One Campaign, Three Systems

[Pour]

So our campaign started 4e, and just passed a year milestone, about Paragon Tier. I love it, but I've just picked up the Pathfinder hardcover and read it straight through (I'd had the PDF but for me things absorb quicker when sitting down with a book). I also just got Call of Cthulhu for Christmas.

I'm considering running our game in three systems, 4e, Pathfinder and Call of Cthulhu, changing systems depending on a desired mood or play style for any given quest line. It'd require players to design their characters in Pathfinder and in CoC to use as needed.

I guess I'm asking if anyone else has done this, or if there are any huge, foreseeable issues in acting on this.

 

[Umbran]

I have run multi-system games before. I am not sure if it was really worth the extra effort.

If your players are okay with the disconnect - that in some systems they'll be able to use abilities not available in others, it can work well enough. However, as I recall CoC, the PCs are generally very low power. Pathfinder reaches up into the stratosphere by comparison. This may be an issue for your game.

You might have better luck porting some of the themes and systems from one game into another. For example, tacking a sanity system onto D&D/Pathfinder is pretty easy.

 

[Nikosandros]

It can be done, but it's rather tricky. PF and 4e are quite different and CoC, as Umbran pointed out, has a whole different approach about the power and survivability of characters.

One approach might be to have the PC explore different dimensions or realities. If D&D is the baseline, than CoC, for example, might represent some kind of nightmare reality in which the PC are weak and must avoid confrontations while discovering information that they may act upon while in their heroic selves.

 

[Byronic]

It could work at different power levels.

If your characters live far enough in CoC they deserve to be heroes in 4th!

 

[C_M2008]

I'm doing similar, but in a chapter based layout. The first chapter just wrapped (4e D&D). Chapter 2 will be with different characters using 3e WHFRP.

 

[Darrin Drader]

You know how sometimes you have a TV show that just out of the blue changes formats for an episode? Think about the Buffy musical episode, or that episode of Supernatural where it was suddenly a sitcom. I think that's more or less what you're proposing. It could be fun to run the same characters in a on-off under a different system, but my best advice would be to pick a system as the core, otherwise things are going to get confused and inconsistent pretty quick.