rather more talkative than ours. I still haven't finished reading through your play-through. XD
I actually GM'd a single-class party once. Everyone played monks. There were a fair number of hijinks, including when I allowed one player to roll to trip a flying wyvern... and he rolled a 20, so he succeeded!
My table was very talkative, but ti was a great run!
Hmm
My table was very talkative, so it was a great run!
Hmm
Isn't this more what you mean? ;) In seriousness, I love a lot of in-character banter.
(Honestly, I'd enjoy a PbP game where three characters just spent a few days debating their life philosophies, so...)
Yes, this is more of what I meant! The banter and RP was excellent in that one. Heck, you start with one bossy Tengu grandmother and a whole bunch of adopted tengu grandkids and you cannot go wrong... It was so great, we're planning another family reunion.
Hmm