Description
Thousands and thousands of amazing ideas—for any game. For every game!
You’ve already got dragons, and magic spells, and alien planets, and werewolves, and superheroes in your game. Why would you need it to be any weirder?
Because, when you get down to it, what is weird other than new and interesting—and who doesn’t want their stories and characters to be more interesting? Dragons and alien planets and… we’ve all seen them before. Sure, you can still make them compelling or create a gripping story around them—but to do that? You’re probably going to add something new and interesting.
You’re going to make them, in some respect, weird.
Weird might mean dark, unsettling, or difficult to understand—but it doesn’t have to. Weird can fit into any game, at any table. It brings mystery, interest, and curiosity to places where things might start to feel stale or repetitive. Think of it this way: when you first started playing RPGs, they were exciting, new, and utterly captivating, right? The weird is just a way to keep fueling that feeling, no matter how long you’ve been playing. And whether you want something interesting, surprising, over-the-top gonzo, or even whimsical, you’ll find a seemingly unending stream of inspiration no matter what your game system, genre, or style.
10,000+ incredible ideas that will make your game even more engaging and memorable!
The Weird contains more than 100 lists of ideas, each over 100 entries long—that’s well over 10,000 (more like 12,000) mind-bending bursts of inspiration. The lists are organized by genre, so you can easily reference those best suited for your game, whether it’s science-fiction, horror, fantasy, or whatever. Use them during game prep or on the fly to build great characters, encounters, or campaigns.
Say the PCs just wandered into a bar—and you don’t want it to be like, well, every other bar or tavern. Flip to one of the Weird NPC lists and make the owner or a patron really unique. Or run with any of the following:
- Hanging above the restroom door is something from the Weird Unexpected Object list—like a human skull made of blue bone; dual candles shaped like two halves of different people’s heads, or a taxidermied cuttlefish of impressive size.
- A boisterous patron bears a Weird Tattoo, such as flames in the outline of a crow; the solar system, but with Jupiter misspelled as “Jupter”; or an elaborate key (that lets the bearer open any door with a touch).
- The bar suffers from something on the Weird Hauntings list: haunted scissors driven to sever fingers; a windup monkey toy that starts up at 11:11 p.m. every night; rat skeletons wearing tiny red bowties; or maybe a ghost from the future—of someone who isn’t dead yet!
Perhaps there’s an unexplained object sitting on the bar (colored by an entry on the Weird Typical Item Enhancements list). Or the some of the patrons use a Weird Way to Communicate. Or there’s a resident dog, affected by a Weird Creature Appearance. You’ll never run out of ways to make this bar scene unique and memorable—and to bring that same color and verver to any location, character, creature, encounter, or plotline.
Exactly as weird as you need it.
A magical bow that creates snakes and looses them like arrows. A sorcerer whose powerful spells feed off their own brain tissue, slowly killing them. A man accompanied by the (friendly?) floating eye of a slain demon lord. A sword that inflicts wounds that scream. A gun that fires intelligent bullets.
You may want something completely over the top—or maybe your campaign is a bit more traditional. Not every game calls for the same level of weirdness. There are different kinds of weird, and they aren’t just a hierarchy or a matter of degree. They have different moods, different tones, and different uses in a game. The Weird puts every prompt into a category: Interesting, Surprising, Gonzo, and Whimsical.
Interesting: “You don’t see that every day.” The cat is bright red.
Surprising: “Wait. That’s impossible.” The cat can speak all human languages.
Gonzo: “WTF?” Instead of hairballs, the cat coughs up tiny robot versions of itself.
Whimsical: “Is this a dream?” The cat’s songs create a bridge to the moon.
Choose your weird idea from among the zillions of options. Or roll randomly based on the level of weirdness you’re looking for. Either way, you’ll never run out of amazing prompts that will help you run and play amazing, engaging, and memorable games!
Example Tables
This list is for the odd requirements of a ritual, a spell, or other magical praxis that needs to be more elaborate than a few arcane words and gestures. These requirements are for any such ritual, encouraging the sort of weirdness true to fantasy fiction, but quickly going beyond incense and chants. Some requirements are relatively easy to perform or obtain, and others are more difficult, or even downright perilous. Whether these requirements only need to be in the area (or are the area), are held or manipulated by the performer, or are expended in some way depends on the ritual and the GM’s opinion.
Sure, there are mythical beasts and alien monstrosities, but sometimes, plain old animals can give PCs a dose of weirdness. Use this list of options for animals on alien planets, in fantasy environments, or just something weird on the farm. If you get a result that doesn’t fit the environment you want (say, a fish but you wanted a land animal), try adapting it a bit to work. A shark with a jackal face that lives on land might even be better than one in the water.
Where does magic come from? What powers the hyperdrive? How can that person lift a bus over their head? Use this list to determine where the unearthly power originates from.
