Savage Wombat
Hero
I remember that plot idea. Sign me up if you decide to run it.
PC's From Earth!
- Thread starter Oni
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tsadkiel
Legend
Humanophile said:
In the Second World setting (which I linked to above) firearms don't work without serious magical tinkering. But one of the background assumptions is that people from our Earth have imported advances in agriculture, medicine, construction, sanitation, engineering, and things of that sort.
s/LaSH
First Post
I've been contemplating such a thing for a while. While a gamer would logically try to build guns with their knowledge, a character would look at the peasants and say, "Have they ever tried democracy? Uprising! Storm the palace!"
Of course, they don't realise quite how different a fantasy world is. On Earth, equality is more or less a logical conclusion: people can specialise, but they're all capable of roughly the same stuff given a chance. Off Earth, that's not always the case.
"I'm an elf. I'm practically immortal, magically apt, and have the reflexes of a cat."
"I'm a human. I, um, learn slightly faster than elves."
Or in the employment court:
"I'm Wizzor the Mage. I can pierce the fabric of time and space, and the elements do my bidding. I think I should be paid more per hour to build a bridge than Bob."
"I'm Bob. Now, just because Wizzor can build a bridge with a wave of his hand and a puff of smoke, doesn't mean he should be paid more than me who, given six months and a complex logistical infrastructure, might be able to make the bridge, if I had twenty others like me and a lot of spare cash."
There are some people in fantasy who are much, much better than the rest. These people tend to accumulate power. It's fairly logical. In a 'good' realm, these people act in the best interests of the people. In a 'bad' realm, they act in their own best interests.
The thing is, this power cannot be redistributed. If the populace rises up and slays Wizzor, suddenly they don't have as many bridge builders and they start losing money from trade routes leaving their territory. If they revolt against Lord Armstrong, they'll get eaten by trolls next week when they can't stand up to them. (Armstrong being, um, big and tough, ya know.)
Now apply similar logic to gunpowder.
"Given valuable resources and a lot of time, I can build explosive devices! Given even more time, I can build a gun that does (roughly) as much damage as a greatsword!"
"Well, I've got a composite longbow. And I'm strong. It does that much damage anyway."
"And I've got a first-level spell that is far more accurate than your silly 'gonne'. And can it cast fireball? Did I mention this is all free for me?"
It's all about distribution of resources. In a medieval mileau, there aren't enough resources for everyone to live comfortably. The people with the power do live comfortably, but they still don't have colour TV.
I like to imagine inviting King Richard III into my house and watching his jaw drop. Even the greatest monarch in medieval times doesn't have stuff we take for granted (running water?). Bear that in mind when players try to change the world: the stuff they need just isn't there, and if they find it, it's still not feasible.
Excuse my ranting. I sometimes develop an idea whilst writing it down.
Of course, they don't realise quite how different a fantasy world is. On Earth, equality is more or less a logical conclusion: people can specialise, but they're all capable of roughly the same stuff given a chance. Off Earth, that's not always the case.
"I'm an elf. I'm practically immortal, magically apt, and have the reflexes of a cat."
"I'm a human. I, um, learn slightly faster than elves."
Or in the employment court:
"I'm Wizzor the Mage. I can pierce the fabric of time and space, and the elements do my bidding. I think I should be paid more per hour to build a bridge than Bob."
"I'm Bob. Now, just because Wizzor can build a bridge with a wave of his hand and a puff of smoke, doesn't mean he should be paid more than me who, given six months and a complex logistical infrastructure, might be able to make the bridge, if I had twenty others like me and a lot of spare cash."
There are some people in fantasy who are much, much better than the rest. These people tend to accumulate power. It's fairly logical. In a 'good' realm, these people act in the best interests of the people. In a 'bad' realm, they act in their own best interests.
The thing is, this power cannot be redistributed. If the populace rises up and slays Wizzor, suddenly they don't have as many bridge builders and they start losing money from trade routes leaving their territory. If they revolt against Lord Armstrong, they'll get eaten by trolls next week when they can't stand up to them. (Armstrong being, um, big and tough, ya know.)
Now apply similar logic to gunpowder.
"Given valuable resources and a lot of time, I can build explosive devices! Given even more time, I can build a gun that does (roughly) as much damage as a greatsword!"
"Well, I've got a composite longbow. And I'm strong. It does that much damage anyway."
"And I've got a first-level spell that is far more accurate than your silly 'gonne'. And can it cast fireball? Did I mention this is all free for me?"
It's all about distribution of resources. In a medieval mileau, there aren't enough resources for everyone to live comfortably. The people with the power do live comfortably, but they still don't have colour TV.
I like to imagine inviting King Richard III into my house and watching his jaw drop. Even the greatest monarch in medieval times doesn't have stuff we take for granted (running water?). Bear that in mind when players try to change the world: the stuff they need just isn't there, and if they find it, it's still not feasible.
Excuse my ranting. I sometimes develop an idea whilst writing it down.
I feel, as many of the GURPS posts demonstrate, that D&D doesn't lend itself to plausible modern-day PCs as well as other systems. With a little tweaking though -- namely, getting rid of extra Hit Dice for extra levels of Expert -- it can work, and I've been considering a Call of Cthulhu crossover, one where our heroes get magically whisked away to fantasy world (the Dreamlands?) at some point.
I haven't read any of the Gor novels, but they quite clearly follow in the footsteps of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom novels -- until they (the Gor novels) turn into S&M fantasies, that is. ERB's Barsoom novels follow John Carter after he's transported to a fantasy Mars -- the locals call it Barsoom -- full of strange beasts, beautiful women, and plenty of adventure. They're pulp classics.
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Dreaddisease
First Post
The whole basis of my campaign world derives directly in the dreamscape of a person from our time. I have a big morale dilemna for the characters when they go to confront the Gods (with the help of a rogue diety, not a rogue, but in the sense of... nevermind) and find out that the good and evil dieties, in hopes of preventing the destruction of their reality by a collapse in the dream fabric traveled to the real world suspended the 'person' in permanent dreamstate and brought it back placing it in a cage in the middle of the universe. Oooo tasty nuggets. The dilemna occurs when the good Gods who have been silent for so many years (because of the feeling of guilt) do not make any attempt to stop the adventures from going there and even help keep the evil dieties at bay.
So do you wake the person, destroying the known universe and all its reality and be sucked back through the dreamscape into a reality where you cannot exist, or do you participate, like so many have chosen before.
Its not really based on characters in reality coming to a fantasy setting. Though I have played that.
We start out as ourselves and its halloween and when we discover something is wrong and everybody is now undead, like a shift in reality. We can do anything we want but we are drawn to a portal. The longer we wait the harder it becomes to survive unless we get to the portal. Then magically through the portal (usually in an amusement park like Knotts Berry Farm) we gain the aspects of something, whether it be from our costumes or from characters in the park or something else.
Whats fun about it is the idea of running a car into a building stealing all the guns and going to some fantasy setting where you are totally feared.
So do you wake the person, destroying the known universe and all its reality and be sucked back through the dreamscape into a reality where you cannot exist, or do you participate, like so many have chosen before.
Its not really based on characters in reality coming to a fantasy setting. Though I have played that.
We start out as ourselves and its halloween and when we discover something is wrong and everybody is now undead, like a shift in reality. We can do anything we want but we are drawn to a portal. The longer we wait the harder it becomes to survive unless we get to the portal. Then magically through the portal (usually in an amusement park like Knotts Berry Farm) we gain the aspects of something, whether it be from our costumes or from characters in the park or something else.
Whats fun about it is the idea of running a car into a building stealing all the guns and going to some fantasy setting where you are totally feared.
Deadguy
First Post
Yup, I have played in one or two such games, and run a couple too. There's something to having the character learn about the setting the same time as the player does...
Of the two I ran that went very far, the first was a single PC who played a version of himself. One night he awoke with a raging fever that grew hotter and hotter until his very touch was burning the carpet. He passed out and awoke in a huge wizardly laboratory. He discovered that he was supposed to the the saviour of the land, since the spell as designed to summon the hero who would save them. When it turned out that he was a 24-year-old biology teacher, with no magical or combat skills whatsoever, he was turfed out on his ear by the disappointed Wizard who summoned him. He hooked up with an elderly adventurer who taught him some survival skills before falling in with a beauteous Sorceress who recognised that he had some ability with magic and taught him the basics. Since then he has developed his magical arts more, hooked up with two locals who have helped protect and guide him. Oh, and discovered that he isn't who he thinks he is - he's actually an incarnation of the most powerful Wizard ever, who has disappeared, and his memories all belong to someone who really died whilst he was on Earth seeking out his nemesis. The game is based loosely around the Lyonesse series of books, using the Ars Magica game system heavily modified. It's in recess at the moment, but in due course it will be restarted, so he can take on the dreaded Horde and defeat his enemy, the Dragoleth! {imagine dramatic chord!
}
The second involved the same player, with a similar start getting mixed up with time travellers. He became the target of a rich dilettante from the 26th Century who enjoyed hunting down human prey. He was aided by a time-travelling drone from the same century, which eventually whisked him back to its own time in a bid to protect him from the Temporal Security arm of the Human Polity senate. The game petered out, but involved a world that had gone through a drastic disaster in the 22nd C. which had almost wiped out humanity. I had ideas for some plot that involved time travel being responsible for the very disaster that encouraged its creation (harvesting genetic diversity). Just to say that player characters from Earth needn't mean leaving this world - as has been said you can shift through time to get the same effect as a fantasy world.
One last one which I played in many years ago was much akin to a Neverwhere type story - that the world is actually much weirder and more fantastical than humans ever acknowledge or understand. The three PCs there were confronted by an horrific murder in impossible circumstances, that began to awaken our supernatural blood. We learned something of our magical roots - my own character became a member of a night-dwelling race of nightmare creatures, another learned she was a dryad, the third a hearth faerie. Great changes were taking place, as an ancient prophecy was fulfilled, and most of this took place against a backdrop where almost everyone else didn't believe in the supernatural, so getting help from ordinary people was nigh impossible.
The only one I haven't tried is to take an Earth PC and insert him/her into a D&D world. But maybe I will try it someday. I've certainly enjoyed the ones I have tried - in the hands of a good DM!
Of the two I ran that went very far, the first was a single PC who played a version of himself. One night he awoke with a raging fever that grew hotter and hotter until his very touch was burning the carpet. He passed out and awoke in a huge wizardly laboratory. He discovered that he was supposed to the the saviour of the land, since the spell as designed to summon the hero who would save them. When it turned out that he was a 24-year-old biology teacher, with no magical or combat skills whatsoever, he was turfed out on his ear by the disappointed Wizard who summoned him. He hooked up with an elderly adventurer who taught him some survival skills before falling in with a beauteous Sorceress who recognised that he had some ability with magic and taught him the basics. Since then he has developed his magical arts more, hooked up with two locals who have helped protect and guide him. Oh, and discovered that he isn't who he thinks he is - he's actually an incarnation of the most powerful Wizard ever, who has disappeared, and his memories all belong to someone who really died whilst he was on Earth seeking out his nemesis. The game is based loosely around the Lyonesse series of books, using the Ars Magica game system heavily modified. It's in recess at the moment, but in due course it will be restarted, so he can take on the dreaded Horde and defeat his enemy, the Dragoleth! {imagine dramatic chord!
}The second involved the same player, with a similar start getting mixed up with time travellers. He became the target of a rich dilettante from the 26th Century who enjoyed hunting down human prey. He was aided by a time-travelling drone from the same century, which eventually whisked him back to its own time in a bid to protect him from the Temporal Security arm of the Human Polity senate. The game petered out, but involved a world that had gone through a drastic disaster in the 22nd C. which had almost wiped out humanity. I had ideas for some plot that involved time travel being responsible for the very disaster that encouraged its creation (harvesting genetic diversity). Just to say that player characters from Earth needn't mean leaving this world - as has been said you can shift through time to get the same effect as a fantasy world.
One last one which I played in many years ago was much akin to a Neverwhere type story - that the world is actually much weirder and more fantastical than humans ever acknowledge or understand. The three PCs there were confronted by an horrific murder in impossible circumstances, that began to awaken our supernatural blood. We learned something of our magical roots - my own character became a member of a night-dwelling race of nightmare creatures, another learned she was a dryad, the third a hearth faerie. Great changes were taking place, as an ancient prophecy was fulfilled, and most of this took place against a backdrop where almost everyone else didn't believe in the supernatural, so getting help from ordinary people was nigh impossible.
The only one I haven't tried is to take an Earth PC and insert him/her into a D&D world. But maybe I will try it someday. I've certainly enjoyed the ones I have tried - in the hands of a good DM!
Maerdwyn
First Post
My PC's, though they don't know it, adventure in the Celtic "Otherworld." When a mortal creature who believes in those gods dies in the campaign world, the soul goes to the Summerlands for a period of rest, and is reborn into a new body on "real" Earth, somewhere in the Celtic world (c. 100 BCE), and vice versa. Different inner planes link the two primes depending on the religions practiced by the respective peoples.
i've done something similar a handful of times.
i had one GURPS campaign where the players played themselves getting lost on The Road from Roger Zelazny's book Roadmarks. interesting concept in that book: have you ever heard of the alternate universes theory that describes time as a branching tree? in Roadmarks, it's a highway. a real, physical highway that certain people can use to travel throughout time and alternate versions of Earth. magic exists on some of them, even.
i did a superhero game where the PCs again played themselves. all their powers had magic as the common origin, and they were involved in stopping a magical invasion of Earth. the last half of the campaign took place on the magical world the invasion was coming from.
i've always wanted to do a Riverworld campaign (based on the series of books by Philip Jose Farmer), and i might once d20 Modern comes out. the basic premise (without giving away too much of the setting's secrets) is that everyone who has ever lived in the entire world, from the first caveman who was definably human to the present day, is simultaneously resurrected along the banks of an 18-million mile long river. GURPS did a Riverworld book, but it's long OOP. the GURPS Who's Who books, as well as any and all of their historicals, would also be invaluable in running such a game.
a campaign where there were two worlds -- modern-day Earth and a fantasy world -- and the characters can switch back and forth readily (and need to in order to complete their "quest") would also be pretty cool.
i had one GURPS campaign where the players played themselves getting lost on The Road from Roger Zelazny's book Roadmarks. interesting concept in that book: have you ever heard of the alternate universes theory that describes time as a branching tree? in Roadmarks, it's a highway. a real, physical highway that certain people can use to travel throughout time and alternate versions of Earth. magic exists on some of them, even.
i did a superhero game where the PCs again played themselves. all their powers had magic as the common origin, and they were involved in stopping a magical invasion of Earth. the last half of the campaign took place on the magical world the invasion was coming from.
i've always wanted to do a Riverworld campaign (based on the series of books by Philip Jose Farmer), and i might once d20 Modern comes out. the basic premise (without giving away too much of the setting's secrets) is that everyone who has ever lived in the entire world, from the first caveman who was definably human to the present day, is simultaneously resurrected along the banks of an 18-million mile long river. GURPS did a Riverworld book, but it's long OOP. the GURPS Who's Who books, as well as any and all of their historicals, would also be invaluable in running such a game.
a campaign where there were two worlds -- modern-day Earth and a fantasy world -- and the characters can switch back and forth readily (and need to in order to complete their "quest") would also be pretty cool.
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