30 Years of Weird - Strangest Campaigns Ever

[meomwt]

The Paranoia Difference
After reading The Difference Engine, I set a Paranoia game in a Victorian England ruled by The Engine, complete with Bobbies, SteamBots and Secret Societies.

I must see if I still have the notes for it one day.

Paranoia Chinee Empire
Another GM ran Paranoia whilst he had 'flu. We were captured by the Chinee Empire who had infiltrated Alpha Complex and transported to the Moon. The game ended after an ill-advised use of a tactical nuclear hand-grenade the registered mutant pyrotechnic had.

Twilight 2000 - The Costa Rican Mission
Using Twilight 2000 rules, we were a group of mercenaries dropped into a South American Jungle. After a series of misadventures involving a large machine gun and no ammo belts, and general incompetance, the mission was attacked by a T. Rex which was killed with a rocket launcher. As was the guy holding the rocket launcher, IIRC.

 

[s.j. bagley]

one of the strangest games i was involved with began as a 'buck rogers: xxvc' game that ended up in ravenloft.
another one was a 'call of cthulhu' game in which the party was transported through time to zothique.

 

[The Green Adam]

The Paranoia Difference
After reading The Difference Engine, I set a Paranoia game in a Victorian England ruled by The Engine, complete with Bobbies, SteamBots and Secret Societies.

I must see if I still have the notes for it one day.

Nice! I've always been a Paranoia fan. I can just imagine the ads for the movie, "Go see The Paranoia Difference - A very Orwellian Comedy!"

lol

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Here's my contribution...

The Movie Projector of Doom featuring rules and characters by Mage: The Ascension

It all started out relatively sanely. Our Mages, taking a break from fighting the usual Magey bad guys, start hearing about strange murders near the downtown movie theatre. The first victim is sliced and diced ala Freddy Krueger, the next is smothered in marshamallow goo. Turns out the theatre had played Nightmare on Elm Street and Ghostbusters the two nights previous and Aliens was up next. Before that could happen, we stop the mad mage unleashing this things and confiscate his neat little toy, a movie projector that bring its images to life. Then I took over as Storyteller and that's when things got really crazy. The mages are relaxing at the theatre when the projector starts up, playing Star Wars-Return of the Jedi and another mad-mage reverses the projector such that the PCs are sucked into it. They go movie-hopping, accidentally dragging characters from various universes with them. Star Wars to The Lion King to Predator to Gargoyles and finally back to Star Wars. One PC decides to try to use her magic to control their dimension hops and botches. Unicron arrives in orbit and starts sucking up the sands of Tattoine and Jabba's sail barge...and yeah, I was goofy back then.

Multi-Movie-Madness 2: The Sequel featuring rules and characters by A&D 2nd Edition with sprinklings of Rifts and World of Darkness

Most of this campaign, a PBeM that was more story than game, which allowed me to allow characters from multiple systems, was relatively sane. However, one character, exploring an ancient miles long dragon shaped ship drifting through space, happens upon a magical version of a holodeck that had been used by the original crew to stage gladiatorial battles. Turns out the crew were Earth-based and the PC became trapped in the arena after accidentally activating it. He chose the Batman scenario, hoping to utilize the caped crusader's resources to figure out how to escape the arena. He was thrown into the role of Batman, but his main foes were Cyberdyne Industries and Daystrom Institute. Turns out the arena's setting files had been corrupted by centuries of neglect and the poor PC thus found himself fighting the Terminator, rescuing the crew of ST: Voyager after their ship is taken over by Lore's brain, and other wacky adventures.

 

[Ulrick]

The Gamer Playing AD&D 2e by Himself

I'll call this player Matt, though that isn't his real name.

One day, I was walking past Matt's dorm room and saw that his door was open. I glanced in and said "hi" to be polite. I was going to a D&D game that Matt didn't know about because the DM of that game thought Matt was weird.

He sat at his desk with a bunch of character sheets before him, a notebook, handfuls of dice, and the 1e Dieties and Demigods sourcebook. He'd roll the dice. Makes some notes in the notebook and the character sheets. Roll the dice. Make notes. Ad infinitum.

"What are you doing?" I said.

"I'm playing D&D," he said. "I've got twenty 30th level characters and they are on a quest to kill all of the gods."

It couldn't help but stand and watch for a few minutes. It was like a car accident. I couldn't help but slow down and look.

 

[Kafkonia]

The Gamer Playing AD&D 2e by Himself

That doesn't sound that weird.... does it?

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

I used to play the solo adventure in the red-box basic D&D over and over again. Then again, I was an only child...

 

[sniffles]

The Irregulars
Champions
The mightest heroes on Earth...Captain Incredible, Tomorrow Man, Earth Angel...these aren't those guys. Not even close. Meet the world's worst superheroes...Tin Man (who can change his skin into Tin!), The Operator (who can mentally contact any telephone), Petshop Boy (a teen who can become any domestic animal under 100 lbs.), Suds (a man made of living soap) and many more. These brave but outclassed men and women fight the forces of even as...The Irregulars! We will triumph because no matter how much they stink...evil stinks worse!


AD
The Green Adam

This sounds a bit familiar.

'Mystery Men'
Champions/Risus

In Campaign City, the top gun of the superhero world is Captain Paragon. But his brother Captain Amazing has gone missing in Champion City and Captain Paragon must take his place. Who will protect the citizens of Campaign City now?

Enter The Additionals! Led by entrepreneur and advertising icon Jack, the team forms to defend the city against the likes of Young Casanova Frankenstein (son of Champion City's villain), the Baker's Dozen, and the feuding Calzone and Panini families.

Our intrepid heroes are: Jack, a Jack-of-all-trades with an enormous spherical head, complete with tiny conical hat that never falls off; Java Joe, a hardboiled detective who's never without a cup of Joe in his hand; Ninja Princess, a mafia princess who's never without her book of Super Secret Sneaky Ninja Tricks and her handy stunt double; Gadget, whose myriad inventions are intended never to hurt anyone but somehow manage to anyway; and the Spectacular Squirrel, who acquired his powers from a radioactive squirrel bite.

The team is usually accompanied by teen sidekick Gamma Girl, the youngest daughter of retired superhero Radioactive Man; and occasionally by the eager but rarely helpful (and frequently naked) Kid Dinosaur.

 

[The Green Adam]

Not so much weird, but another of my no-one-said-I-couldn't-so-I-did campaigns...

Star Trek: Fedifensor
Star Trek, The Role Playing Game by FASA

After months of running a Star Trek campaign (set during the TOS motion pictures), the player of the first officer PC got a job working on our game day. In a big farewell blowout adventure, the PC becomes captain of his own ship and takes off at the end on his own missions.

About 2 weeks later, I talk to Dave, the player of the first officer turned captain. Turns out he had begun running a Star Trek campaign of his own. Dave's younger brother played his former character and the campaign followed the adventures of his new ship in the same area of space as my campaign. We stayed in touch, traded notes and soon it was clear to any player of either campaign that the continuity of the two games were shared.

A few months go by and Dave and I are at the local Pizza place when a good friend of ours walked in. We hadn't seen Rich in forever. He had joined the navy and was back for a while it seemed. Asking us if we still gamed we told him about our Trek games. He flipped out. A huge fan of Star Trek and a big gamer he wanted in but neither game met with his schedule. Using our campaigns as a basis, we helped Rich develop his own to run with a few friends and navy buddies. Then it hit me...all three campaigns were in the same sector of space.

It all culminated a few months after that. Rumours and side adventures in all three campaigns led to the belief that a species of energy beings were possessing people throughout the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Everything led up to a potential take over of our sector headquaters, Starbase Templar.

What happened next became legend in our gaming circles for years afterward (dramatic, no? ). Three GMs, 17 players, three Starships...a 24 hour gaming session that featured a battle between the forces of the alien invasion and the PC vessels. In the end, 4 PCs were killed, including the former first officer turned captain, Dave's old character, who sacrificed himself and destroyed his own vessel to eliminate the dimensional portal the aliens were using to enter our reality.

We boldly gamed where no one had gamed before!

 

[rowport]

The Gamer Playing AD&D 2e by Himself

That just sounds like low-tech Everquest to me.

(And just as boring.)