Worst campaign setting concepts you've ever played

[emergent]

I played TORG once, early in high school. I don't remember too much of it, except we infiltrated the Evil Overlord's base (in the Egypt part of the world, I think) by posing as pizza delivery guys:

"Hello! We have two large pepperoni and mushroom's for Evil Overlord Mugbuk."

"Sure. He's in the big building in the middle. Sign here to get your pass."

Anyone else play TORG? Ever?

 

[WayneLigon]

Some might disagree with me, but there's no way I'm gonna accept that Kung-Fu Cthulhu -- a Charlie's Angels meets Tsui Hark meets H.P. Lovecraft, high-kicking lovelies battling mind-melting evil idea -- is not a BRILLIANT campaign concept.

No way. No how.

Done that. It was fantastic. Some of my best gaming memories, period. Picture it: Shanghai, 1924, the Japanese are gaining footholds in the city with the aid of terrible sea-god allies. Into this mix come a young Chinese-American pharmacist sent to gather information on herbal remedies (my character), a British expatriate with a mysterious past, and a two-fisted former pilot looking for work. They meet on the long sea voyage there, and cement their friendship when assassins try to kill them in Honolulu for coming into contact with a strange cargo on it's way to Shanghai.

The pharmacist eventually joins one of the last spirit tongs and gains access to incredible martial arts skills, the Britisher is revealed as an MI-0 (Britain's Paranormal Division) plant, and the pilot becomes the best thing with two pistols anyone's ever seen.

Together, they deal with the Council of Bright Ghosts (slain Imperial wives who now rule the strange otherworldly spirit realm of Shanghai), The Cult of the Bloated Woman, Tengu ninja, and crazed noodle salesmen.

 

[Henry]

Like This?

Finish Him!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

(curls up in a ball and whimpers..)


FOETALITY...

 

[Assenpfeffer]

I played TORG once, early in high school. I don't remember too much of it, except we infiltrated the Evil Overlord's base (in the Egypt part of the world, I think) by posing as pizza delivery guys:

"Hello! We have two large pepperoni and mushroom's for Evil Overlord Mugbuk."

"Sure. He's in the big building in the middle. Sign here to get your pass."

Anyone else play TORG? Ever?

I have. Your Torg campaign sounds cooler than the one I was in.

 

[mmadsen]

I guess back in junior high we had some pretty bad games. They weren't so much bad campaign concepts as they were no campaign concepts though. We also went through the "kill everyone in Deities and Demigods" at one point, and the "PCs exist only to duel with each other" phase, and the "you walk into a cave and there's a goblin. After taking 3 hit points, you run away and heal. When you come back, the goblin is still waiting for you" games. Blech. But not funny.

Wow. Did we all go through those phases?

 

[MojoGM]

Spelljammer

Why does everyone ALWAYS badmouth Spelljammer

Ok...so, it has the POTENTIAL to be silly and really really bad. Maybe far more potential than other campaign settings. But it's different, and if you can wrap your head around the concept, embrace it, and take out the more silly elements (like those little penguin dudes, or the space hampster), you can get a pretty cool campaign.

I know, I know, I'm not gonna convince anyone. But that's ok. I ran a Spelljammer game for 3 years and had a great time.

But to each his (or her) own.

As for bad campaign concepts (no, NOT Spelljammer ) no really really bad ones come to mind. Though in truth probably most of the ones I had when I first started playing some 16 years ago. I probably used (stole) every bad cliche from every sci-fi and fantasy movie I saw.

Oh well, I'd like to think I've grown as a GM

But I still like Spelljammer

~MojoGM

 

[diaglo]

worst campaign concept?

the GM (he liked the term GM even tho we were playing D&D ) gave each character an artifact at lvl 1 and told us we would be finding the rest of our regalia as the campaign developed.

mine was a sentient heavy mace. it gave me the powers of a paladin of my same lvl. i was playing a cleric. it also could cast searing light to all within range. i never did find out what its max range was.

i killed 5 warships of warriors without me doing a thing

and my artifact was not the most powerful.

 

[bwgwl]

Into this mix come a young Chinese-American pharmacist sent to gather information on herbal remedies (my character), a British expatriate with a mysterious past, and a two-fisted former pilot looking for work.

yeah, but were they all hot chix??

you know that'd make it ten times cooler.

 

[Mark]

A couple of friends and myself were asked to join a DM and his buddy who needed some bodies to fill out a campaign. When we got there to play, we asked if there was anything we should know before generating characters. He said that there was nothing special and that we'd probably be making characters pretty regularly because he foresaw a high mortality rate. He went on to tell us that he was pretty much running Moorcock, by the book and was halfway along through the tale, and his buddy was running Elric (as taken from D&Dg). He told the rest of us new players we'd be starting at first level...

 

[Ashe]

Birthright...enough said.

I just didn't like the whole story concept behind the game. I mean I liked the strategy and the things you could do with your province, but I think it was just dumb.