Tuesday, April 12, 2011

J: Jumping across the worlds ...

It is frankly an inevitability that any game I run will -- somehow, some way -- involve crossing dimensions or traveling to other planes.

My go-to settings, even if only for inspiration, are Planescape and Spelljammer (though I've run a fair few PS campaigns, SJ is proving more elusive); and even in more "grounded" settings there are the inevitable planar bleeds, elemental hijinks and my nigh-obsession with portals, gates, and various means to various worlds. Even if I'm only attaching pocket dimensions and microworlds to the campaign setting I'll do it without batting an eyelash ... and then wind up dumping the party there somehow ~

One of these days I may put one of my snippets of more fiction-based -- and, more importantly, individually controlled -- planar travel (re to Tomira Eliyes: think Myar) into actual game terms but for the time being I haven't quite worked out how to let PCs learn their own routes. Or how to put the specific glorious chances of screwing up your destination into game rules ;3

I haven't played around with time, much, however. I chalk this up to an intrinsic loathing of grandfather paradox in all its forms.


Also tangentially related to today's letter (*cough*), one of these days I swear I will hack the Fighter class to give me a credible version of the dragon knight ...

3 comments:

Buhallin said...

It's definitely old school, but few cross-dimensional settings did it with quite as much depth and originality as Torg. WEG released an updated rulebook a few years back that fixed some of the issues with the system (although the faith system still sucks). If you're a fan of cross-dimensional multi-genre settings, it's definitely worth checking out.

trollsmyth said...

I dislike time hijinks so much, in my latest campaign I gave all worlds and planes a single, cross-dimensional sun and moons, for which time passes in a universal pace. Since the sun is also an avatar of the All-mother Goddess, it fit pretty well with my themes, too.

Anonymous said...

Joining in on the anti-time travel band wagon. In the Sea of Stars time only goes forward.

Agreed with Buhallin, TORG was a pretty nifty setting (and an interesting game).