Interesting Concepts for Unusual Settings (Guess what they are about)

[ZeroGear]

I'm sure people have at some point seen a movie, read a book, or played a game where they said: "wow, I want to run a game with a setting lake THAT!"

I'm dedicating this thread for mentioning concepts and settings that many have seen that they feel would be a good inspiration for games.
Feel free to post the description of the setting and plot. If you want to, leave out the origin and seep if people can guess where it's from.
Allow me to start:

Setting 1:
The players are citizens in a city full of people that lost their memories of events that happened more than 40 years ago. They work as investigators, talking to clients that may hold clues to the happenings of the cities forgotten past. Between the interaction heavy investigations, they also have to defend the populace from massive threats while piloting a giant mech, seemingly giving the power of gods to mortal hands.

Spoiler: Answer

Show

Big O

Setting 2:
The characters are hunters in a gothic city full of monstrous horrors that come out at night. Running though the dark and bloody streets, the characters must face the threats of ancient evils and mad townsfolk that have grown twisted due to some strange disease. Blood, action, and horror mark the events that lead the players down the road of madness as they try to find the dark secret of the city.

Spoiler: Answer

Show

Bloodborne

Setting 3:
What goes on in the world of computers? Players experience what it's like in the digital world as they take on the roles of security programs to decent the mainframe city form viruses and bugs that threaten to destroy it.

Spoiler: Answer

Show

Tron or ReBoot

Setting 4:
Can you reach your new home? That is the question that each player will be asked as they see the world from the viewpoint of animals. Slipping into the persona of a little forest creature (rabbit, bat, shrew, squirrel), the characters must face the threats of a world out to do them harm as they try to find (and survive) their way to their new forest (or burrow).

Spoiler: Answer

Show

Watership Down or Silverwig

Try to guess what I'm referring to here and post your own ideas.

PS: added answers in spoilers

[AceOfFools]

I've written and run a one shot using BESM that was:

High Fantasy Bachelorette
The prrince(ss) of an incredibly vast magical empire is having a contest to determine who will win their hand in marriage. You play eligible bachelors that have to overcome the challenges she set (in the one shot a trade dispute between neighboring towns) while the prince(ss)'s agents watch over you and judge your fitness to be the next Emperor/Empress.

[Cealocanth]

No idea on the first three (I tend to be hindered by lack of exposure to certain media), but setting 4 sounds like Mouseguard. Maybe you could put the answers in spoilers underneath the settings?

I have a couple for you.

The players are all sentient AI programs that exist in an attemptedly realistic, yet aged and flawed, simulated reality. While their avatars in such a program makes them appear as humanoid robots, their programming has been advancing and developing for long enough to form human levels. They travel throughout this world under the command of a seemingly omnipotent AI designed to be the voice of law, all the while being taunted and tempted by a near-invisible AI designed to plant the seeds of doubt. Upon the realization that this reality is false and limited, the players look for a way to escape.

Spoiler: Answer

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The Talos Principle (videogame)

In the near future where everything from Earth can be produced synthetically, Mars has been colonized in search of objects of true value - fossils of Mars's now extinct lifeforms. This has generated a fossil rush that has attracted thousands to the red planet's wastes in search of wealth, some of which could barely afford to travel with the clothes on their back, and some of which have paid to be transformed into completely synthetic humans which can more easily handle Mars's conditions. The players are investigators who live within the only city on Mars where the true rulers are those with the most money, people come in and out of power as fast as a new fossil is uncovered, and those that survive are those that can adapt to a city evolving faster than any organism. Somewhere in the sprawling red planet's city, someone has been committing a string of murders.

Spoiler: Answer

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Robert J. Sawyer's Red Planet Blues

[mephnick]

Number 2 is Bloodborne and I would set every game from now on in that setting if I was proactive enough to make it.

The Souls games in general would make great settings, but I can't even think about how to transfer them to TTRPGs without being super "gamey". I'm not sure it's something I can model in D&D or CoC, which are the only two systems I'm deeply familiar with.

[Karl Aegis]

I'm sure people have at some point seen a movie, read a book, or played a game where they said: "wow, I want to run a game with a setting lake THAT!"

I'm dedicating this thread for mentioning concepts and settings that many have seen that they feel would be a good inspiration for games.
Feel free to post the description of the setting and plot. If you want to, leave out the origin and seep if people can guess where it's from.
Allow me to start:

Setting 1:
The players are citizens in a city full of people that lost their memories of events that happened more than 40 years ago. They work as investigators, talking to clients that may hold clues to the happenings of the cities forgotten past. Between the interaction heavy investigations, they also have to defend the populace from massive threats while piloting a giant mech, seemingly giving the power of gods to mortal hands.

Setting 2:
The characters are hunters in a gothic city full of monstrous horrors that come out at night. Running though the dark and bloody streets, the characters must face the threats of ancient evils and mad townsfolk that have grown twisted due to some strange disease. Blood, action, and horror mark the events that lead the players down the road of madness as they try to find the dark secret of the city.

Setting 3:
What goes on in the world of commuters? Players experience what it's like in the digital world as they take on the roles of security programs to decent the mainframe city form viruses and bugs that threaten to destroy it.

Setting 4:
Can you reach your new home? That is the question that each player will be asked as they see the world from the viewpoint of animals. Slipping into the persona of a little forest creature (rabbit, bat, shrew, squirrel), the characters must face the threats of a world out to do them harm as they try to find (and survive) their way to their new forest (or burrow).

Try to guess what I'm referring to here and post your own ideas.

I'm going to hazard some guesses:
Setting 1: The Big O
Setting 2: I dunno, pffft, Red Garden? I've never actually seen Red Garden, I just assume that's what goes on.
Setting 3: It's probably Reboot, but they don't really commute in Reboot at all
Setting 4: Straight up Watership Down, yo

For my contribution:
An archipelago where knowing someone's name give you power over them. Only wizards and dragon know how to speak the language of True Names, dragons being the native speakers of the language and wizards spending their entire lives to learn a small fragment of the language. Natives of the archipelago don't introduce themselves to strangers, instead giving a name to someone based on what they've observed them doing, how they look, or where they live, such as Sparrowhawk, Blackbeard, or Mr. Underhill. A town never has more than one wizard because competition is unwanted and there is only one wizard academy in the archipelago where the best and brightest minds learn the language of magic.

[Cealocanth]

For my contribution:
An archipelago where knowing someone's name give you power over them. Only wizards and dragon know how to speak the language of True Names, dragons being the native speakers of the language and wizards spending their entire lives to learn a small fragment of the language. Natives of the archipelago don't introduce themselves to strangers, instead giving a name to someone based on what they've observed them doing, how they look, or where they live, such as Sparrowhawk, Blackbeard, or Mr. Underhill. A town never has more than one wizard because competition is unwanted and there is only one wizard academy in the archipelago where the best and brightest minds learn the language of magic.

That sounds an awful lot like Skyrim, although the geography and perhaps the names are a little bit off. If it's not that setting, it's probably one that shares a lot of features with it.

[Karl Aegis]

That sounds an awful lot like Skyrim, although the geography and perhaps the names are a little bit off. If it's not that setting, it's probably one that shares a lot of features with it.

A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) and The Rule of Names (1964) by Ursula K. Le Guin actually. The former is the first part of a trilogy of books and the latter is a short story. The only thing they share is the actual setting and a single character that may or may not spoil the stories if the character's name is revealed.

[ZeroGear]

I'm going to hazard some guess:
Setting 1: The Big O
Setting 2: I dunno, pffft, Red Garden? I've never actually seen Red Garden, I just assume that's what goes on.
Setting 3: It's probably Reboot, but they don't really commute in Reboot at all
Setting 4: Straight up Watership Downs, yo

Wow, 3 out of 4. Btw, I mean "computers" not "commuters" on number 3.
You only missed number 2, which is Bloodborne (nice job mephnick).

How about this one:

While traveling to America, the plane the players are on crashes into the sea. They are able to swim to safety by reaching a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean, where they are taken, via submarine, to a city under the water. There they must face the twisted inhabitants of a dystopian city, all while attempting to wrest control from the madman that pulls the "great chain" in these depths. Beware, the substance that empowers you may very well lead to your undoing.

Spoiler: Answer

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Bioshock

[dysprosium]

Setting 4:
Can you reach your new home? That is the question that each player will be asked as they see the world from the viewpoint of animals. Slipping into the persona of a little forest creature (rabbit, bat, shrew, squirrel), the characters must face the threats of a world out to do them harm as they try to find (and survive) their way to their new forest (or burrow).

Spoiler: Answer

Show

Watership Down or Silverwig

I have actually run this game in real life for D&D back in the 3.0 days. I had all of the players turned into rabbits and they had to escort a warren of rabbits to their new home.

[ZeroGear]

I have actually run this game in real life for D&D back in the 3.0 days. I had all of the players turned into rabbits and they had to escort a warren of rabbits to their new home.

How did it go?

Another contribution:
Welcome to a world of games. Each field here is little more than the program that lies behind the screens of arcade consoles. Players can travel from one to the other through the power lines, but beware: you may respawn in your home world, but if you die outside your machine it's permanent. Travel from worlds that fight massive alien bugs to racetracks made of candy and beyond. Adventure awaits, just be back before the store opens.

Spoiler: Answer

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Wreck-It-Ralph