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View Full Version : Ideas for KingdomHearts-inspired Pathfinder/D&D game?



Chimera245
2013-05-09, 07:02 PM
Very soon I will be DMing a game for three friends. My campaign setting is basically the whole idea behind Kingdom Hearts.

Some Epic Threat has ripped the world(s) to bits. Surviving chunks of worlds floating around are what the PCs get to explore and adventure in.

Each world chunk is taken from a different Famous Movie/Game/Book/TV Show/Whatever. Possibly also to include bits of previous D&D campaigns I've played with these people.

Each player starts out in a different world, then Disaster Strikes, destroying their homeworld, and they wind up in the Hub Town Where Survivors End Up.

I'm trying to decide how much I should come up with myself, and how much I should just copy-and-paste from Kingdom Hearts.

I like the whole Light Vs. Darkness theme it had. I may actually make the bad guys the Heartless. I won't be using any of the same characters or events, at the very least. (unless, coincedentally, the party goes to one of the worlds that actually appeared in the games...)

I'm probably not going to use the Keyblade part of the story, since my players don't actually make much use of physical weapons on a regular basis.

I plan to have the worlds interact with each other once they discover the other worlds are there. Meeting, trading, going to war, learning each others' skills and technology, etc. Instead of the "Prime Directive" No Interference policy that the games seemed to have. (Just imagine what a threat The Joker would be in an urban area with one of those switches from Super Mario that turns bricks into coins and vice/versa...)

My Players are going to be Gestalt characters from Unearthed Arcana.
-Wizard/Alchemist with a "whee! explosions!" kind of personality.
-Druid/Summoner who's basically a ditzy valley girl.
-Rogue/Warlock who's skilled at piloting giant robots. (though, of course, she doesn't have one at the moment...)

Their starting town is going to be the old, ruined Justice League Watchtower, that crashed into a little chunk of Super Mario World-ness, with random other bits of dessicated dead worlds scattered on here and there. A thriving big town is built on top of this, founded by the Beatles. (because one guy loves DC and Marvel stuff, and another is a HUGE Beatles nut.)

I don't plan on revealing just who the "four founding adventurers" are immediately...I'm gonna wait and see if she puts two and two together when they meet the high-level wizard/bard "Mr. Starr" who dual-wields magic wands and has a drumset in his lab...

I've designed it so that the space between the worlds is basically the Astral Plane with little world chunks floating in it. They will fly through this to go from world to world. But anything that I decide will let them get to the Astral Plane will let them travel the worlds. This might be anything from modifying the warp-core on the Starship Enterprise with magic space-crystals to casting the right spell on the oars of your rowboat.

Basically, if you have the right pair of magic sneakers, you can walk from Tattooine to Hogwarts Castle.

On one entire side of All Existence is the Positive Energy Plane. On the other side of All Existence, is the Negative Energy Plane.

Each individual world has an Ethereal Plane, which is a reflection of that world from the light of the Positive energy plane, that the players can use to travel to the Positive Energy plane if they need to. And Each world has a Plane of Shadow, that is the shadow cast by that world by the light of the Positive Energy plane, and the players can use it to travel to the Negative Energy plane if they need to.

I'll have everyone start with the typical "trippy stained-glass void" dream, then wake up and watch their homeworld get eaten, then wake up in the main town.

Past that, I've got nothing...

I've got some ideas of what worlds I'm going to put near the starting town, but I don't know why they'd visit them yet. So far, I've got Gotham City, Green Hill Zone, and Hotel California.

Any ideas how I can flesh this all out so we can start playing this game?

Randel
2013-05-10, 02:34 PM
Few ideas:

1. If you are bringing in the "trippy stain glass window tutorial", who or what sends people there?

One idea would be that there is some kind of cosmic force of good who is summoning heros, like a mirror of the Heartless. These guys (the Harmony?) can't appear in the material plane like Heartless but instead exist in the astral plane with gods and other cosmic beings. They work to summon and assist heros or champions to fight in the material plane and to maybe protect the souls of the dead or whatever.

Say that all Heartless naturally resawn after they are destroyed (by regenerating in the shadow plane or whatever). The Harmony however can trap them in the astral plane where they can't regenerate, so even if there aren't any keyblades, the Harmony can slow down or even stop the growth of Heartless in affected worlds.

In addition, they can rescue people by pulling them into the astral plane to drop them on other worlds (so not everyone on a destroyed world gets claimed by the Heartless) or they can claim whole worlds for themselves... not all worlds fall into darkness, some fall into the Light.

You could probably think of them as a good version of Organisation 13, they are the remnants of goodness that remain from those claimed by the Heartless and don't want others to share their fate. They can provide exposition and limited assistance to the heroes or help them prevent worlds from falling.


2. Do the players home worlds have to fall?

I've played some Kingdom Hearts pbp games before and I have to admit having your whole home world destroyed in your backstory is kind of a bummer (really, imagine the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE getting wiped out by zombies and you're the only survivor. That's some prime survivors guilt material right there).

Maybe some worlds were protected (keyholes sealed?) by the players and the Harmony (or whoever) and the players just kind of leave home to save other worlds while their friends hold the fort.

Maybe the trippy stainglass window sequence is one last-ditch attempt by the Harmony to save that world. Basically they can send a person into the Keyhole to defeat the Heartless, kill the boss, and seal the lock. If they win, their home world is safe. If they lose, their world is consumed by darkness.


3. Artificial Worlds -

I just recently played Bioshock Infinite and I gotta say it would be awesome to see Columbia in a Kingdom Hearts game.

As a "world" made up of flying buildings, it shouldn't have a "heart" for the Heartless to steal (though it wouldn't surprise me if it did have one in a fashion). It could probably make a cool mobile base to fight Heartless, or a potential weapon for the Bad Guys.


4. Regarding worlds-

Gotham City is kind of a hellhole in most depictions I know. I mean, considering all the wackos commiting mass murder for chuckles on a weekly basis, having Gotham get ripped apart and sent directly to the Realm of Eternal Darkness would at least put the darn place to rest.

Metropolis however is pretty nice. Probably the same sort of crime, but it has Superman. I hear some say that "Metropolis is New York in the day while Gotham is it at night".

Maybe there could be some sort dualism between Metropolis and Gotham. The guys come to the DC world to recruit Superman but find that Metropolis got magicaly nuked somehow. Jokers behind it because he thinks letting the Man of Steels city fall to darkness is a huge joke. Cue a scenario where Supes spends all his energy keeping civilians safe while the players and Batman try to seal the keyhole, get the Joker, or develop some kind of automated defense system.

For added tension, Superman risks getting corrupted. The loss of Metropolis almost drives him to kill the Joker (and pretty much all the other super criminals) which could send him off the deep end and turn him into a Heartless/Nobody/Harmony.

Batman thus has to do the "dirty work" of dealing with Joker. You could have other "fallen" superheroes or villains. Heroes who let their darkness consume them risk becoming Heartless... who could be under the control of Joker because he's so evil and stuff.


Green Hill Zone - It would be really cool if Eggman/Robotnick was trying to robotisize his worlds inhabitants specifically to make them immune to the Heartless. He turns animals/people into emotionless robots who are thus immune to the Heartless. They are also decked out with weapons, so they can defend against the Heartless, and finally he's got a machine that can reverse the process to turn them back to normal.

The dilemma is that Eggmans technology could likely end the Heartless menace by turning everyone into robots, defeating the Heartless, then returning people to normal. However, everyone turned into a bot is stripped of their emotions and free will, so it's not that much of an improvement. Plus, Eggman could have robotisized himself into an emotionless robot who has absolutely no intention or desire to turn anyone back to normal if he wins.

Bezzerker
2013-05-10, 09:11 PM
3. Artificial Worlds -

I just recently played Bioshock Infinite and I gotta say it would be awesome to see Columbia in a Kingdom Hearts game.

As a "world" made up of flying buildings, it shouldn't have a "heart" for the Heartless to steal (though it wouldn't surprise me if it did have one in a fashion). It could probably make a cool mobile base to fight Heartless, or a potential weapon for the Bad Guys.

I would suggest for Columbia's heart, have it be Elizabeth. This could be used to give her a unique set of powers, as well as being a target for the bad guys if/when they learn of her true nature. This would also force her to stay in the world, as if she left, the whole world would lose its heart.

This could also be the first world that the players encounter after the Hub World, and act as the method of transportation to the other worlds. I would also include some kind of upgrading side quest for Columbia, possibly fluffed as finding the lost technology scattered amongst the worlds and/or supplying the raw materials to re-fabricate and research upgrades. This would mimic the Gummi ship from the games quite nicely, while still being unique.

EDIT: Also, for the dualism of Gotham and Metropolis, perhaps when the worlds were torn apart, the two cities ended up occupying the same "space"? This could be done by having the day/night cycle of the world cause the world to shift between the two, with specific spots allowing a person to pass from one to the other. This could be used by the Joker to travel into Metropolis, commit one of his signature crimes, then escape back to Gotham. The main goal of the players would be to establish communication between Batman and Superman, before taking on the Joker as the final boss.

This idea probably needs tweaking, but hopefully it's a good starting point.