D&D 5E Multiverse Theory and you

[JohnF]

As a DM, never happened.

As a player, I once had a PC jump from the middle of a Pathfinder 1e AP into a 3e Forgotten Realms one-shot and then back again, and we made it “canon” sort of. That’s the closest vibe gotten to anything like a multiversal experience. It was meh.

 

[Oofta]

I have a few times. I had a campaign arc once where the PCs experienced an alternative version of their world. In this alternate version the world was ending and the PCs had to figure out what had happened and how to stop it back in their own timeline. It was kind-of-sort-of time travel in the sense that the other version of the world was a future version. Which sounds confusing now that I write it, but made sense at the time.

I also use Norse mythology as a base and in that mythology you have the different planes of existence as different worlds accessed via the tree Yggdrasil. I've alluded to the fact that Yggdrasil is just one tree in a forest. I may do something about it some day.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

As as DM I have never used it but I would like support for low level planar travel. I have toyed with ideas relating to that. D&D in space also has some attraction.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Well, since you asked like that: No, I've never seen a campaign that moves between settings. Or even heard of one.

That's interesting.

This is not something new by WoTC. Instead, it is more of a return to how D&D always has been. The multiverse was the original ur-D&D setting, and it was commonly accepted and officially acknowledged by the 1e DMG.

I had a series of posts about this a while ago- here's one of them...

D&D General - The Brilliance of the Original Gygaxian Multiverse

Good artists borrow, great artists steal. I was looking at the following conversations in these two threads about the multiverse in D&D, and how that certain Card Game's setting can be incorporated into the D&D multiverse, and, for that matter, how the multiple D&D settings that we are seeing...

www.enworld.org

 

[Musing Mage]

Back in my 20s I ran a RIFTS game that was loosely based on the TV series 'Sliders' wherein the characters had a magical tablet that opened portals after a randomly determined period of time and took them to their next adventure. I hopped them through the full line of Palladium systems that we had regularly played at the time. Heroes Unlimited/TMNT, After the Bomb, Robotech, Beyond the Supernatural... and finishing off with a Mortal Kombat style tournament (we were big into MK at the time) and then finally back home to RIFTS Earth.

More recently, when I wrapped up my 2nd Ed campaign, the finale was a trip through the Dungeonland/Beyond Magic Mirror modules and ended with a few people going home, one dying, and two opting to travel into my current 1e game world. Down the road they will meet those survivors as NPCs and possible story hook.

That's about it for me on that front. Most of my adventures otherwise stay firmly on the realm they are in.

 

[Professor Murder]

That's interesting.

This is not something new by WoTC. Instead, it is more of a return to how D&D always has been. The multiverse was the original ur-D&D setting, and it was commonly accepted and officially acknowledged by the 1e DMG.

I had a series of posts about this a while ago- here's one of them...

D&D General - The Brilliance of the Original Gygaxian Multiverse

Good artists borrow, great artists steal. I was looking at the following conversations in these two threads about the multiverse in D&D, and how that certain Card Game's setting can be incorporated into the D&D multiverse, and, for that matter, how the multiple D&D settings that we are seeing...

www.enworld.org

Yeah, it's definitely not a new concept. But it is one being re-explored/ reemphasized now. When Tasha's had the "Dream of the Blue Veil" spell I was rather struck. Left me thinking, "who is this for?" On reflection, I have done the "Person from our earth transported to DnD setting" schtick, but in my defense...

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah, it's definitely not a new concept. But it is one being re-explored/ reemphasized now.

I guess so. I've always had the Gygaxian multiverse as the backdrop to all of my campaigns.

To the extent that a single campaign needs to stay in place, or be cut off from the other planes (including alternate prime material planes), I just close off access via a generous dose of handwavium.

 

[ninjayeti]

I think this was a bit of a thing back in the 70s and 80's when it was fairly well accepted for a player to bring an existing PC into another DM's game. People tended to be more strict about leveling by the book in my experience, so the only way to start above 1st level was to use an existing PC. Obviously this required some rationale why the PC had traveled between different DM's worlds. In any modern (i.e. last 30 years) game it would be expected that a new player would make up a character of the appropriate level when joining the group, so this would be unnecessary today.

Campaigns also tended to be much longer and more rambling. I heard of DMs back in the day deciding Dark Sun was cool, so poof, their existing party is now on Athas. When the got bored of that - poof - you're back in FR. Most people these days treat campaigns as more of a closed story arc, so if a group wanted to run a Dark Sun game they would almost certainly just start a new campaign to do it.

So yes, cross-campaign world play was a thing at one point, but in my experience it is as dead as disco today.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So have you done worldhopping as a feature in a campaign? Care to talk about it?

A number of times over the decades. I've done the Earthling into D&D world, had PCs go from my homebrew world to Krynn, Faerun, and others, as well as numerous trips to the outer planes. Honestly, I think pretty much every campaign which goes a year or more has problem world-hopped at one point or another.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So yes, cross-campaign world play was a thing at one point, but in my experience it is as dead as disco today.