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Post by jeffb on Oct 6, 2021 7:26:12 GMT -6
Over at GROGNARDIA the other day, Mal had an article about 3 Hearts and 3 Lions.
I've not read it.
I know. I know.
To the point- The protagonist is another "modern day" human from Earth who is whisked away to a fantastical realm ala John Carter, Harold Shea , et. al.
All of these novels were obviously HUGE influences on Gary and thus D&D.
Yet this scenario of a "modern day earth" Human being shoved into a fantastical setting never shows up in D&D proper*. Sure we have had Sci Fi mixed in with D&D- Gates to Mars in CGH/CZ, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, etc. But it's always been a fantasy realm character transported to a world of/discovering Sci Fi/Sci Fantasy tech.
I think this would actually be a very cool variant game. Have any of you ever run/played games where you were a normal earth character dragged off to some fantasy realm? Do you even like the idea?
*Barring the (hate to even mention it) D&D Cartoon.
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Post by acodispo on Oct 6, 2021 9:10:18 GMT -6
Yes, we played a specific variation of that scenario a few times. It wasn't to my tastes as ref, but my first gaming group rotated refs and there were several short-lived adventures along the lines of: "You all wake up and find yourselves in a fantasy world! You are yourself! What do you do?" Amusing times were then had trying to figure out which of us (the real-world players) would be the wizard and gain magical powers, vs who was the best fighter (obviously that was the kid who took karate lessons or the one who bought a replica sword at a sci-fi con one year). These were just-for-fun mostly and I don't recall the whole group playing them for more than a session or two. I do recall there being a couple of long-running solo (GM + one player) adventures in that vein, though. The rest of the group would check in from time to time: "How's Greg doing in the Four Lands?" "Well, he's been there for four years now, he misses you all since he went through the magic portal but he's learning to be a Druid so that's cool." Later on I did plan out a campaign where d20 Modern characters would suffer a TPK and wake up to find themselves in a fantasy afterlife run with D&D rules, but I never ran it.  On the topic of official inclusions, it's partially a cross-marketing thing, I'm sure, but there's the "Sixguns & Sorcery" and "Mutants & Magic" sections of the AD&D DMG, where you're given guidelines for "[having] a time/space warp throw BOOT HILL gunfighters into your AD&D world". |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2021 11:08:50 GMT -6
The Visitation Theme played a big role in the original Blackmoor games, didn't it?
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Post by howandwhy99 on Oct 6, 2021 14:34:52 GMT -6
I believe the original game was a strategy game, one involving the exploration of a fantasy world as game world. It wasn't really about pretending to be another person (and that's not what role playing meant at the time anyways).
The point is, I recall none too few people liked to create themselves with their stats. Then they could test their own abilities as well as wits against the challenges of the game.
In this way, the game itself could and sometimes was putting real people from our world into a "real" fantasy world (at least a predictably causal simulation of one which could be gamed for measurable objectives). Character acting wasn't relevant and acting and talking about the fantasy world as it related to our actual reality of the time was pretty commonplace.
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lige
Level 2 Seer
Posts: 42
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Post by lige on Oct 13, 2021 23:09:44 GMT -6
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Post by jeffb on Oct 14, 2021 7:09:58 GMT -6
Thank you for the linkage. I like James' take on the "Stranger" class. That is the kind of vibe I'm thinking about (not playing yourself as a character in a fantasy world, as others mentioned). FYI- second link brings up a not found page, but I'll search through the BLOG and see what I can find. |
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lige
Level 2 Seer
Posts: 42
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Post by lige on Oct 14, 2021 9:33:35 GMT -6
Thank you for the linkage. I like James' take on the "Stranger" class. That is the kind of vibe I'm thinking about (not playing yourself as a character in a fantasy world, as others mentioned). FYI- second link brings up a not found page, but I'll search through the BLOG and see what I can find. To get to that second link you’ll need to fill in the blanks on the popular expletive in the address. Proboards starred out the offending letters. |
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Post by jeffb on Oct 14, 2021 9:39:43 GMT -6
Thank you for the linkage. I like James' take on the "Stranger" class. That is the kind of vibe I'm thinking about (not playing yourself as a character in a fantasy world, as others mentioned). FYI- second link brings up a not found page, but I'll search through the BLOG and see what I can find. To get to that second link you’ll need to fill in the blanks on the popular expletive in the address. Proboards starred out the offending letters.  OK. Thank you! |
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Post by Starbeard on Oct 14, 2021 11:23:57 GMT -6
I think we see it more in scenario design, like Temple of the Frog and Castle Amber, than in game design, like character classes or campaign discussions, precisely because one is a scenario and the other is game design. Adventures are the most fruitful way to bring in the widest variety of story concepts and literary influences, but that also means the players are only interacting with those concepts rather than enacting them themselves as part of the game setting.
When I don't have the time to build a campaign setting, or have the player group who really want to capitalize on the setting, I like to flip that around and just make them all strangers from another world. The party mysteriously appears on an unknown hill; the broom closet in the town inn happens to be a dimensional nexus that sends lost wanderers stumbling into the room at regular intervals; that sort of thing. You don't have to worry about those "would my character know" conundrums that way..
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Post by tdenmark on Oct 14, 2021 16:11:59 GMT -6
Thank you for the linkage. I like James' take on the "Stranger" class. That is the kind of vibe I'm thinking about (not playing yourself as a character in a fantasy world, as others mentioned). FYI- second link brings up a not found page, but I'll search through the BLOG and see what I can find. I wrote up a variant of The Stranger called the Outlander which is basically John Carter, Kal-El, Flash Gordon dungeoneering.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-outlander.htmlI dig James' minimalism. |
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Post by tdenmark on Oct 14, 2021 16:14:41 GMT -6
Sadly it looks like the one at roguesandreavers got taken down. Too bad I'd really like to read it. Edit: Nevermind, I figured it out. This forum edits curse words, so you have to replace ** with uc Another edit: Here is a way to get around the curse word censorship (which, btw, I agree with. Cussing is unnecessary to make a point). I used bitly to turn it into a shortened URL: bit.ly/30jqNQE |
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Post by tkdco2 on Oct 16, 2021 0:34:46 GMT -6
I played a version of myself once, except I had turned into a half-elf. I nearly died in that game.
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Post by Starbeard on Oct 16, 2021 1:26:08 GMT -6
The most fun Middle earth campaign I ran was as ourselves. We tried our best to stat ourselves up in MERP with only the skills we actually wield, equipped ourselves only with what we actually own, and crossed a ley line while walking along the Thames/Isis, ending up at Brandywine Bridge. It was a plotless sandbox utilizing every MERP and Rolemaster table (and several other games) we could muster to help run the show.
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Post by DungeonDevil on Oct 16, 2021 7:05:41 GMT -6
Noone I have ever met has ever done that, a la Corben's "Den", a scrawny, pencil-necked teen whisked off to a bizarre, technicolour otherworld with strange vistas, impossibly curvaceous females in need of "rescuing", hideous monsters and powerful magicks. I'd love to though. Time to re-read Heavy Metal mag! I'd also like to do a Barsoom campaign as well, but that won't be happening anytime soon. Thanks a lot, COVID! (*smirk*) I have come to like it -- much the way I enjoy Mazes & Monsters. |
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Post by jeffb on Oct 16, 2021 7:37:48 GMT -6
I'm surprised so many folks attempted to play as themselves in a fantasy realm. I never encountered that in my initial group or any of the other groups I sat in with. I think I would have fared pretty well had I done so- I was already shooting competitively at 8 yo, had a large selection of family firearms to choose from to take into a fantasy realm, and was used to "roughing it" in the woods- i.e. basic survival skills. Now once I ran out of ammo...  |
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Post by tkdco2 on Oct 16, 2021 12:41:20 GMT -6
In college I fenced, did archery, and practiced judo and a bit of karate. So I could have had some fighter training. I'd probably be better as a bard or sage, though, since I also studied a lot of myths and legends. I'm not a trained musician, but I tried to set a few of Tolkien's songs in LOTR to music. Later I got my black belt in taekwondo and practiced some Korean swordsmanship, so monk can be another alternative.
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Post by Starbeard on Oct 16, 2021 12:56:56 GMT -6
In college I fenced, did archery, and practiced judo and a bit of karate. So I could have had some fighter training. I'd probably be better as a bard or sage, though, since I also studied a lot of myths and legends. I'm not a trained musician, but I tried to set a few of Tolkien's songs in LOTR to music. Later I got my black belt in taekwondo and practiced some Korean swordsmanship, so monk can be another alternative. As I recall, we first tried to make ourselves as the Civilian profession, but after creating our characters we agreed that we had no chance of survival, so we made our characters again with traditional MERP professions, based on our real world occupations & hobbies. I think we had a warrior, a scout, an animist, and I was a bard. Many of the Stranger in a Fantasy World stories have the protagonist develop unexpected fantasy powers when he crosses over, so that was our rationale too. The only thing we were very strict about was knowledge skills: we all took 0 ranks in any Tolkien languages, but we brought our dictionaries as items. All communications had to be with 0 language ranks, but if we rolled a success then we wrote down what word or interaction we learned in that language, for future use. It was a DM-less game, or really we were all co-DMs and I handled most of the rules heavy lifting since they were my books. It was a really fun game, I think we got maybe 4-6 or so long sessions in. I highly recommend it to everyone to try once. |
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phantomtim
Level 3 Conjurer
13th Age Enthusiast
Posts: 87 
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Post by phantomtim on Nov 1, 2021 1:14:47 GMT -6
Have any of you ever run/played games where you were a normal earth character dragged off to some fantasy realm? Do you even like the idea? My Palladium campaign in the '80s slowly transformed over the years as I accumulated more books. It started as a Heroes Unlimited campaign, quickly adopting aspects of TMNT & Other Strangeness, Ninjas & Superspies, and other games. When I bought some Palladium Fanatsy books, it was time for the PCs to get transported to a fantasy realm, where they'd learn about the world as the players did. It worked reasonably well, thanks to Palladium having rules for both modern characters and fantasy characters. |
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Post by ahabicher on Nov 10, 2021 4:02:45 GMT -6
Have any of you ever run/played games where you were a normal earth character dragged off to some fantasy realm? Do you even like the idea? I used to play in a campaign where we were humans of various eras from now up until 200 years in the future who were cryosleeped and woke up in a far, far future because the cryo-pods failed. Our new world was a place with some remnants of supertech & AI, but all fallen apart, so in the meantime a fantasy world has developed and all the geography is changed. Very nice setting. |
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Post by stonetoflesh on Nov 17, 2021 12:51:17 GMT -6
My Wilderlands houserules had an "Earthling" character race, different from the standard Wilderlands "Human." Earthling PCs were adventurers from our world's more-or-less modern era, zapped to the Wilderlands via a science experiment gone awry, lost in the Bermuda Triangle, etc. They could play as fighters or thieves, had a bonus to figure out ancient technology, and began play with a pistol, extra ammo, and 1d3 small tech items (Zippo lighter, compass, binoculars, etc.)
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Post by tkdco2 on Nov 17, 2021 15:05:57 GMT -6
I would consider making a character who is a Medieval knight or man-at-arms. After learning the language and the customs, he'd be a better fit than a modern-day hero.
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