Weird Roleplay Ideas You're Afraid To Pitch?

[Shorticus]

So, this thread is all about those funny ideas you wanted to pitch to someone but weren't sure if A) anyone would like it or B) how to present it in the first place. These don't have to be ideas you wanted to use on a forum roleplay. Most of the ideas I'm going to present throughout the course of this thread are things I wanted to run IRL as a tabletop GM.

Feel free to use this thread to post your own things that will never see the table, or things you want to pitch but aren't sure if you're ready to. Who knows: maybe you'll find someone who's interested, or maybe you'll get suggestions from other posters about how to make it work in a tabletop or forum setting.

So, without further ado, let me start by introducing the first one:

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Avatars of Dinosaur Gods

Yeah, you read that correctly. Dinosaur gods. If you haven't played Primal Rage before, you probably need a bit of a primer as to what sort of world I'm talking about: a fantasy setting - or fantastic post-apocolyptic setting - in which there are dinosaurs that are deities. They cast magic, they can grant powers to their worshipers, and most importantly: THEY'RE GIANT DINOSAURS THAT WALK AROUND EATING PEOPLE WHO MAY OR MAY NOT WORSHIP THEM. These dinosaur gods would probably have really primal, instinct or state-of-mind based domains, like madness, hunger, fear, family (protection of), survival, rage, the hunt, destruction...

Yeah, it's a bit crazy sounding, but I love that setting concept.

One thing I've always wanted to do with such a setting is run a Dungeon World or Fantasy Age game in which the players are, well, the avatars of a dinosaur god of their choosing, and probably of their design. Using Dungeon World as an example, the Thief may worship Gargos, the Lord of Rot, a giant, rotting pterodactyl. The Paladin may worship Duragax, the Protector, a stegosaurus that fights to protect humanity. Etc.

Other interesting non-dinosaur gods could be things like giant sloths, yetis, sabertooth tigers, woolly mammoths, devil-like alligators, weird hybrids of different animals (some sort of chimera?)... You get the idea, though. These would all be scary, prehistoric monsters that are pretty much the size of Kaijus, and the world of humanity worships them in hopes of not being eaten.

This will probably never see the light of day, but damn do I want to run this for a group of unsuspecting dungeon crawlers. One day. One day.

A Fantasy Setting That's Actually A Giant Experiment By Aliens

Ever hear of an awesome game called Endless Legend? Well, now you did. Go look it up. 4X players will love it.

One of the key concepts of Endless Legend is that this fantastic, magical world is actually all explained by the science of the Endless universe (which does not mean OUR science can explain it; it's science fantasy, not hard science fiction). "Magic" is cast through the use of a strange material called Dust which is really common in space. The races of the planet, including the hydras and the minotaurs and EVERYTHING, were all created as experiments by some long-dead creator race. Humans, or at least one faction of them, crashed onto the planet in a goddamned space ship.

While it's a cool pitch, the problem is I'd want to keep it hidden from the players and let them discover all that. It means telling the players "There are secrets about this setting you do not know and may never find out, and you need to be okay with that." It means anticipating that some players would be upset to realize they're in playing in a science fantasy game, not traditional medieval fantasy.

"One Of These Things Is A Lie"

This is a forum roleplay idea I'd love to try, but it could end really badly, and I definitely don't have the time. The idea is simple:

At the start of the roleplay, I'd provide a list of things that are true about the setting, including rules. So, for instance, these truths might read: "Your character will not die," "The GM cannot do <X>," "One of you is a traitor," "There is no such thing as magic," "You are all human."

Then I'd proceed to tell the players that a certain number of those things - let's say three - are lies. I would not tell them which things were lies. I'd let them figure that out through the course of the roleplay.

Again, you can probably see why this would be a hard sell. But you can probably see the appeal to a GM, too.

[Rin]

"Everyone plays an alternate reality version of the same character".

[Shorticus]

"Everyone plays an alternate reality version of the same character".

@Rin

I could see that being very interesting and fun. That WOULD be a hard sell, though.

How would you want to go about it? Are the alternate universe characters each in their own alternate universe, or are they all together in the same place at the same time? Does what happens in one alternate universe affect the others?

[Snagglepuss89]

"Everyone plays an alternate reality version of the same character".

@Rin

That's actually extremely original, I'd love to give that a test run myself sometime if you ever go about it.

[Rin]

@Shorticus@Snagglepuss89Eh, the main problem is that what's original isn't always workable, honestly. ^^; But the main gist of it was that the GM (in this case, me) would write up the character as they are from "our" world to set the default stuff down, then everyone else would make something based on that. And the alternate realities could be something as subtle as "characted did X instead of Y" or "character is the opposite gender", or something as vastly different as "the Roman Empire somehow managed to expand and survive to the present day" or "magic exists and overtook science resulting in a fantasy world". And then they'd all... Meet, or... Something...

See one of the biggest problems here was that whilst I had an interesting sounding premise, I hadn't a clue what to do with it. It wasn't going to get very far without much of a plot, after all. Added to the fact that it might get a bit confusing pretty quickly (especially if there were more "subtle" alternates who didn't have much differences between each other) and the fact that I'm admittedly not a very good GM means it would've been pretty hard to get off the ground. Well, at least the basic concept is sound I guess, even if it'd be hard to actually work. Oh well.

[Snagglepuss89]

They could all be brought together for some nefarious reason. Perhaps they're the only human being who exists in every alternate reality and/or timeline, figuring that out could be the plot. Could even be more of a mystery than anything.

Ideas are a dime a dozen though. If you ever manage to work something out for it I'm sure there'd be enough interest to get it off the ground.

[NuttsnBolts]

@Rin I can see it being a hard sell based on how some people want creativity and how others will want to mix with the other players in certain ways.

As a thought, you could use reincarnation as a basis with alternate dimensions. Somehow there was a world fracture and everyone from different time and dimensional periods wound up in the same world. They all look the same-ish and you the gm are the original who is trying to control them and such while they all play up. Just a thought.

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Have any of you seen Redline?


It's basically a Fast and Furious x Star Wars Pod Racing with weapons.

So here's my thought. The role players create a vehicle and fill out some stats like speed, armour, cornering, etc under a number system like Fallouts Special system. The RP is played out as a race but the stats will help guide you so that you know a speed of 8 won't be faster than a 10 but a cornering of 10 will be better than a 6.

My concern is how would you keep something like this balanced, how would you choose a "winner" and would people be willing to stick around for such a different style of role play? It's one that I pretty much know exactly what I want in the design and structure but I've never had the time nor confidence to Gm such an event.

[Engel]

@NuttsnBolts I love Redline, never seen anyone else mention it though. It's the main reason I want to do a racing RP, though I wouldn't do it in a group myself. I think it's very likely to fall apart when a winner is supposed to be chosen, as people would throw their hissy fits like usual if they're unhappy with the results. That's assuming it would even get that far.

[NuttsnBolts]

@NuttsnBolts I love Redline, never seen anyone else mention it though. It's the main reason I want to do a racing RP, though I wouldn't do it in a group myself. I think it's very likely to fall apart when a winner is supposed to be chosen, as people would throw their hissy fits like usual if they're unhappy with the results. That's assuming it would even get that far.

@Engel

I think I found out about it from a GIF with the line "you don't know a damn thing about racing!" And after a Google search I ended up coming across the name and a subbed, poor quality video online. Now I own the DVD of it. :D

And you hit the nail on the head. The fear of a backlash is sadly too great. Sounds stupid, but it's an RP idea that might work best as a 1x1, a small advanced group that understood what was tried to be achieved, or the best choice... an arena battle with maybe a round Robin style of battle. At least in arena it'll be accepted that someone will loose.

[Shorticus]

@NuttsnBolts

That racing idea sounds really, really fun. I've never heard of the show you're talking about until now, but I could see a small group (4-6 people) or 1x1 working really well for that. I know how I'd do it, too.

So, obviously you'd want to have everyone write up their character sheets. That's first. You'd then have to make it very clear, in bold font and big letters, that "Your character may lose." I dunno, something like,

Big Font, Red Letters

There can only be one winner of the race. Do not join this roleplay if you will be upset upon losing.

And then I'd make it clear that there'd be some dice rolling involved. Say, for instance, that I roll 2d3 for each player's movement at the start of each round to see how far ahead they are, and that you roll 2d6 when attacking someone. You can attack multiple people, but get a penalty to hit and damage (-2? -3?) for each additional person you attack. Different events (some laid out at a specific spot on the map, some randomly determed by dice) could change the game each round. Etc.

Selling this would be easy, but actually getting people who understand "I don't have to win to have fun" would be much harder. That's a problem I've stumbled across in tabletop RPGs, in board games, in MMO RP, in forum RP... People want their characters to win, and they don't like unforseen events taking victory out from underneath them (like a shot to the engine forcing them to stop and repair, or an ambush in the middle of the race having terrible consequences, or even just a roll of 2 when the second place player rolled a 6). There'd be angry posts, for sure.

I think you'd need to have a system that you were REALLY sure was fair because it has to be a competitive thing, and you'd need to know the people you're playing with a little bit... And you could not have a GM character. You'd have NPC antagonists who are NOT slated to win (you WANT a player to win) but to harass the players. You'd have to be clear that your role is that of arbiter and storyteller. And you'd have to be ready to accept that some players will think you're choosing favorites when it's really mostly dice rolls.

I'd love to see this, honestly. If you don't do this one day, I might. Not yet, not for a good while (I've got classes to contend with), but I might.

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@Rin

I think how I'd handle alternate dimensions and everyone playing alternate universe versions of the same character is... Well, I'd have it such that they don't start the roleplay immediately able to interact with each other. At least, not directly.

But let's say that Jane from Universe A is going about her business. She's an everyday normal citizen, and she trips and cracks a rib on something. The scene shifts to Universe B, where Jane is a soldier, and she's clutching a bullet wound in the same place. She shares a passionate kiss with her boyfriend when the scene shifts to Universe C, where John is having a passionate kiss with his boyfriend.

The idea is that they're actually unwittingly dictating something that happens in the next poster's post with each of their posts. They're all playing the same character, after all. They all share SOME quality.

But as the thread progresses, I'd have the universes start to collide. Things start to have much bigger impact. Soon, everyone's in the same universe, a weird amalgamation of all the others, and there's bad stuff going down. They have to stick together to survive.

Could be fun, yeah?

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@Engel

I guess the only thing I'll say is that, as someone who doesn't search for writing partners so much as good roleplay premises with good writers in them, I've seen some good roleplayers on this site. I won't say that there's a huge abundance of folks I'd call "great," but there's some writers on this website I've really enjoyed having around, sometimes because they're working with a premise they love.

I don't have any suggestions, but I can see the appeal of wanting to roleplay out an era where technology or something has made the human experience something completely unrecognizable to us today. Heck, I think it'd be great to contrast someone used to living like that and someone who's got a history much more grounded in what we'd call "the fight for survival."

Good luck. I hope you find the right folks, because transhumanism isn't something I've seen any roleplay really discuss. I guess it was briefly covered in a Shadowrun campaign I played in once? But that was it.

[ClocktowerEchos]

While not something I was exactly afraid to pitch, I remember making a parody NRP after seeing so many super-serious NRPs. Called it Memepires: Age of Grimdankness and the name of it should tell you something about it. I also remember trying to remake my beloved Empire of Fuso into the Otakucracy of Nipponji. Unfortunately it died in its infancy and now I debate if there should be a day which I should remake it.

Here's the begining of the OP from the old Check.

WARNING: Contains excessive amounts of pure, undiluted stupidity. And dank maymays.

MEMEPIRES: AGE OF GRIMDANKNESS

How far will you go for sweg?

In the year 9001 BtM (Before the Memes), the armies of the Dark Edgelord X-K1lla and his armies of shadows, armed with pure, undiluted EDGE swept over the land. No one could stand against his dark, unshaken, depressed wraith as he burned entire towns for HEARSAY. What we needed was someone who could unite us, someone who could lead us against the Dark Edgelord, someone with mad 1337 skillz and dank memes to defeat the Dark Edgelord.

And we got such a person, the Meme55iah. The heavens opened up and our lord Gaben sent forth one of his Steam Salespeople to choose the Meme55iah. Gary Stu was transformed instantly from a nobody to the dankest 420 quickscoper anyone had even see. And with his quickscope-noscope-trickshot skillz, he fought Dark Edgelord X-K1lla's armies off, uniting the people of the Interwebz under him, his facebook page sky rocketing in popularity like his K/D ratio. Mowing down waves of unholy Edglings and N00Bs with his akimbo .50 caliber sniper rifles and a PornHub membership, the Meme55iah lead a dank ass purge of the Dark Edgelord's edginess that lasted for 9001 years.

But once he had rekt the Edgelord, he did something unprecedented. The Meme55iah denounced the lord Gaben and the ways of Steamism, forming his own religion called Dankistanity and smoked weed everyday. The cult grew and grew until it over took Steamism, forcing lord Gaben to put down the Meme55iah he created. But his legacy lives on as Dankistanity lives on today as well as Steamism.

Now, 2000 thousand years later in 2000 ADM (After Dank Memes), a new Dark Edgelord threatens to bleach the world in videos of nasty porn fetishes and grimdarkness. Grand Dark Edgelord xXSnipaYOLOswegXx. But now, there is no Meme55iah to save the nations. Armed with whatever they manage to find and their faith, the nations of the Interwebz must face off against this new Edgelord together or be destroyed. But their own flawed morality is called into question when the tropes start to fail and not everything is as blue and orange as it once was, forcing them to take dramatic measures even on their own populance. It is truly an Age of Grimdank.

[The book of bad juju]

I thought once about running a Paranoia-meets-Vaporwave roleplay on these forums by presenting my interest check to look like that Spam we've been seeing recently. The one with the words designed to play the google search algorhythm andread like a collection of words strung together more then a real post. The idea as i got it so far would be basically me as the GM playing as a giant computer home base area and my players as troubleshooter types who go find trouble and shoot it down, and the entire Rp is them escaping my clutches. It would involve lots of moving floors, pastel colours, and dialogue that sounds right but when you actually try to read it you realise it,s complete gibberish.

But i would play Memepires. I'd play the cult of Pepe the sad frog, dedicated to the complete eradication of all normies and the veneration of that feel, and all my soldiers would be Big Guys for you and scream CHEEKI BREEKI when shot.

[Arawak]

I can't remember where I stashed it, but a few years back I tried making a RP where everyone had to be hive minded insects on a giant desert planet. No humans, just lots and lots of alien bugs crawling around.

The essential idea being basically to have everyone to share a alien species instead of having individual players use their own species. So instead of emphasizing cultural differences by species, players would have to be more creative by having to figure out cultures that are consistent with an alien species. So, a egg laying species that is hive minded may have different sets of social norms even if they all generally share a common value for communization. Hiveminds I figured would work since each hive's "culture" would also be said hive's "personality" and that interaction between millions of individual insects could be expressed as interaction between collective sets of consciousness.

The problems with an RP like this is are as follows:

1. it's a sci-fi RP with pre-industrial tech that isn't using noble savages or a Cowboys and aliens narrative.

2. There's usually only a couple people who like being the hivemind in a sci-fi RP. Making everyone the same species of hivemind, even with a hivemind that does not have peaceful unity would likely come off as "too creatively limitting". I disagree with that notion (as you can expand upon a individual species in-depth and find the complexity of any galactic space opera RP), but the mere perception is all that is needed to ensure a dead RP on arrival.

Other variations on the concept include using AIs on a interstellar/galactic scale with swarms of drones since that is what space NRPs tend to be anyways or using a humanoid species instead (but at that rate you minus well be making fantasy).

[Rin]

@Snagglepuss89@NuttsnBolts@ShorticusHmmm... Well, thank you for giving me stuff to think about, and assuring me that the premise isn't as dumb as I thought it was. Still not sure if I'll actually get it up and running at some point, but it's a little more likely now I guess. XD

[NuttsnBolts]

@Shorticus Yeah I'll probably mull over some ideas over the next few months and see how table top elements will work. Might have to do a bit of testing too to see how fair I can make it.

As for characters, that's something that I already thought about and as GM I would probably play a race announcer role where I commentate on the positioning, things that have happened and are coming up, as well as drop subtle hints ("we're dropping into the second straight, will player x open up on his nitro to take the lead from player y?" That kinda thing). As well as characters I'd design a track layout that people can see so it's clear as to what's coming up in the terms of cornering and obstacles.

Most I would probably have is 4 players. Any more and itd be a shit storm.

[Sombrero]

I've been furiously tapping out a several-page-long world with an assload (or, at least an assload compared to most of the things I write) of history, full of different feuds and struggles and cultures. I haven't been sure what I've been doing it for, but the only thing it'll be half useful for in this form is an rp. The thing is, it's a semi-generic fantasy setting at its plainest and I'm not sure people would be interested in reading about it when I plan to make it casual. After all, when there's not a definitive minimum post size, it's very easy to maintain a certain vigilance when running an open world because they tend not to be exceedingly long...

Which is another thing, how would time be handled in an open-world rp that takes place in a landmass about the size of the British Isles put together? It would take a long time for people to travel between some places, and there would be no definitive party, so timeskips would throw each individual's continuity out of whack. I'd like to think I handled time relatively okay in other partyless, open-world games I've done before, but that took place in just a city, and the majority of the characters had supernatural powers. I'd do a single universal time for everyone, but I wouldn't want to give travelers a load of filler/completely improvised BS while people at their destinations are off doing things, and I wouldn't want to make days pass by for travelers going cross-country when it would mean stationary individuals could watch the sun and moon passing by like birds...

I'd make it party-based, but I'm kind of into the idea that everyone would be their own character with their own motivations doing their own things independently or not, like Mount and Blade Multiplayer but with less hacking, more complex NPCs, and an ovreword bit.

[Shorticus]

I'd make it party-based, but I'm kind of into the idea that everyone would be their own character with their own motivations doing their own things independently or not, like Mount and Blade Multiplayer but with less hacking and more complex NPCs.

@Sombrero

Well, firstly, there's nothing wrong with semi-generic fantasy by any stretch of the imagination.

If it were me, one thing I'd seriously consider doing is making everyone part of an organization that sort of requires them to work together but lets them maintain their own reasons for doing things. The two easiest ways of handling this? "You are mercenaries" or "You work for the Adventurer's Guild." Sure, these ideas may not come across as especially imaginative, but if you need people to travel around a fantasy continent together, there's little better than a common thread with a loose set of expectations (player characters can contribute to a group of fighting sorts in some way; player characters are expected to travel; player characters probably want money or fame for some reason).

Which is another thing, how would time be handled in an open-world rp that takes place in a landmass about the size of the British Isles put together? It would take a long time for people to travel between some places, and there would be no definitive party, so timeskips would throw each individual's continuity out of whack.

I think you've chosen the best solution by shoving everyone into a group. What you could do, though, is run this as a few separate game threads and link the events together in some way. You don't have to worry about time as much, and you CAN always have a timeskip happen in one thread to catch it up with the others if you choose, perhaps asking the players affected "What did your characters do in this time?"

For example, character A and B are on a quest to find a holy artifact for their church. Character C is a swashbuckling adventurer who's just going wherever the wind takes him. Well, Character C goes and ticks a dragon off, and the dragon burns down a village. Characters A and B are behind, so you timeskip forward as they finish their current adventure. Rumor of a dragon attack reaches Characters A and B, and they now have a chance to link up with Character C, or interact with a place he's already, uh, set ablaze.

I don'w know how appealing that idea is to you, but if I had a lot of time to dedicate, that's how I'd go about it. But, again: you've already figured out the best way of handling this, which is "Shove 'em in a group and hope for the best."

[Sombrero]

*Good Points :3*

@Shorticus

I guess so. My problem with groups, though, is the classic issue of different people wanting to go different ways, which could be solved by making more groups and threads, (There's so many things to go and do, one group with one goal wouldn't cover it very well) but... I guess this all really revolves around my deepest fears that someone will do something which would intersect someone else's stream of continuity a few events before the time they're at currently, and then I'd either have to retcon everything that happened to the players in the future, throw off the other players' plans in the past with some inexplicable obstacle, or drag both of them across the planes of spacetime so that the event could occur properly.

[Shorticus]

<Snipped quote by Shorticus>

I guess so. My problem with groups, though, is the classic issue of different people wanting to go different ways, which could be solved by making more groups and threads, (There's so many things to go and do, one group with one goal wouldn't cover it very well) but... I guess this all really revolves around my deepest fears that someone will do something which would intersect someone else's stream of continuity a few events before the time they're at currently, and then I'd either have to retcon everything that happened to the players in the future, throw off the other players' plans in the past with some inexplicable obstacle, or drag both of them across the planes of spacetime so that the event could occur properly.

@Sombrero

Yeah, that's actually a really good point. I don't have any GREAT advice for that situation, but here's something I've been told by other tabletop GMs a lot:

When you slip up, or when the story suddenly produces a bump, work it into the story.

The classic example I was told once was a DM who had a vampire walking around freely in the sunlight. One of the players said, "Hey, what the Heck? We know that guy's a vampire. How can he walk around in the sun?"

To which the DM, who did NOT intend to make that blunder, replied: "That's a very good question. How COULD a vampire survive in the sunlight?"

This became a plot in which the vampire was actually wearing an amulet that allowed it, blah blah blah. Point being: most problems that occur can be worked out by a little "Well, yeah, that WOULD create a problem. I wonder how it still happened, hm? Hm?"

In your situation... Let's say Group A talks to a duke, but Group B (who is a week behind) comes in and kills the duke. Well, crap. What do we do with the duke?

BOOM. Doppleganger.

Not saying this will work for every situation, but you get the idea. You can do some sneaky stuff, even if you have to rework some things.

[Keyguyperson]

Well, I've got a LOT of these. But I guess I'll focus on one.

I wanted to make a roleplay based off of a second American civil war in modern times, and the first roadblock I ran into, of course, was the fact that I wanted the catalyst to be an unpopular policy or president. Because duh. Problem is, you can't have a revolt start for either of those unless you plan to piss half of America off. Trump wins and a civil war happens? GM is a liberal nazi commie. Hillary wins and a civil war happens? GM is a filthy, sexist conservative who wants people to be killed by guns. Bernie wins and a civil war happens? GM is a tinfoil hat-wearing, ancap conspiracy theorist who hates the word "socialism" and will kill anyone who utters it.

Of course, I couldn't make a fictional president either. Because they'd have to have some policy to incite a revolt, which in my mind could be either strict gun laws, racist and xenophobic policies, or being socialist. And all of those have the same problems.

In the end, I decided that it would be easier to have the players be VICTIMS of the war, trying to survive in a bombed-out city so I could at least avoid forcing them into ideological roles. Specifically, the city would have been Durham NC, because I really like Durham NC. If you've ever played This War Of Mine, it would have been like that. Scavenging for materials, running into gangs and criminals, having to make tough decisions between a better chance at survival and clean hands.

But I couldn't manage to come up with a functioning plot, so I scrapped it.

A shame too, because I really love Durham.