D&D General How should be an official intercompany D&D crossover?

[LuisCarlos17f]

They other day I was kidding about a cartoon with Dragonlance characters...by Disney. And I started to think and I searched something in internet. I found Hasbro would be willing to produce an action-live movie as a crossover of Transformers and Power Rangers.

Companies notice intercompany crossovers are like limited editions, and at least speculatos will buy it, but it's too interesting for them because after both sides have to negotiate again and agree about when to republish or if an adaptation (toys, animation or videogames) is possible.

Most of geek-fiction franchises can be visited by people from a Tokienan world, but the D&D multiverse isn't very ready to be visited by famous characters from other IPs. You can create ersatz version of transformers or Cobra-La cult (G.I.Joe archenemies), but not a "Buffy vampire-slayer in Ravenloft" or the sister Halliwells (Charmed) in the mask of the red death, Chronomances & Doctor Who, John Carter mars warlod & Dark Sun, Flash Gordon & Buck Rogers in Spelljammer or He-Man and Master of the Universe in Eberron (OH MY GOD, THE HORROR, THE HORROR!), or Star Trek-Birthright ( - Picard: you can't dare to do it! Q. - DO YOU SAY I CAN'T? HOLD MY BEER, BABE!)

Superheroes, in comics or animations, could visit a fantasy world, and there are some adventures about that, or even to have got their own sword & sorcery world, but the Avengers or the Justice League in Greyhawk would be too much.

How could we fix this? One option could be the idea of uchronies or parallel universes. This allows more freedom to alter the metaplot (for example that knight survives the fight against the blue dragon), but since the sourcebook Chronomancer in the 2nd Ed no word about time spheres and parallel earths has been said. Dragonlance has got at least a future timeline where Raitslin becomes the supreme god. Maybe there is a parallel world where Strand von Zarovich didn't become a vampire because a group of chronomancers offered a better deal, technology for eternal youth and Tatyana (really a clone with altered memories, the original Tatyana and Sergei were sent to other place for security reasons).

The second option would be the demiplane of akashic realms. Let's say if the space-time continium is a computer, the akashic realm would be the backup. This may be the answer of the grandfather paradox about time travels. Maybe the chrononaut or time-traveler doesn't go to the true past but to visit an akashic realm, and then he can't change its own past.

The third option would be characters aren't visiting the original D&D world, but an artificial "clone demiplane". For example characters from the post-apocalypse "Gamma World" are trapped within a "magic videogame", like Jumanji, but the setting wouldn't be a tropical jungle, but a reboot of the Dragonlance videogame. Maybe the demiplane was created to be a mystic prison and the prisoners believe they are ordinary mortals and they remember nothing about their past lives when they were titans whe fought against the gods and they lost, like the trilogy of Matrix.

What are your limits about a hypothetical future intercompany crossover with D&D? for example no superheroes too powerful.

Do you think Gamma World, Star Frontiers and Dark*Matter should be within D&D multiverse?

 

[Bitbrain]

An official gamma world D&D setting could be fun. Yes, I think Gamma World would be an interesting addition to the D&D Multiverse.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

A D&D-Gamma World crossover is possible as fiction work, but as TTRPG the things change. D&D isn't ready for modern firearms and high-tech. What if the inevitables are sent to destroy high-tech because it's forbidden?

* How would be a power ranger-D&D crossover? Easy, the group of heroes are naives of a fantasy world, without any link with the Earth, and they are chosen by a group of "totem spirits" to be the champions. The ultrazords wouldn't be machines with animal shapes, but magic constructs animated by primal power and then the animal shapes are for the totem spirits. These PW would be practically monks attuned with special talismas.

* Transformers-D&D? Kaladesh being invaded by alien robots with a look very close to the style of Michael Bay.

* Rom the space-night. Other heroe in Ravenloft suffering his own "weekend in the hell", this time fighting against the dire wraiths.

* G.I.Joe-D&D. A group of teenages from a far future (Star*Drive) are chosen to be the betaplaytesters of a new multiplayer shooter videogame, based in a old franchise of toys. Then they notice the virtual simulation is too realistic because they are in other place. The archi-enemy is the cult of Cobra-la, alien snake-folk with magitek machines.

* Litle Pony - D&D. Time ago in a far, far, far away kingdome, the people was cursed and polymorphed into ponies, but keeping their intellence. The celestial powers to help allowed in house with special josses (idols) they can manipulate tools as using a "wizard's hand" cantrip or wearing the magic item "human's glove" (Species Savage). Their civilitation could keep the technology level. Generations after they learn the way to craft "cheap magic" horsesoes with prosthetic fingers to work with tools.

* D&D and some famous sci-fi franchise. You can't, but using "ersatz" versions in an adventures in the Spelljammer universe.

* D&D + superheroes. After a multiverse event some timelines weren't erasured totally, but "broken" and the pieces created a new patch demiplane, something like the Battleword of Marvel Secret Wars, and Telos/Blood Moon of DC Convergent event, with somes pieces from Skartaris and Weirdworld. Here metahumans are "nerfed" or nobody allowed to be overpowered, not more than Tarrasque or another monster with level 20 challenge rating.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Given the numerous crossovers of D&D characters going into the real world we need a D&D modern.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I have said many times in the past WotC wants a d20 Modern and this time 100% compatible with D&D, but it's a challenge for game designers because the power balance is easily broken with the modern firearms and high-tech. Do you remember when you were playing Fornite Battle Royal and other players had got the B.R.U.T.E? Try to create a d20 Street Fighters (by Capcom) and d20 Overwatch (by Blizzad), to mix both together. You can imagine the shoorter can defeat the martial artists, but in a posapocalypse setting where they have to save ammo for the hardest enemies.

I suspect the proto-version of the new d20 Modern will be not a printed paper books but a videogame.

A new d20 Modern needs a lot of steps in the middle, for example a remake of Savage Coast/Red Steel to playtest firearms and superpowers by mutations.

 

[Oofta]

If you did a D20 modern I think you'd want to give equipment and weapons used against you XP (and include in CR calculations). Just because a goblin could have a sniper rifle doesn't make them a trained commando.

But ... a crossover? Hmm. Some would fit right in. Game of Thrones and Dragons pops to mind of course. She-Ra is basically D&D with robots and of course there have been small crossovers on other TV series. For all those bronies out there we now have a My Little Pony expansion.

I think the VR gone wrong would be pretty easy to do. In both Marvel and DC universes there are plenty of magic users that could create a portal either on purpose or by accident.

I'd probably transform the superheroes, Iron Man is now just a guy with winged boots and plate armor, The Hulk becomes a half orc barbarian, Hawkeye ... well he doesn't change of course. Batman could just go over as is, but you'd have to depower Superman - or just make him a fighter with belt of giant strength.

You don't even really need to do even that of course, there have been plenty of alternate universes such as Gotham By Gaslight and tons more.

When it comes to other stories ... well you can already retell a lot of them. Spinning the wheel of random TV shows Battlestar Galactica becomes a fleet of ships fleeing rebellious warforged, perhaps with a SpellJammer tie in. Keep the same characters, just present it as a "reimagining".

James Bond is a spy with gadgets provided by the artificer Q and so on.

So those are my ideas. I think it would be easier to transform cast and characters into a fantasy world than the other way around. But there are a lot of ways of doing it.

 

[jgsugden]

There is information in the DMG for running guns - including modern and futuristic - in a d20 setting.

I think there have been a lot of crossovers into fantasy worlds. They may not have been explicitly WotC worlds, but we've seen super heroes, cartoon characters, and tv characters end up in worlds of elves, dwarves, dragons and magic. The biggest hang up on seeing this more often is the Hasbro suits and their handling of IP.

 

[Jester David]

Crossovers are fun but they’re seldom canon in the universes of the individual franchises. So reconciling the lore and how dimensions work is ussually unneeded.

At this point, I’d like to see some good stand alone media before looking for crossovers.

 

[Umbran]

At this point, I’d like to see some good stand alone media before looking for crossovers.

Yeah. I'm not into a crossover for the sake of a crossover. Crossovers are only interesting to me when they are used to tell some good story that could not and would not be told otherwise. "Modern people in fantasyland" and "fantasy people in modern land" has been done to death, and is not sufficient to raise my interest..

 

[Jester David]

Plus, let's face it, a D&D crossover will happen first with other Hasbro properties (the Mane Six from My Little Pony on Faerûn; Transformers meets D&D) or with other properties in a same licensed media, like the comics. Crossing over D&D with another IDW property.

In the latter case, it could still be Transformers. Or MLP. Or both...

We could also see D&D meets the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles or D&D meets Ghostbusters, as those properties are often crossed over with other brands.

(Off topic, but the TMNT/ Ghostbusters crossover is one of the few that was comic-canon, with the events in that being referenced and having follow-up effects in the Ghostbusters comic. The Burnham/ Shoening GB comic is excellent and better than it has any right being, and I heartily recommend it to any GB fan.)