New Campaign Idea

[Fenixcrest]

I had a brilliant and cunning plan, which I am now pursuing. This is an idea that you should only use with a tried-and-true group who won't mind you pulling a fast one on them. Come up, with their help, an idea for a modern heroic campaign- a S.W.A.T. team, or some cryptozoologists, or somesuch. Make the characters, and begin a session. Sometime during the first session, though, drop the floor out from them. There might be a sudden, blinding flash, or a shadow in the corner of the room may suddenly engulf everything- whatever.

When the PC's regain their senses, they are in an unknown wilderness, wearing simple, old-style clothes, and each one retains only one of their modern items (determined by the GM). From here on out, they are in a traditional sword-and-sorcery fantasy realm, and must find their way home! People here speak English(or your native-speaking language of choice), but this is most definitely not Earth. The technology is like that of medieval times, and magic and fantastic creatures are real here. What will the player characters manage to do with themselves?

I would very much like to pull this on my local group! Any thoughts, Herodom assembled?

[Manic Typist]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

Yeah... there was a thread on this recently.... and basically it came down to:

 

This is something that is very hard to pull off, and very likely to make people angry.

[Xander75]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

I tried something similar twice, in a different genre, and although the players at first were leary, and one was angry, they went with it and we eneded up enjoying the whole mess. I suppose if you think your players would be ok with such a thing it would work, but be careful of the one who doesn't like his character messed with.

[LordSkatterhawk]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

Assuming that the players trust you and respect your decision to rip them out of the "intended" setting, I have a logistics question for you:

 

1) How do you keep the players' characters intact? I mean the motivations, social lims, and psych lims of these characters might be worth nothing or they might be worth lots of points. For example, let's say I make a SWAT Sniper who is mildly afraid of spiders and has a girlfriend DNPC. Transport him to your swords-and-sorcery world and his DNPC is gone. Also, giant spiders tend to be present in fantasy worlds (every since Tolkien's spiders in the forest), so that mild fear could become very prominent.

 

This doesn't even account for the fact that Shooter doesn't have expertise with bows. The GM chooses which technological thing the character takes, so Shooter leaves behind his body armor, gun, radio, or bullets. Which would you choose?

 

Okay, the above questions might be a little harsh in their phrasing, but I think these are the kinds of problems ManicTypist and Xander75 alluded to. I personally love to play Fantasy and I like the idea of playing a stranger-in-a-strange land. I do, however, beleive that genre emulation and character ownership are two areas of concern here. I don't think overcoming them is impossible, but it pays to think things out very carefully. Hopefully my comments are constructive.

 

If not, then simply through eTomatoes (or is it iTomatoes?).

[The Monster]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

There's an old novel "Doomfarers of Coramonde" that did just this: took a squad(?) from Vietnam and dropped into a fantasy world. Not too bad, especially for the twenty-odd years ago when it came out. Haven't read it since. Had a sequel or two, IIRC, which I never read. In the novel, all the equipment (including an M113 APC) came through intact.

 

Personally, I'd bring the players in on it at some level. Let them know, at the very least, that the group would end up cut off from home and from command and resupply. Skew the disad points - give them 100+50 rather than 75+75, or something like that. You can be mysterious about just what the surprise will be, but I'd feel chary about totally setting them up for modern military and jerking them into fantasy - especially if I was going to rip off all their gear! - at least for any more than a one-shot crossover-type adventure.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

So, first thing you do is tell them up front.

 

Idea: Everyone gets to take an "Unfamiliar With Culture Of Fantasy World" Disad. They get the disad and can use the points to buy off some of their other Disads (such as the DNPC that didn't come along).

 

Option: Give extra XP for the "playing up the idea of a modern guy who doesn't know his way around the fantasy world". Otherwise you'll end up with a group of PCs who are all in the SCA. (A favorite: a guy who in his "day job" is Special Forces, who also happens to be in the SCA. Not even unrealistic; a large percentage of SCA'ers are in the military.)

[CraterMaker]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

Personally, I'd be inclined to let them take a good chunk of their gear - camo, boots, helmets, guns. As soon as they landed in the fantasy world have em jumped by fifty or so orcs (who ambushed the king of the realm and some of his knights). They'll make an undeniably impressive first impression to the king, they'll be down to half their ammo (and no resupply!! - gonna have to go native), and kick start all sorts of intrigue and such. Make sure to emphasize in subtle ways how their effectiveness is more from their training and education rather than the bang-bangs at their sides.

 

Though it's terribly, terribly, TERRIBLY misoginistic, I'd recommend The Cross Time Engineer series by.. emm.. Leo Frankowski. Published in the late eighties.. Time travel fantasy, where the hero ends up (after four or five books) defeating the Monguls who are invading Poland by introducing modern ideas into a medieval period. Lots of good ideas on what can be done in that era, what has to be done first, and why other things can't be done yet.

 

There are other books out there that illustrate a modern military squad going back to the medieval era, but can't think of their names off hand. Harry Turtledove probly has a few out (have you SEEN how many books he's written?

 

We're coming, you Mongols,

We're coming to kill you.

We're coming, you Mongols,

We're coming to die!

And your blood and our blood

Will fertilize meadows,

And our sons will plough them

And grain will grow high!

--------Krystyana's Hymn, from The Flying Warlord, bood four of Leo Frankowdskis "Adventures of Conrad Stargard"

 

 

-CraterMaker

["V"]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

I've done a few bait & switch campaigns in the past (without the prior written consent of the players) & they've all been very well received. I stayed out of the other thread about whether or not GMs should have the temerity to do such a thing as most of the posters were of the opinion that a GM responsible for such an outrage should be at the very least castrated. At the time I didn't feel like putting my neck on the block (sorry about the mixed metaphor, didn't want to use the word testes).

 

All I can speak from is personal experience. I've done it. It worked well. As with anything in the gaming field you need the right GM and the right players and the right delivery of the material. More of an art than a science I suppose.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

Another danger with bait-and-switch setups is you may be switching them to a campaign in a genre they don't like, and wouldn't have agreed to play in. For example, I generally don't care for post-apocalyptic settings; I find the real world grim and depressing enough without having my gaming experience be grim and depressing. So if a GM started a game and presented it as a modern heroic action campaign, but then surprisingly revealed it to really be a post-apocalyptic game, I'd be pretty annoyed. Not because there's anything "wrong" with doing a post-apoc game... just because if I'd known that's what it was going to be, I wouldn't have wanted to play in it.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

The Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg is a pretty good example of the modern people thrust into a fantasy world genre. They didn't have the benefit of modern weapons starting out, but the engineering major along with them did a decent job working up firearms by the second or third book...which shows that it's the knowledge more than the goodies that helps you out in the long run.

 

But yeah, make sure your players are cool with the idea. Some people will take to the twist in the game like a duck to water, and some will consider it the grossest treachery.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

I had a brilliant and cunning plan' date=' which I am now pursuing. [/quote']

 

I ran a transworld fantasy that lasted 7 years. I was open and honest about the game, letting the players know they were going to end up in a Fantasy world. The characters were roleplayed perfectly, with confusion, and distress.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: New Campaign Idea

 

A short rundown of Transworld fantasy:

 

The Caramonde book by Daley

Guardians of the Flam

Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Mordant's Need

Oz

Narnia

Spellsing by Alan Dean Foster

Time of the Dark by Barbara Hambly

Doc Sidhe by Aaron Allston

John Carter of Mars

Witch World by Ande Norton

Legion of Videssons by Harry Turtledove

The Practive effect by David Brinn

Wizard In Rhyme Series by Christopher Stasheff (Her Magesty's Wizard & sequels)

 

 

Yeah it's my favorite subgenre of Fantasy.

There are certain elements that run through that kind of fantasy, a particular story arc that runs behind whatever the main story is. I have an article about running those types of games back in DH #11.