So you find a portal to a game-verse - where do you go and what do you bring?

[TwinBahamut]

The best answer I ever heard for a question like this (discussing videogame worlds rather than tabletop RPG worlds, though) was the world of the Pokemon games. Simply because it is a world that has all the modern conveniences, and is probably more safe and peaceful than our own world (and probably a bit more fun). The world of the Harvest Moon games wouldn't be bad, either...

I'm not sure if there are any D&D settings I would want to live in, though.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

Well, I'm too literal a person to take this in the wish fulfillment sense it was intended.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that your portal doesn't drop you in the middle of some awful ice or desert scape, or in the middle of a wild jungle filled with dinosaurs, etc. Let's say it drops you in a reasonably civilized part where the local tongue is magically identical to English or whatever your native tongue.

Most of us on these boards are still likely to run afoul of local custom, native hazard, or some other quirk of the setting. Heck, there are large swathes of our own planet that would be dangerous. I would hate to pop out with just a dufflebag in a war zone, a slum, or, say, a drug processing camp. Most RPG worlds are meant to be exciting, so they are FULL of such places.

If you weren't given a choice -- say the government wants to exile you to a fantasy world -- here are some basics:

1) Valuable fungible commodity (gold in many settings -- though some use iron or water or whatever...)
2) Weapon: depending on the setting, it should be either concealable or useful for hunting (most weapons are not both)
3) Concentrated food and water (do you want to have to live on dragon cutlets?)
4) Laptop with a solar panel filled with eBooks. Works regardless of local tech level and/or power/interface standards. Naturally, include all of the relevant gaming PDFs.

Once through the portal, locate the nearest sympathetic authority figure and bargain your setting information for protection. Could be Starfleet, Elminster, the Hoffman Institute, or the Jedi...doesn't matter as long as a) they have power and resources, and b) they are unlikely to kill you for being a nuisance. Take advantage of said protection to learn enough skills to make yourself useful.

 

[Andor]

Well the startrek or upper plane paradise portals seem like a cop-out to me so that's out. (Although two-thumbs up for Beta colony *snerk*)

If I were to go I'd either want super powers or to be a 3e Druid. Yay Shapeshifting!

If I settled on superpowers the Marvel Universe is tempting if only because I'd want to go around pounding Jr High Biology into everyones skulls with a clue-by-four. ("Mutants and Normal Humans can interbreed! We're the same species YOU MORONS!") Otoh getting powers is never a sure thing. Perhaps one of the videogame universes? With all those tens of thousands of PCs how hard can it be to get powers?

For a Druid it's trickier because D&D worlds tend to suck and I don't want to end up as goblin chow. Eberron I think. How hard could it be to get an artificer to make you a hot shower in exchange for teaching him to make black powder? Of course that raises the question of where to go in Eberron. While my sympathies lay with the gatekeeper druids that means living with the orcs ... and I hate swamps. So Eldeen reaches here I come! Maybe I could find some nice shifter girl who's willing to shave her sideburns? At any rate going into a D&D world... One of those survivalist encyclopedia sets on microfiche along with an unpowered reader and a pistol and carbine both chambered in .45 acp. I may still end up as goblin chow but I'll take some of the bastards with me.

 

[FoxWander]

Ok, so apparently in my mind I thought saying that your could chose where the portal goes would also imply that you could chose EXACTLY where it goes- as in, you don't pop up in some random destination but rather exactly where you want to pop up. Going back and reading my original post I see it implies nothing of the sort. I guess I got too hung up on clarifying what you could bring to clarify where you could go. Sorry, my bad. I certainly meant to say that, cause even I wouldn't be too keen on jumping thru a portal to my dream world if it goes to a completely random spot there. Heck, most worlds have too much ocean to risk that- or too much underdark- or too much open air above them! ("Woohoo! Paradise here I come! Oh no! AAAAAAAaaaaaaahhhhhh!" SPLAT!)

Anyhoo- so yeah, you'll pop up exactly where you want to if that changes anybody's answer. I've added an edit to my original post.

SOOO, given that new information and to answer my own post...
I would first get one of those e-ink ebook readers that excepts pdfs (with some kind of solar recharger) so I could take ALL my electronic gaming books with me. I'd also take physical copies of some of the more vital gaming books, such as, the forgotten realms atlas (Pretty much every secret place and hidden vault in Faerun, with maps!), any maps I might need as well as the setting books for those worlds especially books with lots of good pictures, and a decent selection of modules that my gaming group HASN'T gone thru (since I'd be going to OUR versions of these worlds those dungeons should still be unspoiled- once you see the rest of my plan, you'll realize that raiding said dungeons should be fairly low risk.)

Then I would take advantage of my perfect get-away portal to make a final "shopping trip" thru my local Sportsman's Warehouse for all the guns, ammo, survival and camping gear I would need- the most important of which would be... a shovel. Why a shovel? Because my portal destination would be Greyhawk- specifically the Greyhawk I played in with my friends when we first started playing 2ed D&D- and more specifically yet, the gravesite of my character Morito Shin, a bushi/ninja character I had who got well and thoroughly killed during a random encounter while traveling with my group who could not raise him but were sentimental enough to bury him with his weapons and armor. None of the remaining party could use or wear his weapons/armor and they didn't feel right selling them for their own profit. It didn't keep them from stripping him of the magic items I had acquired while adventuring with them however (such as the ring of regeneration they didn't know I had which, obviously, would have brought me back to life! ) but they did leave the things that didn't look valuable or that they didn't know were magical. Most importantly (for portal traveling me) they left the portable hole which they thought was simply a cloth belt I wore. While the hole itself is quite an awesome item to have, this one happened to contain a mirror of mental prowess which would allow me to scry other worlds (know you see why I wanted books with lots of pictures) and [fanfare please] travel to them.

So now I could go world hopping and set myself up quite well! A hop to the Star Trek universe could get me a small space ship (like a runabout) for a mobile base of operations and a phaser rifle to make make dungeon crawling much easier. Not to mention all the high tech goodies I could handle. And how about a trip to the Star Wars universe for a suit of bounty hunter armor and a few droid henchmen. As well as even more high tech goodies. Did I mention dungeon cleansing earlier? I'll take thermal detonators for $1000, Alex. BA-BOOM! The possibilities are endless!!

 

[Ed_Laprade]

SOOO, given that new information and to answer my own post...
and more specifically yet, the gravesite of my character Morito Shin, a bushi/ninja character I had who got well and thoroughly killed during a random encounter while traveling with my group who could not raise him but were sentimental enough to bury him with his weapons and armor. None of the remaining party could use or wear his weapons/armor

But could you use/wear them?

 

[roguerouge]

Clearly, the gaming universe you would want to be dropped into would be a romantic RPG! Blue Rose for the win!

 

[MichaelSomething]

What about the world of Pokemon? It has all the modern stuff of our world plus poweful creatures you can tame and befriend! That could actually work.

 

[MadWand]

This is too easy. Anywhere in any universe? I'll custom-make my own universe, thank you very much. Something based off of Iain Banks Culture novels, I think. I'll arrive next to a Mind. This Mind, during the process of my stepping through the gate, will examine the portal with sensors of godlike power, studying the readings with godlike intelligence. It should be able to re-create the portal, giving me the option of going back, should I desire to do so.

I may not want to go back, though. I can become a Culture citizen and have anything I want. I can recreate myself from the atoms up, or even become a godlike intelligence myself. I'll start with installing nanoware into myself. I'll become immortal, boost my intelligence, install a nanofactory in myself (so I can create anything, given energy, time, and a source of the appropriate elements), install a compact power source, fantastic weapons and defenses, a powerful computer containing all the advanced technological secrets of the Culture, etc.

Once this is done, I'll go back to Earth. I'll use my technological abilities to uplift humanity. I'll cure hunger, disease, energy needs, save the environment etc. I'll give humanity advanced technology allowing them to travel to and colonize other star systems. I'll be very smart by this point, and have access to the Cultures knowledge of the best way to uplift civilizations, so it should be possible to do this without causing calamitous problems. If necessary, I could create a Mind to usher humanity into a new age non-destructively. If the Culture or something like it does not exist in this universe, I would create it.

As for what I'd need to bring through with me, it doesn't matter. With the ability to choose any universe and destination point, I can put whatever I want at my arrival point.

 

[haakon1]

Fantasy world? I'd go to Greyhawk, either Bissel or Ratik, both of which are good areas, but seriously need some help, and hopefully wouldn't worry too much where it was coming from.

I'd bring a 9mm Glock and an AR-15, each with about 500 rounds, hoping they would work. I'd also bring a K-Bar, in case gunpowder is useless. I'd bring some sort of renewable power source -- either solar or a small generator that can run on low-grade ethanol, like whiskey -- with an outlet for AC and AC battery charger. I'd bring a Maglite, a digital camera, binoculars, and night vision goggles. I'd bring a high-end laptop designed for field use by oil companies (e.g., water proof, shock proof, etc.) with databases on agriculture, chemistry, chemical engineering, economics, and a general encyclopedia of some sort. I'd bring some of the books in paper form, in case Gygax's world doesn't allow computers.

I'd bring an original PHB, DMG, and MM, as important reference manuals, and to show the world -- I AM THE DUNGEON MASTER -- hopefully, owning the DMG makes you omnipotent? One can hope. And I'd bring electronic forms of 3.5e, because it would be fun to play with real characters (mages might even be into it) and I like later additions more now. But I don't know Pathfinder or 4e well enough to run them well, and you don't want people finding out you don't know all the rules if you're trying to claim you're omnipotent, so best for me at least to stick to 3.5e.

Oh, and I'd bring some tea bags . . it would suck to go into caffeine withdrawal right away.

Either that, or early WWII America, with some of the above items, and uncanny knack for understanding the future. I'd like to get a job as an OSS analyst, I think, and I'd invest my pay in shares of IBM . . . later on Apple, Microsoft, and Google, in that order. Then, in 2006, I'd move to Switzerland and put it all in gold.