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Campaign: The Rescued


Steve

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Suddenly transferred into a medieval fantasy setting, a handful of people from our world find themselves inhabiting the bodies of powerful heroic figures there.

 

For their own reasons, the gods of this fantasy world selected people whose personalities matched certain criteria they were looking for and were about to die in our world. Perhaps one was flatlining on an operating table, another was seconds away from a fatal car crash. Plucked from our world, they are given a choice: accept the death that was coming for them or take a chance on this new world.

 

The bodies they are given to inhabit are individuals who have the right skills and abilities to get the job done that the gods want taken care of, but their minds are too much a part of the world. In a sense, the gods wanted heroes who could bring fresh perspectives to problems. The spirts of those heroic figures were taken by the gods and went on to their rewards, leaving a still-living body behind, complete with all of the memories and abilities of the former person.

 

Not every life being given to the Rescued is a heroic one. Some may have lived lives of villainy, forcing that Rescued person into dealing with bad past choices. The bodies given them may be older or younger than the ones they had or may not even be the same gender. Maybe they are even non-human. Of course, all of this is determined by each player when they build their characters.

 

To make things easier, they are transported from wherever in the world they are to a central meeting point and shown images of their future teammates.

 

Because the gods have a sense of humor and understand fantasy cliches to some degree, everyone gets to meet at a tavern. :)

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Actually, the Rescued are an experiment by the gods, so the PCs will (likely) be the only people from our world inhabiting bodies on this one.

 

The "revised" heroes are intended to think outside the box that a native of this world wouldn't be able to. It may even be a new game the gods are trying out.

 

I suppose its a little like the "Guardians of the Flame" books by Joel Rosenberg mixed up with the "River of the Dancing Gods" series by Jack Chalker.

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  • 7 years later...

Okay. I confess, I've been feeling the urge to run or be in a game like this, then low and behold- a search yields results that others have already considered it years ago! I can't say I'm surprised but I am delighted to have other brains to pick. Steve did you ever get further with this? 

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7 minutes ago, Steve said:

Unfortunately, I never got a chance to run it. It remains as ideas on paper and in the back of my mind.

 

Well, fudge cicles

 

Did you have an idea on the points they'd be built on? And guidelines on 'modern skills' and knowledges ..

I realize the original hero souls were yanked out, but would there be lingering personality echoes? 

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On 4/2/2014 at 8:52 PM, Steve said:

Actually, the Rescued are an experiment by the gods, so the PCs will (likely) be the only people from our world inhabiting bodies on this one.

 

The "revised" heroes are intended to think outside the box that a native of this world wouldn't be able to. It may even be a new game the gods are trying out.

 

I suppose its a little like the "Guardians of the Flame" books by Joel Rosenberg mixed up with the "River of the Dancing Gods" series by Jack Chalker.


    The Warrior Lives! 🐲 
            (A minute later...)    How about an NPC who got put into the body of a Dragon?

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25 minutes ago, Hermit said:

 

Well, fudge cicles

 

Did you have an idea on the points they'd be built on? And guidelines on 'modern skills' and knowledges ..

I realize the original hero souls were yanked out, but would there be lingering personality echoes? 


I was thinking to use either Powerful Heroes or Very Powerful Heroes points-wise, but there would be an expectation to use some of those points for things like Positive Reputation, Perks and Contacts, as well as skills from their original world that might still have some usage in a new world. Since languages would not be the same in this world, it would require spending points on any from our world they would like to keep, albeit with some caveats. Being able to speak in English to each other when no one around them could understand would be a benefit worth points. But I would not charge a character to know how to speak French or Japanese if they were the only one that did. It’s just flavor then.
 

For really good concepts, I would allow what I call Hero Debt, extra points that they can use at character creation for things that fit the character that would be paid back by half or more of their experience points before they can spend them on new things. The character is older or more experienced, but they grow more slowly.

 

Each player would have to mentally construct two characters and then merge them, so they can keep whatever skills they want from their old world. Maybe one player wants to be a shy engineering student from Australia now in the body of a skilled thief with a reputation as a womanizer and the charm to match, but who never learned to read. Or a retired housewife from New Jersey finds herself in the body of this world’s version of Red Sonja in her physical prime.

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30 minutes ago, Tjack said:


    The Warrior Lives! 🐲 
            (A minute later...)    How about an NPC who got put into the body of a Dragon?


Since this would be mostly a swords and sorcery setting, non-humanoids would be a non-starter. Humans or very near human races are what would be expected.

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4 hours ago, Steve said:


Since this would be mostly a swords and sorcery setting, non-humanoids would be a non-starter. Humans or very near human races are what would be expected.


     I really meant that last part as kind of a joke.   Thinking about GotF got me thinking about the Ellegon the Dragon character and how it would be fun as a GM to play him as an NPC.

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