For reasons relating to a friendly argument and my need to run a certain one-shot game, requiring whatever information and/or ideas you might have on any of the following themes:
>What if A Game of Thrones took place in the Novgorod Republic instead of the War of the Roses
>What if the Terran Confederacy from Starcraft was based on Joseon Korea instead of the Deep South
>What if Sunnydale from Buffy The Vampire Slayer was located in Alaska
>What if Norway had been the target of a decently sized but not completely disastrous nuclear attack
>What if every third patient of a certain mental institution (the realistic kind, not a 19th century rape asylum) suddenly gained superpowers
>What if Thailand was secretly ruled by vampires
Also which one of those is the least stupid/would be best to run. We're going with something like "exotic twists on existing ideas" and whether or not the players would be able to recognize the source material (it's actually more complicated than that, but that's the pitch for now).
Any help'd be appreciated.
>>46650166
Well, I like the look of
>What if Thailand was secretly ruled by vampires
As for
>What if every third patient of a certain mental institution suddenly gained superpowers
I direct you to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KE0njnZXyY and the follow-up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOE7qTAK87o
>>46650166
>>What if the Terran Confederacy from Starcraft was based on Joseon Korea instead of the Deep South
There's actually a novel by Ken Macleod called Newton's Wake - backstory is that the singularity kicked off during a war between some sort of Eurasian super state and the US, warmachines with super intelligence ravaged the earth, the remnants of the US and EU military fucked off into space and seemed to disappear, then the superintelligences on earth transcended or something and basically stopped being an active thread, and humanity rebuilt around, North Korean Cosmonauts who colonise deep space and asteroid belts, Japanese Zen Buddhist Physical Adept version of the brotherhood of steel who only care about teching up by studying singularity tech, American Survivalists who worship "jesus khoresh" and are basically amish and reject technology, and the Carlyse Family who are glaswegian gangsters who discovered the network of portals that is spread across the galaxy and thus have a monopoly on instantaneous travel between stars.
>>46650166
>Starcraft is now Korea
Too meta for me
>>46650166
>What if A Game of Thrones took place in the Novgorod Republic instead of the War of the Roses
Replace wolves with bears
>What if the Terran Confederacy from Starcraft was based on Joseon Korea instead of the Deep South
Instead of brainwashed criminals marines are now sissyboy warrior nobles wearing makeup (look this shit up, I'm not kidding)
>What if Sunnydale from Buffy The Vampire Slayer was located in Alaska
Vampires gloating because no sun, Inuit werewolves
>What if Norway had been the target of a decently sized but not completely disastrous nuclear attack
Fimbulwinter
>What if every third patient of a certain mental institution (the realistic kind, not a 19th century rape asylum) suddenly gained superpowers
Mirai Nikki
>What if Thailand was secretly ruled by vampires
>Implying it isn't
>>46650166
>Vampires gloating because no sun, Inuit werewolves
I think I would play this.
>>46650579
I think you mean Inuit werebears
>>46650513
>>46650579
>>46650624
It's Buffy in Alaska, not Hollywood in Alaska. After one episode it's all going to be "shaggy Chewbacca people, mostly offscreen" people anyway.
>>46650646
Also, you could never have a Buffy in Alaska because I don't think there's a single high school in the state with enough students in it to pass for a cast.
>>46650166
>What if Sunnydale from Buffy The Vampire Slayer was located in Alaska
Don't days and nights last for about a month that far north?
>>46650660
>Alaska werewolves spend 1/12th of the year in costume
Absolute suffering
Beats Buffy the Vampire Slayer being set in Canada.
>O-oh, I'm sorry, was that your neck? That's okay, it's cool. I'll just walk away now. Don't press charges, kay? We cool now. See ya.
Would play pretty much any of these
>>46650781
The one about the crazy superheroes sounds kind of tryhard, I gotta say.
What shows/games/books are these based on?
>>46650166
>>What if A Game of Thrones took place in the Novgorod Republic instead of the War of the Roses
Then nobody would care if Posadnik died during the boar hunt. Just elect another one.
>>What if A Game of Thrones took place in the Novgorod Republic instead of the War of the Roses
>no ravens in sight, those fuckhuge snow owls ate them all
>>46651231
>implying not!Russians would pass the opportunity to start a civil war
>>46650166
>What if the Terran Confederacy from Starcraft was based on Joseon Korea instead of the Deep South
>Admiral Duke is Yi-Sun Sin
>Battlecruisers shaped like turtles
>Siege Tanks replaced with missile spamming tech Hwacha
>Flower Knight ghosts
>Marines armed with tri-barrled guns to simulate Joseon trident warfare
>UED are the Japanese
>>46651634
>>Siege Tanks replaced with missile spamming tech Hwacha
They added those in Legacy of the Void, they're called Typhoons. The game keeps referring to them as robots even though they clearly have a pilot.
>What if Norway had been the target of a decently sized but not completely disastrous nuclear attack
>Fimbulwinter
http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=1
>>46650166
>What if every third patient of a certain mental institution (the realistic kind, not a 19th century rape asylum) suddenly gained superpowers
https://youtu.be/BPL8EDKsISY
>>46650166
When two of your super exotic setting ideas revolve around vampires, you're doing it wrong. Korea in space is also pretty retarded.
>>46652639
How about cyberpunk Bangkok?
>>46652639
>>46652669
>>46652723
That's future Earth, not space.
It's also not Starcraft.I cried in the plate breaking scene.
Weird blending of Korean mythology, Blue Planet, and sort-of-Starcraft:
The Korean creation story says that humanity was once all-seeing and innocent, with closed eyes and toothless mouths, and fed only Jiyugaoka, the "Milk of the World". Since they lived for 10,000 years and were nonviolent, they eventually multiplied until there was no longer enough Jiyugaoka to go around and one of them grew so hungry he ate a grape. This act of violence was enough to make all of humanity open their eyes and grow teeth, and they were no longer immortal and all-seeing.
The story takes place in a region of space (Koryuru sector?) originally colonized by East Asian corporations, consisting mostly of ethnic Koreans but also a smattering of Japanese, Chinese, Russians and assorted cultures. Due to the difficulties in communication and broken leadership in the post-colonial period (something may've gone wrong), they went full Traveler and devolved back to feudalism. It is well-known science fiction convention that in the absence of long range communication starfaring humans regress all the way to rice farmers fighting with swords. Even after regaining much of their lost technology, the culture stuck so now they're anachronistic rice farmers with access to computers and gauss rifles.
Shortly after arriving at the sector, the humans discovered that while inhospitable to life many of its planets were saturated with a wonderful blue wonder mineral (sort of Tiberium-ish?) with innumerable applications, including potent medicinal powers. This amazing longevity mineral was named Jiyugaoka and became central to the economy of many powers, as well as early-game SCV spamming strategies.
>>46653416
Unfortunately, the humans soon found out they were not alone. A race of alien bug monsters which has been living within and in relation with the Jiyugaoka hasn't taken well to the space Koreans' mining efforts and begun attacking them throughout the sector, forcing the various planetary lords to pull the powered armor and battlecruiser schematics their ancestors salvaged from the colony ship out of the attic and start putting up a fight.
The Protoss equivalents would also have Xel'Naga elements, being the race which originally seeded the sector with Jiyugaoka as part of some kind of extremely long term mining plan (further Tiberium allusions?). They've also made the Zerg equivalents to tend to and protect it, but these creatures became uncontrollable and wildly self-multiplying, causing a three sided war.
Alternatively, you can ditch most of those ideas for a more "historically figurative" setting: the sector is not populated by future Earth criminals but with future Earth Buddhist luddites who decided to leave to another side of the galaxy to avoid the growing moral corruption (in their mind) of Earth. The reason their technology is relatively primitve and that their culture seems medieval is that they actually want it to be this way, with space technology only being used when needed. The Zerg may serve as "native" equivalents, being some kind of ancient race woken up by the settlers (once again forcing them to abandon their peaceful ways and pick up oversized coilguns), and the Protoss equivalent being conceptually more like the UED (and, in historical terms, more like Japan), high-tech expeditionary forces from Earth who see the sector as a part of their domain and wish to "re"conquer it from the space luddites.
>>46653416
>>46653438
I admit to liking settings where medieval farmers exist in the shadow of cached space technology and feudal knights gets put in powered armor, but this is just atrociously bad. It reads like something a DC writer came up with in the 80's while trying to come off as culturally sensitive.
Here's one for ya:
>Mongolian Horse Tribes but with Tanks instead of horses
>>46654090
Sounds like some kind of post-apocalyptic situation, or possibly a culture evolved on another planet in another one of those "high technology people regress into the social situation of a primitive civilization" situations. Colonists on a very harsh planet with cold, wide open plains who for whatever reason have been forced into constant movement (ridiculously violent weather?), living their entire lives in convoys of what are basically futuristic RVs and supply trucks, only stopping for long enough to collect resources/water/whatever before the next mega-hurricane hits. Said convoys are escorted by an assortment of fast and slow combat vehicles to protect from rival tribes.
For a more Mongol feeling, the planet also needs to contain fortified bunker cities which are occasionally plundered by the nomads for their resources.
>>46654185
Engine Spirit worshiping techno-shamans who drink oil and huff exhaust to go on vision quests.
>>46654185
Now that sounds pretty usable.
>>46654274
Might work nearly as well by putting snow caterpillars on the wheels and placing it all in OPs nuked Scandinavia which has gone nuclear winter.
>>46654549
Going from warm spot to warm spot, making sure the barely fertile land recovers enough to feed your convoy next time you roll through.
Stopping at scrap piles and ancient mines to pull materials to fix your trucks.
Hoping that you find solar panels or stirling engine based generators so you can use electrical engines and free the convoy from the tyranny of extraction-limited and refinement heavy fuels.
All these points are natural magnets for everybody, meaning that you can expect both trade and battle wherever you go.
>>46654922
Hot springs, man. The hot springs are the hubs of life.
>>46654937
>>46654922
Except modern Scandinavians are like the Platonic opposite of Australians. You've seen Mad Max? If the same exact conditions happened in Norway, the Citadel would be a quaint little farming community, Immortan Joe would be drinking tea with every newcomer and the War Boys would be spending their days painting flowers all over the rocks.
>>46654090
Roaming the steppes in my monster of metal... I like it!
>>46650166
>every third patient of a mental institution gained superpowers
as in, your characters are the ones who are in the institution and gained the powers?
The typical murderhobo way of going about things would be to break out but that would rob you of a very interesting setting.
I work as a nurse in a mental health facility and I can tell you that there are people who try their best to get out any way they can, and there are people who are afraid to leave no matter what. It would be worth at least doing a session or two in the facility before setting yourselves free. As for what the setting would be like, it varies by the type of facility, but we'll assume an acute care facility because that's got the most fun clientele:
Varying degrees of furniture/layabout possessions based on the suicide precautions the facility takes to maintain a client's safety, potentially against their will
Staff will vary from good-natured, patient and understanding, to jaded, feeling trapped themselves, and more likely to push drugs on you to calm you down than to spend time talking to you. Nurses are better trained to deal with issues using diplomacy so they can put out fires before they start, patient care technicians are less trained and more likely than the former to brute force things to reach their goals.
There is a general loss of control as everything from the meals you eat to the time you spend with others to the items you can call your own is controlled by those in charge
>>46656078
As for how things will change with superpowers, the staffing at these facilities is not equipped(in training or in number) to deal with that kind of shit, but an IM injection of Trazadone will probably bring down someone whose superpowers don't give them an edge against sedatives
If the staff cannot perform their jobs properly, then clients will be missing their medications, which means exacerbations of their conditions as their particular drug cocktail is denied them. With regular clients this is dangerous, but a bipolar client in manic phase with super speed or super strength is a crisis situation
If the facility's census is small(just a single specialized unit in a hospital, for instance), then if people can be calmed down then life can go on, as unrealistic that is to think that you wouldn't be removed from the milieu for having superpowers. A nice way to work around this and keep it believable is to have maybe something happened to cause the same ratio of people nationwide with certain mental health disorders to become superpowered. At that point the problem is so widespread that once those who are an immediate danger are removed, the rest already have a therapeutic rapport with the staff of the facility and if they can be convinced to stay.
Or better yet, be convinced that these grandiose delusions of superpowers and the somatic hallucinations that accompany them are not real, despite them experiencing it first-hand in real life. People who have hallucinations are used to hearing that these things are not real, and many are trusting enough of staff to consent to treatment that will make them better without really understanding what is truly wrong with them.
it's worth looking into the different axes described in the DSM and the different clusters of personality disorders
http://faculty.fortlewis.edu/burke_b/abnormal/abnormalmultiaxial.htm
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/the-10-personality-disorders
>>46656100
I'm rambling at this point but mental health is a very fun topic and if you can do it justice then it will be a very memorable campaign. If you have any questions I'll answer them as best I can, but my own experience is limited to a single facility so my thoughts aren't necessarily representative of other locations or specialties.
>>46654549
>>46654922
From the weird cold war weapons thread I've had this image of a religion worshipping an active project pluto that's just turning lazy circles from one end of the former soviet union to the other, with the cult setting up leper colonies in the bits of scandinavia where the missile overshoots the border while turning around.
>"Planetes! The Wandering God! Ah, it spreads death in its wake but they say if a pilgrim is able to be ahead of Him mayhaps it will grant you eternal life?"
>"who can say if such things are true, but for now the Church of Planetes runs leper colonies for those with the Bomb Cough and Glow Sickness in its domain, beyond the trees to the east."
