Linking multiple unique campaigns, a la The Dark Tower

[surfmonkey]

* this is cross-posted from The RPG Site and RPG Net, to get the most bang for my buck *

Has anyone ever considered this? I'm currently getting over an epic-level "GM Burnout" spell, and the ideas are beginning to flow again. The thing is, I know me, and I can tend to have a short attention span. I need a thematic link, something to keep me focused on the prize... As I was thinking, I was looking at a couple different games, and thinking how could it would be to link them. Just minor details, considering they aren't all even the same genre. Ya know, just minor carry-overs: similiar names, places that seem familiar... Etc.

I thought if I could pull it off like, one day down the line I could do an epic world-traveling game like the Dark Tower, and pay off (hopefully) years of build-up. I'm kinda pumped to try. What does everyone think? Good idea, terrible idea, or just "meh?" Should I try it?

 

[Alzrius]

Rather ironically, one of the players in my game decided to do this when he started running his own game (in which I was a player), and didn't tell me about it beforehand. Basically, some of the PCs and NPCs from my campaign became star players in his campaign (having been "sucked" into his world in a sort of cross-planar vortex in my campaign's future).

It was fun, I suppose, but I'm slightly tweaked at the violation of the Game Master's milieu, and now that we're thinking of returning to my campaign, I'm considering ways to abrogate my campaign's characters ever having appeared in his world, though I have no concrete ideas yet.

Long story short, talk to the other players and GMs about it before you do anything like this.

 

[Umbran]

What does everyone think? Good idea, terrible idea, or just "meh?" Should I try it?

I can understand needing bright and shiny new things, but for this to be rewarding, you need to really explore each world you're visiting, or it becomes an unsatisfying blur. To the players it can be a series of sketches that they don't get to examine. The characters probably have to be in each world long enough to learn about, get used to, and then work with the world's uniqueness, not just against it, for them to feel like the story's still about them.

And, as a GM, specifying many worlds deeply enough for that takes a lot of work.

The end result is that, in my experience, such things only work if you and your group play very often, and you're willing to do more than the average amount of world prep work.

 

[Rune]

Rather ironically, one of the players in my game decided to do this when he started running his own game (in which I was a player), and didn't tell me about it beforehand. Basically, some of the PCs and NPCs from my campaign became star players in his campaign (having been "sucked" into his world in a sort of cross-planar vortex in my campaign's future).

It was fun, I suppose, but I'm slightly tweaked at the violation of the Game Master's milieu, and now that we're thinking of returning to my campaign, I'm considering ways to abrogate my campaign's characters ever having appeared in his world, though I have no concrete ideas yet.
.

The characters in these two games participated in two entirely different stories. That is to say, they may appear identical superficially, but, necessarily, are unique characters within their own stories, because they inhabit two distinct universes.

To give you two examples that handle this in different ways:

In folklore, there is a set of stories known as "Jack Tales," stories about a clever, roguish fellow named Jack ("Jack and the Beanstalk" is one of these). Now every time one of these stories is told, no matter who is doing the telling, it can be assumed that the Jack in the story is the same as the Jack in the others, but this need not necessarily be so--nor would it matter. Jack is an archetype and his presence in the other stories has no importance whatsoever to the story being told.

Then, there's Star Trek. Star Trek embraces the idea of parallel universes and contrives, on occasion, to have characters that seem to be in most ways identical (except through experience and mindset) meet and, in this way, highlight both their similarities and their intrinsic uniqueness.

 

[Alzrius]

The characters in these two games participated in two entirely different stories. That is to say, they may appear identical superficially, but, necessarily, are unique characters within their own stories, because they inhabit two distinct universes.

That's certainly one way to go about it. Personally, I was thinking of maneuvering things into the other campaign having used clones.

 

[malcolypse]

I once played in a game something like that.

The game started in '94, and then Sliders started the next season, so my theory that my GMs brain was bugged started. It gained credence the next year, when he started a wild west horror game, then Deadlands arrived on the scene in '96, but I digress.

The story was about the "Star Road," a magical path that linked many different worlds. My character came from a world where the residents had discovered a way of stabilizing the entrance to the Road, as it normally would open briefly and then close allowing travelers to get on the road, but then they could only hope that the road lead them home.

After years of studies, it was discovered how to form a link between someone on the road and their place of origin. It was basically a bag of holding with two openings. One opening traveled with the wanderer and the other was the door of a storage area on the home world. Things from the homeworld (food and survival gear were priority one, but you could always leave a note with a special request on it for your supplier) could be put into the storage room, and then the traveler could reach into the bag and get them.

The Star Road was known to the people of many worlds, so in some places you could find people who could teach you more about the Road's workings. If you ran into other travelers on the road, or a merchant on a world who was aware of the road, they might have been able to trade with you using special coins that could be accepted anywhere along the road.

Once you traveled on the road, you could tell where the entrances to the road were, so you could continue your travels by locating them. You never knew where you would come out of the road.

Good times, and the fact that once you found an entrance to the road you could leave anytime meant that if the players liked the world, you could adventure there for an extended amount of time before moving on, and if they didn't they could get on to something more their style.

 

[surfmonkey]

Interesting ideas so far, folks. Glad to see my idea wasn't utterly nuts. I actually kinda like the "Star Road" idea, and just started working on an idea based on that. It's something like this: the players all have a character that they play in what we'll call "Outworld." When they enter into a setting, their Outworld characters take the forms of characters from that setting (kinda like Sam in Quantum Leap). Should the person they have possessed die, they find another form to possess. This also explains why they are always drawn to each other. Of course, as part of the overarcing plot, when they possess a person, they lose access to their own minds during the course of the possession...

It's a rough in-progress idea, but I think it has potential.

 

[Alzrius]

The story was about the "Star Road," a magical path that linked many different worlds.

I remember going there, though it was in a different game...