I am fiddling with an idea for a "portal fantasy" campaign set up, designed to be long term and sort of West Marches-y. it probably won't go anywhere, but I thought it might be fun to discuss possibilities here with you folks.
In this case, by "portal fantasy" I mean mostly "time travel." Specifically, time travel to a very far future Earth a la Jack Vance. So mostly fantasy on the surface, but seasoned with post-post-post-apocalyptic super science as needed. Characters would begin as normal modern Earth folks that just wake up in this realm one day. They have to survive and figure out what is going on. Then, just as randomly, they return home. The travel back and forth appears random. This is for 2 reasons: a) it helps with the West marches thing where people showing up isn't necessarily set, and b) there's a background story reason for it.
The modern people don't necessarily know one another "now" but once they get back they can look one another up, if they so desire. I imagine most "modern Earth" play would be in downtime or between sessions, but sometimes an "adventure" might happen in the now. I am leaning toward Worlds Without Number as a system. It is already a far future fantasy, as well as being a relatively light OSR game. It is also free! Anyway, these are the beginnings of my thoughts. What do you think? Would you play such a game? What elements of portal fantasy would you like to see brought to the fore?
In this case, by "portal fantasy" I mean mostly "time travel." Specifically, time travel to a very far future Earth a la Jack Vance. So mostly fantasy on the surface, but seasoned with post-post-post-apocalyptic super science as needed. Characters would begin as normal modern Earth folks that just wake up in this realm one day. They have to survive and figure out what is going on. Then, just as randomly, they return home. The travel back and forth appears random. This is for 2 reasons: a) it helps with the West marches thing where people showing up isn't necessarily set, and b) there's a background story reason for it.
The modern people don't necessarily know one another "now" but once they get back they can look one another up, if they so desire. I imagine most "modern Earth" play would be in downtime or between sessions, but sometimes an "adventure" might happen in the now. I am leaning toward Worlds Without Number as a system. It is already a far future fantasy, as well as being a relatively light OSR game. It is also free! Anyway, these are the beginnings of my thoughts. What do you think? Would you play such a game? What elements of portal fantasy would you like to see brought to the fore?