Weirdest RPG Ever?

"Red Aegis" by The James Brothers.

Printed and Distributed by Vorpal Games.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9982809-0-5 - Hardcover - 316 Pages.

People occasionally ask me what the strangest role playing game I ever saw was.

"Red Aegis" wins this award hands down.

At the start of your adventure for the session, you create a hero who gains followers and begins to form a clan, then to forge a dynasty, and perhaps form an empire. They go to fields of battle and possibly conquer part of the world, and then die. This is the whole first session of the game.

The next time you meet, you are running a descendant of your original hero. From the primeval world, and on to the next age.

These are:

01 - The Age of Blood and Bronze

02 - The Metal Rebellion

03 - The Age of Silent Thunder

04 - The Days of Righteous Irony

05 - The Time of Inward Knives

06 - The Age of Tranquil Concordance

07 - The Age of Shock Media Insurgeants

08 - The Age of Frozen Tears

09 - The Sentience

Over ten sessions, you progress from the Caveman era all the way past the Space Age. Each of these is a new character, a descendant of your original character eventually going back nine generations. I'm not kidding - your primary character =dies= at the end of every session.

I've tried this the game's way (one session = one character) but based on the =many= comments on what happened, I ran it again with =four= sessions per character - Youth, Adulthood, Middle-Age, and Old Age. My players liked this idea a lot more, but virtually everyone agreed that we would not play this game again.

However, the best way to use this book is in the eventual evolution of your game world. Who says that it has to be a medieval fantasy forever? I've carried player characters from a pretty standard medieval fantasy to a Steampunk type of campaign with lots of support.

I can't recommend this game to everyone, but as a resource, it's pretty good.