TL;DR: World-jumping campaign where the PCs play themselves and visit various fictitious worlds from their favorite games/movies/books, where they need to fix something that is wrong (testing their knowledge of that world) before moving to a new world, rinse and repeat. Would very much love some inputs and criticism if you survive reading the full post.
Hi all (I just posted this on the Genesys subreddit, but thought I could add it here too to increase the potential for feedback).
I have been working with a world-jumping scenario I’d like to try with my players, and now that Genesys is released (our favorite system) the time has come to attempt to realize this.
The players would start out playing as themselves (with no distinction between player knowledge and character knowledge), and would visit a wide range of worlds from various games, movies and books that they are familiar with. When in another world they would manifest there as a character/species/class combination belonging to that world, with skills and talents they normally don’t have.
My plan is naturally not to create complete settings for each and every world, that would simply be too much work, however I hope to be able to leech off you guys and draw inspiration from what you and other Genesys GMs are creating. Below I will share my thoughts, and I’d love some input and criticism.
Warning, long post below!
The main idea:
Each world has something wrong compared to the established continuity, they need to attempt to fix it and then return to our world before travelling to a new fictional world.
Successfully correcting a world grant them a skill/talent unique to that world to be a part of their character permanently.
(Quick example: They show up on Tatooine, realize that Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen were never killed, Luke never went with Obi-Wan to Alderaan etc. Solution: kill Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, frame the Empire, convince Luke to join the Rebellion, get him to the Death Star/Alderaan and help the them resolve the plot as close to the movie as possible, Possible rewards would be the ability to use the Force in our world and any other world.)
The final goal is to amass a lot of power and skills in order to defeat The Big Bad and save the multiverse.
The story
The game would start by us sitting down at our weekly playroom, and I’d start the narration by describing the room we’re in (very meta) with one exception, I have not shown up! I then ask them what they do, and I am pretty sure they’d say that they would call me (sometimes my bus is delayed), upon which I’ll tell them that none of them are able to get reception on their phones. Soon the power goes out and they hear a weird noise (think Reaper from Mass Effect) coming from the direction of the castle (we happen to play at an office in downtown Oslo, near the King's castle).
Once they make their way outside they see an eerie light in the sky, and then all **** breaks loose. Some large spaceship-thingy is hanging Independence Day style above the castle while a swarm of smaller ships are buzzing all around Oslo, beaming up random people (these are the evil Errants). I let them run around a bit in the confusion, until a different colored spaceship arrives and beams them up and fade to white as they slip into unconsciousness..
Players who succeed on a willpower test (or some other appropriate skill to signify resisting the thing making them go unconscious) will be able to spot through a haze large figures gently putting the players into some kind of pods, before fading to white as well.
The players would then wake up in a new World in a new body, with a gentle voice echoing in their heads as they wake up saying " Find the deviations, defeat the Errants and restore order to this World and return ".
After an undetermined amount (as of now) of Worlds restored they would have their final mission in our world, by defeating the leaders of the Errants using their new skills acquired in the other Worlds..
Challenges:
Real world stats:
As stated, they start out playing themselves in the real world. I am contemplating either giving them 2’s on everything, or try to adjust them to match reality. Maybe make them have arm-wrestling competition to determine Brawn, level of education to determine Intelligence (or not, could be a sore point.
Character stats in other Worlds:
I plan to modify their existing character sheets whenever they visit a new world, to represent the new body they are in while keeping aspect of themselves still there. I am just not quite sure how to implement it.
Say you manifest as a dumb, but strong, Orc with an Intellect of 1 and Brawn of 4, but in real life you are intelligent and your character has Intellect of 3 and Brawn 2. If I were to simply give a player the Orcs character sheet with Intellect 1 and Brawn 4, the player would lose the intelligent aspect of their character. Instead I modify the character sheet by giving the player a setback die to all Intelligence tests (or upgrade them if the Orc is really dumb) and +2 to Brawn. This way, you are still you, you’re simply in a stronger body and in a brain that is not quite up to par, thus the setback/upgrade (narrated as a sluggishness to your thoughts, as if you’ve been up all night).
What I am now trying to figure out here is the best way to track these modifications. Other than simply giving them a new version of their character sheet for that session...
Character Progression:
One central aspect of all roleplaying games is the character progression. As I now have tied acquiring new special skills and talents as part of the reward system for restoring a corrupted World, I am unsure of whether to have additional character progression, and if so how to implement it. Should I hand out EXP as normal and let them progress their real world characters as normal, in addition to whatever they receive as rewards? I should probably make a set of custom talents as well. Hmm.
In short, I don’t know yet.
The Multiverse:
I already have some ideas for specific worlds to visit, but as this post is long already I won’t post anything more unless there is an interest in discussing this more. I have also gotten a “Top 10 favorite fictitious worlds” from each of my players to work out from, so as to make sure everyone will visit worlds they enjoy. Also feel free to make pitches if you have any fun ideas.
Cheers
