The Crossover Fan-fiction Campaign

[czaiser94]

So I have an idea for a campaign that's somewhat unorthodox and I'm interested to see what other people think of it.

The basic setting would be modern day Earth, but in a timeline where the borders between reality and fiction are tenuous. If you've read Cornelia Funke's "Inkheart" or Jim C. Hines' "Magic Ex Libris" series, it's a little like that. Fictional worlds really do exist, parallel to our own, and books serve as windows into specific times and places within them. But about ten years ago, something changed. The borders between the worlds began to fail. Strange portals called "floodgates" began popping up all across the globe, spilling out objects and people from every story ever written. This has changed society in ways both large and small, most notably with the creation of the League of International Bibliomorph Risk Investigation and Security (better known as "L.I.B.R.I.S." or occasionally just the League), a UN sponsored group with broad authority to arrest and detain.

Players could play as bibliomorphs, characters originally from works of fiction but struggling to find their place in our world. These could be named characters (n-class bibliomorphs) like Hamlet, Harry Potter, or Helen of Troy. They could also be original characters who come from established fictional worlds (anonymous or a-class bibliomorphs): a random Hufflepuff prefect, a soldier in the Trojan army, or the former cellar-master of Elsinore castle.

Alternatively, players could be citizens of the real world who have some connection to a fictional world (maybe they found a lightsaber or were bitten by a vampire), special training for dealing with dangerous bibliomorphs (such agents of L.I.B.R.I.S.), or both. The only thing I wouldn't want is characters from *fictional* fictional worlds. That is, you can make up an original character, but you can't make up a world/book for them to come from.

I'd have NPCs who were bibliomorphs and ones who weren't, but I'd make special effort to have lots of NPCs from the fandoms my players chose. So if someone were playing Harry Potter, the odds that the party would face a Death Eater who'd taken over a gang of neo-Nazi gunrunners would go way up. For all bibliomorphs, the person playing the character would have ultimate ownership over their actions. Even if other players think "Harry would never do *that*!" they need to accept that this is someone else's (equally legitimate) interpretation and that the ultimate goal here is to have fun playing an RPG, not to get into arguments about competing head-cannons.

Right now my plan is to use the Mutants and Masterminds system. It's a pretty elegant incarnation of the d20 system and it's flexible enough to build a huge range of character types. Also, lots of things I'm pulling inspiration from (the Lego movies, the Fables comics, even the campaign from Super Smash Brothers) have either superhero or comic book overtones. Still, if anyone has other ideas for good systems, I'm open to suggestions.

I'd also like to hear thoughts about this idea overall. How would it differ from just running a campaign in one established world (like the Dresden Files RPG or even Dragonlance)? What are some of the potential pitfalls and how might I avoid them? What would be really cool to see in a campaign like this?

[JBPuffin]

Ah, the tried-and-true "kitchen sink." I love these fricken things...Looking at your setup, I think you've covered every important detail - lead-in for real world people, for example - except, perhaps, what they'll be doing, which is probably a group-based thing anyway.

Decide how much crossover you want on individual characters, especially from the start. Has enough time elapsed that a bibliomorph/human crossover occurred, or a cross-continuity bibliomorph come into being (Robin and Spider-Gwen's child? A Potterverse/Star Wars bibliomorph [with some weird midichlorians])? You might also need to consider canonicity - what book of Harry Potter, or Harry Dresden, or Mistborn, or whatever, are characters coming from? Book 1 and Book 7 Potterverse are quite different places. Also, is it just books, or are you allowing video games/movies? Tabletop RPGs are in a weird place - what all makes it through from those, if anything?

Author-characters. If you have a player who either a) is a writer, or b) decides they want to play one, you'd better believe you'll have some trouble...although frankly, that's a campaign setting in and of itself, or at least a sub-campaign to tap into. For the former, saying, "Stick to paperback/hardback published stuff, please" might be enough; for the latter, you'll honestly have to veto it through the mechanics of floodgates or simply, "No." Remember that "every story ever written" does by necessity include all sorts of conflicting material; you might need to prune for each individual campaign, making the gates a matter of locality.

Oh, and bleeding. Are these gates continuing to spew stuff out of them? Or is it a one-time thing? If the former, Earth is probably going to change extensively over time; if not, what all makes it through? Is it a Noah's Arc, or were things haphazardly thrown out?

It's basically a Planescape or Spelljammer campaign - you world-hop, you explore, you get some loot you carry over. Play the game you and your group like to play, just with some fancy multiversal trappings. Be as mindless or meticulous as you'd normally be.

The sorts of things I love about these settings are the various materials mixing together, either within the team or with an individual character. A Potterverse and Discworld wizard comparing notes, picking up each others' tricks; a swordsman from a medieval dueling culture picking up a lightsaber and going to town with it; someone with dragon blood being exposed to comic book radiation, now dealing with two separate oddities...great stuff.

[JustIgnoreMe]

Honestly it sounds like a recipe for disaster. I don't know a single occassion when this kind of kitchen-sink crossover has worked well (limited crossovers, like Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Amalgam Comics etc. can work well: one of my earliest tabletop experiences was a Star Trek campain with Daleks added).

Search on these boards for reference to the SUE Files and you'll see the problems that can arise with Authyrs...

[Piedmon_Sama]

Let me know when the meet is, I'm gonna play Sailor Moon.

[Knaight]

This seems workable - there's some amount of caution needed in how you set up the portals regarding duplicate copies of characters that show up in multiple works, but the obvious solution of just having multiple iterations of the same character from different works is probably the best one; that dodges one major problem. There's also the matter of where these floodgates are, certain characters from certain stories are innately disruptive enough that they probably work better sequestered off several light years away from Earth, doing their own thing. That doesn't mean they couldn't show up in a campaign, just that they need to not show up in the parts of a campaign where more grounded characters are located.

My other concern is the nomenclature. "N-class" and "A-class" just feels clumsy, and generally evokes any number of really bad settings; "bibliomorph" is fine.

[CoreBrute23]

I am a big fan of these kinds of campaigns. I came up with a couple of concepts similar (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?509102-Drifters-vs-Kingdom-Hearts-Misplaced-Heroes) to these as potential campaign ideas on a different thread, but yours has some great meat to it.

In regards to systems, I have two alternative recomendations:

1st is Fate system, specifically, Fate Accelerated. While you can probably do it with Core or Atomic Robo or something, FAE allows you freedom to not worry about balance between different worlds. It doesn't matter whether you're throwing a fireball, firing a lazer pistol or doing a Kamehameha-it's how you do it that matters. It's just that easy. Also, the system is free, bot via pdf and on the SRD.

2nd I would recommend The Strange by Monte Cook Games. It's set in a world where people from Prime Earth (our world) can teleport themselves into other worlds-however, when they shift, they change to become appropriate to the setting. So if they shift into Naruto, they have ninja powers appropriate to the setting, but lose them when they enter a world based on Jean Eyre. You just need to handwave the restrictions on what can or can't exist in a world, and you should be good. You might also want to look at the Cypher system book, which has advice for hacking the system, but buying two PDFs might be a large investment.

If you do this as a game online or pbp, send me an invite!

If you aren't sold on the N-Class and A-class names, maybe call them 'Canons' and 'OCs', to represent how much influence them former has on others from their world.

Are the bibliomorphs who bleed over stuck in our world, or can they go back?

[czaiser94]

Thanks for the feedback!

Some responses:

@JBPuffin:

"Has enough time elapsed that a bibliomorph/human crossover occurred, or a cross-continuity bibliomorph come into being (Robin and Spider-Gwen's child? A Potterverse/Star Wars bibliomorph [with some weird midichlorians])?"

I'd been thinking about ten years have elapsed, enough time for a new equilibrium to be established but not enough time for the bibliomorph thing to become truly normalized. I do like your idea of the "cross-continuity bibliomorph" though, so if I had a player who really wanted to play one of these, I'd consider tweaking the timeline.

"Book 1 and Book 7 Potterverse are quite different places."

No kidding! I actually want that to be one of the challenges bibliomorphs face. Floodgates operate more or less at random and can drop in characters at any point over a series' timeline. So even on the rare occasion when a bibliomorph finds someone they know from back home, there's no guarantee that their timelines match up (unless they happen to arrive by the same Floodgate). Imagine Harry from the book 7 epilogue finds Ron from book 1. Now he's forced to play mentor (or even surrogate parent) to someone he last remembers as his best friend.

"Also, is it just books, or are you allowing video games/movies?"

Just books, I think. I need to draw a line somewhere. That said, I think bibliomorphs are (or were) shaped to some extent by readers' perceptions of them. So if the movie version of character changes how people imagine the book version of a character, those changes will be reflected in that bibliomorph. Also novelizations are fine. So things from the Star Wars AU are perfectly acceptable, as are things from the Drizzt novels.

"Author-characters."

Oh boy. I hadn't really considered that possibility. Would that be its own magic system? I'm not sure I like that idea...

"Are these gates continuing to spew stuff out of them?"

Yes. Floodgates come and go, with periods of high activity and relative lulls, but there's no sign of them ceasing to be a thing.

"Is it a Noah's Arc, or were things haphazardly thrown out?"

Pretty haphazard (see above). But things and people are more likely to manifest in areas similar to the places they're leaving. So when Harry Potter falls out of a Floodgate, he's more likely to land in real-world London than in a rice paddy somewhere in rural Japan.

"It's basically a Planescape or Spelljammer campaign - you world-hop, you explore, you get some loot you carry over."

At least initially, I want the focus to be on how all this craziness changes the "real world". So I don't think anyone starts out knowing how to deliberately world-hop. Bibliomorphs end up here, but then they're stuck. Once the group's a bit more established, then I'd consider introducing some kind of magic or tech that would let you manipulate Floodgates purposefully (probably as the reward for finishing a major plot line).

[czaiser94]

@JustIgnoreMe

Yeah, it could be a total train wreck. I think a lot would depend on having the right group of players, but even then it might just prove unworkable. I am taking that possibility into account.

[czaiser94]

@Knaight

"This seems workable - there's some amount of caution needed in how you set up the portals regarding duplicate copies of characters that show up in multiple works, but the obvious solution of just having multiple iterations of the same character from different works is probably the best one; that dodges one major problem."

I'd kind of hoped to avoid that solution, just because I want characters playing bibliomorphs to feel like their characters are unique/special. But if they ever want to start world-hopping, that's the route I probably have to go. Trying to figure out what would happen to every canon world if you randomly snatched out key items and certain people would be way too much work for one GM.

"My other concern is the nomenclature. "N-class" and "A-class" just feels clumsy, and generally evokes any number of really bad settings; "bibliomorph" is fine."

I think the n-class and a-class categories are the ones used on official L.I.B.R.I.S. documents, not what everyday people call them. I kind of want those designations to feel a little clunky, in bureaucratic/red tape kind of way.

[czaiser94]

@CoreBrute23

"In regards to systems, I have two alternative recommendations:"

Yeah, FATE might be good, just because it would provide more mechanical rewards for people who play their characters faithfully. I'd consider that. 'The Strange' sounds like it's more focused on world-hopping itself than I'm hoping this will be.

"If you aren't sold on the N-Class and A-class names, maybe call them 'Canons' and 'OCs', to represent how much influence them former has on others from their world."

I like it! It's probably more a slang thing than an official classification, but that distinction itself could be good be world-building.

"Are the bibliomorphs who bleed over stuck in our world, or can they go back?"

They're stuck! (At least for now...) And they probably have feelings about it!

[Knaight]

I think the n-class and a-class categories are the ones used on official L.I.B.R.I.S. documents, not what everyday people call them. I kind of want those designations to feel a little clunky, in bureaucratic/red tape kind of way.

That helps, although I'd still go with something more like Type I and Type II for that. There's bureaucratic and then there's just off.

[CoreBrute23]

"Also, is it just books, or are you allowing video games/movies?"

Just books, I think. I need to draw a line somewhere. That said, I think bibliomorphs are (or were) shaped to some extent by readers' perceptions of them. So if the movie version of character changes how people imagine the book version of a character, those changes will be reflected in that bibliomorph. Also novelizations are fine. So things from the Star Wars AU are perfectly acceptable, as are things from the Drizzt novels.


Would you allow graphic novels/comic books, such as Watchmen, Saga or Justice League?

Additionally, is this a game you see yourself running online, here on the GITP forums, or something you'd rather play in person with your real life tabletop group? Cause I think it's got good potential as a Pbp, I'd be interested in playing in.

[JBPuffin]

No kidding! I actually want that to be one of the challenges bibliomorphs face. Floodgates operate more or less at random and can drop in characters at any point over a series' timeline. So even on the rare occasion when a bibliomorph finds someone they know from back home, there's no guarantee that their timelines match up (unless they happen to arrive by the same Floodgate). Imagine Harry from the book 7 epilogue finds Ron from book 1. Now he's forced to play mentor (or even surrogate parent) to someone he last remembers as his best friend.

Just books, I think. I need to draw a line somewhere. That said, I think bibliomorphs are (or were) shaped to some extent by readers' perceptions of them. So if the movie version of character changes how people imagine the book version of a character, those changes will be reflected in that bibliomorph. Also novelizations are fine. So things from the Star Wars AU are perfectly acceptable, as are things from the Drizzt novels.

At least initially, I want the focus to be on how all this craziness changes the "real world". So I don't think anyone starts out knowing how to deliberately world-hop. Bibliomorphs end up here, but then they're stuck. Once the group's a bit more established, then I'd consider introducing some kind of magic or tech that would let you manipulate Floodgates purposefully (probably as the reward for finishing a major plot line).

Whole character arcs defined by book-based time discrepancies...oh man, that's a headache. Great plot hook, but...I need to lay down.

So Eddie Redmayne's Newt Scamander, Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn, Laura Dern's Ellie Sattler? That's fun. Interacts weirdly with some things where the movie gets them wrong, but it makes sense. Allowing novelizations opens up some strange territory. And wait, the AU is that world's canon? Joiner bugs! Everwhere, Joiner bugs!

I like that better somehow. More focused, more unique.

[Lord Torath]

Honestly it sounds like a recipe for disaster. I don't know a single occassion when this kind of kitchen-sink crossover has worked well (limited crossovers, like Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Amalgam Comics etc. can work well: one of my earliest tabletop experiences was a Star Trek campain with Daleks added).

Search on these boards for reference to the SUE Files and you'll see the problems that can arise with Authyrs...I think your (czaiser94's) limitation of "No fictional fictional worlds" will remove all threat of Authyrs/Authors and the coresponding need for an authorial magic system. The players cannot make up fictional worlds; they can only use existing fictional worlds written by others. So they can't play as an author with their own fictional world. No Authyr SUEs.

[czaiser94]

And wait, the AU is that world's canon?

LOL, I just realized that I typed AU instead of EU. Although I guess all of the EU stuff now technically takes place in an AU?

[czaiser94]

Would you allow graphic novels/comic books, such as Watchmen, Saga or Justice League?

Additionally, is this a game you see yourself running online, here on the GITP forums, or something you'd rather play in person with your real life tabletop group? Cause I think it's got good potential as a Pbp, I'd be interested in playing in.

I'm really torn about the comic book question. On the one hand, I really like graphic novels and generally think they deserve to be considered on an equal footing with regular books. On the other, I don't really want to flood this campaign with superheroes/super-villains. Even if I do end up running this in M&M, one of the things I'm looking forward to is seeing how bibliomorphs are (or aren't) different from traditional supers.

I'm sorry to say I've never run a play-by-post game before, and I don't think this is the campaign to start with. The interest is flattering though. :P

[czaiser94]

That helps, although I'd still go with something more like Type I and Type II for that.

Fair. Bureaucrats do like their numbers.

[Telok]

A couple things to remember,

There are more than just sci-fi/fantasy books out there. You'll have crossovers from the masses of romances and mysteries too. You could check google for some rough estimates, but I think there may be more of those than s/f. Heck, xkcd has several books out.

Even if you don't use biographies and histories there are a number of older works that you may want to remember. The Illiad and Odyssey are fiction. Some of Nietzsche's stuff is written in a form like fictional novels. Every single human myth cycle may be possible too.

It's cool and doable, I've been in something similar using the Champions system. Works fine.

[Knaight]

A couple things to remember,

There are more than just sci-fi/fantasy books out there. You'll have crossovers from the masses of romances and mysteries too. You could check google for some rough estimates, but I think there may be more of those than s/f. Heck, xkcd has several books out.

Mutants and Masterminds should still work, and that's without getting into whether the players will pick them (genre popularity by books published matters a lot less than genre popularity by what the players want to play). On the NPC side this actually gets easier - you can pull in romance protagonists all day without much in the way of setting changes, apart from the occasional sentient-dog-in-purgatory-who-gets-to-go-to-heaven-if-they-help-their-best-friend-who's-husband-they-slept-with-as-a-human-find-a-new-husband-and-thus-repair-the-relationship-they-broke*.

*I was in the mood for a trash novel, and the back cover sounded promising. The book then turned out to be completely hilarious, at least partially by accident.

[CoreBrute23]

You might want to take a look at Nitrate City (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/184325/Nitrate-City-o-A-World-of-Adventure-for-Fate-Core). It's a Fate setting (PWYW) set in the 50s, where beings from the silver screen enter the world through blips in reality. You've got horror monsters, Comedy characters, action heroes and romantic leads, all living in what was once called Hollywood. It's a bit like Fables or the Wolf Among Us.

The interesting thing you might use, is that instead of having skills, attributes or approaches, their stats are based on the Genres of films. Are their actions embracing Comedy, Horror, Drama or Action?

You might find it useful to think what genres you'd like to focus on, if you'd like to limit powerful characters to share the same level.

[JBPuffin]

LOL, I just realized that I typed AU instead of EU. Although I guess all of the EU stuff now technically takes place in an AU?

Casual status confirmed - I didn't even recognize the typo. Funnily enough, I'm not sure how many of the movies have been novelized like that, and considering how much EU comes from books...I think they've got the numbers to win that war.

Also, you might not do a world-hopping game, but a road trip across rewritten America or Britain or whatever could serve the variety without as much canonization hassle...A consideration.


I'm really torn about the comic book question. On the one hand, I really like graphic novels and generally think they deserve to be considered on an equal footing with regular books. On the other, I don't really want to flood this campaign with superheroes/super-villains. Even if I do end up running this in M&M, one of the things I'm looking forward to is seeing how bibliomorphs are (or aren't) different from traditional supers.

It's a better way to start, at least. Maybe as the campaign progresses and your group gets more comfortable, the portals start reaching into more worlds?


You might want to take a look at Nitrate City (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/184325/Nitrate-City-o-A-World-of-Adventure-for-Fate-Core). It's a Fate setting (PWYW) set in the 50s, where beings from the silver screen enter the world through blips in reality. You've got horror monsters, Comedy characters, action heroes and romantic leads, all living in what was once called Hollywood. It's a bit like Fables or the Wolf Among Us.

The interesting thing you might use, is that instead of having skills, attributes or approaches, their stats are based on the Genres of films. Are their actions embracing Comedy, Horror, Drama or Action?

You might find it useful to think what genres you'd like to focus on, if you'd like to limit powerful characters to share the same level.

That does sound like a fun twist on Accelerated FATE.

[czaiser94]

Every single human myth cycle may be possible too.

Oh, I absolutely want to use characters from mythology and folklore.

[czaiser94]

you can pull in romance protagonists all day without much in the way of setting changes

That was pretty much my thinking too. Sci-Fi and fantasy characters are definitely not the only bibliomorphs, probably not even the majority, but they're the ones that make the most noise. They have a harder time integrating and their powers tend to disrupt the status quo. That said, if someone wants to play a bibliomorph from a more realistic setting, that's cool too. They'll just have to get creative about how they spend their power points.

[czaiser94]

You might want to take a look at Nitrate City (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/184325/Nitrate-City-o-A-World-of-Adventure-for-Fate-Core).

Thanks for the suggestion!

[CoreBrute23]

Sorry to keep offering references, but I don't suppose you are watching the new show Re:Creators? It's a world where beings from television, video games and literature are all coming to the real world, or as they call it 'the land of the gods', since that's how they view the creators of their fiction.

It's quite good so far (only 2 episodes out so far) and you might get some inspiration. So far it's in the early days, so it's not an established world like your premise (at least I don't think so, things might change during the season) but it could be useful to you.