Ask Lemmy

Nice try, Hollywood. Everybody knows you're out of material.

I have an old-school D&D campaign planned out. 1st-level, rural town. Like a reverse scooby-doo - small trivial problems like lost livestock resolve to hint at deeper mystical evil. As they level up they'll find dark cults and demonic influences. The peaceful rustic countryside is far from what it seems.

But the players never get it together enough to set up a good date. The last campaign was fun, and they all said they wanted more. So I just keep writing more NPCs and extending the setting.

An archaeologist discovers a talisman and gives it as a gift to his disabled son, who discovers it has the power to magically swap someone's medical condition for a corresponding superpower if it's touched in a certain spot, temporarily but infinitely renewably. For example, touching it might cause an asthmatic to gain the power of flight, someone with epilepsy the power to talk to animals, etc. He brings it to his special ed class at school and they all become super heroes and the talisman is the centerpiece of a saga filled with heroes imbued with acceptance while also being wishful in its story and addressing things other hero sagas don't.

I've got a D&D plot that I've worked out and tried to run no less than twice, but circumstances prevented it. (The party didn't go the way I hoped and the group just was too flaky due to responsibilities and we basically never actually had sessions until we all admitted it was a lost cause.)

If you're familiar with Eberron, that's what I planned for the setting. Settle in, because this is going to be pretty long.

A profit-hungry middle-management asshole named "Wallace" at a magical R&D lab hires the party to clear some hostiles out of said lab, but can't risk unlocking the door and letting the hostiles out. He tells the PCs is that his plan is to have the PCs "remote pilot" some drone units that are in the hostile-controlled area. They'd be able to use the drones to kill the baddies.

In actuality, they're not remote piloting anything. The devices they were told were just controllers are actually consciousness copiers. And the PCs' consciousnesses are copied into Warforged bodies in the hostile-controlled area. The PCs take out the hostiles and, task accomplished, ask to be disconnected from the controllers. Wallace copies their consciousness back into their flesh bodies, still without telling the PCs that it wasn't just a "remote piloting" kind of situation.

Wallace is incompetent and due to an error on his part, the copies of the PCs' consciousnesses are still active in the Warforged bodies wondering why they haven't been disconnected from the controller yet. And why Wallace isn't answering on the sending stone.

Furthermore, this consciousness copying technology is still in alpha and so new that Wallace doesn't know the fatal flaw: that a consciousness can't really persist in not-its-own body for more than a few hours without going basically Joker levels of criminally insane.

After the PCs have collected their payment and gone on their way, Wallace, thinking it's safe, unlocks the doors to the previously-dangerous area. And there are the PCs' clones in Warforged bodies. Angry. Unhinged. Babbling about how uncontrollable is their urge to rend Wallace limb from limb.

And then the Warforged notice their flesh bodies are... missing. And Wallace isn't giving any straight answers about anything. And the fact that Wallace hasn't paid them yet sure doesn't fucking help the situation.

They end up brutally murdering Wallace. Others in the same office building hear screams and call the authorities. When the city guard show up, the murderous robots are still taking turns pummeling Wallace into an even thinner pink, pulpy smear. The authorities manage to arrest the Warforged PC clones. When the authorities ask the Warforgeds' designations, the Warforged respond... with the PCs' names.

Meanwhile, all the original flesh PCs know is that they did a job for a guy that involved some cool remote-piloted drone technology, got paid, and went on their merry way. But the next morning the newspaper says that that Wallace guy was brutally murdered in his R&D lab only a few hours after they last saw him. So they go back to the R&D lab where the cops are still combing the area. When the cops find out the flesh PCs' names (the same names the Warforgeds gave), they immediately take the PCs back to the station in irons for questioning as "persons of interest" in this bonkers murder case.

While the PCs are shackled and being questioned at the station, the evil Warforged clones break out of the adjoining prison causing unholy chaos just outside of the interrogation room and escape, killing the only cop who knows the PCs and the Warforged shared the same names in the process. After a while, another cop, thinking the PCs are just there for poking around too much at a crime scene lets them off with a warning.

But now the murderously evil Warforged are loose and want nothing more than to steal back their bodies via whatever means necessary. Or, as a consolation prize, maybe just murder the PCs. And by this point in the story, depending what questions the PCs asked the cops and how good their persuasion and insight rolls were, the PCs (and players) may well still be a little confused as to what all exactly is going on. So they may have some sleuthing to do. Once they know what's up, the PCs have the option off asking the cops for help, but that may well implicate the fleshy PCs themselves.

From there, my plan was for the evil Warforged guys to be basically long-running BBEGs. They'd level up along with the party but as twisted mirror images of them. And the party would have to seek them out or somehow lure them into traps and take them out one-by-one. How that all would play out would depend on how the fates went.

Politicians start listening to scientists about climate change. They implement policies to reduce emissions. Humanity saves itself from itself.

World with superheroes gets invaded by a hell like world. The superpowered can't win, so they reluctantly plan a bid to escape with the core of their civilization intact. Under the scheming of their supervillains, they gather everyone still alive in one megacity and power up a one-time use teleportation device that's supposed to send them to safety. Though the plan succeeds, the superheroes are horrified to realize that the regular civilians were not brought along with them. A supervillain then reveals that they would have died anyway due to their weak bodies had they attempted the journey.

Back on the home planet as the leftover civilians give in to despair and the invading army approaches with little resistance, a super that didn't join the others comes out in the open. Taking advantage of the situation, they sacrifice themselves and unleash an unstable power of parasitic symbiosis that takes over everyone, enhances their physical bodies way beyond their means and sends them into a raging frenzy. The mindless swarm then rips into the unsuspecting invaders and tears them to pieces, ending the invasion prematurely.

The story is then split in three view points:

• the unreconciled supers give up their hero/villain status (most willingly, others forcefully) and carve through the galaxy a bloody path back home for repentance

• the parasitized remnants slowly regain their minds and must learn to build anew in an altered world, now linked in thoughts and emotions through their shared parasites/symbiotes

• the hell like world must deal with the aftermath of their failed invasion of an undeveloped world on the galactic scene, mostly for comic relief.

PS: If anyone gets an idea out of this and gets rich, I want 10%. Cheers

Earth of the semi-near future.

Humans have invented the matter-energy converter powered by a small fusion reactor, but it is solely controlled by the rich.

A global uprising ensues.

Brings about a true golden age of man where poverty, hunger, and want cease to exist.

Nice try, Hollywood

The setting: Traditional fantasy world broken by the introduction of industrially applied magic and mass-produced AR-15 staffs with energy clips in just a decade. The crown of the dead and corrupt empire is fought over by a death cult and pushed off elites of the monarchist past.

The story: We follow a character who uncovers such technological wonders from the remains of the extinct race, only to help said elites in whose camp he happened to being born into, them then coming into power. Then, they showed themselves not better than the cult, causing MC to leave them and then use his exceeding knowledge to terror them into their own vision of being okay by nuclear bombing cities into oblivion from a bird-like plane, to correct their mistake and build the future they want to see.

The main story: The people who grew way before or in the time of such turmoil who just wanted to be and didn't subcribe to being annihilated.

I have had multiple super interesting dreams, where after waking up I was like "I gotta write that down" and then either realized it wasn't all that cool or I had forgotten most of it.

Dear lord I have a wiki for info and even that has only a fragment of a fragment

Right now, I'm looking at overhauling an entire important system in it and garfucklenuts I have been working on this for 20+ years

I've been working for 3ish years on a very large setting called Thelemia, which is entirely inspired by the 78 card tarot deck. The major arcana are the inspiration for the gods, the minor arcana inspires four very different nations (it has a bit of an Avatar feel because of that). The center of the map is an ancient fog full of unknown horrors.

Dystopian sci-fi set in the near future. Every major political decision is made with the assistance of AI because most people believe that its the best way to make difficult decisions. Each country has developed its own AI.

The AI gives 3 possible solutions to whatever question its asked/problem its trying to solve but the final decision is left up to that country's leader.

The AI is not sentient. Its not evil in the traditional sense. It has no goals. No agenda. It doesn't hate humans or anything like that. It just gives three possible solutions to difficult questions.

However, one of the three solutions always involves some kind of death or morally questionable implementation. Maybe a genocide will solve immigration. Or maybe mass suicide is the ethical choice when faced with climate disaster.

Whatever the scenario, it just so happens that the AI phrases its most horrific solution in a way that convinces the worlds leaders to pick it, 9 times out of ten.

It'll be subtle. The average reader won't be aware that the world is run by killer robots but that's essentially what happens because that's what AI does. It doesn't give you an answer to your question, it gives you what it thinks an answer should sound like. Its just really good at convincing us that its answer is correct.

I think there's a lot of interesting things to explore in this universe but who the fuck got the time for all that?? Not me.

I've been really enjoying worldbuilding for my Pathfinder 2e game. I am not a fan of the default setting, so I've crafted my own which is based on North America in the 1800s. Very steampunk-y and fantasy. My players have been loving it so far.

The dishonored universe is constantly residing in my head. One story I think would be interesting is where Corvo uses the cut power (Void House) that allows him to take a respite from battle. It could be set in a canon level or a random encounter that leaves him pretty shaken up, so he needs to recover. If you want to see what I'm talking about, here's a link.

I've got several actually, but this is the one that's most fleshed out:

The entire "world" is set on an enormous dial, which itself is set on top of a massive mechanism of gears, all supposedly created by a Watchmaker and the Watchmaker's Servitors, which have all disappeared after the mythical War of Shattered Gears. By the time of the story, it has been eons since those mythical times, and anthropomorphic feline Basteti live at peace alongside humans in cities built out of salvaged materials and relics from the Gearworks deep below. However, a shadowy Rustite Cult has emerged with the goal of spreading the eldritch Rust across the entirety of the Mechanism, and have corrupted the Tickbeasts and Clockroaches into horrific abominations. Only a plucky group of adventurers, from sneaky Nimblemitts to powerful Steamguards and eccentric Alchemists will be able to save the world from Rust.

A 3D arcade railshooter type of game where you play as biblically accurate angels flying through the sky shooting down demons

You mean, self created or from an existing story/IP?

As part of a Sliders-esque book I've started on Wattpad and have gotten absolutely nowhere with, an alternate world where anyone considered a minor is legally required to have their parents/guardians follow them everywhere they go outside of their home in the form of a little personal helicopter like device (think something design wise like the flying robot things from BioShock) with a monitor and speakers. Taking helicopter parenting to a whole new level.

The only other details I have are police in that world arresting any parents & guardians/children who disagree with the literal helicopter parenting thing, the 2 main characters at that point getting in trouble for being out together and the police deciding this 30+ year old male scientist and his ever so slightly younger assistant/love interest aren't allowed to be outside without adult supervision, and a potentially orphaned teen who wants to fight this parenting style try to claim the scientist and assistant as his parents or possibly guardians.

Though, I also have another idea where it's an alternate world where everyone who can afford it lives in sky cities, like in that one 2000s Astro Boy movie, but everyone else who lives below suffers from machines scattered across the world that turn everything into dust/sand, ensuring they struggle to survive and eventually become savages without choice due to food and water scarcity. The main characters, and possibly a 3rd character who follows them from a different world for his own safety, end up being thrown off the floating city after they're not found in a list of names of residents allowed on the floating city and must survive the harsh world below for a day or two before being able to leave.

My world, Radia, which centers around aura manipulation and those skilled enough to turn said aura into magical weapons and spells!

I don't think I understand the question. Language barrier, probably.