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View Full Version : An extra-Planar Inn that would let characters be transferred from game to game.



Luminestra
2015-03-29, 12:58 AM
So, I have this idea for an extra-planar Inn. Basically, It would exist in most of my groups game settings. Players could bring old characters from other games and play them in current games so long as the DM running the game was ok with it. Can anyone see any potental pitfalls in this idea/anything really cool to do with it?

M Placeholder
2015-03-29, 01:07 AM
That actually already exists. Its called the world serpent Inn.

Of course, the far cooler and much more exiting option is Sigil, The Cage. There is also the bland as hell extraplanar city of Union.

Luminestra
2015-03-29, 01:13 AM
I did not know about the world serpent Inn. I'll look into that, Thanks.

I love Sigil, It's one of my favorite things in D&D. But I try to keep my players away from it. They seem to have an issue understanding just how powerful the Lady of Pain is(One player decided to start a cult to her just because she wouldn't like it, or beating up the dabus). Or trying to fight demons/devils in the street because they are worth a lot of XP.

That was a while ago, and we got a new super awesome player who actually RPs now. Maybe its time to reintroduce them to Sigil

Forrestfire
2015-03-29, 01:25 AM
The big one is that player characters generally don't transfer well between games, for a lot of groups. In gear-based games, characters might have much more or much less than comparably-powered characters, or they might have plot-granted abilities, or be tailored to a specific style of campaign or a personal plotline. I can't see any situation where you just outright grab a character sheet and use it in another game going well.

However, as a concept, I feel it has merit. As long as characters are rebuilt to fit each game mechanically, I think I would enjoy messing around with such a multiverse. The fluff of someone visiting from another world is really cool, and by rebuilding characters from scratch around that fluff, it's really no different from just making a backstory for a normal character, just with neat fish-out-of-water plot hooks and possibly alternate social mores, equipment, and the like.

Personally, I'd most likely never actually use it, though, outside of a backstory element. I create each character with the game, plot, other characters in the party, what sort of person I want to play in that specific game, and the like in mind, so bringing an old character from another game into a new one just to have seems a bit odd to me... They're created to fit into a story and work a certain way, so taking them out of their world, leaving their goals, aspirations, allies, and enemies behind... It doesn't seem fun, unless the whole point is that the character either accidentally got transferred or intentionally sought it out. At which point, it's a transformation of their story into backstory for a newly-built character, and, overall, is pretty much just a new character.

On a side note, for D&D at least, the sort of thing you're referring to actually exists in the established settings, and would be easy to adapt. The World Serpent Inn, connected to every world, and an easier way to travel between cosmologies than the Plane of Shadow. It was updated to D&D 3.5 in Dragon... 351, I wanna say.

On another side note, and only tangentially on-topic:
I'm actually currently playing in a game, set in Ravenloft, with the big starting hook being that every party member got grabbed by the demiplane from another world. We have a psionic kobold from Oerth (wandered into the Mists looking for a cure for her dragon parents' illness), a Lyrandar heir from Eberron (taken from the day of the Mourning as a fantasy nuke went off; arrived with a heavy dose of magical radiation poisoning and needs to find a cure), a failed Red Wizard of Thay (fled into the Mists by accident being chased by his former colleagues), a Ravenloft resident, from one of the "nicer" domains, who got caught in the plot, and a character from a homebrew world where all magic is the result of Binder-like pacts with various malicious spirits.

A lot of the fun of this game is probably going to come from the interactions between the characters, comparisons between worldviews, and the like. The Eberronian would probably be downright horrified that plagues still exist in the others' worlds, since the industrialized magic of Khorvaire has eliminated all but the most magical ones. The Red Wizard's likely to be astonished by the lack of active godly meddling in the others' worlds, or by the lack of gods entirely in Eberron. The woman from the homebrew world (who is, amusingly, a character from a previous game; one that ended abruptly and unsatisfyingly, and who was rebuilt to fit this game's rules) has already expressed shock at the idea that magic is just "around" for people to use, and is actively trying to learn anything she can about it, because previously, she had to carefully contract with monsters to get the same result.

Not really going anywhere with this, but I thought I'd give it as an example of a game I personally think would be a great reason to grab old characters. I still would be unlikely to do so myself, but that sort of situation, where the character is involuntarily shunted to another world, would cause lots of fun roleplaying opportunities and drama, probably.

SiuiS
2015-03-29, 01:30 AM
There are a few of those. Heck, I've made one (in game, in character).

It depends on use. You need some sort of abstract guardian or judge, or else what could be a cool thing turns out to just be a portal people walk up to and hop through.


I ended up by originally making the Inn a magic item that was sentient. It eventually individuated and due to shenanigans became a deity, with an alien portfolio and the ability to block any divination or extra sensory ability of the most potent and intelligent magic user in it's ambit (me, of course). So we end up with a building that can open doors anywhere it wants to, has an agenda leaning towards heroism and goodness but more interested in balance than a holy war, that's incredibly personally potent, has an insane number of alliances and is mysterious because there's no known magic that can actually find out what it's goals and motives are.

Basically, a black box that let's the DM do cool things and still say it's in character, in game, perfectly by the rules, and also advances the story.

Maglubiyet
2015-03-29, 09:53 AM
I got tired of the cross-plane inn/tavern trope -- now I use a fruit vendor.

You can find it tucked into an alcove a little off the beaten path in the major markets on a dozen different worlds. The display stand out front has an unremarkable variety of local produce, but if you duck under the tarp you'll find a more exotic selection, many of which you don't recognize.

A man (you think) of uncertain ethnic origins with an accent you can't quite place will help you decide what you're looking for. This is Yol Ptani, the proprietor. If, after carefully questioning the characters, he determines that what they seek is a little more remote than what he has on hand, he'll direct them to the very back of the stall.

There's a special bin back there that just might have what they're looking for. That's it, reach all the way in, it's near the bottom. Oh, of course there's a bottom...just climb in and you'll find it...

Welcome to Ptani's Fruit Stand!

the OOD
2015-03-30, 08:39 PM
a different idea is be to run a short/one-shot PvP game with everyone laying characters from past games.also? fate/zero is on netflix, if you have access to such things
I have run similar games, much to my player's enjoyment.

Knaight
2015-03-30, 08:52 PM
The obvious drawback here is that every game which has this shares a setting to at least some extent, with everything that implies. Running a set of related games across mostly separate settings sharing some amount of characters could work beautifully with this concept, particularly if you deliberately play up the fish out of water aspects and highly vary the settings culturally/technologically/etc., but it's not something that fits everywhere.

Joe the Rat
2015-03-31, 08:01 AM
Obligatory TV Tropes Link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InnBetweenTheWorlds)

It's a fun idea, but one that requires buy-in from players and GMs, especially the GMs.

Now, if these are characters in more-or-less the same game system, hopping over is pretty straightforward, though there may be some handicapping involved. If this is the route, you might want to look at establishing, for the group, something akin to the FLAILSNAILS Conventions (http://jrients.blogspot.com/2011/08/flailsnails-conventions.html). This is especially apt when the relative power of the settings (or parties) is significantly different. Note that said Inn isn't the only means to bump characters from one game to another. There are a variety of mishaps that make characters disappear; there's nothing to say that being sucked up by portable hole / bag of holding implosions, or that one too many draws from the Deck couldn't result in a campaign shift for the character rather than semi-permanent loss.

One of the keys to this approach is that All Adventures Are Canon: your jaunt into another world actually happened, and the characters gains and losses carry over to when they return to their home game... if they return to their home game.

If you are looking at pulling characters from different systems with more-or-less the same bounds (moving from Rokugan to Golarion, or Middle Earth to the middle of Oerth, or Creation to Metropolis), rebuilds are needed. But at that point, you are building a new character using the old character as the frame and backstory.

Pulling characters from a single system with varying settings (using a universal such as GURPS or Savage Worlds, or d20 I guess...) is easier mechanically, but can get wonky real quick. Pulling characters from different systems and genres... requires special handling. You may want to consider the following instead.


Another approach you can take with is the Callahan's Saloon / Floating Vagabond model, where the IBW is the home base (if not the entire setting) for characters from all over to come together and be weird and compare notes and drink and get into barfights with minor deities and Jovian Warrior-Women. This is playing for comedy and light diversion.

The existence of an IBW can also serve a function outside of character migration: transport between locations. In Classic D&D Cosmology, that translates into a free ride from your home Material to another plane, short-cutting the need to locate portals, Spelljammers, portkeys, or really powerful spellcasters. Of course, getting home again could be a challenge...

Bryan
2015-04-03, 06:21 PM
We've come up with a few ideas like this over the years but to be be honest, the method that works best is to just not worry about how the heroes pop in and out. It is just a game, after all.

If you absolutely NEED an in-story explanation, you could have shifted one alternate timeline over, where everything played out exactly the same except that this companion or that one was brought along or left behind.

EccentricCircle
2015-04-04, 04:33 AM
Most of my games are set on the same world, and all are within the same continuity, so crossovers can and do happen between campaigns.

Our general rule is that you can't just play a character "as is" but should rebuild an "interpretation" of that character which fits with the game you are bringing them into. This often means a dramatic shift in level, and occasionally switching between systems.

Our group is quite story focused, so no one has ever had a problem changing their character for a crossover appearance.

I3igAl
2015-04-04, 08:07 AM
Obligatory TV Tropes Link (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InnBetweenTheWorlds)

Possible inspriations not mentioned by TV Tropes:

Robert Lynn Asprins Demon Series includes such an Inn.

In Fritz Leibers "Swords of Lankmar", there is a wizard with a cave full of tunnels leading to different worlds/adventures.

There is even a parodie of Gothe's Faust from 1856, with an Inn beetween the worlds.

__________________________________________________ ________________________________

IMO the concept works well for fantasy RPGs, if you want to have such a high-level adventure.

Dr_Dinosaur
2015-04-05, 08:21 PM
I wish you luck working out the storytelling logistics of it, and leave you with a single suggestion: call it the Inn Between

erikun
2015-04-05, 08:52 PM
The biggest problem I would have with running a character through the Inn (so to speak) is that most of my characters have some reason for traveling or exploring or just wandering around in general. A lot of these motivations are tied to the setting, or at least have roots tied to the setting. Why would my dwarven cleric of the Stoneshield clan, who set out to find stolen weapons crafted by them to restore his family honor, care about wandering around a completely different reality? Why would my wandering minotaur character, visiting city to city in his travels to set up trade routes to his homeland, care about any of these new worlds? In both cases, heading back home - or at least staying at the Inn - is more practical. There is little to no reason for them to journey with a bunch of random people who they just bumped into.

Oh certainly, I could just ignore the backstory and run the same character personality. But if that's the case, why not just make a new character with the same personality? Why even bother with the Inn at that point?

Luminestra
2015-04-07, 02:32 PM
*snip*

That campaign sounds awesome.


I wish you luck working out the storytelling logistics of it, and leave you with a single suggestion: call it the Inn Between

Thank you for naming my inn. That is an awesome name.

I wouldn't allow characters to be transferred over for every campaign. But for certain games I think it would be fun. They would have to rebuild them, not just transferring them over. All the adventures would be cannon, so they would go back with the treasure and stuff that they found. Each player would have to think of the reasons why the characters would go, obviously not every character would have a reason.

I only play with four other people, We are really good at working together and figuring things out. So I don't think this will be too bad. Thank you all for the advice so far :D I will definitely have to look at all those examples.