Atypical/Weird Adventures

[Reynard]

I am getting ready to put together a weird and atypical adventure for my PFRPG campaign (involving flying ships, cloud islands and the great gnome vs kobold cold war). Tone and subject matter wise, it is very different from the campaign as a whole. This is something I do at least once every campaign, usually for yucks since I tend to be a "serious business" type GM.

For example, years ago I had the party explore something of a funhouse dungeon leading to Faerie, wherein they had a funny little adventure but returned to the world some 40 years later (and then had there own days of future past type story).

Do you use atypical or "weird" adventures to switch things up? What sorts? How does it work out for you? Any good tales to share?

 

[the Jester]

Oh yeah.

Some personal favorites:

An underwater essentially nuclear reactor and the abandoned sci-fi complex around it.

An adventure where the pcs were shrunken to microscopic size and had to deal with amoebas, flagellants, bacteria, etc.

Underwater adventures, period. Love 'em!

An adventure where the pcs had to negotiate their way through a city of cowardly xvarts.

The haunted house that was actually the home of smugglers led by an illusionist.

 

[Verdande]

I had a very Xanthian adventure once, where everything I could think of was either toilet humor, a pun, or otherwise very naughty. As an example, they once found a Horn of Plenty of Sausage. Delightful, I know. Hey, I was 15!

 

[Ariosto]

Back in the early '80s, my D&D-and-Arduin-and-etc. campaign was pretty typically weird.

Well, it was weird if you consider a mix of (among other influences) Farmer's World of Tiers, Zelazny's Amber, Heinlein's The Number of the Beast, M. John Harrison's Viriconium, J.G. Ballard's Vermillion Sands, Moebius' Arzach, and First Comics' Cynosure to be weird.

The atypical weirdness came out in totally off the cuff sessions for just one or two players. The improvised romps across the multiverse pretty quickly went "down the rabbit hole". They made sense enough to the participants during play, but I'm not sure they were coherent in recollection even the next day -- like dreams that slip away on waking.