Original RPG ideas

[TsunamiWombat]

The Epic of Gilgamesh.

There. Done.

EDIT: Okay, just kidding, let me explain a bit more.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient poem from Mesopotamia (present day Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran) and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the mythological hero-king Gilgamesh, which were gathered into a longer Akkadian epic much later. The most complete version existing today is preserved on 12 clay tablets from the library collection of 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. It was originally titled He who Saw the Deep (Sha naqba îmuru) or Surpassing All Other Kings (Shûtur eli sharrî). Gilgamesh was probably a real ruler in the late Early Dynastic II period (ca. 27th century BC).[1]

The story revolves around a relationship between Gilgamesh and his close companion, Enkidu. Enkidu is a wild man created by the gods as Gilgamesh's equal to distract him from oppressing the citizens of Uruk. Together they undertake dangerous quests that incur the displeasure of the gods. Firstly, they journey to the Cedar Mountain to defeat Humbaba, its monstrous guardian. Later they kill the Bull of Heaven that the goddess Ishtar has sent to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances.

The latter part of the epic focuses on Gilgamesh's distressed reaction to Enkidu's death, which takes the form of a quest for immortality. Gilgamesh attempts to learn the secret of eternal life by undertaking a long and perilous journey to meet the immortal flood hero, Utnapishtim. Ultimately the poignant words addressed to Gilgamesh in the midst of his quest foreshadow the end result: "The life that you are seeking you will never find. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping." Gilgamesh, however, was celebrated by posterity for his building achievements, and for bringing back long-lost cultic knowledge to Uruk as a result of his meeting with Utnapishti. The story is widely read in translation, and the protagonist, Gilgamesh, has become an icon of popular culture.

Effectivly, Gilgamesh is a demigod who goes around making everyone miserable with his potency. He kicks the crap out of everyone else in sports and fights, he demands prima nopte (first night) from young women and brides and then wears them out for their grooms. He's a good king, but also oppesses the people, so they call out to the gods to save them. The gods decied the best way to address this

IS AN EPIC BROMANCE

So they creat Enkidu, a wild man, a force of nature of pure chaos. Enkidu rages out of control for a while until a prostitute seduces him and apparently getting boinked settles him down. Him and Gilgamesh group up, and they start going on epic quests - just like the gods wanted.

Unfortunatly, all these quests involve wrecking the gods shit and getting into trouble. Basically, they're like Monkey from Journey to the West.

They get up to all kinds of stuff, but then Enkidu dies, being a mortal. And Gilgamesh, missing his epic bromantic partner, deciedes HE WILL CONQUOR DEATH ITSELF.

And he fails.

But he learns a valuable lesson and blahblahblah.

Gilgamesh is a great story, filled with action and humor, and presents a different kind of hero. And the mythology remains untapped.

 

[Beach_Sided]

How about an RPG based around a mix of the video games Dead Space and Red Faction?
And the movies Total Recall and Battlestar Galactica (original)?

So it would be in the future, be based on a mining planet, and in a time of political strife and alien conflict on a remote world with limited supplies.

You could play a mercenary (warrior equivalent), a scientist (mage equivalent), an escaped prisoner (thief equivalent) or an explorer/engineer (ranger equivalent)/

Storylines would be based around sourcing supplies for towns, new mines being discovered, alien lifeforms being found/landing, political turmoil making players have to choose sides or flee, town uprisings, new technology being found/invented, crazy scientists, space pirates, virus outbreaks, escaped prisoners on the run, mutant attacks on towns.......

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

I think a cool concept would be a sci fi stealth based RPG. In it, you would play a civilian on an alien planet who has to evade the meat headed space marines from earth who we normally play in FPSs...

Most of the content would involve indirectly aiding the alien resistance against the Beefy Menace via setting up supply runs, stealing plans and technology from the marines and waging guerrilla warfare with viet cong esque traps.

 

[Cody211282]

I want more spys, hell alpha protocol is the only one.

 

[Paksenarrion]

Civilization V: Sid Meier's Roleplaying Strategy First Person Shooter Game

Spore combined with Starcraft combined with Mass Effect? Intriguing...

 

[RaphaelsRedemption]

An espionage RPG set in a futuristic multi-specied world. The player plays a human or mixed human/alien spy, working amongst the highest diplomats of the new allied governments. The player's identity is her most precious thing, as she cannot afford to blow her cover as a diplomatic secretary while working to uncover and sell secrets from one government and species to another.

The player cn choose to specialise as either a tech (hacker and lockpicker), an assassin (advanced weapons and assassination) or seductress (diplomacy and seduction). The main character is always a female, is initially only familiar with human customs but can advance in understanding of other races in order to do her job better.

All missions are weighed against the chances of being caught, with the more notoriety the player gaining reducing the trust placed in her in her cover role. Desperate cases can lead to a whole new identity replacement, with surgery, new name and new position (very expensive, though!).

I'd like to play it - sort of like Mass Effect universe, but set in the main city, and with manipulating, seducing and assassinating the politicians as your chief activity, not blasting poor robots on forsaken planets.

 

[NickCaligo42]

I want a Chinese mythology RPG I really want to slay a dragon using fireworks.

[img src=http://i10.tinypic.com/42s36sp.jpg" alt="Jade Empire /]

 

[MonadProxy]

I woulden't mind an offical Vamp vs Werewolf RPG that is not browser based.

 

[Tethalaki]

I woulden't mind an offical Vamp vs Werewolf RPG that is not browser based.

If you don't mind MMOs, CCP (Crowd Control Productions - the people who made EVE Online) are developing a World of Darkness [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Darkness] (think Vampire: The Masquerade) MMO, which includes Vampires and Werewolves among other things.

 

[Mozza444]

How about a Modern Warfare RPG?

You can spend hours at camp and then go out into the battlefield to get shot.

 

[joshuaayt]

Fish Empire: Rise of The Angler Angel
You said original, a genuinely western Fish RPG is pretty original. So, Under the sea.

 

[Axolotl]

I've had an idea for an RPG set in a high fantasy version of very early classical Near East. Sort of mildly anachronistic stretching cultures from just post PIE to medeval Arabia. So you have some Mesopotanians, Greeks, Egyptians, Kurgans, Nubians and Golden age Islam. Combat based on 4th edition DnD.

That's what I'd make if I were actually making an RPG for jst ideas then I have some others.

A Carcosa cRPG.

An RPG based on turn of the centuary pulp fiction. So you have mustachioed explorers delving into the hollow world to fight dinosaurs and steampunk foreigners.

A Gilbert and Sullivan RPG. I have no idea what this would actuially consist of but I like the idea.

Sword and Planet style RPG where you wake up on Mars and engage in high adventure through alien cities and across monstrous landscapes.

An action RPG on a Harry Harrison stlye deathworld.

An RPG where you explore the underworld but it isn't just where dead humans go but it also has dead ideologies and dead technologies, infact everything that's ever been destroyed is buried somewhere there. The whole thing would be like Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth with tunnels filled with the weird and the wonderful.

That's all I've got for now.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

You know what I want to see? A dystopian future that wasn't caused by nukes, meteors, or anything else that reduces the world to looking like it's been swarmed by beetles that devour anything that's green. I want to see a world in which society has almost completely fallen into ruin, but nature itself still looks normal. Well, some parts of it at least. basically what I'm saying is I want to see an apocalypse that doesn't result in every tree being turned into a burnt stump. It'd make for a nice change from the usual appearance of post-apocalyptic worlds. Plus you'd have to get creative and think of something that could bring about the end of modern civilization without destroying the world in the process.

Holy crap, you just blew my mind. And now I'm going to blow yours away:

An Idiocracy based RPG. Think about it, since AI is half-retarded in most RPGs anyways, Bethesda could create a vast post-self-inflicted-apocalypse with realistic idiots and vast ruined skyscrapers leaning against each other to explore. And instead of Three Dog's radio show, you would have "Ow, my balls!" and instead of Patrick Stewart's emperor, you get President Camacho.

Book it. Done.

 

[Valkyrie101]

One of my biggest guilty pleasures is the Harry Potter series, and I think there is a lot of money to be made in a full-scale (preferably sandbox) RPG set in the Harry Potter universe.

When I think of it, I imagine a Bethesda RPG specifically because I love their work, so you could have different skills in different types of magic, perhaps riding a broom, potion-making, dueling, etc. The list could go on and on. As for loot, there are limitless possibilities for magical items because of how the nature of magic in the Harry Potter series is treated. Basically magic can do literally anything you want it to, so the magic list would have to be well thought out and extremely extensive, but if taken the right way, sticking to the main schools of magic, it would be possible to generate a large enough feeling of freedom within the magic system to create and use magic effectively and believably within the series.

"Karma" could make a return as well and the character could join with the Aurors (basically the wizard police force) or become an evil wizard or even, depending on when you would have the game set, join up with Voldemort himself.

So yeah, I've thought about this a lot, haha.

Actually not such a bad idea. Only thing is, I'm not sure how the open world would work, given that the wizarding community is supposed to be hidden from society in small enclaves, or living secretly among them.

 

[ninja555]

An RPG set in pre-columbian central America. You would have Aztec, Mayan, Olmec, Teotihuacan, and Inca mythologies to work with. Serpent gods, human sacrifices, and giant temples, whats not to like.

 

[Curtisthekiller]

heres one; some phenomenon has caused all/most/some organic plant life to rapidly increase the rate at which the cells in the plant walls multiply or alternitively cell division at unpresedented rates, the problem goes relatively unnoticed by the political party's as it is breifly seen as the earth saveing the economy and used as a political standpoint for manny to claim responsibility of the new jobs. As a new massive influx of jobs is required to 'contain' the plantlife the problem quickly becomes out of hand as various territory's become damaged by the plant life penetrateing soil, concrete and causeing sections of wood to come undone. freshly paved streets become cracked with vines, within days they become green potholes, and within weeks grow trees and road blocks. areas that have known little plant life such as the foundations of buildings and roads enriched from the nutrients that havent been used for decades find new use in creating uncontainable weeds that slowly creep into the civilized society humans and their pets once called home. even the small potted plants in islands such as manhatten grow out of hand and cause humans to fight a loseing battle aginst nature before the water systems are damaged or destroyed, people with money manage to find transport for themselves and their pets, the poor however leave theirs to die as america (or whatever nation YOUR island your campaign comes from)quickly becomes aware that backpacking becomes there olny option, transportation becomes impossible with the masses of growth. the islands, forgotton as the govenment fights the plant life elsewhere become slowly evacuated as displaced refugees leave little by little, beginning with the intelligent and adventureus and ending with those whom convinced themselves that help would come.
the island of manhatten quickly becomes the homes and graveyard of the dieing pets of selfish owners and the broken fragile minded left to rot in a forest of green steel and breaking glass.
Elsewhere humanity strugles to feed or even find homes for the displaced of their neibors. those who can secure weapons do and quickly lead to a futile resourse war that ebbs the numbers from billions to a few thousand, with the survivors striveing to relearn the hunting skills of ancestors long, LONG since deceaced. however the survivers are not assured sruvival just yet, with high's of plant life comes the low's. the influx of plant life saps the minerals of most of the planets land masses, createing a varitable world wide dust bowl from the barren remains of our planet. the food chain is thrown into dissaray with the breif boon to animal life, herbivores know olny a mass of new food, predators know olny a larger supply of food, eventually food runs desprately low, entire herds starve to death and predators quickly become lone hunters as food becomes a new conciern as the lifeless land masses become the new hunting ground, in time the phenomenon passes, the world stands green and grey, almost taunting the remainer of humanity of the world they could have been born in if they had not lost to plants.

possible campaign ideas could include a scientist (or scientist player character) attempting to learn the secret of immortality which could turn out to be research into any number of lost knowlage which could even be the secret discovery of keeping humans alive for centuries if not forever. also- wow ivebeen typeing a responce for two hours?

 

[Hristo Petrov]

A RPG set in the soviet union

 

[Axolotl]

I have another idea:

A LoZ style game (but with much more emphasis on RPG stats) where your in the ruins of a high-tech colony on another planet. It's post apocalyptic but instead of a wasteland the terraformers have kept everything a verdant paradise. The old civilisation were masters of genetic engineering, populating the world with monsters.

You play a genetically engneered superman who emerges from your birth chamber/cryopod centuaries after the fall of the civilisation but here's the twist, you aren't a supersoldier or a super-police officer. No you're a genetically engineered sports-star. What sort you're designed for is essentially your class and determines your skills. You must use your estreme sports skils to explore the dead civilisation and help the survivors defeat the monsters that plague the world.

 

[Dexiro]

You know what I want to see? A dystopian future that wasn't caused by nukes, meteors, or anything else that reduces the world to looking like it's been swarmed by beetles that devour anything that's green. I want to see a world in which society has almost completely fallen into ruin, but nature itself still looks normal. Well, some parts of it at least. basically what I'm saying is I want to see an apocalypse that doesn't result in every tree being turned into a burnt stump. It'd make for a nice change from the usual appearance of post-apocalyptic worlds. Plus you'd have to get creative and think of something that could bring about the end of modern civilization without destroying the world in the process.

This is similar to what i had in mind. We need a post-apocalyptic game with more nature - cities overgrown with trees and new species evolving in the absence of humans.
Their could be a new twist on the technology too, crafted from old technology, like bits of cars being welded into a cannon.