Ideas are easy, everything else not so much

[trappedslider]

Around 1990, I really wanted a friend of mine to run a game of Delta Force but mash it up with Dawn of the Dead for some zombie killing action. He thought it was a stupid idea and refused. I was just ahead of the curve.

 

[Undrave]

The Narnia Front

A portal fantasy, set during World War II, except the portal is discovered by the military. They begin to reconnoiter the new world, both to determine the attitudes of the locals and to see if any other portals into the real world could be used as logistics or invasion routes.

Also, a hunting party bags a really big lion.

Sorta like Gate?

Your title is very wise. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but actually implementing thing well is hard.

The Ice Witch of the North
One of the oldest ideas I have for a D&D campaign involves an apparently vanquished sorceress being resurrected in a quasi-Norse kingdom currently led by a Beowulf like figure who was part of a group responsible for the death of the sorceress decades before and is now entering into his dotage. I have a massive amount of this story plotted over the last 30 years and yet have never had an opportunity to run it.

Maybe you should take the plunge and write your ideas as a novel?

There and Back Again
I have this idea of players making PCs of themselves (or some other "normal" modern 21st century person), and then being transported to a fantasy world and they need to try to find their way back.

I think the new Die RPG may actually be that premise - if so, I may end up running that after all

Maybe take a look at The Magical Land of Yeld?

Faith of the Heart
An ether ship has crashed a couple years ago on your world. No survivors, and the mangled bodies show they were certainly not of your kind. Your scholars have just managed to reverse-engineer a prototype. What's out there?

I like that song!

 

[Teo Twawki]

It is, but the journey is very rough on everyone. I would read an issue or two of the comic before telling people to start statting up their characters, just in case the tone is not what you're hoping for.

The times I've been involved with Self-as-Character characters, we've had two different methods of doing so. 1) The entire table takes part in statting other players' characters; unless it is something evident or obvious, the player's cannot stat themself. 2) Players stat their own characters, then another player plays that character (this is also how "we" end up as NPCs in other games... What the hell am I doing here?

Both may be features have us being long-time friends away from gaming and for people less invested in each other, these suggestions may not work as well.

 

[Celebrim]

Maybe you should take the plunge and write your ideas as a novel?

While not all good gaming material has the making of a good novel (though I consider my current Star Wars bounty hunter game to make a better TV show than The Mandalorian), I do agree that I need to take the plunge and write my ideas for novels.

 

[MichaelSomething]

A campaign based off of David Bowie.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Around 1990, I really wanted a friend of mine to run a game of Delta Force but mash it up with Dawn of the Dead for some zombie killing action. He thought it was a stupid idea and refused. I was just ahead of the curve.

I had an idea for a GURPS mashup of Delta Green with the World of Darkness setting and Kim Harrison's The Hollows novels...
Players would be government agents working for the agency that not only investigates weirdness but polices the supernatural species living amongst us.
It was a pretty kitchen-sink kind of thing...

A campaign based off of David Bowie.

Isn't that Labrynth?

 

[Celebrim]

A campaign based off of David Bowie.

I actually kicked off a campaign and got multiple sessions into the campaign where the ultimate antagonist was the half-breed son of Maglubiyet who was heavily inspired by David Bowie's Jareth. Sadly, I moved away before the campaign really got going.

 

[TheSword]

Soooo many ideas, some of which are good, some probably terrible. Some in various stages of creation - most not past the first session.

Keys from the Golden Dragon Heist
Several heists strung together and mashed up with Waterdeep and Undermountain. Where the PCs join, then uncover the truth and eventually replace a secret organization called the Golden Vault - while exploring around, inside and below waterdeep.

The Rise of House Millithor
A drow house (good or evil - PCs choice) is banished and disgraced. PCs play the noble scions. They build their power in the underdark competing and interacting with various factions before returning to Menzoberranzan to overthrow the city rule from within. All taking place within the chaos of the Rage of Demons.

Freedom
A reskinning of the Paizo AP Hells Rebels. Set in Tyr of the Darksun world. Players reforge the long lost Veiled Alliance to unite key players in the city and overthrow the sorcerer king Kalak.

Planescape Binding
An Archmage in Sigil conducts a desperate ritual to divine a solution to a multiverse shattering calamity. The PCs are the answer - summoned from all corners of the multiverse. The wizard is pretty pissed having wasted a balor heart and a pint of Solar’s blood and refuses to let the PCs out of the summoning circle unless they accept a geas to repay the 10,000 gp it cost him. Obviously along the way the PCs are drawn into a dastardly plan by the queen of the night hags to replace the Lady of Pain.

Birthright Scions of Anuire
PCs are Noble second sons from the kingdoms of Anuire, all studying at the great University. At the annual conference/tourney/celebration known as the Sword and Crown a terrorist attack kills several
Of the main rulers of Anuire. The PCs are thrown into ruling their kingdoms - trying to defend their lands against opportunists and find out who sponsored the attack and why.

Paths of Salzenmund
The WFRP campaign Paths of the Damned converted to 5e and set in the city of Salzenmund.

Gods and Men
A Norse campaign set in a historical medieval Scandinavian setting - players uncover treachery and save their kingdom only to find out the gods need them. The adventure moves to the outer planes where the PCs find out the gods are just as fallible as men and that there are many more gods than they were led to believe.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Isn't that Labrynth?

That's not all of it; gotta have a portion about his Venture Brothers version; and maybe a stinct in a Berlin type city...

 

[Eyes of Nine]

A campaign based off of David Bowie.

I don't know what this would look like, but I'm here for it if you care to expand further