Heroes in the modern world

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Inspired by the thread about the Manhattan (actually London) adventure in Dragon magazine, I have to ask:

How many of you have played in or DMed an adventure where fantasy heroes (of any sort) ended up in the "real" world? Was it any fun?

If you haven't done it, is it the kind of thing you'd enjoy?

Gygax told a story reprinted in the old Best of the Dragon Volume 1 about pitting Chainmail troops against Nazi troops, told in fiction style and personifying the units quite a bit. Ever since then, I've thought it'd be fun to use Earth as another setting, but not in a back-and-forth Stargate sense. I can imagine a powerful wizard opening a portal to Earth and using it as his secret lair, where he's surrounded by people who don't believe in magic and who will meet any alien intruders with violence (and more). (This would also be a natural way to introduce player characters from Earth who get drawn back into a campaign fantasy world during the adventure, perhaps when they flee the BBEG through whatever portal the heroes originally entered through.)

Any experiences with this?

 

[Taraxia]

Urban Arcana is exactly this concept, but done in a horribly contrived way that I don't care for at all. (D&D monsters magically appear on Earth for no apparent reason; ordinary folk can't see them for what they are, also for no apparent reason. This no apparent reason is a mystical force called Shadow that is very mystical and very mysterious and ignores the PCs, again for no apparent reason. Shadow. Woo.)

On the other hand, the people at Planewalker were creating Urban Planescape, an attempt to use this design concept to create a modern version of the Planescape setting where the Earth/Outer Planes connection actually made some sense. I don't know how far they got with it, though.

 

[arscott]

I've played a (relatively) modern character in a fantasy world. We also did some Barrier Peaks type adventuring in that game. Does that count?

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

I've never put sent a party to the 'real world', but I have used different genres as a way of shaking up the game a bit, to get a change of pace. Several times in my campaign, I've contrived to have the players magically transported to a different place, where different rules apply...and then handed them new character sheets for their characters, in an entirely different system.

The most successful one I ran had the characters chase a dangerous (and insane) elemental spirit through an ancient gate that led to Earth, specifically Seattle 2055. I ended the game on a cliffhanger ("As you jump through the gate, you feel an intense blast of heat, are blinded by a white light, and then...OK, good session, see you guys in two weeks.") The party was in a partially demolished building in the Puyallup Barrens where some Ork squatters were camped out. As soon as the party started trying to get info from the Orks, some organ-leggers attacked. The party reacted in typical D&D hero style, and nearly had their butts handed to them by the SMG and taser-armed thugs.

It was an interesting experience. The party became much more interested in exploring and the sense of adventuring, they had to navigate an alien world that didn't have the same regard for 'heroics' that they were used to, and they still had to stop their enemy from performing his nefarious deeds. I had the advantage of a modern setting with a built-in magic system, so I could keep the game running smoothly.

All in all, it makes for an interesting diversion from the usual sword-and-sorcery. Just don't let them get too carried away with all the cool modern toys, and it should be a fun time.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Urban Arcana is exactly this concept, but done in a horribly contrived way that I don't care for at all. (D&D monsters magically appear on Earth for no apparent reason; ordinary folk can't see them for what they are, also for no apparent reason. This no apparent reason is a mystical force called Shadow that is very mystical and very mysterious and ignores the PCs, again for no apparent reason. Shadow. Woo.)

Dark Matter is a setting that does this much better. It's an Alternity setting, and will soon be a D20 Modern setting.

There's also "real life roleplaying" which doesn't include magic.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

How many of you have played in or DMed an adventure where fantasy heroes (of any sort) ended up in the "real" world? Was it any fun?

I only squeezed it into a game once and it went entirely unnoticed. A PC was toying with a Well of the Worlds or something like it and I had decided that one of the places it would lead was Earth. When the roll came up Earth I rolled for "coordinates" on the globe and decided he'd come out on somewhere around Cape Horn on a cliff overlooking the ocean to the south. The PC looked around, didn't happen to see any people or signs thereof within a half mile or so, and then left.

If you haven't done it, is it the kind of thing you'd enjoy?

I've always thought so but it's difficult to say having never really done it. Part of the problem is you have to have a fair amount of preparation. You need rules and stats for real-world, modern weaponry, plans for NPC reactions from a personal scale to law enforcement and national security organizations reactions to the inevitable fights. Most of all you need something for the PC's to DO other than just wander around, have people gawk at them, and have the players going, "Woo hoo! It's Earth! I'm gonna go to my house and see if I'm there!" or much worse, to sit about idly going, "It's Earth eh? Well... What happens now?" You can't just drop them on Earth and expect fun to spontaneously erupt. You still need to PLAY D&D. You need to run an ADVENTURE of some kind and to be MUCH more prepared to deal with escalating consequences.

Gygax told a story reprinted in the old Best of the Dragon Volume 1 about pitting Chainmail troops against Nazi troops, told in fiction style and personifying the units quite a bit.

Sturmgeschutz and Sorcery. Don't remember the actual issue of Dragon it was from but I dug out the BOD#1. It wasn't Chainmail. D&D rules were used for the D&D side of the 12th level Evil High Priest's task force that had a couple of PC-types, mummies, ogres, ghouls, trolls, orcs, and a giant scorpion (note that this was BD&D/OD&D rules, it predates AD&D) and TRACTICS rules were mostly used for the side of the SS patrol consisting of 4 vehicles [an AC with a 20mm cannon, two halftracks, and a Kubelwagen] with about 30 men altogether. Victory went to the D&D forces mostly due to insect swarm and sleep spells.

That's what I'm talkin' about right there.

 

[Endur]

Wish and Gate spells for time travel.

We did it in AD&D. Havn't done it since then though (although the Might and Magic series uses time travel sometimes too).

AD&D was so much more experimental than 3e in some ways. Barrier Peaks had the space ship and all the wacky alien devices. Gamma World and Boot Hill had game systems that were somewhat similar to AD&D (GW in particular).

Even the wizards in the comic strips (Snarfquest, Wormy, etc.) in Dragon did time travel to get special weaponry.

Remember the Mark V (or was it VII) Blaster from Gamma World?

 

[KiwiGlen]

IM1 - plot spoiler

In IM1, The Immortal Storm, the 6th component to save the multiverse from destruction is found in a trispace plane. The plane is a parallel Earth which developed without fantasy or magic, the only Astral Plane entry ends up in a Manhattan mass-transit system tunnel (for the sake of playability, in a carriage at a specific time on the train schedule)

HEAPS OF FUN, particularly when a Nightcrawler 'accidently' shows up through the gate and starts eating people and destroying Manhattan Island, while the PCs are visiting Chicago to 'obtain' the 6th component.

 

[Abe.ebA]

I've done it twice, both times in 2e. Once it was a relatively brief journey to an unspecified big city during a plane-hopping chase after the BBEG. The other time was a sideline adventure run as a break during a longer campaign. The party was sent to Earth by some random magical fluke and wound up in a supposedly haunted hunting lodge in Virginia. There was a locked-room murder which they investigated fully expecting the culprit to be some sort of incorproreal undead, only to discover a human killer. They killed him out of hand (traditional justice for them), which of course upset the other guests at the lodge. They wound up storming Washington DC aboard a stolen fire truck when we decided we'd had enough goofiness and went back to the campaign at hand.

Both times the results were pretty silly. The players played up their PCs' culture shock and I fudged a lot of things into working where they shouldn't have. The end result being goofy, memorable fun but not serious gaming by any means. The people I'm in contact with from that gaming group still make references to those two sessions after 6 or 7 years...
* The party wizard standing in a hotel hallway shouting, "F7! F7!" at the top of his lungs and pointing the room key at the door after concluding that it was some sort of wand.
* The cleric and wizard riding a taxi and, after asking who built the enormous towers, concluded that great magic-users of this world were known as "Arch-kitects" and that they were "but minor-kitects".
* The occupants of the afore-mentioned purloined fire engine warning the cops not to mess with them because, "We are dressed in drag, driving flashy cars, and have many booms!" (which would take far too long to explain)

 

[NiTessine]

I haven't done it, but the discovery of adventures like "The City ond the Gate" (from Dragon 100) and The Immortal Storm has led me to start planning one. I'm thinking of using D20 Modern character classes and firearms rules for modern stuff. I'll lift the "figuring out mechanical devices" tables from "The City Beyond the Gate", just because they're so funny.

Also, you should decide beforehand whether gunpowder works in your setting, because someone will bring back guns. I think both Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms operate on the default assumption that mundane gunpowder does not function, though Greyhawk has the paladins of Murlynd with something resembling firearms, and Forgotten Realms has the magical smoke powder.

The key, I think, is to do your research, and use a city none of your players have been to before. I'm thinking Paris. While it could be argued that using such a famous city will clue the players in too fast when they run into major landmarks, I think they'll figure it out pretty fast in any case.

Besides, if I set it in Paris, they can fight the undead François Mitterrand on top of the Eiffel Tower.