So, have you ever done relatively standard fantasy, sci-fi, or superhero campaigns with unusual character premises; situations where the characters have some feature which makes THEM the twist?

Examples: characters who are all old veterans (not in the standard D&D sense of uber-powerful demigods, but in the sense of being a bunch of guys in their 60s with a lot of experience but suffering from all the standard ailments of old age) in a fantasy campaign; or characters in a superhero campaign which are all suburban family-guys with regular jobs, kids, wives, who are literally "weekend warrior" superheros?

What other examples of this sort of thing could one think up?

RPGPundit

I tried a D&D campaign in which the PCs were all convicts on the run from the mining company they'd been sold to.  (They'd managed to steal a diamond the size of a man's head, and their bosses wanted it back.)

The great theme of the campaign would have been the conflict between the natural heroic instincts of a D&D PC and the gory necessities of life on the run.

"You killed the orc chieftain and saved a town; super!  Now their best and bravest have come to collect that fat bounty on your head."

I've always wanted to run a Supers game where the characters were considered heroes, but only to a certain political subgroup. Given the people I associate with, the natural choice for this would be Ecoterrorists. Sort of Werewolf: the Apocalypse + Captain Planet + the Brotherhood of Mutants.

The players in my V&V game were playing themselves, so they were pretty suburban. They steadfastly resisted getting involved in advertising or politics, so they weren't as rich as they could have been.

Well, I was outlining a Nobilis campaign where all of the players would portray washed-up old cultural gods who're no longer worshipped and down on their luck, but are recruited to help reinvigorate a dying chancel.  It sort of fits into the scheme of your grizzled veterans campaign above, and the sense of anachronistic characters hitting their old stride again in the modern world pleased me.

!i!

Sounds like Gemmell meets Gaiman...

I ran a superhero game once (using V&V) where the heroes gained their powers by sexual transmission, the superpowers varied because the people triggering powers were an alien but human race (i.e they were somehow related to us) but carried a retrovirus that tended to disrupt DNA. They also transfered psychic energy during the act of intercourse. Primarily women because of the retrovirus destroying most of their male population which explained the larger number of male superhumans to female.

Humans of Earth were more resiliant/different enough genetically that instead of dying from the virus it and the psychic energy transfer triggered a mutagenic alteration

Their species has a psychic componant to sex, we've not yet evolved its supposed to be a mutual transfer.

Unfortunatly what sounded brilliant and interesting way to create supers, was not met by maturity by my players at the time. (They WERE teenagers so I can't exactly blame them for it.)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!! SUPER COOTIES!!!!!

Quote from: SosthenesSounds like Gemmell meets Gaiman...

I'll readily confess that it was strongly influenced by American Gods, and to a lesser extent by some of the supporting characters from Sandman.  I'll have to run it soon.  Think I'll invite RPGPundit to the table.  

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaI'll readily confess that it was strongly influenced by American Gods, and to a lesser extent by some of the supporting characters from Sandman.

That sounds familiar from somewhere... RPGnet, possibly. In any case, the only real change to the game as written would be the apparent connection between worship and divine power, in the style of American Gods or Small Gods.

I once ran a Mage campaign in which the PCs were a famous rock band which due to the somewhat exaggerated news of their demise in a plane crash had started to fade away from reality, all because deep in their hearts their countless fans around the world wanted to believe in the mythic Death of the Rock 'n' Roll Star.

having just finished the latest issue of The Boys, i can heartily say that I want to rip this off badly for a supers'ish game.

Quote from: Gath Ennis"They handle blackmail, occasional beatings, very occasional termination – all for reminding superheroes who's boss. Their number one priority is information gathering, which is where the fun comes in: seeing all the filthy things these super-people get up to."

swoon!

Quote from: kregmosierhaving just finished the latest issue of The Boys, i can heartily say that I want to rip this off badly for a supers'ish game.

Sounds a little like Hitman, also by Ennis.

I don't know if this counts or not- but my current character (my first in over a decade) is the lone survivor of a tribe of artic style hunter gatherers. Plague killed everyone but him. It is the custom of his people to flay the faces from the dead and preseve them in a quartz jar full of some as of yet unnamed fluid. once a genration the heir apparent to the chiefdom hauls the collective faces of all the tribe memebrs that have died to a shrine in the southern mountains. My character is a fifteen year old boy who has just earned the right to hunt with the men, but has not earned a name, as the last survivor of the tribe it his responsibility to haul the flayed faces of his kinsmen to the shrine in the south. He is the unamed warrior and the tribeless chief. Anyway it's put a little bit of strange spin on the game, because no matter what else is going on I've got to keep the danm cart load of face jars in mind...

Quote from: GrimGentSounds a little like Hitman, also by Ennis.

somewhat similar, yeah.  in all honesty, you could almost call it "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Supers"....

Quote from: GrimGentThat sounds familiar from somewhere... RPGnet, possibly. In any case, the only real change to the game as written would be the apparent connection between worship and divine power, in the style of American Gods or Small Gods.

Yes, I started it there (yikes!) three years ago.  I had a lot of time to think about it while I was rennovating the house I'd just bought.  I eventually tweaked the concept so that it didn't diverge significantly from setting canon.  The "gods" that the players portray all get the free Gift of "Mythological Beast" -- although they were acting as cultural gods, none of them were true Powers previously.  This is their shot at the big time.  The notion of minor gods from potentially radically different pantheons getting together to rebuild a failing chancel pleased me muchly, sort of like a divine version of a reality-TV show.

Oh, also, I planned to "make 'em bleed".  While the characters (and players) themselves are offered all kinds of special enticements to accept these roles, the chancel into which they are being en-Nobled is a dying chancel ("Mana Mine") with a "Failing Imperator".  Along with all of the troubles they have to face just keeping the chancel and imperator alive, they have to deal with the renewed assaults by the forces that damaged the chancel and imperator to begin with.  Wow, two great tastes that taste great together.

!i!