#dnd idea

"Sweety, can you get me some groceries from the store"

"Please Mima, give me some strength for this upcoming battle!"

Probably not.

Will I do it anyway?

One party plays the heroes, the other the villains. You can either tell them outright ‘you’re the bad guys’ or let them both think they’re good.

The parties grow and chase down their goals slowly narrowing in on each other while the other groups actions effect them in world.

I always find it weird how merfolk are not written the way that they deserve. The ocean is the most dangerous place in the world, other than space. You have to be built to survive. And yet, in writing, mermaids are whimsical and beautiful and bright and colorful, but also dainty. Which is… weird. 

So, in a realistic setting, merfolk would either be timid and hide much, cunning and using their environment to their advantage, or dangerous hunters. 

So.. why not all 3? 

Introducing the 3 races of merfolk (these don’t have names, so if you come up with anything, please share!)

1). The timid

These guys are frail as hell. With very pale, almost see through skin, they’ve learned to adapt to live within dangerous plants. Since they have a resistance to anemone, like clownfish, they bred anemone to become much larger, for them to have a safe place to live. Evolution also made it to where they are the smallest of the merfolk, the tallest recorded merperson from this species coming in at 4’8. Being small and frail has its benefits. But while being so frail and timid, they are also very poisonous. They are extremely bright and shiny and use their poison as a defense mechanism. They have small, pufferfish like spikes that go down their neck to their backs, when threatened, these spikes bristles out and excrete poison. They live the closest to the surface. These guys tend to eat crustaceans and plants.

2). The cunning

These guys resemble average mermaids the most. Except for the fact that they have much darker scales for camouflage reasons, and their swordfish like horn sticking from their heads. These guys follow whales and sharks for safety reasons. They know a shark is never going to try and eat them, since they’re not worth the effort. However, to remain on the shark’s good side, they have a symbiotic relationship with them. Because sharks always to move in the water, these merfolk are nomads and never stay in one place for too long. They are the fastest of the merfolk, their average speed coming in at 80 miles per hour when they reach full maturity. They live moderately deep in the ocean. These guys tend to eat smaller fish, but never try going too dangerous, knowing it’s not worth it. They stay in their lane and hide behind the real terrifier.

3). The Dangerous

These guys have tough as hell blubber, rather than scales, coming in much more muted colors, like gray, slate, and chill blue. Being the tallest of the species, their average height comes in at 6’0. They have shark like teeth and huge hands. They’re heavy hitters too, their tails able to weigh in at 140 pounds alone. They can withstand freezing water, which is why they live so deep in the ocean. Their eyes are pitch black for night vision purposes and live in underwater caves. They only need around 3 hours of sleep every 24 hours. Unlike the other merfolk, these guys actually have a system where they mate for life, seeing it as beneficial for raising offspring. However, some are so dedicated to this that they refuse to mate, even after their lover has died. These guys tend to eat larger, meatier animals, sometimes even whales. Despite all this, they have an intense rivalry with orcas, as they tend to have much of the same diet. This rivalry is part of the reason why these guys decided to move down deeper. 

Essentially the plot of the game would be that a group of player joined a weird DND via like an online LFG, and once they joined and met at the location they all faint. They wake up in a medieval fantasy tavern as their characters, isekai style but every NPC is acting strange... Suddenly the roof gets grabbed by some giant hand, which turns out to belong to the GM who is a witch that shrunk the player and turned them into their characters so that they could play DND. All the NPC are also some random people that she shrunk and turned into characters and the whole map is like a huge series of interconnected terrariums that she as made. At first the game would be quite meta, with the players literally "Larping" while the "in game DM" throws the dices and narrates. I would personally allow metagaming in situations were the PCs are playing because they might know rules and such but they'd need to roll to make sure that the "in game DM" does not noticed that they're meta gaming. Each encounter could have some meta like

Bandits: Give me all your gold or I'll gut you like a chicken!

DM From above: Like a fish

Bandit: *sight* like a fish...

Other situations could be like;

DM: Suddenly a dragon appears! *drops gecko in the terrarium*

Players: *genuinely panicking*

DM: Guys chill. Guys. Guys! I won't let it actually attack you!

Gecko: *grabs some random NPC and shakes them around*

DM: Kiwi! Kiwi let go! LET GO!!

Eventually the game could become about the PCs trying to escape and find help and this becomes like a Borrowers style campaign!