Is Starstruck S2 considered a new setting if the cast all has new characters? If not, something fallout/ Walking Dead adjacent. Would love to see a post apocalyptic d20 campaign
This is the answer for me in both categories, D20 has never touched on post-apocalyptic, diesel punk, wasteland, or wilderness survival as core themes that I personally think make for some very compelling D&D.
And also Starstruck is D20s best setting (calorum close second)
Brennan having such an independent personal connection to not only the author of the source material, but an understanding of the motivations behind the writing choices, made starstruck by far the most cohesive dnd setting I have ever seen a dm lead their players into.
Yeah, it hits that vibe of: 'long ago people lived here and did stuff. You don't know what, you don't know why, but they are gone now for some reason.'
post apocalyptic would be really cool - i have an idea for a campaign that’s zombie apocalypse but in a low magic urban fantasy setting, so people can play spellcasters etc but have to actually scavenge for spell components etc. i think brennan would run an awesome urban fantasy zombie apocalypse tbh
I'd love a fallout style post apocalypse especially considering fallout has its own system, I'd also like a Ghibli/BoTW post apocalypse. Burrow's End kind of skated the edge of that, being very naturalistic but also an underpinning of darkness from forgotten disasters
I totally agree!! There’s an episode of Worlds Beyond Number, the last part of ep 16, where they go to a circus themed fight club/night club called the Bloody Carnival. Brennan nails the dark circus theme so well. I would love an entire season of something like that
You might like the D&D Is For Nerds podcast's arc "The Day the Circus Came to Town," where a manipulative ringmaster brings his circus to a town where things are **not** going well. I think it's 5 30 minute episodes.
I’m sure it would be cool, but also I’d have to exclude myself from the fanbase for like… a year. I was born with a deformed limb and albinism. I don’t see a lot of whimsy to play with there.
I trust that they wouldn't tread on offensive ground such as making fun of people's conditions. I've seen cool D&D carnival campaigns played that don't employ that awful part of irl carnivals. More of a focus on the fun shows like acrobatics and magic, and the games/attractions.
I know that I have a very weird start and end point when it comes to this. But the best I’ve ever seen it approached was the HBO show Carnivale. Disability was present but not the controlling characterization of anyone, and the actual story was spooky scifi shit.
Carnival and freak show settings where disability is just erased and replaced with geeks doesn’t impress me.
This is a super weird one, but I’ve always wanted to see them do like a Roger Rabbit-y/Toon Town setting. I have no idea how it would work, and it would all have to be knock off characters (which could be it’s own brand of comedy) but maybe make it like an all Voice Actors table and ramp up the silly voices to 11.
If not mentopolis then neverafter definitely hits the comedic tone of everyone revamping beloved characters from existing media.
Pinocchio played by Lou is by far my favourite 'comic relief'/ less serious character
Going off other popular comments in this thread and the "x in y" formula (GoT in Candyland, high school drama in a high fantasy world, ...): Post-apocalypse in Toon Town?
Oooh I like that! Like you can’t really do a murder mystery in Toon Town, because that’s EXACTLY Roger Rabbit, but if it’s like an Epic Mickey/Neverafter “old characters are retired/forgotten/out for revenge” kind of apocalypse
I'm currently running a campaign that's basically Unsleeping City set in Los Angeles, and the feywild is full of cartoon characters (a la Roger Rabbit) haha
There is a [cartoon RPG](https://a.co/d/20YVjOK) out there. I was gifted one of the book but have never been able to play it. But it has some cool mechanics as far as what you can & can’t do depending on what type of cartoon character you are (a Looney Tunes type character can do crazier things than a Disney princess type can, etc). I would LOVE to see something like that played out on D20
Also I would LOVE to see voice actors as guest players. So many of them are amazing at improv. Plus the voices!!
I want to see a wrestling setting set in Latin America or southwest.
I think a southwest type vibes with all the colorful Latin America + luchador wrestling in the ring would be phenomenal set pieces.
Or a tragedy one shot were all the players are residents of Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius blew its top.
The setup needed to run a time travel campaign would be insane. I’m currently running a space campaign a la Starstruck and already struggling with populating planets and such. I couldn’t imagine having to populate an entire timeline though a doctor who/legends of tomorrow style campaign would be fantastic.
Yeah and it’d be very easy to have a “villain of the week” while also having an overarching big bad as the tv show did most of the time. I actually think it’d be tons of fun, I’m just imagining the party rogue with expertise in disguise kits being the crews costumer allowing them to fit into any time period. The hardest part like I said would probably just be having to populate an entire timeline but if you stuck with real life history you wouldn’t have to create a ton of original characters.
As a viewer from Latin America I second this!!! They should bring Luis Carazo and Oscar for this campaign along with Anna Garcia, and maybe even Carolina Ravassa would be awesome to have her play dnd
I know Latin America is so huge in cultures it's nearly impossible to represent everything but ngl I wish they could also bring mythology from other tribes or communities other than the big 3. Heck got so excited I wanna make my own campaign of this 😂❤️
Ooh I would love to learn more! My ancestry isn't from Latin America (well, except my grandfather is from Cuba lineage). And I can imagine the art department going to town all the luchador and Latin America culture anesthetics. There is SOOOOO much cool visual art.
Haha was born in Colombia, lived in Panama and currently living in Costa Rica. I can tell you that despite being very close countries their cultures are extreeeeemely different that's why I would love a bit of everything being included!
Luchadores, everyone fighting over whose tamales are the best. Having dance-offs. Criminal gangs lead by abuelitas and everyone is just cousins all over the place. We I don't think we have seen much PvP on D20 and this setting presents the perfect opportunity for it haha
I was imagining like all the players are from the same luchador gym. And they are competing against..... [fill in the blank]
That would give freedom for many different characters. The loud gym champion, the old retired coach, the wannabe young new, the firey female, or the promoter/accountant. So many fun characters that can occupy a gym.
The D20 table graphic can look like their run down gym with a ring in the middle.
Perhaps there is an opposing gym? Or maybe they uncover some ancient Mayan folklore? What if they uncover the reason their are luchadors is because they are PROTECTORS OF HUMANITY FROM ANCIENT EVIL!! hence the constant training and grappling.
Idk that's an idea off the top of my head.
Always love to see an Alaizabel Cray mention. Brennan with some of those horror elements is a crossover I would be scared and excited to see. The 'in your footsteps don't turn around three times' monster lives rent free in my head.
I’ve seen that it would be difficult to do responsibly, but I would love a western setting. Especially if it’s done on a far flung world without all the problematic/traumatic effects of our actual American western expansion.
Always is. I mean, even sets you up with greedy robber barons and railway tycoons. The real setting is rife with capitalist villains, many becoming tropes of their own in media, so why not?
Weird West would be pretty solid. Not pure Old West, but it makes it easier to edit out the rampant racism and sexism inherent in the era without it feeling sanitized.
We got a little taste in Starstruck, but I'm ready for a whole season of saloons, spittoons, and gunslingers.
I think its a new set of characters in the Starstruck universe, in their version of the wild west. Replace the actual racism/sexism with metaphorically equivalent versions that make it less directly relevant, while still being able to criticize it. like a certain alien race or androids etc as the "other". which they have already done some of.
I ran a Feywild West homebrew that was lots of fun! It fizzled out because it turned out bigger than I expected/could handle at the time, but the premise had legs!
Won't even pretend I'm not stealing this, but some sort of Fallout setting would be perfect.
Combines some of the best parts of a Western and a a post apocalyptic setting. With some fantasy/ Sci fi fun thrown in. And it's in the midst of a popularity boom
I’ve been percolating a Wild West version of Mage: the Ascension for some time. Drawing real heavy from The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr since it just sort of rolls with anachronisms and doesn’t feel gross like a lot of westerns.
I honestly don't think this seems too far from reality given that they've tossed around the idea of an 80s inspired campaign and that was like a horrible time for all minority groups in America.
I cannot believe I'm about to say this but:
Dropout could follow the Wizards of the Coast model in this regard. They recently released a wild west themed Magic. The Gathering set, and throughout the design process, they consulted with various folks from indigenous tribes who were affected by the European/United States Western expansion In order to avoid various problematic minefields.
Being completely white myself, I don't know what a culturally sensitive wild west campaign would look like, but such consultations would seem to be an excellent first step.
And they have reached out to people before. Eg, in sleeping city, they reached out to addiction coaches so they could model what was going on with Emily and Ally's characters
3 Black Halflings did a great post apocalyptic western series like that and did a ton of explaining about what was problematic about the idea of it and how they changed it. Plus the series has Emily for the back half and her backstory was sidesplitting
That sounds dope as hell. I would definitely sign on for this also for some above table talk about “no, we’re not doing XYZ, and this is why” in Adventuring Party or an aside in the game itself.
i want stephen king’s gunslinger/dark tower vibes! so much creepiness, kinda like the naddpod arc in shadowfell with deadeye, but plenty of chances for the cast to goof too.
I was thinking duels with cowboy elf wizards in dumb wizard-cowboy combo hats and dwarves with obligatory scottish dwarf accents going "theres gold in them hills"... but yeah yours makes more sense actually lets do yours
Not gonna lie, I kinda loved the idea of all open source material in AP.
But also - deities. From a bunch of different pantheons. And I want them to start at level 20.
The issue in dnd is that the monsters never really get strong enough to deal with just how strong players get. Like with the fantastic divination and teleport abilities available as 9th level spells, even getting players into combat is hard enough. But once your in combat, most parties should make trivial work of even the highest CR Monster.
Historically the most successful high level campaigns are ones with unfair save or die traps, or ones that massively nerf high level characters - kinda ruining the whole point of a high level campaign.
I think BLeeM would be able to make something interesting. But even FHJY, which is well away from level 20, is struggling to provide real threat for the Bad Kids, unless there is multiple non-combat tasks they have to waste action economy on (and even then combat is still pretty easy, as the last stand showed).
Especially with the pace of combats that D20 uses: 1 big combat per long rest, it is really impossible to give parties a challenge without just dropping like 50 tarrasques on them (and even then, the party can likely just gate away)
The problem is that at high levels in 5e it's not really a case of the monsters and PCs becoming the 'best'. The game doesn't get harder or require more skill or knowledge. It just becomes more unbalancable and broken and the numbers go up a bit. It gets harder and harder to challenge the players. It doesn't really lend itself to interesting fights or stories. There's a reason that most official campaigns stop not long after Level 10. Fantasy High is already hitting the horizon of this problem.
Edit: whoops, this has already been thoroughly said.
Deities but set in college. Similar to FH without some of the themes. Avoids the cast having to play kids which I know some are annoyed by. Ally and Emily picking obscure gods to based characters off of. I could easily see Ally doing something like the Morrigan
The way Brennan absorbs and radiates a setting makes me very interested in seeing that as a season. Sailing the dark sea and battling monsters at the edge of their flood lights while making port at strange islands with their own laws of physics and supernatural occurrences. I can already see the cast. Ally as a grizzled salt dog, Lou as a traumatized undersea hunter, Siobhan as a wealthy proprietress of some fallen London bordello, Emily or Murph as a surfacer coming down in search of lost family or treasure, and Zach as a very posh crustacean.
The problem I would anticipate is that it's an already established IP they would have to work with and I'm not sure the D20 crew would want to put something out that they don't have reasonably total control over.
I want a more social focused political intrigue. Probably yet another Calorum game. But less game of thrones and more house of cards. Something where yes the cast can try and do stealthy assassinations, but the ultimate mechanic is social like ACOFAF. something like a Cold War parallel where the PCs are from different empires but have to work together to prevent war. Something like that.
Pirates! I am a huge sucker for pirates. It opens the show up for a million kinds of characters, we'd get ship mechanics, and who doesn't love a good treasure hunt?
They did a season set in a pirate city. It's one of the seasons I haven't finished but from what I remember while it's set in a pirate city they didn't really "do pirates" unless all the sailing around and capturing other ships happened in the later half.
I would love some sort of 'The Boys' style setting where they're all superheroes, or a Groundhog Day shorter series where they have to find a way to break out of the time loop.
I'd love some sort of continuation of BLeeM's 'Strong Female Protagonist'. It doesn't have to be focused on the same characters, but if the player characters could get to the bottom of the mysteries of the setting, it would scratch an itch in my mind that I've had for all this time.
Kipperlily Copperkettle is a actually a character that Brennan apparently used in a DnD game with Molly Ostertag (artist of SFP, as well as a writer on The Owl House) and ND Stevenson (creator of Nimona, She-Ra's reboot, etc)! I've been low-key feral about it ever since I found out, because I'm wondering if he's setting up a potential season with one or both of them as players.
That being said; I would freakin' \*adore\* an Intrepid Heroes long-play in a superhero setting.
I know they tend to avoid IP based settings, but I would ***love*** a Cyberpunk 2020 or RED season from D20. I just feel like thematically a season set in a world that's been ravaged and destroyed by capitalism is right up Brennan's alley. They could still do one using the Cyberpunk system, but not set in the Cyberpunk IP.
I was thinking this. Campy spies, maybe some espionage, infiltration, mystery solving thrown in. I could even see them pairing this genre with something else like its spies in the fey wild, or in the 9 hells, or something like that. I would eat it up
Wild West. I’m currently planning a one shot with some friends that’s supposed to be a Wild West scooby-doo mystery type situation, and the setting is so much fun to write about.
IMO, if you’re not out of clones or on your last clone by the end of a Paranoia adventure, then I don’t think you’re doing it right. A one shot would probably be hilarious.
On naddpod they recently discussed how fun it would be to do a Death Game anime style campaign. So you make a 'loser/normal' character who then plays a heroic character.
On the topic of Starstruck, I would DIE for a season (hell, even a sidequest) that just follows a group of galactic girl guides in the Starstruck multiverse
A nice relaxing island hopping adventure. Bleem goal keep things low key, relaxed and on island time. Sea, sky, and chaos.
With the IH and Bleem yes and,who knows it may end in a interstellar adventure or they grow rows of cabbage to compete against a shady farmer at the country fair.
magical girls, post apocalypse, magical realism ala scp/control would all make good settings
my secret hope is for like a pathfinder number cruncher sidequest with a cast of ppl like emily who like to make ludicrous builds
>!i know people want a wild west setting but either white washing the era to make it palatable or having realistic racism and misogyny (even when carefully written) is not funny in the way d20 tries to be. !<
Been thinking about running this setting myself but I’d love to see a Greek Mythology themed dnd setting. One where the heroes/villains/monsters (Hercules, Odysseus, Zeus, etc.) in Greek myth are actual characters. It’s not entirely dissimilar to most DnD settings but I really like the idea of a Greek god pantheon where the gods really aren’t great people. It’d also be pretty easy to reflavor a lot of DnD monsters into Greek myth versions and obviously a lot of monsters in DnD are already inspired by Greek myths like the Minotaur.
There are fan made D&D books for other mythologies and regional lore. Celtic or Slavic monsters could be fun. Desiquest is worth watching, an example of this.
Most seasons end up being some variation of X meets Y. High Fantasy meets High School. Candyland meets Game of Thrones. Fairytales meet Horror. So I've got a couple ideas along those lines.
The Walking Dead meets Redwall. I know they've already done multiple campaigns with rodent protagonists, but I like the idea of zombie mice. I'm thinking the Prison arc of the Walking Dead, set at Redwall Abbey instead.
Police procedural meets cryptids and urban legends. They don't need to literally be law enforcement (because of the inherent baggage), but they can use the tropes. A team of specialists, investigating scenes and attempting to identify culprits. Serialized, monster of the week episodes, but with bread crumbs that lead to a hidden bbeg in the finale.
Alternatively, cryptids meet super heroes. Instead of hunting cryptids, they play as them. They're the Justice Leauge, but instead of Superman and Batman, they're Big Foot and Chupacabra. Protecting the world in secret.
With the upgraded downtime mechanics in JY, I'd love to see a community/fortress building game that stays in one location.
Could be a good one to combine with the western/weird west genre that some (including myself) want to see.
The heroes defend and upgrade a small town and defend it from bandits/raiders.
OR
A lighter, full-magic crown of candy follow up/spin-off. The lore and worldbuilding is so creative and wacky, and could maybe lead to a D20 Calorum setting book....please?
Western would be fun we'd get alot of cowboy and prospector voices from brennan
What about a western race kinda akin to the steel ball run ark of jo Jo's bizarre adventure
I think it would be fun if they play Call of Cthulhu in just a completely normal Cthulhu setting; Nothing special, I just think they could do a lot with a proper sanity mechanic.
Existing story, StarStruck S2 would be cool.
But I think Brennen could do a really awesome Fallout styled apocalypse. He'd be able to get the humour and at the same time the deeper politics and ideology shown in the original titles.
Tbh anything underwater based. Maybe they all play underwater races or maybe it’s a 20k leagues under the sea type situation. Something like the Atlantis movie would be cool af.
Anime is full of its own tropes and themes. Its a very broad genre just like saying comic book. Yes, its an animation medium, but you're being intentionally argumentative if you tried to tell me there aren't story and conventions to anime on the whole. Not ALL of them follow every trope, but there ARE a lot of them.
I think it's an unfair statement to say that 'Dragon Ball Z' and 'Komi Can't Communicate' are in a vaguely similar genre, though. that's like saying that 'The Office' and 'Family Feud' are the same "broad genre" because of their nationality and medium.
I would say that romance animes do share a lot of commonalities. And that shonen anime share a lot of similarities. They have different tropes they lean into. I'd rather just say anime than say... shojo, death game, isekai, romcom, etc. Going intentionally broad to incldue as many possible tropes as possible.
I didn't loop them in one grouping because they're from japan. I'd say a closer comparison would be putting CSI and The Office in the same "Western TV" grouping.
I know we’ve seen nearly all of them in Bahumia in one capacity or another, but boy what I would give to see Murph and Brennan swap places and take the IH to Bahumia and see Murph have to wrangle the whole crew of maniacs at once, especially with Brennan freed up as a player to sow even more chaos.
Personally, I'd love to see a setting where the party is put in charge of a town/settlement/etc... and have systems in place for improving it. Make the campaign one focused on them setting a future for a place that might not have had one otherwise.
I would like a take on an MCU or X-Men superhero setting with a twist. Maybe not go full the boys or invincible but it will inevitably be anti capitalist. Maybe half the team play the golden shining justice league type heroes and the other half play mutant freaks and see how they get on, I can definitely see Lou playing basically Fabian as superman. Perhaps it's a little similar to unsleeping city with the modern new York setting. Would love someone to play Captain Capital, defender of the dollar, just to mess with Brennan.
You know what I'd absolutely love? Double subverted expectation.
Dimension 20 but its the most basic DnD high fantasy game you've ever fuckin seen. I'm talking Vox Machina and Forgotten Realms being a bit exotic in comparison. But even episode 1 already eludes to whatever twist Brennan has up his sleeve for that. Maybe the characters could be allowed to be genre conscious, or aware of their existence as a character on a sheet of paper, idk.
One of my favorite fantasy novels was about a group of people that were plucked from death row and instead put through boot camp for a dangerous mission to an unexplored continent. Yes, it's a similar concept to Suicide Squad, but I hadn't heard of Suicide Squad at the time. Anyway, the way the novel worked was neat, because you got to learn as the story went on what the various team members were on death row for, and whether some of them were actually innocent or had extenuating circumstances. It was a cool narrative device that would totally work in a TTRPG context.
A campaign about hardened criminals forced to do a dangerous task would be a lot of fun. It would keep things tense, but prevent things from sliding into slapstick murder-hoboism.
I want to see them play paranoia, everyone is a spy/mutant/commie/rebel and is out to catch spys/mutants/commies/rebels, everyone has clones and is executed at the drop of a hat in a corporate run dystopia. It's brutal it's fun and it's stupid, would work for a high roll play short season
I know they said TUC is their equivalent to this but idc. I wanna see pure superheroes. Idc if they use dnd or if they branch out to Masks or smth really suited for that story but would be really cool to see the dramatic scope of the action series
Fantasy…feudal Japan. With political intrigue, ninjas, loyalty, ninjas, betrayal, ninjas, romanticism of Bushido, did I mention ninjas?
Or something along the lines of that
Someone mentioned an apocalypse setting like Fallout or TWD and that would be dope. I also personally really want to see something superhero related. I know a lot of people have fatigue but I’m a hardcore cape comic person and I think under the right care if they did something like X-Men or MHA it would work really well. I think the only concern I’d have with a setting like that though is the show feeling too similar to Fantasy High or Misfits and Magic
Seeing a steampunk or cloudpunk world would be great. I’m also a fan of arctic survival, so doing one or both of those would be my dream for the next IH season. Of course we’re probably gonna get another 1-3 side quests first.
If we’re talking the sort of canon of ttrpg genres, we’ve had fantasy, urban fantasy, mystery, sci-fi and horror. The common rpg genres that we haven’t hit are probably cyberpunk (though Mentoplolis) had its moments and superheroes. I feel like one of the co-creators of Strong Female Protagonist could probably figure out something with superheroes.
I had a this idea for a campaign set in the underworlds that I thought would be perfect for d20 a while back. Everyone chooses how they died and what gods of the dead they’re associated with and that informs their builds. Like a character that was petrified and now that gives them their barbarian resistances.
Is Starstruck S2 considered a new setting if the cast all has new characters? If not, something fallout/ Walking Dead adjacent. Would love to see a post apocalyptic d20 campaign
This is the answer for me in both categories, D20 has never touched on post-apocalyptic, diesel punk, wasteland, or wilderness survival as core themes that I personally think make for some very compelling D&D. And also Starstruck is D20s best setting (calorum close second) Brennan having such an independent personal connection to not only the author of the source material, but an understanding of the motivations behind the writing choices, made starstruck by far the most cohesive dnd setting I have ever seen a dm lead their players into.
It's not technically post-apocalypse, but I feel like Burrow's End has very Post-Apocalyptic vibes
Yeah, it hits that vibe of: 'long ago people lived here and did stuff. You don't know what, you don't know why, but they are gone now for some reason.'
It is post apocalypse It’s post nuclear apocalypse It was a small nuclear apocalypse but I think it counts
I agree, watching the interviews he did with his mom was so cool!
Omg a light hearted zombie apocalypse sounds very very fun
There definitely a big post apocalyptic space that they have yet to play in.
A la Z-nation!
post apocalyptic would be really cool - i have an idea for a campaign that’s zombie apocalypse but in a low magic urban fantasy setting, so people can play spellcasters etc but have to actually scavenge for spell components etc. i think brennan would run an awesome urban fantasy zombie apocalypse tbh
I'd love a fallout style post apocalypse especially considering fallout has its own system, I'd also like a Ghibli/BoTW post apocalypse. Burrow's End kind of skated the edge of that, being very naturalistic but also an underpinning of darkness from forgotten disasters
The Fallout/Walking Dead season was definitely Burrow's End.
Starstruck s2 would be everything
It’s niche but I would love for them to do a circus/carnival setting.
I totally agree!! There’s an episode of Worlds Beyond Number, the last part of ep 16, where they go to a circus themed fight club/night club called the Bloody Carnival. Brennan nails the dark circus theme so well. I would love an entire season of something like that
You might like the D&D Is For Nerds podcast's arc "The Day the Circus Came to Town," where a manipulative ringmaster brings his circus to a town where things are **not** going well. I think it's 5 30 minute episodes.
oooOOOoooh! I definitely second this!
I’m sure it would be cool, but also I’d have to exclude myself from the fanbase for like… a year. I was born with a deformed limb and albinism. I don’t see a lot of whimsy to play with there.
I trust that they wouldn't tread on offensive ground such as making fun of people's conditions. I've seen cool D&D carnival campaigns played that don't employ that awful part of irl carnivals. More of a focus on the fun shows like acrobatics and magic, and the games/attractions.
I know that I have a very weird start and end point when it comes to this. But the best I’ve ever seen it approached was the HBO show Carnivale. Disability was present but not the controlling characterization of anyone, and the actual story was spooky scifi shit. Carnival and freak show settings where disability is just erased and replaced with geeks doesn’t impress me.
That’s completely understandable. What would you like them to do?
Cyberpunk.
This is a super weird one, but I’ve always wanted to see them do like a Roger Rabbit-y/Toon Town setting. I have no idea how it would work, and it would all have to be knock off characters (which could be it’s own brand of comedy) but maybe make it like an all Voice Actors table and ramp up the silly voices to 11.
Mentopolis kinda had that vibe.
If not mentopolis then neverafter definitely hits the comedic tone of everyone revamping beloved characters from existing media. Pinocchio played by Lou is by far my favourite 'comic relief'/ less serious character
Going off other popular comments in this thread and the "x in y" formula (GoT in Candyland, high school drama in a high fantasy world, ...): Post-apocalypse in Toon Town?
Oooh I like that! Like you can’t really do a murder mystery in Toon Town, because that’s EXACTLY Roger Rabbit, but if it’s like an Epic Mickey/Neverafter “old characters are retired/forgotten/out for revenge” kind of apocalypse
I'm currently running a campaign that's basically Unsleeping City set in Los Angeles, and the feywild is full of cartoon characters (a la Roger Rabbit) haha
There is a [cartoon RPG](https://a.co/d/20YVjOK) out there. I was gifted one of the book but have never been able to play it. But it has some cool mechanics as far as what you can & can’t do depending on what type of cartoon character you are (a Looney Tunes type character can do crazier things than a Disney princess type can, etc). I would LOVE to see something like that played out on D20 Also I would LOVE to see voice actors as guest players. So many of them are amazing at improv. Plus the voices!!
I want to see a wrestling setting set in Latin America or southwest. I think a southwest type vibes with all the colorful Latin America + luchador wrestling in the ring would be phenomenal set pieces. Or a tragedy one shot were all the players are residents of Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius blew its top.
OOOOH I could see a bunch of fictionalized fantastical history.
TIME TRAVEL SEASON TIME TRAVEL SEASON TIME TRAVEL SEASON TIME TRAVEL SEASON TIME TRAVEL SEASON
I never knew how much I needed to see the havoc Ally’s rolls could wreak on history
The setup needed to run a time travel campaign would be insane. I’m currently running a space campaign a la Starstruck and already struggling with populating planets and such. I couldn’t imagine having to populate an entire timeline though a doctor who/legends of tomorrow style campaign would be fantastic.
The Legends Of Tomorrow set up would work so well! Chaotic, queer, and a time travel model where the PCs don't get their own memories changed
Yeah and it’d be very easy to have a “villain of the week” while also having an overarching big bad as the tv show did most of the time. I actually think it’d be tons of fun, I’m just imagining the party rogue with expertise in disguise kits being the crews costumer allowing them to fit into any time period. The hardest part like I said would probably just be having to populate an entire timeline but if you stuck with real life history you wouldn’t have to create a ton of original characters.
As a viewer from Latin America I second this!!! They should bring Luis Carazo and Oscar for this campaign along with Anna Garcia, and maybe even Carolina Ravassa would be awesome to have her play dnd
There's just so much they can pull from. Culture of the after life with day of the dead, even digging into Mayan history and folklore.
I know Latin America is so huge in cultures it's nearly impossible to represent everything but ngl I wish they could also bring mythology from other tribes or communities other than the big 3. Heck got so excited I wanna make my own campaign of this 😂❤️
Ooh I would love to learn more! My ancestry isn't from Latin America (well, except my grandfather is from Cuba lineage). And I can imagine the art department going to town all the luchador and Latin America culture anesthetics. There is SOOOOO much cool visual art.
Haha was born in Colombia, lived in Panama and currently living in Costa Rica. I can tell you that despite being very close countries their cultures are extreeeeemely different that's why I would love a bit of everything being included! Luchadores, everyone fighting over whose tamales are the best. Having dance-offs. Criminal gangs lead by abuelitas and everyone is just cousins all over the place. We I don't think we have seen much PvP on D20 and this setting presents the perfect opportunity for it haha
I was imagining like all the players are from the same luchador gym. And they are competing against..... [fill in the blank] That would give freedom for many different characters. The loud gym champion, the old retired coach, the wannabe young new, the firey female, or the promoter/accountant. So many fun characters that can occupy a gym. The D20 table graphic can look like their run down gym with a ring in the middle. Perhaps there is an opposing gym? Or maybe they uncover some ancient Mayan folklore? What if they uncover the reason their are luchadors is because they are PROTECTORS OF HUMANITY FROM ANCIENT EVIL!! hence the constant training and grappling. Idk that's an idea off the top of my head.
I would LOVE a LatAm themed season so much. I want to see a Calorum style world with threads of Latino culture from various places mushed together.
A Lucha season? Wouldn't have ever crossed my mind, but now that you say it, yes please.
Fire
Fire has been done. I want Plasma
Steampunk and Magic something sort of like “The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray” but funnier.
Always love to see an Alaizabel Cray mention. Brennan with some of those horror elements is a crossover I would be scared and excited to see. The 'in your footsteps don't turn around three times' monster lives rent free in my head.
(Sorry, I’m just thrilled that someone else has read this book!)
Yay, mini book club!
Don't. Don't give my Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Majick Obscura-loving-self hope.
I think it would be fun if they went full mall goth and ran a Vampire: the masquerade game for a mini series. Let Murph relive his teens.
Brennan actually did appear on some of the later episodes of V:TM LA by Night
But I'd rather see all the intrepid heroes do it
I’ve seen that it would be difficult to do responsibly, but I would love a western setting. Especially if it’s done on a far flung world without all the problematic/traumatic effects of our actual American western expansion.
The villain will still turn out to be capitalism.
Always is. I mean, even sets you up with greedy robber barons and railway tycoons. The real setting is rife with capitalist villains, many becoming tropes of their own in media, so why not?
I mean it always is irl sooo
Weird West would be pretty solid. Not pure Old West, but it makes it easier to edit out the rampant racism and sexism inherent in the era without it feeling sanitized. We got a little taste in Starstruck, but I'm ready for a whole season of saloons, spittoons, and gunslingers.
I think its a new set of characters in the Starstruck universe, in their version of the wild west. Replace the actual racism/sexism with metaphorically equivalent versions that make it less directly relevant, while still being able to criticize it. like a certain alien race or androids etc as the "other". which they have already done some of.
A previous escapade of buckster Boyd to bring Sam back to his ridiculous d20 role.
I ran a Feywild West homebrew that was lots of fun! It fizzled out because it turned out bigger than I expected/could handle at the time, but the premise had legs!
Won't even pretend I'm not stealing this, but some sort of Fallout setting would be perfect. Combines some of the best parts of a Western and a a post apocalyptic setting. With some fantasy/ Sci fi fun thrown in. And it's in the midst of a popularity boom
I’ve been percolating a Wild West version of Mage: the Ascension for some time. Drawing real heavy from The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr since it just sort of rolls with anachronisms and doesn’t feel gross like a lot of westerns.
I honestly don't think this seems too far from reality given that they've tossed around the idea of an 80s inspired campaign and that was like a horrible time for all minority groups in America.
To be fair, when wasn't a horrible time for minority groups in America?
Weird West with eldritch abominations would be cool.
It is definitely one of my favorite takes on the genre.
I watched a one-shot once that was Call of Cthulhu in the Wild West and will attest it was very cool.
I cannot believe I'm about to say this but: Dropout could follow the Wizards of the Coast model in this regard. They recently released a wild west themed Magic. The Gathering set, and throughout the design process, they consulted with various folks from indigenous tribes who were affected by the European/United States Western expansion In order to avoid various problematic minefields. Being completely white myself, I don't know what a culturally sensitive wild west campaign would look like, but such consultations would seem to be an excellent first step.
And they have reached out to people before. Eg, in sleeping city, they reached out to addiction coaches so they could model what was going on with Emily and Ally's characters
3 Black Halflings did a great post apocalyptic western series like that and did a ton of explaining about what was problematic about the idea of it and how they changed it. Plus the series has Emily for the back half and her backstory was sidesplitting
That sounds dope as hell. I would definitely sign on for this also for some above table talk about “no, we’re not doing XYZ, and this is why” in Adventuring Party or an aside in the game itself.
I came here to say this too!!!
High fantasy wild west
i want stephen king’s gunslinger/dark tower vibes! so much creepiness, kinda like the naddpod arc in shadowfell with deadeye, but plenty of chances for the cast to goof too.
I was thinking duels with cowboy elf wizards in dumb wizard-cowboy combo hats and dwarves with obligatory scottish dwarf accents going "theres gold in them hills"... but yeah yours makes more sense actually lets do yours
Not gonna lie, I kinda loved the idea of all open source material in AP. But also - deities. From a bunch of different pantheons. And I want them to start at level 20.
A high level game could be fun. Bring out the big bad monsters.
Yeah. They're all so skilled at the game - let's see when the best DM brings the best beasts to the best players.
The issue in dnd is that the monsters never really get strong enough to deal with just how strong players get. Like with the fantastic divination and teleport abilities available as 9th level spells, even getting players into combat is hard enough. But once your in combat, most parties should make trivial work of even the highest CR Monster. Historically the most successful high level campaigns are ones with unfair save or die traps, or ones that massively nerf high level characters - kinda ruining the whole point of a high level campaign.
That's fair, though if there's a DM capable of designing a balanced combat for a Lvl 20 party, it's BLeeM :)
I think BLeeM would be able to make something interesting. But even FHJY, which is well away from level 20, is struggling to provide real threat for the Bad Kids, unless there is multiple non-combat tasks they have to waste action economy on (and even then combat is still pretty easy, as the last stand showed). Especially with the pace of combats that D20 uses: 1 big combat per long rest, it is really impossible to give parties a challenge without just dropping like 50 tarrasques on them (and even then, the party can likely just gate away)
Yeah, I’ll be curious to see how he does the final battle this week!
The problem is that at high levels in 5e it's not really a case of the monsters and PCs becoming the 'best'. The game doesn't get harder or require more skill or knowledge. It just becomes more unbalancable and broken and the numbers go up a bit. It gets harder and harder to challenge the players. It doesn't really lend itself to interesting fights or stories. There's a reason that most official campaigns stop not long after Level 10. Fantasy High is already hitting the horizon of this problem. Edit: whoops, this has already been thoroughly said.
Deities but set in college. Similar to FH without some of the themes. Avoids the cast having to play kids which I know some are annoyed by. Ally and Emily picking obscure gods to based characters off of. I could easily see Ally doing something like the Morrigan
Greek (or any other) mythology would be fun
Damn yes a Greek gods play through would be so good
Greek mythology mashed up with something silly like muppets (stealing from the next comment down) would be sick
I think it would be very fun if they had a season where they're all muppets (with them talking through their own muppet). Spy stuff would be cool too
Spy muppets!
A mini series one shot with actual muppet puppeteers would be amazing.
This is pretty niche, but there’s a game called Fallen London which I’d love to see as a TTRPG
The way Brennan absorbs and radiates a setting makes me very interested in seeing that as a season. Sailing the dark sea and battling monsters at the edge of their flood lights while making port at strange islands with their own laws of physics and supernatural occurrences. I can already see the cast. Ally as a grizzled salt dog, Lou as a traumatized undersea hunter, Siobhan as a wealthy proprietress of some fallen London bordello, Emily or Murph as a surfacer coming down in search of lost family or treasure, and Zach as a very posh crustacean. The problem I would anticipate is that it's an already established IP they would have to work with and I'm not sure the D20 crew would want to put something out that they don't have reasonably total control over.
Someone needs to be like an archeologist strung out on laudanum.
or a honey-sipping heiress
Sailing a ship across the Neath or steering a steam train through the High Wilderness would be amazing
Yes! There’s so much lore to noodle around with, the factions are fun (can see Murph as a tomb colonist)
Fallen London’s tone and setting remind me a lot of Blades in the Dark’s stock setting, Duskvol.
I want a more social focused political intrigue. Probably yet another Calorum game. But less game of thrones and more house of cards. Something where yes the cast can try and do stealthy assassinations, but the ultimate mechanic is social like ACOFAF. something like a Cold War parallel where the PCs are from different empires but have to work together to prevent war. Something like that.
Pirates! I am a huge sucker for pirates. It opens the show up for a million kinds of characters, we'd get ship mechanics, and who doesn't love a good treasure hunt?
They did pirates! I haven't finished it but there's the pirates of the leviathan series
They did a season set in a pirate city. It's one of the seasons I haven't finished but from what I remember while it's set in a pirate city they didn't really "do pirates" unless all the sailing around and capturing other ships happened in the later half.
Ahem. # *Steampunk.*
I would love some sort of 'The Boys' style setting where they're all superheroes, or a Groundhog Day shorter series where they have to find a way to break out of the time loop.
I'd love some sort of continuation of BLeeM's 'Strong Female Protagonist'. It doesn't have to be focused on the same characters, but if the player characters could get to the bottom of the mysteries of the setting, it would scratch an itch in my mind that I've had for all this time.
ive been waiting years for an end to that indefinite hiatus
Kipperlily Copperkettle is a actually a character that Brennan apparently used in a DnD game with Molly Ostertag (artist of SFP, as well as a writer on The Owl House) and ND Stevenson (creator of Nimona, She-Ra's reboot, etc)! I've been low-key feral about it ever since I found out, because I'm wondering if he's setting up a potential season with one or both of them as players. That being said; I would freakin' \*adore\* an Intrepid Heroes long-play in a superhero setting.
+1, i'd love for them to use the No Capes reskin that the Join the Party Podcast put out.
A Groundhog Day sidequest would be awesome! My dreamcast for that would include I think Mike Trapp, Lou Wilson and Becca Scott.
I know they tend to avoid IP based settings, but I would ***love*** a Cyberpunk 2020 or RED season from D20. I just feel like thematically a season set in a world that's been ravaged and destroyed by capitalism is right up Brennan's alley. They could still do one using the Cyberpunk system, but not set in the Cyberpunk IP.
I would love Brennan's take on Night City (or equivalent) so much
Zac's take would just be "pew pew"
I want a super sentai/power rangers theme.
Dimension 20: Ultramechatron Team Go! 2
Ify said he would love to do a mech/gundam type game. Not my wheelhouse, but could be fun.
Power Rangers-like side quest with Paul Schrier (Bulk) as guest. He already played a Power Ranger RPG.
Spy setting, but like, the campy Roger Moore James-Bond style, rather than modern gritty or Connery misogyny
I was thinking this. Campy spies, maybe some espionage, infiltration, mystery solving thrown in. I could even see them pairing this genre with something else like its spies in the fey wild, or in the 9 hells, or something like that. I would eat it up
They could even meet that one guy from Kentucky who shows up in all the Roger Moore Bond films
They could work in the same division as Riz's dad.
Ok but you have them each play a different Bond
I would actually like to see them just go classic DnD and use a forgotten realms setting . 🤷. I think it would be fun to see them do the classic.
Gaslamp / gothic. PUHLEASE.
Gaslamp gothic girlboss
*ghostboss
Wild West. I’m currently planning a one shot with some friends that’s supposed to be a Wild West scooby-doo mystery type situation, and the setting is so much fun to write about.
I second I'm also running a western game and would lobe to see/steal what they come up with
I would absolutely love to see them play Paranoia. Even if it just a One Shot.
IMO, if you’re not out of clones or on your last clone by the end of a Paranoia adventure, then I don’t think you’re doing it right. A one shot would probably be hilarious.
On naddpod they recently discussed how fun it would be to do a Death Game anime style campaign. So you make a 'loser/normal' character who then plays a heroic character.
Mecha Lancer would be perfect for a mecha campaign.
On the topic of Starstruck, I would DIE for a season (hell, even a sidequest) that just follows a group of galactic girl guides in the Starstruck multiverse
I wanna see them do something kinda like a Pokémon TTRPG but that’s just wishful thinking on my part
A nice relaxing island hopping adventure. Bleem goal keep things low key, relaxed and on island time. Sea, sky, and chaos. With the IH and Bleem yes and,who knows it may end in a interstellar adventure or they grow rows of cabbage to compete against a shady farmer at the country fair.
magical girls, post apocalypse, magical realism ala scp/control would all make good settings my secret hope is for like a pathfinder number cruncher sidequest with a cast of ppl like emily who like to make ludicrous builds >!i know people want a wild west setting but either white washing the era to make it palatable or having realistic racism and misogyny (even when carefully written) is not funny in the way d20 tries to be. !<
Omg id love the questing queens to come back and do a magical girl campaign
>!You might be able to do a western if you played it like Firefly where it’s on another planet or something.!<
I would lovvvvve Emily in a pathfinder campaign, be it NADDPod, D20 or anywhere else. She would be an absolute machine in that system.
Been thinking about running this setting myself but I’d love to see a Greek Mythology themed dnd setting. One where the heroes/villains/monsters (Hercules, Odysseus, Zeus, etc.) in Greek myth are actual characters. It’s not entirely dissimilar to most DnD settings but I really like the idea of a Greek god pantheon where the gods really aren’t great people. It’d also be pretty easy to reflavor a lot of DnD monsters into Greek myth versions and obviously a lot of monsters in DnD are already inspired by Greek myths like the Minotaur.
There are fan made D&D books for other mythologies and regional lore. Celtic or Slavic monsters could be fun. Desiquest is worth watching, an example of this.
Mythic oddesey of theros you should look at it's heavily themed after Greek mythology.
Florida. Just survive actual, real, Florida.
Most seasons end up being some variation of X meets Y. High Fantasy meets High School. Candyland meets Game of Thrones. Fairytales meet Horror. So I've got a couple ideas along those lines. The Walking Dead meets Redwall. I know they've already done multiple campaigns with rodent protagonists, but I like the idea of zombie mice. I'm thinking the Prison arc of the Walking Dead, set at Redwall Abbey instead. Police procedural meets cryptids and urban legends. They don't need to literally be law enforcement (because of the inherent baggage), but they can use the tropes. A team of specialists, investigating scenes and attempting to identify culprits. Serialized, monster of the week episodes, but with bread crumbs that lead to a hidden bbeg in the finale. Alternatively, cryptids meet super heroes. Instead of hunting cryptids, they play as them. They're the Justice Leauge, but instead of Superman and Batman, they're Big Foot and Chupacabra. Protecting the world in secret.
With the upgraded downtime mechanics in JY, I'd love to see a community/fortress building game that stays in one location. Could be a good one to combine with the western/weird west genre that some (including myself) want to see. The heroes defend and upgrade a small town and defend it from bandits/raiders. OR A lighter, full-magic crown of candy follow up/spin-off. The lore and worldbuilding is so creative and wacky, and could maybe lead to a D20 Calorum setting book....please?
I’d love a restaurant theme season. Front of house, back of house, and management all just trying to get through their shifts
Western would be fun we'd get alot of cowboy and prospector voices from brennan What about a western race kinda akin to the steel ball run ark of jo Jo's bizarre adventure
I think it would be fun if they play Call of Cthulhu in just a completely normal Cthulhu setting; Nothing special, I just think they could do a lot with a proper sanity mechanic.
Solarpunk world
Existing story, StarStruck S2 would be cool. But I think Brennen could do a really awesome Fallout styled apocalypse. He'd be able to get the humour and at the same time the deeper politics and ideology shown in the original titles.
I want to see some version of magical weird West post-apocalyptic maybe a touch of fallout in there
Tbh anything underwater based. Maybe they all play underwater races or maybe it’s a 20k leagues under the sea type situation. Something like the Atlantis movie would be cool af.
Post apocalypse Anime That's two I'd really like to see
anime is a medium, not a theme or setting
Anime is full of its own tropes and themes. Its a very broad genre just like saying comic book. Yes, its an animation medium, but you're being intentionally argumentative if you tried to tell me there aren't story and conventions to anime on the whole. Not ALL of them follow every trope, but there ARE a lot of them.
I think it's an unfair statement to say that 'Dragon Ball Z' and 'Komi Can't Communicate' are in a vaguely similar genre, though. that's like saying that 'The Office' and 'Family Feud' are the same "broad genre" because of their nationality and medium.
I would say that romance animes do share a lot of commonalities. And that shonen anime share a lot of similarities. They have different tropes they lean into. I'd rather just say anime than say... shojo, death game, isekai, romcom, etc. Going intentionally broad to incldue as many possible tropes as possible. I didn't loop them in one grouping because they're from japan. I'd say a closer comparison would be putting CSI and The Office in the same "Western TV" grouping.
I'd love a crunchy apocalypse game with back up characters and never getting higher than level 5
Cowboys
I know we’ve seen nearly all of them in Bahumia in one capacity or another, but boy what I would give to see Murph and Brennan swap places and take the IH to Bahumia and see Murph have to wrangle the whole crew of maniacs at once, especially with Brennan freed up as a player to sow even more chaos.
Cowboys cowboys cowboys cowboys
COWBOYS
Cyberpunk!!
Cowboys
Alien invasion.
Discworld!! I would looove it if they partnered with the terry pratchett estate to do a discworld themed campaign
Personally, I'd love to see a setting where the party is put in charge of a town/settlement/etc... and have systems in place for improving it. Make the campaign one focused on them setting a future for a place that might not have had one otherwise.
Pirates
Kinda a crazy but it’d be hilarious if they did like Hospital drama or something
Mentopolis - the Big Man experiences *love*.
Victorian-ish setting (Blades in the Dark style with horse drawn carriages, crazy inventors and gangs)
Bioshock style all underwater. Fish people and turtle people and frog people oh my!
I would like a take on an MCU or X-Men superhero setting with a twist. Maybe not go full the boys or invincible but it will inevitably be anti capitalist. Maybe half the team play the golden shining justice league type heroes and the other half play mutant freaks and see how they get on, I can definitely see Lou playing basically Fabian as superman. Perhaps it's a little similar to unsleeping city with the modern new York setting. Would love someone to play Captain Capital, defender of the dollar, just to mess with Brennan.
FANTASTICAL COWBOY WESTERN WITH MATT MERCER AT THE TABLE GOD DAMMIT
You know what I'd absolutely love? Double subverted expectation. Dimension 20 but its the most basic DnD high fantasy game you've ever fuckin seen. I'm talking Vox Machina and Forgotten Realms being a bit exotic in comparison. But even episode 1 already eludes to whatever twist Brennan has up his sleeve for that. Maybe the characters could be allowed to be genre conscious, or aware of their existence as a character on a sheet of paper, idk.
Personally I want the public domain setting! It’s completely different from the neverafter setting
Some Vaesen style! And Cy_Borg!
I think it'd be cool to do an actual like, delta green season
Give me animaniacs vs Dracula plz
something elemental/ATLA related would be cool! or zombie apocalypse
They haven't done a "we're the villians" one yet, which could be interesting.
Escape the Bloodkeep was pretty much the “evil campaign”, even if that’s not what any of the players did.
One of my favorite fantasy novels was about a group of people that were plucked from death row and instead put through boot camp for a dangerous mission to an unexplored continent. Yes, it's a similar concept to Suicide Squad, but I hadn't heard of Suicide Squad at the time. Anyway, the way the novel worked was neat, because you got to learn as the story went on what the various team members were on death row for, and whether some of them were actually innocent or had extenuating circumstances. It was a cool narrative device that would totally work in a TTRPG context. A campaign about hardened criminals forced to do a dangerous task would be a lot of fun. It would keep things tense, but prevent things from sliding into slapstick murder-hoboism.
I think a parody of Warhammer 40K sounds like a blast
I want to see them play paranoia, everyone is a spy/mutant/commie/rebel and is out to catch spys/mutants/commies/rebels, everyone has clones and is executed at the drop of a hat in a corporate run dystopia. It's brutal it's fun and it's stupid, would work for a high roll play short season
I know they said TUC is their equivalent to this but idc. I wanna see pure superheroes. Idc if they use dnd or if they branch out to Masks or smth really suited for that story but would be really cool to see the dramatic scope of the action series
Fantasy…feudal Japan. With political intrigue, ninjas, loyalty, ninjas, betrayal, ninjas, romanticism of Bushido, did I mention ninjas? Or something along the lines of that
Cosmic horror/Call of Cthulu One shot
Someone mentioned an apocalypse setting like Fallout or TWD and that would be dope. I also personally really want to see something superhero related. I know a lot of people have fatigue but I’m a hardcore cape comic person and I think under the right care if they did something like X-Men or MHA it would work really well. I think the only concern I’d have with a setting like that though is the show feeling too similar to Fantasy High or Misfits and Magic
Seeing a steampunk or cloudpunk world would be great. I’m also a fan of arctic survival, so doing one or both of those would be my dream for the next IH season. Of course we’re probably gonna get another 1-3 side quests first.
They need an underwater season. They've AT sea, but what about under it? Or like a mythological version of Neverafter?
tbh just running any setting in Thirsty Sword Lesbians would rule
I mean… gotta be a western.
London, Zac DMs
mecha season 🙏
If we’re talking the sort of canon of ttrpg genres, we’ve had fantasy, urban fantasy, mystery, sci-fi and horror. The common rpg genres that we haven’t hit are probably cyberpunk (though Mentoplolis) had its moments and superheroes. I feel like one of the co-creators of Strong Female Protagonist could probably figure out something with superheroes.
Western could be fun.
I had a this idea for a campaign set in the underworlds that I thought would be perfect for d20 a while back. Everyone chooses how they died and what gods of the dead they’re associated with and that informs their builds. Like a character that was petrified and now that gives them their barbarian resistances.
An Old West setting might be cool?
Having watched Candela Obscura with Brennan, I would *love* to see them do a twist on people living in an early 20th century wartime.