My Big Campaign Idea

[alchemyprime]

So I was talking with my girlfriend and I came upon an idea for a campaign.

A d20 Modern Campaign where my group of friends play a bunch of nerdy high schoolers. They all read a comic called Titans North (a fictional DC Comic), play Pathfinder and a new version of DDO, and watch a television show version of Hackjammer.

Why all this?

Well, if they're reading Titans North, we'll really be playing DC Adventures as the heroes of Titans North. If the group is playing Pathfinder, we'll play Pathfinder.
If they are playing DDO, we'll play 4e. If they are watching Hackjammer, we'll play Hackjammer. And if they are doing other parts of their lives, we'll play d20 Modern.

Now for the fun part.

In one issue of Titans North, the Northerns will be fighting let's say some robotic wolves sent out by Professor T. O. Morrow. One of the wolves disappear. It then shows up in an episode of Hackjammer. The beholder pirates from Hackjammer start showing up in DDO 4e. The crazy kobold firethrower from the MMO shows up in the mall and burns down the Hot Topic.
The random encounters in the game will have some random mall goers show up.

The multiverse is bleeding together, and into Earth-Prime. And these kids are getting drafted by the big guns to help due to an odd resonance they seem to have with the multiversal collapse.

My question: Does this sound like a decent way to play a bunch of RPGs and still have a coherent campaign?

[kamikasei]

My question: Does this sound like a decent way to play a bunch of RPGs and still have a coherent campaign?

I'm not sure I could usefully answer this question without understanding more of the motivation behind it. Why would you want to do that? Surely if you're playing several different RPGs with different characters you want to do different things with them? Is it just that you want to have one story to keep in mind, but a variety in mechanics and play styles from session to session?

[HunterOfJello]

It'll all be fun and games until you wake up in the middle of the night and realize there's a Mind Flayer watching you sleep.

[Psyx]

My question: Does this sound like a decent way to play a bunch of RPGs and still have a coherent campaign?

Depends on how well you run it. Games like this are HARD work.

Sounds like a job for the Dreampark RPG...

[valadil]

It's risky and bold. There's a lot of potential for awesome, but it could fall flat pretty easily.

You need to make sure that each sub-setting of the game tells part of the major story. Otherwise it'll feel like you're just doing 4 campaigns at once.

You also need to figure out how the systems will interact. If the d20 modern PCs end up in DDO, do they become 4e characters? Do they roll their current stats against DDO characters? These things will come up and you should be ready for them in advance. If you're willing to tone down your idea a little, running the games inside the game (metagames?) in the same system would simplify things. This is one of the situations that GURPS handles pretty damn well.

[alchemyprime]

Well, I was planning the big bleeding was everything flowing into Earth-Prime, but not out. So eventually making everyone d20 Modern characters/equivalents. It would be a way to turn Earth-Prime into an Urban Arcana/DC kind of a place.

Also, it's mostly because we keep changing systems and my players have demanded a coherent storyline. I want to prove it doesn't necessarily have to be exclusive of one another.

[Sipex]

The idea behind it is good but I think using multiple systems is bad. Use d20 modern for everything and instead, make up your own games for them to play...in game. Make it obvious what they parody though and make the rules for their games fairly easy to do (not a lot of explanation or anything needed and they don't have to play the entire campaign).

This way the players stick to one system (confuses them less) and spend the majority of their time in the modern world.

[Elvenoutrider]

The idea of a campaign spanning multiple systems sounds like a fun idea, but depending on how experienced your friends are could lead to a lot of confusion. I would limit the use of d20 modern simply because the system really breaks down and doesn't handle modern combat well.

[alchemyprime]

The idea of a campaign spanning multiple systems sounds like a fun idea, but depending on how experienced your friends are could lead to a lot of confusion. I would limit the use of d20 modern simply because the system really breaks down and doesn't handle modern combat well.

Yes, one concern was swapping out d20 Modern for DCA at a lower power level and with no superpowers (for now). I think we may do that. But my players woul only need to learn one new system (Hackmaster/Hackjammer), as we all have played 4e, Pathfinder, Mutants and Masterminds and d20 Modern before.

[Sipex]

Before you develop it discuss the general idea of it with your players, ie: You'll be playing nerds who like gaming, you'll be swapping systems to represent the various games you play, they'll have to create and manage characters for each.

It would really suck for you to put a lot of planning into this then they shut you down.

[alchemyprime]

Before you develop it discuss the general idea of it with your players, ie: You'll be playing nerds who like gaming, you'll be swapping systems to represent the various games you play, they'll have to create and manage characters for each.

It would really suck for you to put a lot of planning into this then they shut you down.

Oh, of course. I'm going to mention it during our latest Pathfinder game to see if they go for it. If not, well we'll just play DC Adventures after our Pathfinder arc is done.