Unorthodox, or just plain weird!

In the spirit of Twilight Nightmares! supplement stories, has anyone ever encountered or ran a game that included weird stuff like zombies, dinosaurs, demons/ghosts/poltergeists, mutated people/straight up mutants, or something similar to this?

[kato13]

The GDW book Twilight Nightmares encourages this. They have aliens. intelligent dogs, super ants, electric giant slugs, plus a few more.

[Targan]

My campaign contains supernatural elements, esoterica and Call of Cthulhu-esque elements but (with a few exceptions) the PCs are never sure exactly what is going on or whather what they have experienced is paranormal.

[weswood]

I haven't fleshed out the details, but I'm working up an island in the Bermuda Triangle. An alien spaceship crashed cenutries ago and has been disgorging "specimens" collected from various planets. The character will be shipwrecked in a wooden sailing ship, they must locate suitable timber for repairing a hole in the hull and replacing a mast or two. The only place on the island where trees straight and tall enough for masts grow is near the crashed spaceship.

Other than the alien species on the planet, there is a tribe of humans who never got past the stone age. I'm toying with the idea of having more modern people there also, from disappearances in the Triangle throughout the centuries. Maybe a couple of 17th century pirates, some of those aviators that got lost, maybe some civilians from lost ships. A certain plant growing only on the island stops them from aging.

The spaceship crashed due to a deadly disease then sickened and killed most of the crew. The survivors fled the ship to a peninsula, and built a huge wall across it to keep the vicous beasts out of thier safe area. I'm not sure if I want any to be surviving when the players arrive. Any alien artifacts- weapons, superior technology, etc will be battery operated with no way of recharging batteries. I'm even thinking the crew's personal weapons will be crossbows and short swords. I would think any combat aboard a spaceship both sides would want to be careful. Oh, dang, that laser bolt just fired the environmental system for the whole ship, we're all dead.

[Littlearmies]

Originally Posted by bigehauser

In the spirit of Twilight Nightmares! supplement stories, has anyone ever encountered or ran a game that included weird stuff like zombies, dinosaurs, demons/ghosts/poltergeists, mutated people/straight up mutants, or something similar to this?

Funnily enough I came across this website this afternoon:

http://gurps.fallout.free.fr/

While the headers are in French the rest is in English, and very good it is too, very much in keeping with the atmosphere of the first two games.

[pmulcahy11b]

I've dumped players in the Giant modules of D&D through a "time-space vortex." The players had lots of fun, until the ammo ran out...

[Grimace]

I actually ran one of the Twilight Nightmares modules in the middle of my Twilight game once. It was with the zombies and things that go "bump in the night". Can't remember the exact name of the little module. I ran it right after the group collected the Black Madonna. I intended it, and ran it, as a dream. When the last PC died, they all woke up, back in the farmhouse they had holed up in. Needless to say, they vacated that farmhouse right away.

The players thought it was interesting after it was all said and done and I explained it away as a dream. They weren't real happy when they "died" during the dream, but once they realized it was part of the a dream, a module from the Twilight Nightmares, and linked so closely with the Black Madonna, they said it made sense. They, of course, didn't ever want me to run another module from Twilight Nightmares again, though.

[Legbreaker]

If you're looking for a little horror, etc in your GDW game, why not go with Dark Conspiracy?
Basically the same rules as 2.2 (it's a house system after all) and the entire world history, etc is set up specficially for aliens, horrifying creatures from nightmares and interplanar encounters.

[Marc]

I totally agree with Legbreaker.
We started to run a Dark Conspiracy game this last year. I usually reserve "Dark Conspiracy" for the ocasions when some of the players in the Twilight:2000 group can't play and the "harcore", "always-ready-for-a-game" players are eager for a roleplaying session. Then we run my current Dark Conspiracy campaign, only three players and the GM with smooth lights and appropriate music.

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I've dumped players in the Giant modules of D&D through a "time-space vortex." The players had lots of fun, until the ammo ran out...

From the depths of the archives, I bid you...RISE!!!!

Sounds a lot like "Doomfarers of Coramonde" and "Starfollowers of Coramonde", in which an VIetnam-era APC with a squad of infantry aboard gets "conjured" from an ambush in SE Asia across a dimension by a spell that wasn't worded quite right. The troops encounter a dragon, Lizardmen, evil magicians, and a world in which magic works as do the soldiers' firearms and heavy weapons.

Alternately, how about an alternate universe where the Twilight War never happened, and technology advanced a bit more; and where a small laboratory has come up with a portal that enables the non-T2K world to first observe, then shuttle to and from the Nuked World. A small A-Team of adventurers are recruited under absolute secrecy ( the company doesn't want the government to know about this yet) to jump across the gap with some essential supplies and devices (obsolescent chips and memory for T2K computers, improved medications, a 3D printer, etc.) .

[swaghauler]

I did a "28 Days Later" Biohazard scenario once. It was very well received UNTIL the team found out that they had to "subdue without unnecessary casualties" (to prevent the virologist equivalent of "brain drain"). Tasers and tranquilizer guns backed by shotguns with baton and sock rounds. Pistols ONLY for Lethal force. The only good thing was that the team had control of the biolab's cameras, comms, and doors. I still proved to be a very tense adventure.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by WallShadow

...

Alternately, how about an alternate universe where the Twilight War never happened, and technology advanced a bit more; and where a small laboratory has come up with a portal that enables the non-T2K world to first observe, then shuttle to and from the Nuked World. A small A-Team of adventurers are recruited under absolute secrecy ( the company doesn't want the government to know about this yet) to jump across the gap with some essential supplies and devices (obsolescent chips and memory for T2K computers, improved medications, a 3D printer, etc.) .

Sounds a little bit like this scenario from John Tynes (the guy behind Delta Green & Unknown Armies etc. etc.)
http://johntynes.com/revland2000/rl_thezone.html
It was Tynes write-up of this idea that put me on the path to discovering the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video games via the novel Roadside Picnic (Arkady and Boris Strugatsky) and the movie Stalker (by ‎Andrei Tarkovsky), all of which feature Zones containing some strangeness (to say the least!)

I have tried every few years to get a campaign up and running around the idea of the Zone from Roadside Picnic/S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but could never seem to get enough people interested to get it started (it seems most people want to play fantasy rpgs, especially those rpgs that cater to the "power fantasy") but I have used one or two Twilight Nightmares scenarios in a Merc: 2000 campaign I had running a long time ago.

[Draq]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Sounds a little bit like this scenario from John Tynes (the guy behind Delta Green & Unknown Armies etc. etc.)
http://johntynes.com/revland2000/rl_thezone.html
It was Tynes write-up of this idea that put me on the path to discovering the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video games via the novel Roadside Picnic (Arkady and Boris Strugatsky) and the movie Stalker (by ‎Andrei Tarkovsky), all of which feature Zones containing some strangeness (to say the least!)

I have tried every few years to get a campaign up and running around the idea of the Zone from Roadside Picnic/S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but could never seem to get enough people interested to get it started (it seems most people want to play fantasy rpgs, especially those rpgs that cater to the "power fantasy") but I have used one or two Twilight Nightmares scenarios in a Merc: 2000 campaign I had running a long time ago.

I would totally be down for playing in the Zone.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by bigehauser

In the spirit of Twilight Nightmares! supplement stories, has anyone ever encountered or ran a game that included weird stuff like zombies, dinosaurs, demons/ghosts/poltergeists, mutated people/straight up mutants, or something similar to this?

My first experience of role-playing was at a wargames club. A role-player we knew put on a game. We played Vietnam-era US marines, who went through a green mist. When the mist cleared, we found ourselves in a D&D setting, fighting trolls. None of us had any idea that normal bullets wouldn't work, and it was pure luck that we killed them with white phosphorous grenades. I can't remember much more about that session, but it was good fun.

Some time later, I ran a part-wargame, part-RPG game set in Vietnam, and the characters went into a green mist. When weird shit started happening, they were convinced their characters had ended up in a different world