Café de Nuit

I want to a game in which there is a train that is a domain. Anybody who gets on then does not get of and is then forever a passenger - never reaching his destination.

Perhaps every compartment serves a different purpose

Or something

Any ideas - regarding darklord, what happens, denizens etc.

Ideas:

This could work well as a dungeon crawl.

Each train car is in effect one dungeon level.

It is possible to skip over levels by opening a door or window and crawling on the outside of the train.

When the darklord seals the borders, the train's points of egress all become stuck fast, trapping passengers within and keeping anyone outside stuck outside. Anyone riding on the outside when the borders are sealed is liable to be hurled into the Mists!

The darklord can move freely between train cars, but cannot leave the train.

If the darklord is finally defeated, the train will either derail ( and possibly kill multiple passengers) or pull into its final destination.

I think the first thing would be to decide the specifics of how the train traps people "forever". Does this mean they don't age, or do they just live out the rest of their lives on the trains? Do they come back as ghosts like on the Phantom Train from Final Fantasy 6?

As far as train cars go, I think with the human tendency to seek alike and avoid differences, people would drift toward segregating themselves by background into different cars.

The most obvious idea of a darklord would be some twist on Casey Jones. Other choices might include train robbers or passengers with some special connection to the train. A person who caused the doom of everybody on the train to escape some personal punishment or a rail baron who called for the ruthless cutting down of anything that stood in the railroad's way might be two less directly derivative ideas.

One thing that comes to mind... the PCs hear from some locals that the train has X cars. (10? 20? whatever works for your needs.) They work they way through, heading up to the engine or back to the caboose for whatever reason. They finally get through X cars, and go beyond to their destination... only to find themselves back at the first car they were in. The train is a loop!

You might look at the Snow Piercer movie/graphic novels for society stuck on a train.

Wow - thank you everybody ! These are great ideas - really appreciate it.

Great ideas.

Here are some of my thoughts, some of which leap frog the ideas that others have posted (thanks for the brainfood!):

1. Once on the train the PCs cannot physically leave.

2. The train is a sort of spiritual or soul trap, existing in between worlds (call it the Mists if it helps simplify things).

3. Escape is only possible by helping some of those on the train find "Final Rest". In this regard final rest can denote the breaking of the illusion (proving that the "traveller" is in fact no longer of this earth), helping the traveller find something (a memento perhaps), something akin to solving a riddle, etc. Once this is accomplished the PC receives some sort of token than allows them to continue through the proceeding railcars. Perhaps it's the traveller's original ticket (or maybe something completely esoteric just for that wtf PC moment), which the PCs need to present to the train conductor...who acts as a modified phantasmal killer/grim reaper who is impartial to the PCs until the PCs attempt to force their way past, in which they become horrendously aggressive!

4. Most the other passengers on the train (if you want to include them for social rp/filler reasons) are "red herrings". The PCs can fully interact with them, have extended conversations, argue, flirt, whatever, but at the end of the day they are just (!) geists/phantoms (that seem as real as the PCs themselves). Perhaps they are the victims of the train that could not figure out how to proceed and/or exit the train. Everyone would have a story, but only one (an original passenger?) possesses the key to advance. As the PCs make their way through the railcars, presumably towards the engine room, maybe the passengers become fewer in number (one empty car just for the creep factor! )...?

5. If the PCs are slain on the train by the "conductor", then they become permanent passengers. At least, until they can explain their situation to the next unwitting passengers. With time, the PCs begin to forget what happened to them, making it harder and harder to explain their situation. A sort of memory recall would need to happen before they can make a request for the newly-arrived passenger(s) to help them. To them they are passengers with a (increasingly fabricated) destination...

6. The Engine Room. It's possible for the Dark Lord to be here, or it's entirely possible that the first passenger the PCs helped (that little orphan stowaway) was the Dark Lord, who is enjoying the game a little too much...(boy/girl who cried wolf-based backstory/curse?)

7. During the course of helping one of the passengers find final rest, the PCs are transported (misted) into the timeline of that passenger, equipped with only their own tickets that they originally received (for presentation to the conductor who, again, really really dislikes unscrupulous travellers!!). This alternative timeline allows them free access to the whole train, and allows the DM to open up the adventure possibilities/scale. Also doubles as a brainmuck feature. Once the passenger finds rest the PCs receive their "passage token" (that needs to be presented to the conductor), and on to the next car/timeline they go. If they fail to produce the right token to the conductor then they are trapped in the passenger's timeline (on the train), and for added difficulty they might also risk a very scary attack for presenting the wrong token. Use your imagination. I'm thinking the librarian in Ghostbusters, only maxed...even beyond that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark (opening the Ark) where the "angel" reveals her true nature!

I'll add more if/when they come to me, in the hopes that it'll get somebody's creative juices flowing.