Tentative zombies/survival horror

The idea of an All Flesh Must Be Eaten oneshot, ideally sometime around Halloween,
has been floated and since most of the usual suspects (i.e. Aeodwyn, Nat, Amare
and Oxydo) are still here, I figured I might just as well bring it up here (too) in
the quest for admission of interest.

Most of the balls are currently in Aeodwyn's court (as in "The Big Book of Basic
Set-ups was sent to him a few hours ago"), but it or a more edited version will
appear here if requested.

So much for that, but before I amuse myself by listing all those AFMBE oneshot ideas
as well as all the other horror/urban fantasy ideas that I have not yet discarded
(Maybe the non-horror ones as well)...

Just out of curiosity...

I'm only responsible for maybe a sixth of the views of this topic.
How did that happen?

Now that the excitement has died down, I’ll begin…

These first ones are the All Flesh Must Be Eaten ones, although for some of them something like Fear Itselfmight be a more appropriate set of rules. They might also come with pregens.

There is also a code, in an attempt to both eat my cookie and keep it, in order to hint at what the opposition is or might be without actually revealing it.
Key
S – Siege
G – Gauntlet, från A till B eftersom att stanna på A betyder Siege på ett mycket ogynnsamt ställe
M – Maze, Gauntlet men var B ligger eller hur man kommer dit är okänt/oklart

h – a horde of whatever it is
_ - either in numbers or behaviour not a horde
f – not a lot of whatever it is
Note that there is some correlation between the number of zombies and how hard it is to stop them. (The law of conservation of ninjutsu)

z – zombies
o – (not-zombies), e.g. gaki, orcs, b-movie cannibals, violent maniacs (the difference is mostly semantic)

+ - plus other things
ho+ - horde of (not-zombies) plus other things (not a horde)

The ones in English are copied/adapted from elsewhere. The ones in Swedish are mostly mine.

Last Train out of Nice
Shz or Ghz (depending on what the characters do)

It is the winter of 1898. Europe finds itself under assault by the undead, who are spreading their zones of influence along the Mediterranean coast and up into the heartlands of France, Italy, Greece, and Spain. These beleaguered nations are holding them off, for now, but it cannot be long before their resolve breaks and the undead columns march inexorably into Germany, Russia, and the rest of the continent.

The characters are the commanding officers of a ragged French unit whose orders are to hold the railway station of the city of Nice until the civilian population can be evacuated. They have a few hours to prepare their defenses before the Legion arrive in strength. Can they hold their line in the face of artillery, unstoppable wave assaults, and ammunition shortages? When the command center is cut off from the last train as it departs, can they cut their way through a wall of foes to reach safety?

Highschool Not Necessarily Of The Living Dead
Sho or Shz+
En skola i en mindre japansk stad – mer staden i Ookami-kakushi eller Saikano än Tokyo eller Osaka.
Rollpersonerna har av olika anledningar (extra jobb, klubbaktiviteter etc.) stannat sent och märker plötsligt att himlen har en oroväckande röd färg samtidigt som en dimbank väller in och döljer allt utanför skolan.

(Another) Highschool Not Necessarily Of The Living Dead
Sho or Shz
Återigen, en skola i en mindre japansk stad – mer staden i Ookami-kakushi eller Saikano än Tokyo eller Osaka.
In media res – tydligen varnades allmänheten och uppmanades att hålla sig inne med låsta dörrar efter att ni gett er iväg hemifrån (eller kanske innan ni lämnade skolan, om ni föredrar kvällsaktiviteter). Mer än så vet ni i startögonblicket inte eftersom mobiltrafiken är nere och radion inte säger mer om saken än detta. I alla fall är ni kvar på skolan och det är någonting där ute…

Turnfalken
S_z+
Staden Rabenschlage, som verkar ligga någonstans i södra Tyskland, kanske Österrike eller Schweiz, och exakt när den ligger där är lite oklart. I Rabenschlage ligger en skola, en internatskola inriktad på de sköna konsterna. (Med andra ord, tänk dig Princess Tutu utan talande djur och magiska flickor, så har du miljön. Ungefär.)

Rollpersonerna är, naturligtvis, elever och anställda på den ovannämnda skolan. Närmare bestämt tillhör de den grupp som inte kommit från skolan (och staden) under det lov som i år sammanfaller med Sankt Rasmusafton. Lovet har precis börjat och de flesta – de som har ett hem att åka till – har redan gjort så. Kvar är… Vad gör alla kråkfåglarna här?

Whateley Park
Mfo+
Du (varje enskild rollperson) vaknar upp i ett sovrum i en mystisk herrgård. En mycket stor mystisk herrgård designad av en galen arkitekt och försedd med en matchande trädgård/park. Och befolkad av galna hundar, enorma råttor och Värre Saker. Men någon i herrgården vill inte att ni lämnar den.

All around the pumpkin patch
Mfo
Några kilometer utanför staden finns ett gammalt övergivet hus – ett sjukhus/sanatorium av någon sort. Din [släkting, förmodligen yngre] har inte setts till sedan han/hon bestämde sig för att undersöka/utforska det.

Nej, du kan inte komma undan med att hävda att din rollperson inte bryr sig eller är förnuftig nog att låta polisen ta hand om det.

All around the pumpkin patch 2
Mfo
Du (varje enskild rollperson) var på skolresa, på väg till sommarläger, på rymmen eller kanske bara på resa med familjen. Du vaknar upp i en sjukhussäng i ett rum (tillsammans med de övriga rollpersonerna) på ett barnsjukhus som frånsett ert gemensamma rum vid första anblick är tomt och övergivet.

Bradbury Institute, Green Town, Addams County
Mzo+
Det gamla mentalsjukhuset/barnhemmet lades ner någon gång på åttiotalet och påstods vara hemsökt långt innan dess. Det sägs också att folk har försvunnit där sedan dess, men sedan när har det avskräckt en urban explorer/spökjägare/medarbetare på ett tv-program om endera/flickfotograf med goth-steampunk-bondage tema som dig från att utforska en plats?

Assault On Precinct Z (13)
S_z+ or S_o
In media res. To wit:
Three sequences of events occur in parallel: First, Lieutenant A, a newly promoted State Highway Patrol Officer, is assigned to command the old police precinct during the last few hours before it is permanently closed. The station is manned by a skeleton staff composed of one officer (the desk sergeant), B, and the station's two secretaries, C and D. Second, a gang member kills a little girl. The girl's father, E, pursues and kills the gang member, whose fellow gang members chase the man into the precinct. In shock, he is unable to communicate to the officers what has happened to him. Third, a prison bus commanded by F stops at the station to find medical help for one of the three prisoners being transported. The prisoners are G, a convicted violent killer on his way to Death Row, H, and I, who is sick.
As the prisoners are put into jail cells, the telephone lines go dead, and when F prepares to put the prisoners back on the bus, the gang opens fire on the precinct, using weapons fitted with silencers. In seconds, they kill the bus driver, the two officers with F and possibly more of the non-PCs. The prisoners are put back into the cells, but when the gang members cut the station’s electricity and begin a second wave of shooting, they are released to help defend the station.

Polarstation Z svarar inte
Shz or Sho
Det är inte den arktiska vintern, det är den arktiska sommaren, med midnattssol och, ända sedan någon hittade det där som om det varit någonstans där människor bodde för så länge sedan hade varit en gravsättning från en uråldrig och tidigare okänd civilisation, okaraktäristiskt dåligt väder. Det brukar faktiskt vara plusgrader, om än knappt, här på sommaren och färre snöstormar.
Risk för flatljus (whiteout) föreligger.

Z Building & The Barrens
Shz or Sho
Z-koncernen står inför en potentiell kris, tack vare Y-företagets inställning till miljöavfall. Rollpersonerna arbetar/leder inte Y-företaget, men det där de arbetar ingår i Z-koncernen och de arbetar i samma åttavåningarshus.
Notera att alla monsteralternativ inte nödvändigtvis är kopplade till avfallet i Barrens.

Occupant Iniquity
G_z or M_z or G_o+ or M_o+
A series of bizarre murders have occurred on the outskirts of Metropolis, with signs of cannibalism on the victims' remains. The Metropolis Police Department's SWAT are assigned to investigate the murders. SWAT is divided into two teams: Alpha and Bravo. Bravo team is sent first, but after contact with them is lost, Alpha team is sent to investigate their disappearance.
The game begins after Alpha team locates Bravo team's helicopter, but there are no signs of survivors. While searching the area for clues, Alpha team is attacked by ferocious dogs. Alpha's helicopter pilot takes off and abandons the team. Pursued by the dogs, Alpha team is forced to seek refuge within a nearby mansion, believed to be abandoned.

With the dogs roaming outside, the four remaining Alpha team members are trapped within and need to find another way out.

Blood for the corn gods
M_z with a possibility of Shz depending on what the characters do
Bilen stannar med eller utan förklaring någon kilometer utanför ett litet samhälle i Mellanvästern.
ELLER
En serieolycka, resultatet av tydlig vandalism (på gränsen till genomtänkt fälla), blockerar vägen och skadar alla era bilar någon kilometer utanför ett litet samhälle (enligt skylten) i Mellanvästern.

Mobiltelefonerna har knappt eller ingen mottagning. Majsen står manshög längs vägen. Är det något som rör sig därinne? Alternativen är att vänta på nästa bil eller att gå in till samhället för att söka hjälp.

Castello di Corvo
S_z+ or G_z+, depending on what the characters do
Året är 1898. Ni, engelsmän och –kvinnor (helt och hållet engelska frånsett vissa eventuella detaljer) från den övre medelklassen och uppåt har bjudits in och anlänt till ett mystiskt slott i Italien. Ett slott i just den trakt där diverse anfäder tjänade kronan under Napoleonkrigen och kanske tog med sig anmödrar ifrån.

Dead Mall
Shz or Sho
In media res igen:
Ni är i ett köpcenter (X Mall). Det är inte så enkelt att ni, så som traditionen påbjuder, flydde hit men oavsett anledning – jobb, shopping, letade efter någon som skulle vara där, valde till skillnad från de flesta andra att söka skydd där när meddelandet kom att hålla sig inomhus och inte drabbas av panik.
(Beroende på spelarönskemål och SL:s humör kan byggnaden/kvarteret/staden i samma veva omslutits av en tät dimma.)
Det är någonting där ute (i dimman)…
Eftersom portarna fortfarande är öppna kanske någonting redan är här inne också…

USCGC Romero
Ghz or G_z
Ni är på en båt. På Atlanten, utanför Floridas/Georgias/South Carolinas/North Carolinas kust. Närmare bestämt är ni på ett av Coastguards skepp. Det är lugnt men dimmigt och ni har precis stött på – nästan bokstavligen – ett mållöst drivande skepp som verkar övergivet.

Sweet Home
Mfz+ or Mfo+
A team of X people venture into the deserted mansion of the late Y to photograph and restore his frescoes. Upon entering the house, the door locks behind them and the group discovers that the mansion is haunted…

Jungle Of The… Well, The Living Dead Is Probably The Preferable Option
Shz or Sho or Sho+
Ett avlägset kloster någonstans i Sydamerikas djungler. Nunnor, hjälparbetare, föräldralösa, banditer/gerillakrigare/knarkbaronsknektar och amerikanska elittrupper (Special Forces på jakt efter de föregående eller Rangers tillsammans med vetenskapsmän ute efter den ”helt vanliga meteorit” som slog ner i området nyligen) sammanstrålar där, drivna av skoningslösa attacker från halvt sedda fiender som decimerat deras grupper eller i nunnornas fall för att det är där de bor.

Going Underground
M_z+ or M_o+
A megapolis with a huge system of subway tunnels and sewers. You (one specific PC) have just fled from [unspecified hostile group – yakuza, masked cultists, mere muggers etc.) through the city streets, escaping on a late-night subway train…
Suddenly, the train is derailed and Something enters the train and starts killing everybody left alive. You (the PCs) escape into the tunnels and try to find a way out while avoiding the monster.

Vilken stad det är/var staden ligger beror på spelarönskemål.

The Jaws Over Innsmouth
Shz or Sho
Staden och ön har sett bättre dagar som semesterort. Det där med hajar var över trettio år sedan, men trots det nya lyxhotellet och en nöjespark med pirattema har det aldrig riktigt tagit sig igen. Okej, så illa är det inte och det är inte som att staden lever och dör med turisterna.
Men nu är det en oförutsedd storm på ingång och gamle Shaw muttrar om stadens historia, piraters förbannelser och vad de säger följer med stormar som denna.

Tomorrow-ish: the none-AFMBE ones.

The final part, I think. For now.
Not AFMBE, but still mostly horror (and mostly GURPS).

In Swedish.
D City Blues
Staden D, prefekturen D, Kyushu. På grund av tidigare händelser (som inträffade för ett par år sedan) består nu dess poliskår av alla de galningar och kufar som resten av japans poliskårer lyckats få förflyttade (Mulder och Dirty Harry är två varianter). Men staden D har mer, och allvarligare, problem än poliskårens detektiver – det är ett sådant ställe där alldeles för mycket mystiska saker händer.

Ghosts On The Tracks
GURPS Spirits-Steampunk
USA, 190x. När spåren möttes och den transkontinentala järnvägen var klar 1869 slog de skyddsformler som de kinesiska och irländska rallarna vävt under arbetet ut varandra och barriärerna mellan denna värld och andra spräcktes. Sedan dess har spöken – och annat – vuxit fram längs spåren och ridit med på tågen, och de som känner Amerikas sanna karta, eller bara har otur, kan följa rälsen till helvetet eller Big Rock Candy Mountain. I egenskap av järnvägsdetektiver är det rollpersonernas uppgift att ta hand om allt detta, samt vanliga brott, på arbetsgivarens egendom och linjer.

Les anges, les saints et Lucifer
(Aeolus från GURPS Alternate Earths 2)
Les Ange. Änglarnas stad. Den största staden på kungariket Louisianes västkust, kanske på Nordamerikas Stillahavskust. Hem åt tokiga uppfinnare som arbetar på analytiska maskiner eller med att kombinera fonografer med mutoskop eller cinematografer, ockulta dillettanter, bohemiska konstnärer och världens främsta kompositörer och operasångare. Och skräck.

Duppy Jonah Conqueror
Fantasy-skräck i piratmiljö. Västindien, sent 1600-tal. Rollpersoner som är av SL för lätt identifierade som inspirerade av kaptenerna Sparrow och Shakespeare blir summariskt avrättade.

The Devil’s Toothpick
En småstad i New England. Lovecraft Country. Stephen King Country. Och titelns mystiska prekoloniala monolit. Staden har ”alltid” haft mörka rykten om sig. Ibland, kanske en gång på tjugo år, händer det saker. Underliga brott. Groteska mord. Avslöjandet av saker som varit dolda i decennier eller till och med sekler. Rollpersonerna är detektiver i stadens poliskår och de som måste undersöka allt det här.

The Seven Mr. Holmes
Detektivarbete och action när skådespelare anställda för att spela Sherlock Holmes (Watson, Irene Adler, mrs. Hudson etc. Kanske till och med Moriarty.) på turistresor till ett parallellt London konfronteras med riktiga mord, dimensions-hoppande brottslingar och ondskefulla konspirationer i ett steampunkigt 1897.

Seelie City
Urban Fantasy Noir med Changelings/bortbytingar/älvfolk i en korrumperad stad i norra Kalifornien under 1950-talet.

Chateau de Angoisse
Skräck och Weird Menace mot en bakgrund av nazist-ockuperade Frankrike, i en region full av legender om häxor, varulvar och drakar.

Shadow Over Berlin
Monsterjakt, kallakrigetintriger och paranoia i Berlin 1950.

Justice Road
Revolvermän-demonjägare-predikanter-lawmen. Amerikas nordvästra territorier (Idaho, Wyoming, Montana etc.), ett stort och öde land med spridda städer med folk som nätt och jämnt överlever. Du och dina kumpaner försörjer er som häxjägare. Du har ett gevär, ett kors, en bibel och en revolver – detta är dina enda vapen (och ärligt talat gör inte korset och bibeln så mycket.) Ibland hittar du häxan direkt. Ibland måste du snoka fram henne. Ibland skyddar resten av staden henne. Ibland är häxan det minsta problemet.

Barrows & Behemoths
Engelska 1600-talsäventyrare mot djävulsdyrkare, tidsrubbade monster och båda sidorna i inbördeskriget, samtidigt som de letar efter en artefakt som kan återställa tiden till dess rätta flöde (eller något).

Whaler’s Cove Orphanage
Mystiska föräldralösa med underliga krafter anländer till barnhemmet i Whaler’s Cove samtidigt som skumma planer når sin fullbordan och mörka hemligheter behöver avslöjas.
(Unga X-men tecknade av Charles Addams eller Edward Gorey och regisserade av Tim Burton eller David Lynch är också ett sätt att beskriva spelets koncept.)

A Town Called Malveillance
Ännu en Horror Police Procedural. En liten stad i franska Alperna. Trakten har en lång historia av häxor, varulvar och blodtörstiga mördare, även om de inte är lika kända som Gilles de Rai eller Gevaudan-odjuret.

Mistico County
AKA The Most Haunted Town West Of The Pecos

Visions Of The Unknown magazine
Undersökande journalistik när den är som konstigast. Från 1950-talet till nutid beroende på spelarönskemål, liksom monstren.

Hades Formula
Andra världskriget plus magi. Äventyr på hemmafronten och andra delar av världen i jakt på skurkar och MacGuffin. Speciellt en säker och effektiv metod för att animera zombier som faktiskt kan slåss – titelns Hadesformel.

Midsomer Nightmares
Ännu en Horror Police Procedural. Denna gång i Storbritannien.

Kasperle der Grosse
Grand Guignol. Sweeney Todd och From Hell möter Ocean’s 11 i ett expressionistiskt Berlin-Wien-Paris. Alla har en mörk hemlighet, alla vill ha Något riktigt riktigt mycket – du kan få det, bara du gör ett par jobb åt Teatern…

Men, Women and Chainsaws
Hack/Slash (serien) möter Torchwood. Slasher movie-monster hunting.

Van Hellsing Texas Ranger (AKA Conan of the Mounties)
(The Day After Ragnarok)
Post-apokalyptisk Conan-fantasy efter andra världskriget.

The Sounding and The Furious
Häxor någonstans ganska skottskt-walesiskt och demonstrativt Omniskt. Någonting jagar i skogarna och på hedarna och den nye Lairden tror inte på traditioner och vidskeplighet

Eldritch Tales Of Weird Menace
Undersökning av Underliga Mysterier som kanske eller kanske inte har ett övernaturligt ursprung. På 20-30-talet.

Bugger...
Rather than continuing with the Big Book of Campaign Ideas,
just throwing out some games/rules sets:

Don't Rest Your Head

Adventures In Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond The Yellow Brick Road
(Practically anti-horror.)

Gamma World
(Admittedly not the best presentation of the thing.)

And of course
Murderous Hobos In Fantasy Fucking Vietnam

Still curious regarding who is actually reading this.
And why.

Double bugger.
Some variation of don't go grocery shopping while hungry applies.

One game (currently the only serious rival for Gamma World in the "games I don't yet own but really want"-competition):
Iron Dynasty: Way Of The Ronin
(Review. Key phrase: Ronin vs Crazy Empire With Guns And War Machines)

A vague setting concept:
GURPS Ravenloft
(Key words: Regency, Gothic Horror-Adventure, Hammer Horror)

And a couple of DeviantArt pictures that, while inspiring, I can't quite pull
together what the setting/campaign would actually be.
1
2
3
I could have sworn there were a fourth one, but that might have been by someone
else.

And now it's back.
The plan this time, barring questions/requests from the audience, is to post the
rest of the collection, followed by clarification/elaboration/repetition on the ones
previously posted.
Presumably in English.

First up, the ones I decided to label fantasy:
The Aldskul Dungeon
OK, there is a town and a dungeon. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to go from one to the other to loot and kill (rape is optional), lest someone in the other place should get the same idea. Pretty much.
Oh, there is history and epic legends and stuff, but as they say “The mountains are high and the emperor is far away” – this is the Borderlands and beastmen – small red-furred humanoids with traits of terriers, rats and goats – are trying to eat the crops and livestock.

Barbarian Quest
Underdressed barbarians meet decadent civilization and lurking monsters. A mighty empire collapsing into chaos and warlordism. Sinister cults spread through the land, warlords and sorcerers take control of the cities and provinces, and the neighbouring empires encroach on the borderlands while the Imperial City wallows in decadence and cruelty. And yet it still attracts young adventurous barbarians seeking wealth and glory, and entire tribes seeking new land and sanctuary from more powerful tribes.
Available in Howards, de Camp and Pratchett.

Chronicles of Arcadia: Rogue and Realm
The Faerie Realm of Arcadia. Steamtech industrialisation vs. Victorian tech countryside; weedy elves ruling over little people and ogres; a soon-to-be conquering army of steamtech automatic soldiers…
Actually, I simply looked at my hoard of CCG cards and said to myself: “I should be able to get some mileage out of Arcadia: The Wyld Hunt”.

Les Compagnie Des Batards
The kingdom is in chaos. The king is weak and insane, with no true heir. Foreign invaders swarm across the borders to support their preferred puppets or claim the throne for themselves. With the weakness of the crown and feudal order, mercenary bands are free to roam the land – those parts not under foreign control – and try to carve a place, or at least rob a fortune, for themselves in a land wracked by chaos, war, plague, famine and dark sorcery. Bands like yours. You are members of The Company of Bastards, a band of poor and landless (petite noblesse) men-at-arms, mostly bastards, brigands and ruffians (and maybe a witch or two).
Available in Martin and Pratchett, the former in pseudo-French and pseudo-Scandinavian.

Dirty Old Town
Vuileoulestad, a city that wants to be Ankh-Morpork instead of Ankh-Morpork. Some enterprising souls have banded together and contacted the Ankh-Morpork Thieves’ Guild for advice on turning the messy tangle of colourful gangs into a proper Thieves Guild. The same is probably true of The Watch and the messy tangle of Harbour Patrols, ward-based City Guards, Public And Officially Authorized Thieftakers, Private Watchmen and ad hoc vigilantes. But really just because I realised that the pre-Embrace Plymouth Gang would work better in Discworld than in a historical world.

Maids Of The Son Of The Brides Of Dracula
Time: The present. Place: Supposedly Transylvania, but in the words of Sam & Max “Drawn without reference material, apparently.” – it bears little or no resemblance to any known real world Transylvania. More specifically the place is the Mystery Mansion of The Master of Mysticism/The Lord of the Vampires/Lord Of The Undead. Agents of multiple opposing factions go undercover as maids, trying to assassinate/manipulate/seduce/ignore/all of the above him. He is the kind of bland nice guy that vampire assassin girls get crushes on. Hilarity ensues.
The Master is available as a PC.

Samurai Meltdown!
It is over a century since the civil wars ended and society changed almost beyond recognition, but that doesn’t mean things are calm. Traditionalist AND outward-looking daimyo plot against the shogun and his army of war machines; the shogun plots against the emperor; political radicals and religious fanatics among the commoners plot against the reigning order; monsters lurk in dark corners and march along the streets at night.
Meant to be over the top samurai action. Culturally a mix between Iron Dymasty’s alternate more egalitarian society, ADD’s Oriental Adventures’ Swords of The Daimyo’s Kamakura-to-Sengoku era and the Edo period of most samurai movies and manga.

Skies of Oleanna
The summer of 1942 or 1943. Your plane was shot down. For one reason or another you couldn’t get out. Then everything went black. When you came to, you were safely on the ground, with your plane – still mostly in one piece – close by. But you were Elsewhere… a strange world of magical planes and dogfighting dragons.

Underdark Only
Since everybody’s going to play Drow anyway, why not have the whole campaign set deep underground and ignore what’s happening on the surface?
Action and intrigue in dungeons and city states in the Underdark. An unspecified section of Underdark – obviously not the canon Forgotten Realms Underdark – and the surface world might as well be non-existent for campaign purposes. Nearly a hundred independent city-states fill the tunnels and troglodytes are the most numerous and politically powerful race. Please note that drow etc. will not be played strictly according to canon – to begin with Lolth is replaced with an individual deity for each drow city.

The Witches of Eastwood County
OK, so it’s not the proper Discworld and closer to The Chalk than Ankh-Morpork, but with added Old West flavour. We have nice peaceful town and we’d like a witch to keep it that way. There’s gold (literal or figurative) in them hills, still-open range for cattle or sheep, fertile soils for farming and patches of stagnant magic just right for raising combustible cabbage to fuel the industrial revolution. And the Valley of Gamgee. Sure, the Crowfoot and Nez Cassé tribes always avoided the place but what do they know?
Available in Pratchett, kitchen sink fantasy-western and Lucky Luke with magic.

Hell’s Half-Acre/Subterranean Fantasy Fucking Vietnam (just a thought)
It may not look much on the surface, but it runs deep and it’s filled with traps, bandits and monsters. They all want to kill you.

Concerto per Vapore e Spada (just a thought)
The actual main story, which will be as prominent as the players wish, is that of several small states united by history and mostly mutually intelligible language struggling against a large empire that already controls some of them, while plotting and debating unification themselves.
Regency-ish Steampunk Fantasy with caplock guns, medieval weapons and music-based magic. Appeared when I was reminded of Eternal Sonata’s existence and in-game backstory.

Les Enfants de Grognardie II: Altered Nightmare Nexi (just a thought)
Hexcrawling. In every 36-square mile section of the wilderness around the city there is some kind of dungeon or monster lair. As the adopted children and students of the city’s greatest heroes it is expected of you to clear them out and expand the city’s influence.
Idea hampered by a) being thought of as for 4th ed. D&D and b) supposed to be used in conjunction with a pointlessly elaborate diceless multiple-choice chargen system inspired by Princess Maker.

Into the Realm of The Pine King (just a thought)
The northern frontier of the empire. You have been sent here as part of a force to pacify the region and bring imperial law to the local lords or vice versa. You have been stationed in a remote town at the end of the wagon-worthy trail in the middle of a vast forest. The locals don’t seem to like you much. Winter and snow arrived shortly after you did and isolated you further from civilisation. And with winter all the foul things in the forest go a-hunting.
Focus on human rangers, with no druid PCs to begin with. Again primarily a 4th ed D&D idea. Local terrain may change depending on what monsters are available.

Next up is Science Fiction (well, technically it is more of space opera and science
fantasy), including th arbitrarily labelled subgenres Steampunk/Retrotech and
Post-Apocalyptic.

The Beatniks Conquer Mars (AKA William S. Burroughs, Drug-Lord of Mars)
Well, strictly speaking an expy of William S Burroughs with drug-unleashed psychic
powers does it.
1956, Upper Interzone, Mars. Oddballs, beatniks and other counterculture types
having a science fantasy sandbox on Mars needs a longer introduction so here’s what
the guy who thought it up wrote:
“In a squalid marketplace in Tangier, unknown writer William S. Burroughs
celebrated his fortieth birthday by purchasing an extremely peculiar brick of hashish,
reportedly grown on the graves of Sufi masters themselves descended from the True
Lineage of the Sky Princes. He consumed it with a kind of languid fervor, and with a
lot of other stuff that littered the bed table, and passed out. It says much for
Burroughs' presence of mind, and for the quality of the hash, that for several hours
after he awoke, he still thought himself in Tangier, only the twin moons in the sky
and the six fingers of passersby giving him momentary pause. The liquors and
opiates of the marketplace became curiously unfamiliar as his amiable high
dissipated, and the curious reluctance of the shining-eyed hawkers to accept
American greenbacks finally brought home to him that he had somehow translated
himself off the Planet Earth, where the dollar was king. Here, Burroughs was king,
although it took him several more hallucinatory encounters with an increasingly
unsettled Martian watch force to realize it; his own telepathic powers and artistic
alchemy (and perhaps the Nephilitic drug cocktail flushing his body of the control
viruses implanted by the crustaceans) somehow allowed him to alter Mars into the
state his mind thought most truthful. Between his own pulp sci-fi dreams, Martian
technologies, and the ancestral RNA of his grandfather (who invented a mechanical
computer), he summoned amplifiers that broadcast his message to Earth: all the
beats, freaks, lonely, lost, victims and confidence men were welcome immigrants to
the Interzone on the fourth planet. Meanwhile, the forces of conformity from
McCarthy to Malenkov stare helplessly up, unable to prevent their own people from
flocking to the standard of William S. Burroughs, Drug-Lord of Mars.”

Might & Monstrosity
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that where there are giant monsters invading
a world, there will be giant robots to fight against them. Or vice versa. In the near
future or an alternate history science fiction past.
The PCs, in other words, will be either mecha pilots and support crew or people who
have somehow befriended a giant monster.
Although with a title like that it should be something like Jane Austen’s World of Darkness.

Quinn Tungsten and The Whatzit of Somewhere
Space Opera where Indiana Jones meets Flash Gordon in an overcrowded pulp-serial
solar system. Rocket ships treated somewhere between trucks, ships and planes –
the average civilian won’t have one, but adventurers may and owning one can form
the basis of a business. Such as going from place to place looting ruins in the name
of Science! and Democracy! before the bad guys get to them.

Stray Cat Strut
The picaresque adventures of an interstellar tramp freighter. Space opera that is
more South Seas Adventure than Western and stylistically more rockabilly than
either of the two implies.

Terran Colony Fleet Vessel Croatoan
As the TCFV Croatoan limps into the first solar system on its list of potential colonies,
its AI awakens a hand-picked team of Lepus parahuman scouts and specialists from
their cryochambers. They are to explore and set up a colony on this alien world,
dealing with internal politics, alien predators, ancient ruins, space pirates/slavers and
an Earth that completely forgot it once sent shiploads of bunnypeople to colonise the
galaxy.

X-Space
Star Trek-style exploration or Rogue Traders in the fluffybright* distant future.
*Compared to canon WH40K anyway.

Scavengers & Spacewrecks (overelaborate nonsense)
A huge mass of wrecked and fused starships are drifting into the solar system.
Explore it. Loot it. If there’s anything left alive in there, kill it and take its stuff.
OK, OK, you can try to negotiate first.

Engine Angel Formation: Fort Nagai (just a thought)
The Earth is under attack from mysterious giant aliens. The only ones who can stop
them are almost equally mysterious giant robots piloted by troubled kids.
Your job is to train, treat and babysit the kids, maintain the robots, run
communications and give commands during combat, and generally keep things, the
robots and the kids going.
Unless you want two PCs each and have your adult PC being the one in charge of
the kid PC of the player to the right of you.

Angel of Liberty
(Aeolus from GURPS Alternate Earths 2.)
1941. Central and Eastern Europe, where a newborn democratic alliance struggles to
hold off the forces of reaction. The enemy has numbers and a trained army, while
the infant Republican Alliance has the power of its populist ideals and a technological
ace in the hole: the world’s first air force, equipped with primitive fighter jets. Both
sides have Mad Scientists. Things lurk in the dark unexplored corners of the world.
Thrilling Air Adventures, pulp espionage and diplomacy soap opera with inspiration
and elements from G-8 And His Battle Aces, Valkyria Chronicles and George Lucas.

The League of 99
Steampunk action-adventure in a world mostly from Space 1889. Those magnificent
men and their astonishing automatons. Mad scientists and mechanical men versus a
secret society of even madder scientists.
It all begins in Birmingham, 1889, at the Royal Automaton Exposition where
inventors from all over the world display their automata, artificial men, mechanical
limbs and difference engines. When the League of 99 shows up to abduct an
exhibiting inventor and steal some groundbreaking inventions, Our Heroes are drawn
into the plot in opposition to the League’s nefarious schemes.

Messiah Engine
In an Edwardian/Art Noveau retrotech distant future, bounty hunters chase a
MacGuffin in an immense city. The city may or may not be on Earth – with alien
vermin competing with rats, pigeons, cockroaches and sewer alligators it is hard to
tell.


Space 1909: The Maid of Mars
In the beautiful countryside of somewhere that is not quite Edwardian Britain lies the
palatial estate of The Master. He has Maids. And this is not just any not quite
Edwardian Britain, but a Wodehousean Space 1909 (i.e. Twenty Years Later) teeming
with Mad Scientists, Weird Menaces and plain Master Criminals, all of whom produce
trophies and artefacts collected by the Master’s more adventurous relatives.
Retrieving said objects from reclaiming previous owners, unrelated thieves or the
dimwitted but tinkering-inclined Master, and putting them back in their correct vault
without activating them is a recurring theme.


Ragnarok Report
(elaborated/clarified from above)
Post-apocalyptic Science Fantasy. It’s a world in chaos. Or maybe it’s many worlds.
Uncountable settlements survived unchanged, but none of them is like any of the
others and for each of them there are two where the people changed beyond
recognition. The wilderness between them is filled with strange creatures mutated by
radiation, transformed by scientific experiments or born from the reigning chaos.
At the end of the Road of the Ancients is the Beanstalk, a stairway to the sky and a
land of peace and plenty (or soft weaklings ripe for conquest); between here and
there are a hundred warlords and mutant monsters.

Van Hellsing Texas Ranger (AKA Conan of the Mounties)
(rephrased/updated from earlier)
”Know, O Prince, that between the years when the Serpent fell and the oceans drank
America and the gleaming cities, and the rise of the Sons of Space, there was an Age
undreamed of, when nations guttered low and flared brilliant across the poisoned
world like dying stars – California and Texas each claiming the flag of the West,
France torn asunder and facing the desert, harsh Mexico, slumbering Brazil,
Argentina where the seeds of Thule lay waiting, ancient lands of Persia and Arabia
and Iraq between two empires, the coldly clutching Soviet Union whispering behind
its Wall of Serpent, Japan whose warriors wore steel and silk and khaki. But the
proudest kingdom of the world was Australia, the last green and pleasant land,
ringed around by its dominions and bulwarked by the sea.”
Post-apocalyptic Conanesque fantasy after World War Two ended with the Midgard
Serpent falling on top of Europe. You are, at least nominally, either Mounties or
Texas Rangers depending on where you decide to start. Most of North America is a
monster-infested wilderness of warlords and snake cults. Your job is to stop the
warlords, crush the cults, drive back the monsters and generally fight for civilisation
and humanity. Unless you feel that barbarism is the better state and what will save
the day and the world.

Next up are the ones arbitrarily put under Action, with the subcategories Superheroes, Martial Arts and Other.

Superheroes
Challengers Of Tomorrow
Young superheroes and aliens sent back in time to save the world of tomorrow from a vaguely remembered fate. OK, you can’t recall all of your comrades-in-arms in the other squads and there are some disagreements and discrepancies about the disaster, so what? The world is coming under attack from an ever growing number of mad scientists, colourful criminals (with and without gimmicks, gadgets, obsessions and themes), aliens, giant monsters and renegade time travellers. And it’s your mission to save it.
Maids of Doom
For your consideration: What if… Doctor Doom was the male lead in a Maid Harem Comedy anime?
Action-comedy veering towards the nearly-anything-goes approach of Urusei Yatsura. For decades this Mediterranean island was ruled by the magnificent [Doctor Doom], master of magic and science. His successor ([Medical Student Doom]) is trying to follow in his steps and finish his Final Project(s), but is hampered by archrivals, nemeses and other meddling pests (or unwanted friendly guests). Thankfully, he has Maids and not all of them are undercover agents of his enemies…
This is a superhero world, but more like Teen Titans Go or Powerpuff Girls than anything else. There used to be lots of adult superheroes and –villains but most of them disappeared a few years back – well, everybody remembers them, although nobody can point to anything they actually did, and a lot of the superkids around now seem to be legacy heroes/villains – sidekicks, children or siblings of the disappeared adults. Most of the remaining adults, most of whom are (technically at least) supervillains, are strictly C-list or worse with far too many having little more than a theme obsession, a costume and a codename.
Manic Street Creatures
Mutant animals. Living in the streets. They fight crime?

Kickass Feng Shui Watchmen (just a thought)
Watchmen-Kickass-vigilantes. Versus Batman-/Dick Tracy-villains.
(As sort of hinted by the working title, this might be achieved by using Feng Shui and allowing Masked Avengers Fu shticks (and lower wealth) or Scrappy Kids Gun shticks.

Martial Arts
Red Hair Brigands Of The Victorious Age
Ming-3 from GURPS Alternate Earths 2
The year is 1859. The place is Le Havre in Datsin – imperial Chinese navy base and with the wharves controlled by the Irish Triads. A little of Hong Kong or Singapore as it is a relatively young city (founded in 1517) built on drained wetlands. It is also an important port city – one of Datsin’s largest – and a city where Irish gangster chiefs live cheek-in-jowl with Frisian pirates, Hindu poisoners, revolutionaries from Meichi and renegades from the Middle Kingdom itself. One of those places where Xia from the whole world gathers by chance and coincidence.
Wuxia in an alternative world where China and the Ming dynasty still dominates the world, but maybe not for much longer. A prominent role, as friends or enemies, will be played by the Irish Triads.
Swords of The Ancients
Chambara swashbucklers (Errol Flynn meets Akira Kurosawa; they play Soul Calibur) in the 17th century face (1674). After being recruited by one Mysterious Patron or other they get involved in the search for one or more mythological swords (like Almace, Curtana and Durendal) that hold the keys to untold treasures, facing immortals, homonuculi and antediluvian beasts along the way.
Further background:
It began with Cosmas and Christopher, two Christian Japanese swordsmen who sailed first with a Spanish galleon and then with the English sea dog Thomas Cavendish, who captured their Santa Ana. They were at loose ends when Cavendish returned to England, and picked up a few shillings here and there demonstrating Japanese sword-fighting on stage, becoming very popular after Marlowe's Fideioxi, The Tyrant of Xipan featured them in a starring role. (Shakespeare's company used kendo-trained English actors for his own later Tragedie of Minamotus.) Other swordsmen (beached crewmen from un-captured galleons) played similar roles in the plays of Lope de Vega and his contemporaries, and likewise trained Spanish actors -- and eventually bravos and the wilder hidalgos -- in kendo and kenjutsu, along with judo and other dramatic stage combat arts. Meanwhile, the 1610-1611 embassy of Tanaka Shosuke to New Spain and of Hasekura Tsunenaga to Madrid and Rome in 1614-1617 further familiarized Europe and Japan with each other, as did the myriad of trade and pilgrimage voyages in their wake. Jesuit missions worked hard to spread Christianity in Japan, converting a number of samurai families as well as commoners and the poor. But the Tokugawa saw the rise of Christianity as a threat, and promulgated strict anti-Christian edicts.
Finally, in 1635, Tokugawa Iemitsu ordered Japan closed to Christians, sending a wave of refugees to Mexico and Spain. Samurai on the losing side of the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637, the Keian Uprising of 1651, and other political struggles fled to Europe, as did the 800 ronin of Sado Island and the rebellious Date family. Most of the samurai became members of the Spanish royal guard, granted estates either in the New World or seized from Protestant rebels in Germany. A few (those who converted to Protestantism, and most of those who remained Shinto or Buddhist) settled in London or Holland, mostly working as Masters of Defence until Charles II recruited his own Japanese Guards. Only Spain's rival France declines to form such units, hoping that its Musketeers are the equal of any exiled samurai.
El Tigre Violente vs.
There has been a rash of sudden deaths among wrestlers worldwide.
Simultaneously, the mysterious Doctor Morrigan is managing (although never appearing in person) an evergrowing stable of masked wrestlers and making incursions in other federations and territories.
There is talk of zombies and Mad Science.
The International World Council of Wrestling Federations (the wrestling equivalent of U.N.C.L.E. or S.H.I.E.L.D.) turn to you to sort things out. Find the baddie, smite the baddie.

Legend of 5 Deadly Baby Bomb (just a thought)
Obviously it sounded better (and probably meant something different) in the original Chinese. Wire fu martial arts in a rather firearms-deficient modern world, specifically a big city bearing a remarkable similarity to pre-1997 Hong Kong and inhabited by martial artists with names like Happy Cricket, Inscrutable Chap and… Perfect Monster. At least one of them killed your master, stole the secret scroll, is plotting to take over the (martial arts) world or ate the pudding you were saving for later. REVENGE!

Ancient Dragons, Grey Panthers
There are so many kid- or teenager-centred ideas here that I started feeling I should even things out. Feng Shui comes to the rescue with the Ancient Master template (but there are other possible rules as well).
Presumably somewhere quite Chinese and reasonably modern. Someone has just killed your most promising student and designated heir. Or that student turned against you, stole the secret scroll and joined your sworn enemy. Not your life-long rival and sparring partner, your actual evil enemy. By now the phrase “Life is to short to…” is starting to sound all too literal, so… REVENGE!

Other
Alone Against The Armanen Order
GURPS Infinite Worlds with focus on Reich-5 as opponents. I-cops (agents of Infinity Unlimited) versus magic-using Nazis on a variety of alternate Earths. Or maybe Miracle Workers or Time Tour guides discovering the magic Nazis infiltrating the timeline they are stationed in.
Arcologies & Abominations
“Did you hear about Pondsmith Arcology? The one that was evacuated? They say some really weird stuff was going on over there. Let’s go check it out.”
Dungeoncrawling in the walls of a cyberpunk arcology by curious, worried or forcibly drafted kids (yogangers from Cybergenerations).
Dam Aeng
Dam Aeng (a fictional, though possibly familiar-seeming, Southeast Asian city), the present. Crime Capers and Heroic Bloodshed. Independent operators (smugglers, thieves, killers etc.) in the fabulously corrupt Thai-ish city of Dam Aeng. Just the right people, in other words, to get hired by the crimelords to do their really dirty/specialist work when you can’t think of any daring thefts, outrageous robberies or revenges to plot on your own.
Incidentally, “dam” means “black” in Thai and “aeng”can be translated as “pool” or “lagoon”.Doctor Pertwee’s Cabinet of Curiosities
Travel through time using an oriental herb and the historical curiosities in the Doctor’s collection. Fight hidden monsters and invasions from other realities. In the past, in the present and on whatever strange worlds the Doctor leads you to. Starting point is 1920s-30s unless a later date is requested (early seventies seems a logical alternative).
Heart of War: Eternity’s Rangers
Travel to strange places, meet interesting people and kill them. Employed by the mysterious Recruiters, “mercenaries” travel through time and parallel worlds on, usually, combat missions. I can’t help picturing them being the cast from Team Fortress 2 and the related strips from the webcomic Nerf Now.
The Ignominious Illegitimate Offspring
No, no, no. Think The Inglorious Bastards or Kelly’s Heroes.
A funny thing happened on the way to the stockade or POW camp. Now you get to kill Nazis and take their stuff.
Operation Nostalgia
Cinematic Alternative History Action with an Allied invasion of the Aegean islands in 1943.
Available in grunt, company co and H.Q.
The Peeler Mysteries
1957. Two-fisted men and women of action and science fight against mad scientists, conspiracies, underground civilizations and all of the devilry those three can produce. Beginning with the writings, claims and disappearance of one Hudson Peeler, writer of bad science fiction “based on true events” (possibly experienced during the war or while institutionalised for paranoid schizophrenia after) and the favourite of science fiction magazine Extraordinary Tales’s editor Henry Pym.

Project: Atlantic Cobalt
Spy-fi, possibly the only genre with more parodies than technically serious works. Clandestine spy organization fights rival spy organisation, Mad Scientists, criminal masterminds and other would-be world conquerors.
Possibly set in an alternative world (the kind of place that has countries called things like Gallia and Albion). Genre convention means the time will be mostly the sixties, probably an anachronistic one to allow for more advanced/cool stuff without resorting to superscience.

When Spirits Are Calling My Name (just a thought)
Supersoldiers & cinematic martial artists; conspiracy & mad science; ghosts; alchemy and alchemical biotech.
All taking place in an alternate world at roughly at 1930s technology (cf. Pumpkin Scissors, FMA).

Battle Royale …With Cheese (just a thought)
The setting is from the game Classroom Deathmatch (itself inspired by that movie), but the rules will probably not. Quite likely to veer of into another genre eventually, whether through outbreak of zombies, sudden dimensional shift or something else. Please specify preference, if any.
There may also be a choices of… venues.

Before I continue with the Other category, a few updates of sorts:
1. I recently splurged on Gamma World (and Famine in Far-Go) so Ragnarok Report
is currently looming large in my mind and being worked on.
2. RPGnow is having a sale until monday and I might end up getting A Song of Ice And Fire (which should have major effects on further developments for Les Compagnie des Batards) and All Flesh Must Be Eaten.
3. Into The Realm Of The Pine King is starting to move mentally from D&D 4th to BESM or GURPS.

Now for the Others:
Femmes Fatale et Hommes Mortale
Noir. Big City, USA. Late 1940s. Down on their luck private investigators. Desperate crooks. Meddling reporters. Everyday people who were just in the wrong place or gave in to temptation Dames. Maniacs. Perverts. Crime. Corruption. It’s a dirty world.

The Generically Named Cute Monsters Campaign
Small town kids and their pet monsters investigate mysterious tower that appeared simultaneously with all adults falling into a coma.

Goblins of Gotham
The year is 1830-ish. The City is the largest in the world. A sandbox city full of people who are nasty, brutish and short. People in vast numbers, inclined to crime and corruption, and generally not very inclined to wash (not only because of the state of the water available to the majority of the population). People who spent their literally formative years passed through mangles and shoved up chimneys and who are by nature forced to spend 1/8 of their lives ”drunk to the point of boisterousness”. GURPS Goblins.
The PCs are young goblins just out of apprenticeship (and consequently now unemployed), out to make their way in life.

Hyper Gorgon Outrage!
I’d say “Think kung fu versions of Code Lyoko or Monster Buster Club”, but then people would have to admit having watched either of them.
Time: the present. Place: A boarding school in any appropriate city between Singapore and Seoul. Unicorn Hill was not named at random. Popular imagination may have turned it into a western-style unicorn and the show’s translators may have translated its nemesis as gorgon, but the fact remains: There’s a gate to another world (and a twisted but empty version of the school) in the school’s basement. Since you were the ones opening it, you’re the ones who have to catch all the things that escaped when they unsealed and keep sneaking through, while simultaneously protecting it from those who would use the gate for their own evil purposes.

Merlin Street
It's the 1970s. Middle America is about to become the front in a battle between advance forces representing several different supernatural, otherworldly, and ultraterrestrial factions. Merlin Street is a normal-looking cul-de-sac in an attractive middle class suburban neighbourhood, containing a dozen homes or so. It's just starting to get strange enough that a few people are beginning to get suspicious that all is not what it seems in Maple Street. The PCs are new, but not necessarily mundane, arrivals on the street. Possibly all the same family, possibly from different households, possibly undercover “FBI” agents (and more or less Spooky Child wards of the state/FBI) sent to investigate while posing as a family – that’s up to you. This will have soap operatic elements.

Rise of the Sheep/The Meek Shall Inherit
Sheep. With superpowers.

Humbaba Monster High (just a thought)
1. There is a game called Wandering Monster High School.
2. There is a game called Teenagers From Outer Space.
Any further questions?

Alice In Underworld (just a thought)
Noir again, but slightly more focussed, at least at the beginning (that is, there is a basic plot already), though it might veer of into urban fantasy or horror. Alice Little, daughter of a university bigwig, has lost herself in the seedy but wondrous underbelly of the city. Right now it’s a toss-up (i.e. players’ choice) if the PCs are Alice and friends or private eyes hired to find her and bring her back.
inspiration

Next up are the survival horror/zombie ones that I've already reworked/rephrased...

Survival Horror II: The Reworking

Kasumi Gakuen: High School In The Mists
The high school in a small Japanese town, a town more like the one in Ookami-kakushi or Saikano than Tokyo or Osaka. Maybe it’s the night before the culture festival, maybe you just had club activities that ran late into the evening – either way, you were still at the school when you noticed the sky turning a foreboding crimson colour and a fogbank rising up to hide everything outside the school grounds.

If you make it to sunrise (and the fog lifting), you’ll find the surrounding town replaced by something else. Maybe a vast city of ruins, a dense overgrown forest, a dry plain covered in slag heaps, scrap metal and abandoned factories, an immense but obviously shallowly dug cemetery, or simply the town, eerily empty with few or no signs of ever having been inhabited. (Player choice.) You are now Elsewhere…
Of course, even before then the natives - gaki-like mutants, bestial humans and supernatural animals, orcs and goblins, a necromancer’s warband or just random monsters - may come calling and they obviously don’t care for your kind living around here.

Monsters On Parade
Yet again a Japanese high school, but this one might be in a big city, if preferred. It’s almost Christmas and, arguably, too early in the morning to have to get up and go to school in this cold.

This one starts in media res – apparently the public was warned to stay inside and lock the doors after you left for school (or you missed that bit for some other reason – it’s your PC, you should know better than I). That’s all you know at the moment as cell phone traffic is down at the moment and the news isn’t saying anything more about the issue. Well, that, that you’re stuck at school for now and that whatever it is it sounds as if it’s heading your way.

Turnfalken
Valravnsbro, a city part German, part Danish and part Swedish. In an unspecified but not too distant past.
One of the city’s claim to fame is a school, a boarding school for fine arts in general and ballet in particular (yes, it is still inspired by Princess Tutu).

Anyway…
You are among the group of students and staff that has nowhere to go during the summer holiday this year. At least not now at the start of it. On the other hand, tonight is Saint Rasmus eve and the city’s famous festival for the saint. So put on your masks – if nothing else, you’ll have a fun night at the summer festival.
Except for those black birds that seem to be following you and those men in crow masks…

Whateley Park
You (each individual PC) wake up in a bedroom in a mysterious mansion. A very large mysterious mansion designed by a mad architect and provided with a matching garden/park. As a finishing touch, the place has been stocked with creepy servants with anger management issues, mad dogs, enormous rats, obvious and elaborate deathtraps and Worse Things (you might want to mention which phobias of yours are off-limits). Somebody in the mansion does not want you to leave. At least not until you have a) figured out why you were brought here or b) learned the lesson that somebody thinks you should learn.
But really, that someone is at best a posturing delusional psychopath, so you might just as well go straight to the part where you try to escape.

All around the pumpkin patch
A few miles outside of town there’s an old abandoned building – a hospital/sanatorium of some kind. Generally accepted fact among the local kids since way before your time is that it was home to a crazy doctor who experimented on his wards – usually said to be hydrocephalic – until they turned on him. Your [younger relative] has not been seen since he/she decided to explore it.

No. It is already too late. You can’t get away with claiming your PC doesn’t care or is reasonable enough to let the proper authorities. They’re already driving down to lonely narrow road to the Hammond Institute.

The House of Doctor Fell
You (each individual PC) were on a school trip, on the way to summer camp, running away or maybe just on a family trip with your adoptive parents or your new stepparent and stepsiblings. Now you wake up in a hospital bed in a room (together with the other PCs) in a children’s hospital that outside of your room appearslong abandoned. But with a lot of disconcerting graffiti – just outside your room is a scribbled screed on eugenics and forced sterilization, with diagrams and tables, covering a six-foot section of the wall, from ceiling to floor. And from just ahead, around the corner, comes the sound of a squeaky tricycle…

Assault On Precinct Z
Yeah. It’s meant to be something like Assault on Precinct 13 WITH ZOMBIES!
Almost empty police precinct house, the final day before it is closed.
Prison bus stop there for emergency, with the handful of prisoners moved to the cells.
Communications with the outside world are lost.
ZOMBIES!

Polar Station Z Does Not Answer
It is not the Arctic winter, it is the height of Arctic summer and, ever since someone found that thing that if it had been somewhere where people lived long ago would have been a grave from an ancient and previously unknown civilization, uncharacteristically bad weather. Usually, at this time of the year, it is above freezing (if barely), with fewer blizzards and fewer hungry polar bears. There is danger of whiteout. And something’s out there. Hiding just out of sight under the glare of the midnight sun.

Did you go to the find? What did you do? Did you take anything? Did you leave tracks?

Occupant Iniquity
(AKA Fun With Synonyms)
A series of bizarre murders have occurred on the outskirts of Metropolis, with signs of cannibalism on the victims' remains. The Metropolis Police Department's SWAT are assigned to investigate the murders. SWAT is divided into two teams: Alpha and Bravo. Bravo team is sent first, but after contact with them is lost, Alpha team is sent to investigate their disappearance.

You, Alpha team, located Bravo team's helicopter, but there were no signs of survivors. Then you were attacked by ferocious – and deformed – dogs. Your helicopter pilot took off and abandoned you. Pursued by the dogs, you were forced to seek refuge in the nearby, believed long-abandoned, X mansion (it’s almost as if you were driven toward it). So, unless you want to take your chances with the dogs again, you’re stuck in the mansion until you find another way out (or the dogs leave).

Dead Mall
In media res again. Sometime before Christmas. It’s snowing heavily. You are in X Mall. It’s not as simple as you, as tradition suggests, escaping TO the mall in the face of zombie invasion, but regardless of what brought you there – work, shopping, hanging out, looking for some supposed to be there – you, unlike most others, chose to seek shelter there when the message came that a dangerous riot has broken out, and you should remain indoors and not panic.

Judging by how it looked just now when they tore the news crew to pieces this is no ordinary riot.
And since the panicked mob left not long ago and the doors are still open or at least unlocked,…

USCGC Romero
You’re on a boat. On the Atlantic, off the coast of Florida/Georgia/South Carolina/North Carolina. More specifically, you’re on a Coastguard ship (either for the obvious reason of being Coastguard officers or because you’re shooting a documentary/reality show on the Coastguard). It’s calm but unusually, maybe unnaturally, foggy and you just ran into – almost literally – an aimlessly drifting ship that appears to be abandoned.

It’s your job to board it and find out what’s going on, you know. (Or to hang around and film anything cool they do, like boarding and exploring abandoned ships.)

Sweet Home
The vast and labyrinthine mansion of the late famous painter and collector X…
You went there to document/photograph a series of famous frescoes by him, partly famous because not only have they never been shown outside the building except in photos (How could they? They’re frescoes.) but several in the series have never been shown to the public at all.
The door just closed and locked itself behind you.

Ah, intercourse the penguin. Look it up on Wikipedia (Sweet Home (video game)) and you’ll get the basic idea.

The Jungle Is Breathing
A remote convent in the jungles of South America. Nuns, aid workers, scientists, orphans, bandits-guerillas-drug baron soldiers, American special forces and US Rangers congregate their, pursued by merciless attacks from barely seen attackers that decimated their groups/teams/villages. Except for the nuns. They live in the place. Then again, any PC nuns have been away for a few days, possibly dealing with the orphans or aid workers.

The special forces were looking for the guerrillas. The rangers were guarding the scientists, sent to look for something. They didn’t find it. The scientist who knew what they were actually looking for is already dead. The radio is broken and it’ll take a helicopter a long time to get here.

Going Underground
The place: A megapolis with a huge system of subway tunnels and sewers – which city (New York City, Paris, London, Tokyo, Moscow etc.) is up to the players.
The night began badly and went downhill from there. You (one specified PC) spent the early parts running through the city streets, pursued by [unspecified hostile group – yakuza, masked cultists, mere muggers etc.] and finally escaping on a late-night subway train…
Then, suddenly, the train derailed, most of the lights went out and Something entered the train. By the sound of things, that Something went on a killing spree.
You (all the PCs) escaped off the train and into the tunnels, and are now trying to find a way out.
It sounds as if that Something is now heading your way.
If it’s not a different Something…

The Hammer Grand Tour of Horror (just a thought)
Very much inspired by ADD’s Ravenloft setting, but with more Hammer horror and probably less powerful Dark Lords. The technology is roughly mid-19th century, the location vaguely European and the PCs may be natives or travellers from other (human) worlds and times brought to this place by The Mists.
(This would be what the previously mentioned GURPS Ravenloft turned into.)

Palombia, Mi Corazon
Once, there was a man. A good and honest man, for a certain value of “good and honest” not accepted by law-abiding society. You were close. You were a team. Then it all went down. Fifteen years ago. Somebody betrayed you. You went to ground or to prison. The man died. You saw his charred body being pulled out of a burned car, the car itself pulled out of a river. Except that you now have evidence that he’s still alive. Maybe you met an orphan (a fellow PC?), too young to have been conceived before his death, that looks too much like him. Maybe you saw him passing by in the background on TV or in a crowd in a picture in a newspaper.

Either way, it’s time for some answers, starting with the ones from all those associates and rivals who stayed free and grew prosperous while you were inside, in hiding or in exile.

Sort of like Dam Aeng, but South American. Despite the Spanish title probably more Brazilian.
Michiko to Hatchin takes most of the blame.

Saturday Morning Post-Apocalyptic Road Movie
This will likely, campaign-buildingwise, be pretty much the same as Ragnarok Report above, but with a more developed reason to go to the end of the road (that’s where you can go home). And with supposed influence from things like Thundercats, Samurai Jack and Six-string Samurai.

While at first envisioned for the anthropomorphised Transformers linked to above, the Gamma World rules also allow the core pc concept to be catpeople, birdpeople (or at least winged people), yetis/bears, apes, aliens, ghosts, modified humans or godlings.

The Hobbiton Murders
A collaboration between J. R. R. Tolkien, Agatha Christie and possibly P. G. Wodehouse.
Born from a few stray comments on RPGnet, in a thread on the subject of what Bilbo does for a living. The place is a Shire-equivalent – a virtually hobbits only region a lot like rural England and protected by a human kingdom/empire. The time is probably irrelevant but the technology puts it somewhere between 1890 and 1930. You are hobbits/halflings. Gentry/upper class. You don’t HAVE to work for a living. You are Gentlemen (or Lady) Detectives. People – old school chums, terrifying aunts, retired adventurous types etc. – invite you to their stately homes for weekend house parties. Invariably, someone gets murdered or something is stolen (usually by a Gentleman (or Lady) Thief).

Savage World of Mars
Planetary Romance. Well… the whole point of the setting is that it is a modified version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars (Barsoom) – you know Space 1889 so you have the basic idea. A little like Barbarian Quest above except that the mighty-thewed barbarians are either reasonably modern humans (the range 1850-1950 is given in the rules, Burroughs’s main character was a confederate officer) or green four-armed giants and there’s alien-weird-mad science instead of magic. And it takes place on Mars.



The next two are special cases – everything else runs from “You can GM this when you pry from my cold dead hands (or ask nicely)” to “Yeah, I want to run this but if anybody else likes the idea enough to want to GM, I’ll be happy to just play it”, but this is “Somebody else run this. Please.”
Why?
Because I’m the only person in the world who have not read A Song of Ice And Fire.
So the alternatives are basically create a new world almost from scratch, search and replace-editing or get someone who knows the story to run it.

Houses Alike In Dignity
This would be the playstyle listed in the rules as The Game Of Thrones, where you play noble houses and (if the house is powerful enough) multiple characters from said house.

Rulebook quotes:
“An interesting variant that can explore some of the deeper tensions in the setting is to widen the scope of each player so that instead of playing the part of a single character, each player takes the role of a house. Within the house are a number of characters—the lord, lady, heirs, sworn swords, maesters, and more—whom the player might use to interact with the setting. Any given story might feature characters from different houses, bound together by circumstance or design, and players might move their characters in and out of stories depending on their needs and the challenges presented by the story.”
“All of these advantages come with a price, however. The stories you would tell rapidly approach the epic, with numerous characters, plots, and developments. With the sheer number of characters present, it be-comes much harder to keep everything straight, requiring a great deal more preparation and anticipation on your part. Finally, the game is always at risk of devolving into a war game rather than a roleplaying game, which can be very unattractive to players who would rather devote their time to developing one or two characters.”
Of course, these grand vision will be stymied by the realities of random Noble House generation that will result in everybody getting the house of an impoverished landed knight with barely the resources for one character, but things can be fudged.

Rising [Heraldic Beast]
The saga of a young and insignificant house rising in fortune through this age of troubles.
The more usual/expected-by-the-rules version of SOIAF RPG, wherein everybody (or almost everybody) creates a Noble House to belong to together before getting mercilessly slaughtered.

No further additions yet, because Gamma World is still being shiny, but a few
observations:

a) The big project right now reallly should be "persuade Omegasama to run
A Song of Ice and Fire rpg".
b) I just found some of the Classroom Deathmatch that I thought were lost
when my computer died and realised that for a less angsty-indie game battle royale
the Gamma World rules should do well. Which brings me back to Battle Royale...
With Cheese AND Post-Apocalyptic Road Movie. Just needs some fiddling.
c) Since natural disasters make me buy PDF-bundles there may soon be more
campaign/rule ideas (not to mention that some of the things look useful for ideas
already posted).
Be warned: the latest bundle includes Make Fun Of Twilight the rpg.

Quick summary after a closer post-purchase look at the PDF-bundle (though not
close enough to look at everything):
Tegel Manor is a classic, currently marred by the most appropriate ruleset I have
being ADD 2nd ed., which I'm not in the mood for. (Should probably work great with 4th.)

Scion: hero is more inspiring than expected and there are ways around the main criticism of it that I recall - that the interesting fun urban fantasy part turns into
superpowered more generic fantasy once you reach Scion: demigod.
Obvious drawback: The odds of everybody wanting to play a Scion of Loki.

Mecha: was inspiring, but in the end the system didn't make it preferable to GURPS or BESM.

Armageddon The End Times: was a disappointment, as I was hoping for monster creation rules to supplement those in All Flesh Must Be Eaten.

The Silver Kiss of the Magical Twilight of the Full Moon: was unfortunately too Indie
for me (no GM I think, specified number of players and roles, specified and limited basic plot)

Supernatural the role-playing game: I haven't looked at as I don't watch the show.

First a hypothetical question: Working from the assumption that you are not violently
opposed to the very idea of 4th ed. Dungeons & Dragons, would you play the
essentials version or is only the full/original version acceptable?

Ragnarok Report/Postapocalyptic Saturday Morning Cartoon is moving forward -
well, technically I'm literally being sidetracked, but it is in the "only needs statblocks
and maps for the first parts to be ready for start"-stage.

D City Blues and The Devil's Toothpick (the Japanese and American police
procedural horrors) are being revised, re-visioned and thematically tightened.
(No changes to the previous descriptions, just meddling with the Things Man Is Not
Supposed To Know.)

New and shiny things:
Mazes of Midway City
Scion
You are children of the gods. So far, this has not meant much – a few chats with the
parent in question or other supposed deities, slight superpowers, maybe some magic
items or apparent followers and, most importantly, getting to know some of the other
people in Midway City who are in the same situation. But now things have changed.
One of your fellow scions – one that all of you knew and didn’t totally dislike – has
been murdered. Is someone hunting scions? Several of your fellow scions dismiss
the idea, as you’re not invulnerable and it’s not as if the victim didn’t have perfectly
mundane mortal enemies, while those divine parents that could be reached seem
strangely pleased that you have been spurred into action by this death.

Ruin Explorers of Oz
Formerly Adventures In Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond The Yellow Brick Road.
Exactly what it says on the tin. People exploring ruins (cities, temples, dungeons etc.)
In Oz.

The Evil Fantasy Campaign Of Evil Fantasy Evilness
But with consequences, in order to spoil your Chaotic Stupid/Stupid Evil fun.
The Dark Lord has fallen, but the supposed forces of good have themselves
dissolved into squabbling factions again – especially since numerous heroes risen in
the war have turned into warlords making their own claims on the nicer, wealthier,
more civilised or more human-dominated parts of the former Dark Empire.
You are, or used to be (in case your master is no longer around), in the service of a
dark lordling – a second assistant sub-lieutenant to the assistant of a sub-lieutenant
to one of the henchmen of one of the lieutenants to one of the Dark Lord’s general.
With the recent massive losses at the top that technically puts you quite high in the
hierarchy of the forces of evil (not in power or metagame terms, though). The
former lands of the Dark Empire are still full of warbands, monster lairs, dungeon
fortresses, wizards’ towers and corrupt cities.
Your move.

The Voyage of The Good Ship The Bold Undertaking
Naval exploration. A five year charter to follow in the metaphorical footsteps of people like John de Mandeville, St. Brendan and Sinbad, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before. To discover islands and continents that are simultaneously strikingly similar to the homelands and alien. And the compulsory turtle-whale-fish posing as an island.

Cowboys vs. Aliens
Or maybe pirates. Or WW2 soldiers. Or perfectly ordinary late Victorian gentlemen.
Almost anything historical-but-with-cinematic-potential but ninjas. (For the
grammatically nitpicking/confused: replacing the cowboys in the title.)
Only the basic theme in common with the movie.

Historical Fakeout Horror
You make perfectly mundane (or possibly cinematic) characters for a historical
setting and possibly have a few adventures, but sooner or later the GM’s going to
start springing horror adventures/opponents on you.

The Gamma West
Gamma World again, this time reskinned to be a very Weird West rather than clearly post-apocalyptic. This mostly translates as no/less Ancient Junk, no cars and possibly more (or more easily restored) ammo.

On a more general note – not only is there a new (non-preview) version of Panty Explosion (“It's called Panty Explosion Perfect, and it's about unhinged psychic school girls with detachable demon possessed floating heads. Okay, it's not JUST about that, but it's still pretty good.” ) on its way,
but there is also Tulip Academy’s Society for Dangerous Gentlemen ...
which I don't have a grasp on yet and looks suspiciously like it might be Deep and
Indie (see for yourselves), but sounds interesting.
Possibly in a Revolutionary Girl Utena goes to Cromartie High way.

On a final note, Omegasama may as you read this have gotten her hands on a copy
of the A Song of Ice And Fire RPG.

Ich bin wieder da.
Mit vier neues und vier uppdateringen/refraseringen/klarifikationen.

Sujet Psi – Les Filles De Kazumi Gakuen
Kazumi Gakuen. It’s not (just) the lecherous science teacher, the bullies or the student from that rival school that sometimes show up to pick fights. Well, maybe the bullies – there was that girl who leapt from the roof, the boy who hanged himself in the gym and that girl who pushed a boy in front of the train because they told her to... No, this is more about that they found out the vice principal had died by finding pieces of him in five places around the school, that the swimming team went missing after practise and that instantly popular transfer student.

It’s up to a group of psychic schoolgirls to find out what’s going on and if necessary stop it, preferably without having to resort to using their powers. It’s meant to be a supernatural action game with a focus on social relationships (it says so in the rules), but comedy and horror have their place too. No tentacles.

The Tulip Academy’s Society For Dangerous Gentlemen
Welcome to the Dangerous Gentlemen, an elite group of boys and young men from the finest families in the world, hand selected from the student body of the prestigious Tulip Academy to become members of a most secret and ancient organization. What do they do? Almost anything. One day they’re racing to and fro across the school to make sure love letters reach the right people or entertain the headmaster’s adorable but spoiled little granddaughter; another they’re fighting off a zombie invasion or duelling each other for the fate of the world.

Volksgorod
Vast is Volksgorod, The Grey Maze, its towered alleys sprawling through the winds of the polar plain like a long-spined insect frozen in time…
Volksgorod, The Witch of Cities, whose towers reach as deep into the earth as they stretch into the sky…
Volksgorod, The Den of Wolves, where there are daggers in men’s smiles and human cunning behind the smiles of wolves…
Nobody sings songs praising the glory and wonders of Volksgorod in the northern plains, but its legends and horrors are whispered of in far-off places and talked about casually in the city itself.
Low Magic Fantasy in a world of weirdness, monsters and full-tilt ice age. Urban intrigues? Dungeon-crawling? Yes, pretty much anything except for wilderness adventures, partially courtesy of Vornheim the complete city kit.

On The Road To Bremen
The Place… is uncertain, but people seem to speak mostly German and the place is littered with tiny sovereign states calling themselves everything from baronies and bishoprics to kingdoms. The Time… is unclear. It looks a lot like the early 19th century modified for modern convenience, but people seem to prefer medieval and renaissance hand weapons to firearms. You… are a group of magical/talking (mostly farm) animals who have set out to make your fortune and reputation in the big city. Possibly as musicians. To return to the farm would be certain death, seeing as how the villagers just burned the mistress as a witch.
It’s a grim fairy tale world.

Ragnarok Report/ Saturday Morning Post-Apocalyptic Movie
Post-apocalyptic Science Fantasy. Or post-post-apocalyptic, as the worst chaos has long receded, leaving a patchwork of places, people and monsters from a multitude of worlds and realities. You, the PCs, may be late arrivals or natives of [Hometown]. You are at one end of The Road of The Ancients. The Beanstalk is at the other end. (Well, technically both places are presumably somewhere in the middle.) The Beanstalk is the place where you’re questions will be answered, a stairway to the sky and a land of peace and plenty (or a space elevator where you can phone home and get off this planet), and if you’re so inclined missing friends and relatives are hopefully somewhere along the route (since they clearly didn’t make it all they way).
Near Idiot Ball-carrying curiosity (or metagaming in the form of sort-of grinding) will be useful. The GM is prepared to fudge starting equipment rolls to make sure you have some kind of land-based motor vehicle – especially if you express the desire for a sufficiently “fun” one.

SMPAM is much the same but with tightened/restrained PC generation (because Everybody are Time Cadets, Cockroach Guards, astronauts/spacers, nominally shapeshifting robots, aliens, felinoids/thundercats, hawkoids, psi-mutants etc.)

The Gamma West
Something is rotten in the state of Gibeon, being as it is a mix of inspiration from Trigun, Deadlands, Malifaux, Gunblaze West, Et Cetera, Dogs In The Vineyard and other weird, post-apocalyptic or futuristic wests, possibly some Ostern movies (the old East Bloc equivalent of Westerns, set in Central Asia). There is a dead president that refuses to accept the end of his administration, sinister robber barons, greenskins, resurrectionists, fearsome critters and more bandits and outlaws than you can shake a boomstick at, and the prairie and Great Desert is full of mysterious ruins and artefacts from other worlds and times.

Operation Nostalgia
Cinematic Alternative History Action. Spring 1943. The Allies, under General Lucraft, are trying to drive Axis forces from the Aegean islands and establish bases to threaten Crete, Greece and Yugoslavia. The two crack divisions requested for the assault has been replaced by a rag-tag of units drawn from all branches of the multi-national force assembled in North Africa – in total little more than the equivalent of a division. That’s you.
Available in grunt, company co and H.Q., and British infantry, US infantry, Free French infantry, British paratroopers, British commandos, US rangers, British tanks and US tanks.

Alone against the Armanen Order
It began as a simple routine mission on a Q4-timeline, when you suddenly ran into the Raven Division – agents of the Nazi-dominated world of Reich-5. As soon as you had realised the extent of their infiltration a parachronic anomaly struck and the timeline, the fairytale world of Perrault, became temporarily inaccessible by conveyor. How long this will last is impossible for the PCs to tell – could be only a few days, could for all practical purposes be permanent. Then again, there are numerous nexus portals here, at least a few lead TO other timelines and there is supposed to be one leading to any world on Quantum 4…