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What is the weirdest (and possibly the coolest) setting you ever saw in a rpg?

My suggestions will probably be Unknown Armies (very weird urban fantasy with crazy forms of magic), Noir Knights (Savage Suzerain, 30's dustbowl with strange paranormal stuff), Godlike/Wild Talents (alternative history with superheroes), Hellas/Sons of Hades (Greeks in Space!), the Day after Ragnarok (completely bunkers alt history post apocalyptic setting) and Godsend Agenda (scifi with supers, Gods and angels, atlanteans and magic).

Godsend Agenda is definitely a different take on Supers. Unknown Armies is another game that is really original.

Kult - Hellraiser meets something nastier than the mythos.

Abandon All Hope - Event Horizon meets hell.

Spite/Dread - Raphael Chandler's take on a shadow holy war where the apocalypse is nigh (with the influence of heavy metal!).

Stalker - after a bizarre event certain zone on the Earth are left defying logic.

Mutant Epoch - Gonzo post-apocalyptic game where anything goes.

Belly of the Beast - Playing inside a gargantuan creature after civilization has been eaten.

A/State - Semi Victoriana extreme poverty mixed with tech. Not to mention the unknowable creatures that now stalk 'The City'.

Sorcerer - You've got tremendous powers to control but you're bound to a demon. Bummer...

Lacuna - The government has found a place that exists in our collective consciousness as we sleep. But who the fuck are the 'spider men'? And what's in the Lacuna. Not a complete RPG per se but one of Sorensen's finest creations.

Don't Rest You Head - Insomniacs begin to see the cracks and truth then travel to a nightmarish realm where they get bizarre abilities.

Vexith - Huge character options as well as some very strange character races to play.

Sla Industries.

Probably not the weirdest games around to be honest, but that's just off the top of my head.

Bunnies & Burrows: You are... rabbits. Normal rabbits. Not rabbit people. Effectively Watership Down: The RPG.

Crawdads & Crayfish: You are crawdads. Little river lobsters. You are now the most intelligent life form on earth after an atomic war. This isnt saying much and you may have a hard time remembering what they were doing a minute ago.

Dragon Storm: You are citizens in a world where evil dragons and their shapeshifter minions ruined the world with their mutating Dragon Storms. Only the Necromancers stand between you and these horrors. Then one day you and some friends find out that all of this is a lie. The hard way.

Noumenon-You died and were reincarnated as a giant insect inside some weird mansion that you have to explore to discover the meaning of life or mystery of the universe or some shit.

Quote from: Technomancer;969254Noumenon-You died and were reincarnated as a giant insect inside some weird mansion that you have to explore to discover the meaning of life or mystery of the universe or some shit.

I remember hearing something about that... A bit too existential for my tastes.

That's an easy one. The answer is Mutha Oith, from the Low Life rpg.

So, humanity went and offed itself a long time ago, leaving Earth to be inherited by all manner of creatures like cockroaches, worms, snack cakes, and Smelfs and Horcs from this other world called Middle Oith. Thus, we have Earth turning into Oith, an absolutely batshit-insane fantasy/post-apocalyptic world where a sentient Twinkie can go off adventuring in the innards of a dead monster the size of Greenland or take a trip to marvel at the seemingly bottomless Keister of Gawd that sits at the center of the world's map. It also has the distinction of being the funniest, most enjoyable read of any rpg book I've ever gone through.

Do you mean weirdest published setting? I don't use them but I've played in some bizarre games in homemade settings.

Have you checked out The Veggie Patch?

The Veggie Patch - Polgarus Games | DriveThruRPG.com (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/20710/The-Veggie-Patch)

Over the Edge's al'Amarja was a very weird Burroughsian-occult-conspiracy setting that was pretty nifty.

Reign's default geography makes a lot of people's heads hurt.

I actually have a pretty good grounding in Tarot symbology, and House of Cards makes my head hurt.

The Maelstrom RPG (the storygame, not the gamebook one) is pretty trippy.  Errol Flynn! Sentient lobster slavers! Flying ships! Books bound in dogskin!

The Secret of Zir'An feels like one of those anime where the artist just shoved every damn thing that came into his head onto celluloid and practically dared the writer to meld it all together.

The FATE World of Adventure "Loose Threads" is just ... anti-fun.

Chi-Chian is probably in the running. It's set in a 31st century New York City, which was recently purchased by the Japanese as a testing ground for biotechnology. There are worm trains (and not in a figurative way), zombie monks with caterpillars in their brains, communist cockroaches in the sewers, giant tentacle robots, and hologram attacks. It's a bit cyberpunk, a bit anime, a bit fairy tale, and all acid trip. And it's a licensed setting, based on a surreal stop-motion animated web series from the early aughts. The eponymous character is basically an sweet innocent, who survives the tranhuman bizarreness thanks to her living, indestructible battle armor.

Another one. The world from Meikyuu Kingdom. A powerful mage-king ruled the world. Then he asked the gods to give him rulership over the rest. So they squashed the underworld(ocean) the overworld (land and below) and the sky world (sly and heavens) together and cursed the king to be trapped in a maze that grew wherever he fled. Eventually the whole world is covered in a massive labyrinth with little pockets of civilization here and there. "Stars and Planets" sometimes roll through the dungeon creating clear tunnels. Fallen starts smash down and can be installed in open areas to provide light.

Adventurers have to keep exploring or else eventually the towns with be overtaken by the dungeon. The dungeonization even effects the adventurers. Theur fingerprints start to become mazes, eventually their brains, veins, etc and probably turn into a monster.

Conspiracy X: All that weird stuff in the tabloids? UFOS? Atlantis? Reptoids? Witches? Its all real. And then some. Cool gonzo X File like setting.

Quote from: Technomancer;969254Noumenon-You died and were reincarnated as a giant insect inside some weird mansion that you have to explore to discover the meaning of life or mystery of the universe or some shit.

This /thread

People say Kult is weird, but basically it's just Gnosticism (the religion) turned into a game. Read The Exegesis of Philip K Dick.

Quote from: Nexus;969520Conspiracy X: All that weird stuff in the tabloids? UFOS? Atlantis? Reptoids? Witches? Its all real. And then some. Cool gonzo X File like setting.

That was something of a latecomer covering that ground. The first was Bureau 13 (which even used the term "X-files" long before the series, albeit in a different context) And there was Pandemonium where you played tabloid reporters investigating tabloid style weirdness. Conspiracy X old hat when it came out.

I was going to mention Chi-Chian. My vote goes to The World Tree. A game set on an infinite tree where the gods can be found walking amongst the residence.

Quote from: JeremyR;969535That was something of a latecomer covering that ground. The first was Bureau 13 (which even used the term "X-files" long before the series, albeit in a different context) And there was Pandemonium where you played tabloid reporters investigating tabloid style weirdness. Conspiracy X old hat when it came out.

Yeah, but the question was what was the weirdest setting you ever saw. Not what was the weirdest setting released first or weirdest setting ever. I've ever seen or int he case of Pandemonium, heard of those games.

Quote from: Voros;969523This /thread

Gotta agree, that's weird.

Oh, I forgot one. Tales from Crypt: the rpg: You played people trapped by the Crypt Keeper (a being of god like power) and forced to play out the roles he selects for you in his twisted tales while you try to discover the means to escape.

Honorable mention to Bunnies and Burrows. The setting itself is actually fairly mundane, the default character type is odd though.

Quote from: JeremyR;969535it's just Gnosticism (the religion) turned into a game.

I think anyone who's into Kult knows that already... But saying that it's not weird compared to conventional RPGs is inaccurate in my opinion.

JAGS Wonderland.

Reality is divided up into a number of different planes, called Chessboards.  Insanity is required to go deeper than our own plane.  The further down you go, the weirder things get - you might run into walking hammers from Pink Floyd's The Wall.  When you descend, a reflection of you takes your place and starts trying to do the same thing you're doing, which can and probably will end up with your character waking up in an asylum or jail.

All of the critters from Alice in Wonderland are present, some considerably more powerful than others.  Some of them toleratea humanity, many of them want to unmake reality.

A lot of great ones already mentioned (Savage Worlds: Low Life, Noumenon, Hellas, JAGS Wonderland).

Mechanical Dream - Every night dreams become tangible things for good and bad, before fading away.  Every day you try to find or earn some drug/food/energy to stay alive.  A giant wall surrounds your (finite) world, with a pendulum-like sun-thing over head.  You live in enormous trees, capable of holding a city in a branch; the trees are just plants in an ecosystem of giants.  Technology... is complicated.  (honestly, I'm probably remembering some things wrong, but the gist is the same)

The Strange - Earth is part of a dark energy telepresence network that's fallen into ruin thanks to "planetovores" (things big enough and powerful enough to destroy planets in the network).  Earth's first line of defense are recursions, virtual worlds based on... well... it gets tricky.  Your job is to explore these recursions and make sure nothing threatens earth through them.  

Lesser Shades of Evil - A transhuman theocracy imploded, and you're one of the "angels" left over to deal with it all.  I mention it mainly because it takes the current tropes of "transhumanity is awesome" and shits all over them.  But in an interesting way!

Quote from: san dee jota;970079The Strange - Earth is part of a dark energy telepresence network that's fallen into ruin thanks to "planetovores" (things big enough and powerful enough to destroy planets in the network).  Earth's first line of defense are recursions, virtual worlds based on... well... it gets tricky.  Your job is to explore these recursions and make sure nothing threatens earth through them.  

I didn't list The Strange but now that you mention it. It is a odd setting in a few ways, odder than the 'typical" alternate universe hopping premise. In that light I guess I'd add the surreal Daytrippers (http://daytrippersrpg.com/) rpg

QuoteLesser Shades of Evil - A transhuman theocracy imploded, and you're one of the "angels" left over to deal with it all.  I mention it mainly because it takes the current tropes of "transhumanity is awesome" and shits all over them.  But in an interesting way!

I'll have to take a look at this.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;969245What is the weirdest (and possibly the coolest) setting you ever saw in a rpg?

That question depends on one's opinion on the question, "how weird, is gonzo-ism?" There are more than a few games that are more than a little 'weird for the sake of weird,' and that can be almost pedestrian, depending on your viewpoint. I mean, take The World of Synnibarr -- hollowed out planet Mars turned into nuclear powered spaceship and populated by winged laser bears is pretty outlandish, but is it weird or just random? Same with RIFTS-- post-apocalyptic setting with cthulu beasts, Ley lines, supernatural nexus areas like the Bermuda Triangle, the Pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge, world full of juicers and cyborgs, vampires and 'glitterboys' in power armor. Weird or just science fantasy kitchen sink?

Quote from: Brand55;969280That's an easy one. The answer is Mutha Oith, from the Low Life rpg.

So, humanity went and offed itself a long time ago, leaving Earth to be inherited by all manner of creatures like cockroaches, worms, snack cakes, and Smelfs and Horcs from this other world called Middle Oith. Thus, we have Earth turning into Oith, an absolutely batshit-insane fantasy/post-apocalyptic world where a sentient Twinkie can go off adventuring in the innards of a dead monster the size of Greenland or take a trip to marvel at the seemingly bottomless Keister of Gawd that sits at the center of the world's map. It also has the distinction of being the funniest, most enjoyable read of any rpg book I've ever gone through.

Beat me to it. Good call.

Quote from: Nexus;970084I'll have to take a look at this.

Oh yeah....

Nexus the Infinite City - It's basically a big city where -everything- happens.  Aztec gods have talk shows to sell their miraculous wares (and they work!) and bribe people into following them.  Super villains (the Dr. Doom types) form a group of actual medical doctors who just want to be left alone by the people they once lorded over.  Turn a street corner and you find some guy who specializes in making a living selling transdimensional media (you know, like extra seasons of a show you thought got cancelled too soon).  It's kinda' like Over the Edge (another great weird setting) but more hyper.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;970111That question depends on one's opinion on the question

Meh.  If you spend too long considering subjective opinions, -everything- is weird and thus -nothing- is weird.

I mean a game about ancient warriors who can cast harness mysterious cosmic energies to fighting giant sentient flying reptiles (which clearly violates biology and physics both) in order to find some item that is bigger on the inside than the outside is pretty freaking weird to be honest.  It's also a D&D game about an elf wizard fighting a dragon to loot a bag of holding.

Rifts and Synnibarr are good and weird I'd say.  They're perhaps not that -obscure- though.

Corporia (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/127226/Corporia-RPG) strikes me as pretty oddball. Arthurian knights, magic and a pinch of cyberpunk. For that matter, Shadowrun is a pretty oddball combination of setting elements.

Quote from: The Exploited.;969248Godsend Agenda is definitely a different take on Supers. Unknown Armies is another game that is really original.

Kult - Hellraiser meets something nastier than the mythos.

Abandon All Hope - Event Horizon meets hell.

Spite/Dread - Raphael Chandler's take on a shadow holy war where the apocalypse is nigh (with the influence of heavy metal!).

Stalker - after a bizarre event certain zone on the Earth are left defying logic.

Mutant Epoch - Gonzo post-apocalyptic game where anything goes.

Belly of the Beast - Playing inside a gargantuan creature after civilization has been eaten.

A/State - Semi Victoriana extreme poverty mixed with tech. Not to mention the unknowable creatures that now stalk 'The City'.

Sorcerer - You've got tremendous powers to control but you're bound to a demon. Bummer...

Lacuna - The government has found a place that exists in our collective consciousness as we sleep. But who the fuck are the 'spider men'? And what's in the Lacuna. Not a complete RPG per se but one of Sorensen's finest creations.

Don't Rest You Head - Insomniacs begin to see the cracks and truth then travel to a nightmarish realm where they get bizarre abilities.

Vexith - Huge character options as well as some very strange character races to play.

Sla Industries.

Probably not the weirdest games around to be honest, but that's just off the top of my head.

OMG belly of the beast sounds terrific!

Quote from: Psikerlord;970253OMG belly of the beast sounds terrific!

Those all sound pretty interesting to tell the truth.

Quote from: san dee jota;970079Lesser Shades of Evil - A transhuman theocracy imploded, and you're one of the "angels" left over to deal with it all.  I mention it mainly because it takes the current tropes of "transhumanity is awesome" and shits all over them.  But in an interesting way!

Sounds interesting.

Deep Carbon Observatory manages to make the Underdark weird again. Stuart's latest is all about his weirdo Underdark.

Quote from: Technomancer;969254Noumenon-You died and were reincarnated as a giant insect inside some weird mansion that you have to explore to discover the meaning of life or mystery of the universe or some shit.

I took Noumenon to be an intentionally incomplete game. It presents a crucible of transition/transformation but leaves it up to the GM/Players to decide what came before and follows after. The room descriptions were written by a bunch of different authors and they're as much example as actuality... they present a puzzle but no solution.
I have a use for it in my own homebrew multiverse as a mystical gauntlet for PCs pursuing 'enlightenment' or trying to shrug off human limitations... but I haven't played it as presented.

Quote from: Nexus;969520Conspiracy X: All that weird stuff in the tabloids? UFOS? Atlantis? Reptoids? Witches? Its all real. And then some. Cool gonzo X File like setting.

Maybe it says something about me, but I actually consider this a pretty normal setting. Then again it is a cool setting.

Quote from: 3rik;969416Have you checked out The Veggie Patch?

The Veggie Patch - Polgarus Games | DriveThruRPG.com (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/20710/The-Veggie-Patch)

OMG! What? No, what?!?

Since it's relevant to the thread, my physical copy of Packs! just showed up today. It's a game where you get to play rats in an abandoned department store. It's the closest thing I think I've ever seen to a Secret of Nimh rpg. I've just skimmed it so far but it actually looks really good, if about 2 years later than the Kickstarter promised. I particularly like how there are different breeds/clans of rats and how the threats you have to face go by different names. So cats are called sneakers, snakes are called hissers, and even mousetraps are called snappers.

It's certainly not the weirdest setting out there, but it's unusual enough I thought I'd mention it.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;970440OMG! What? No, what?!?

Yep. I gave it to one of my friends for his birthday. Hilarious stuff.

Quote from: Brand55;970479Since it's relevant to the thread, my physical copy of Packs! just showed up today. It's a game where you get to play rats in an abandoned department store. It's the closest thing I think I've ever seen to a Secret of Nimh rpg. I've just skimmed it so far but it actually looks really good, if about 2 years later than the Kickstarter promised. I particularly like how there are different breeds/clans of rats and how the threats you have to face go by different names. So cats are called sneakers, snakes are called hissers, and even mousetraps are called snappers.

It's certainly not the weirdest setting out there, but it's unusual enough I thought I'd mention it.

hehe cool

Quote from: 3rik;969416Have you checked out The Veggie Patch?

The Veggie Patch - Polgarus Games | DriveThruRPG.com (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/20710/The-Veggie-Patch)

I think you win.

Killer: The Game of Assassination 1982 (Steve Jackson Games)

One of the first RPG LARPs ever. A diceless game where your goal was to stealth up and "kill" another player who was also an assassin. Now you could kill them any way you could imagine using gun, knife, poison, strangulation, etc. In order to make an attack you had to successfully surprise your foe.

If your foe had a counter for your surprise move, he he/she had to have it pre-written on a note on his/her body to share, and would have to share to belay in order to make a counter assassination attempt.

The game ran 24/7.

Only the GM or game coordinator knew how many people were playing, and the true identities of the people that were playing. The GM, or Game Coordinator would coordinate specific missions or hits against new targets.

From time-to-time, players would fail spectacularly in their stealth attempts and would alert people who were not actively involved in the game, and whom from time-to-time would actually make a report to real-life law enforcement authorities, which made life rather ...interesting. Players often mis-identified targets as well leading to extreme weirdness.

This game went viral in 1984, and i personally would speculate that it was one of the reasons the FBI raided SJG in 1990 as they were extremely displeased that people were being trained in tradecraft, whom were not aligned with the FBI or other law enforcement agencies, and they went on a fishing (and intimidation) expedition which utterly failed.

The game rules were very clear, you could not actually physically or mentally harm any other target that was playing, or any innocent bystanders.

I might have to say that Human Occupied Landfill has the weirdest setting I have seen in an RPG.

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?3856-Human-Occupied-Landfill

Quote from: GameDaddy;970529Killer: The Game of Assassination 1982 (Steve Jackson Games)

One of the first RPG LARPs ever.

Um, that was nothing more than cashing in on a pre-existing college fad called "The Assassination Game".

Weird settings are a dime a dozen. Weird settings that are actually worth a damn are far more rare.

It depends a bit on what you mean by 'weird'. If you have it to mean 'a bit odd or different' then there are a number of strange settings out there that may, or may not be playable in any viable sense. The funniest RPG to read, for me, was HoL: Human Occupied Landfill, but I doubt it can actually be played (or maybe it can?). Games in a similar vein certainly include Low Life, Ghostbusters and maybe things like Over The Edge.

If you are having 'weird' to mean 'supernaturally pertaining to fate and fatalism', as in the Shakespearean sense, then games like Stormbringer or Call of Cthulhu are the places to start, and things like Warhammer Fantasy, Pendragon, Maelstrom, Ars Magica and Aquelarre could be really strong in this area too. Modern occult games like Mage: The Ascension, The Whispering Vault, Kult and Unknown Armies are probably where I'd finish, but you could probably do something of the same effect with Doctor Who too.

I have played Low Life and run it at cons.  It is fun!

Quote from: joewolz;971256I have played Low Life and run it at cons.  It is fun!

What's Low Life? I've seen it mentioned a few times but I really haven't a description of the game.

Quote from: Nexus;971287What's Low Life? I've seen it mentioned a few times but I really haven't a description of the game.

It's a Savage World, post apocalyptic setting where the inhabitants of 'Mutha Oith" are largely evolved from their involvement with...well...shit. Cockroaches, worms etc.

It's written by artist, Andy Hopp, with a very distinctive visual style.

Quote from: Nexus;971287What's Low Life? I've seen it mentioned a few times but I really haven't a description of the game.

It's a crazy fantasy game set in a post-apocalyptic Earth (called Mutha Oith) after humanity blew itself up where people play intelligent snack cakes, cockroaches, aliens, mutated animal combinations, worms, and other similarly weird races. There's a number of types of "magic" but they all have some sort of twist as well; instead of alchemists, for instance, you have people who brew up all sorts of weird smells that have special properties and keep them bottled up until they need to be unleashed. The art and humor are really great, though a lot of it falls on the rather immature side.

Here's a review thread on rpggeek that gives a solid, quick overview of the first edition of the game, which is the one I have: https://rpggeek.com/thread/432928/review-low-life

Quote from: TrippyHippy;971300It's a Savage World, post apocalyptic setting where the inhabitants of 'Mutha Oith" are largely evolved from their involvement with...well...shit. Cockroaches, worms etc.

It's written by artist, Andy Hopp, with a very distinctive visual style.

Quote from: Brand55;971310It's a crazy fantasy game set in a post-apocalyptic Earth (called Mutha Oith) after humanity blew itself up where people play intelligent snack cakes, cockroaches, aliens, mutated animal combinations, worms, and other similarly weird races. There's a number of types of "magic" but they all have some sort of twist as well; instead of alchemists, for instance, you have people who brew up all sorts of weird smells that have special properties and keep them bottled up until they need to be unleashed. The art and humor are really great, though a lot of it falls on the rather immature side.

Here's a review thread on rpggeek that gives a solid, quick overview of the first edition of the game, which is the one I have: https://rpggeek.com/thread/432928/review-low-life

Okay, that is pretty different...

Quote from: Nexus;971314Okay, that is pretty different...

It is super fun.  Just weird and cartoony.

Quote from: joewolz;971476It is super fun.  Just weird and cartoony.

Nothing wrong with that. Hell, its probably describes a good chunk of the games I've run. :D

Exquisite Replicas is quite weird. Not as weird as something like low life of course.

The premise is that people start disappearing and then end up being replaced by 'hollow' versions of themselves. Characters begin to notice the changes to loved ones or friends, etc.

My DCC setting is probably the weirdest setting I've ever played.

I always thought GURPS Fantasy II: The Mad Lands (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/madlands/) was pretty weird. The whole Winnie the Pooh connection was . . . disconcerting.

Quote from: The Exploited.;971718Exquisite Replicas is quite weird. Not as weird as something like low life of course.

Another Abstract Nova game, same folks as made Noumenon, Heaven and Earth, and other freaky stuff.

I like the Abstract Nova stuff. They go all out.

Quote from: worrapol;972068I always thought GURPS Fantasy II: The Mad Lands (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/madlands/) was pretty weird. The whole Winnie the Pooh connection was . . . disconcerting.

I'd never even heard of this.  It sure looks nuts.

Quote from: RPGPundit;972553I'd never even heard of this.  It sure looks nuts.

I always got the impression that once GURPS Fantasy II didn't fly off store shelves SJ games actually sat back and looked at it and realized for once "yeah we thought it was cool, but we're really weird and most gamers (even weird ones) are just gonna be confused" and tried real hard to forget about it. For all that Robin Laws seems to be a big wheel in gaming and a trend setter, nobody seems to talk about GURPS Fantasy II much, a bit odd since I thinks it's his first published game entirely his own writing as opposed to say Over the Edge with Tweet, or Feng Shui with all the input from the Daedalus guys.

I know that on the surface it isn't that weird, but bear with me...

Wormwood, for Rifts

At first glance, its a standard, humans vs Demons setting on another world. There are a variety of demons and humans have various magical and technological means of dealing with them.

However, there is more to it than that.

The humans are antibodies of the planet itself, to which the demons are a viral disease. And the body is slowly dying as the humans are losing.
The planet, being a living creature, has no soil or plants or stone. Depressions in its skin form ponds and lakes. Cilia makes forest-allegories. There is no natural wildlife, other than parasites and symbiotic organisms.
Human magic is based off of summoning the planet to provide something. Want food? Ask the planet for worms. Want shelter? Ask the planet to form a hollow pimple.
The demons live in living cities/parasites that crawl along the surface, while humans live in pimple domes. Demon controlled areas tend to be hotter than human areas because that area of the planet is "fevered."

Further, it's connected to Earth through magical gateways, so black powder weapons and motorcycles are used, although uncommon. There are hundred foot tall mecha made of planet-resin summoned from under the surface. There are sky pirates who fly on the backs of gigantic insects and "fish" for people with giant hooks and lines.

One of the main classes fuses magical worms to their tongue in order to cast magic.

And tying it to Rifts, everything is MDC. SDC doesn't exist on Wormwood.

It was probably Rifts best setting, but was terribly unpopular, probably because it was hopeless, dark, and unsettling. The artwork was amazing and grotesque.

Quote from: worrapol;972625I always got the impression that once GURPS Fantasy II didn't fly off store shelves SJ games actually sat back and looked at it and realized for once "yeah we thought it was cool, but we're really weird and most gamers (even weird ones) are just gonna be confused" and tried real hard to forget about it. For all that Robin Laws seems to be a big wheel in gaming and a trend setter, nobody seems to talk about GURPS Fantasy II much, a bit odd since I thinks it's his first published game entirely his own writing as opposed to say Over the Edge with Tweet, or Feng Shui with all the input from the Daedalus guys.

Well, I guess that confirms a bit of what I felt about Laws, that he's better when there's someone to keep him in check. Monte Cook is the same too, really, though in a different way.

I think gurps I.O.U. deserves mention for weirdness potential.

Quote from: RPGPundit;972947Well, I guess that confirms a bit of what I felt about Laws, that he's better when there's someone to keep him in check. Monte Cook is the same too, really, though in a different way.

So the George Lucas of the gaming world?

Quote from: Harlock;973115So the George Lucas of the gaming world?

:p good one

Sky Realms of Jorune (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyrealms_of_Jorune)  Was a very interesting and weird setting.
It sort of came off as Fantasy at first, but was really Scifi.
The names, setting, races etc were very strange , but really interesting.

Quote from: RPGPundit;972047My DCC setting is probably the weirdest setting I've ever played.

yeah, but how much of that is due to the players?  I'm thinking Bill the Elf in particular.

Curiously both Laws and Cook are way better when combined with Jonathan Tweet.

Quote from: remial;973720yeah, but how much of that is due to the players?  I'm thinking Bill the Elf in particular.

There's no question that all the players (not just Bill the Elf, but he's certainly had an amazing run) have helped make the game more Gonzo than I ever expected it to be. And it's become more than it was at first, thanks to a group of players saying "you know what, let's run with this".

In a lot of gonzo games you have the PCs acting sort of as the "straight men" to a crazy world. In my campaign, the players decided they wanted to be the central comedic act. Which was great.

But divorced from the players, the world is still weird as all fuck. Easily the craziest I've ever ran.

I think the proof of this will be coming as I start to release setting material for it in my "Pundit Presents" series.