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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zappo" data-source="post: 8128720" data-attributes="member: 633">Toying around in my mind with three concepts, all Planescape variants. In bold the one-line summary.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The PCs are all members of a sect, founded by a fallen celestial, whose self-appointed job is, in their view, to do the celestials' "dirty work", to use the means that the upper planes do not believe can be justified by ends. Because of this, the sect is hunted by both celestials and fiends, and is extremely secretive. Unfortunately, due to reasons, the PCs will eventually find themselves in charge. The PCs will be able to recruit NPCs to the cause, which turns them into alternate PCs. For each mission, the players will assemble a team from all available characters, depending on the mission profile. That will be the PC party for that mission. Higher-level characters draw more attention from the opposition, which may make it harder than it would have been with low-level characters; plus, the big guns may be needed elsewhere. So the choice is not obvious. Also, due to secrecy reasons and certain supernatural divination abilities on the main opponents' side, interaction between the main org and any given mission party will be severely limited, i.e. no hotswapping PCs, gear, or intelligence. Custom rules will support these features.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Planescape/cyberpunk crossover. Sigil is a futuristic megacity, the Lady of Pain is the city AI, factions do political battle with megacorps which can command the economic might of entire Prime worlds. Mechanus is made of electronic circuits instead of gears, the Nine Hells are an infinite office building and headquarters of Baator Inc's nine departments, Cyberspace is an entirely new plane to which modrons have emigrated in digital form. You can play a cyber-barbarian, a heavy metal bard, a net wizard, or anything you can imagine, and get a war-priest to bless your monokatana or sniper rifle, for a fee to be paid in bitcoins to Ares Inc. The characters are the only survivors of a nanobot terrorist attack on a Market Ward shopping mall, and we'll see where we go from there.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Modern Earth setting. A EU-funded Antartica expedition has revealed what looks like an alien artefact, buried deep under the world's thickest ice shelf. The expedition researchers discover that it's a portal to what initially looks like an alien planet, but hastily shut it down after an alien creature passes through and kills several of them with unexplainable abilities, before being put down. A hastily-convened commission meeting of the Defense ministries of all participating countries decides to clamp down on the discovery and send a shared military force to enforce secrecy and determine what risks and opportunities the artefact can provide, before it can be made public. Unfortunately, and unknown to everyone, the Earth portal leads straight in the middle of Azzagrat. On the Earth side, the narrative is driven by friction between the scientific and military expeditions, tension between participating countries, and difficulties in maintaining secrecy. On the planar side, the narrative is exploration-driven, but made more complicated by the fact that Graz'zt is actively lying to the expedition about the nature of the planes, in order to further his own agenda. The PCs are members of the expedition (either researchers or military), and initially do not have access to any supernatural ability, but they can learn magic eventually. Thinking D20 modern as a system.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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