An utterly mad, or entirely brilliant idea...

[jasper]

BARF! GAG! BARF!. Ok now I got Ready Player One out my system.
Nice idea I would use a boardgame to replace one of the three RPG. Make sure it a boardgame all the players KNOW BUT DO NOT HAVE TO LIKE. Hack the game too. Ex Monopoly if you get all the railroads you get bonus in the other systems. Or land on free parking nothing happens. ETC.

 

[robus]

BARF! GAG! BARF!. Ok now I got Ready Player One out my system.

Ha, if you're thinking of the movie you'll get no argument from me. But I found the book to be an enjoyable nostalgic romp

 

[jasper]

Ha, if you're thinking of the movie you'll get no argument from me. But I found the book to be an enjoyable nostalgic romp

Mow and weed my yard kid. I took pity on the author and gave the book an 80. And remember kids, back in the 80s and 80 on your test was still a C. Aka average. I should have gave 2 out 5 stars. I skipped the movie.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

FWIW, I’ve never lived anywhere where an 80 was a C. Where I have been, it was a B-. C range was 70-79, B was 80-90, A was 90 on up.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What's the conflict in the real?

What's the conflict in the virtual?

What's the conflict in the tournament?

Hiw do these interact/put pressure on each other? What in the tournament affects/is affected by the real?

What're the character relationships/goals in each? Do the real characters even know each other in the real?

A structure that reinforces the interactions is important. Break down the usual D&D party first concept by having individual awards for accomplishments that pay off on the virtual or real. Put pressure on in the real to do things in the virtual/game layers. Etc, etc.

Sounds neat, but also a bit of a mess and hard to manage across play sessions.

 

[Len]

Nice idea I would use a boardgame to replace one of the three RPG.

My group played a campaign with two sets of characters - an infiltration team (think "Alias") using Savage Worlds rules and a team of mech pilots using BattleTech with some mods. There was some interaction between the teams - one team's mission could help the other team. It worked pretty well.

 

[robus]

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] - yeah it’s definitely half baked! I’ll keep toying with it but you guys have given me some stuff to think about, so thanks for that.

 

[Fenris-77]

Matthew Woodring-Stover's Acts of Cain novels are a great example of how to realize this idea in a meaningful way. Great Dystopian future setting set next to a pretty usual high fantasy setting. The mechanic that connects them is brilliant, and a better suggestion of how to do this campaign well than I will ever come up with myself. Dude also write some of the best kinetic action scenes I've ever read.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

BARF! GAG! BARF!. Ok now I got Ready Player One out my system.
Nice idea I would use a boardgame to replace one of the three RPG. Make sure it a boardgame all the players KNOW BUT DO NOT HAVE TO LIKE. Hack the game too. Ex Monopoly if you get all the railroads you get bonus in the other systems. Or land on free parking nothing happens. ETC.

The more I think about it, this is basically a good idea.

You run the core game with the RPG rules system and setting you want, but instead of using other RPGs, use board or card games to handle the in campaign VR competitions. If nothing else, it would be streamlined and minimize the need for system mastery across systems.

To reflect the influence of PC abilities on those competitions, you give the PCs character-specific advantages or disadvantages in those games. A particularly fast RPG character might get bonuses to rolls in a board game. An insightful one might get an additional draw for a card game. Etc.

 

[MarkB]

Have you ever read Larry Niven's Dream Park? It captures a similar concept to this very well. The principle difference is that the players are essentially LARPers playing through a highly realistic holographically-enhanced environment, with real human actors playing the NPCs, and even (via realtime motion-capture) the monsters.

I feel like this would serve your setting better, because it breaks down the sharp division between your players' 'real'-world characters and their in-game avatars. Basically, they're still physically present in the fictional world, and can switch between in-character interaction with the game world and out-of-character interaction with each other (and their competitors) without having to transition between 'worlds'.