I've always liked stories with other dimensions. I mostly enjoyed the comic book Excalibur, written by Chris Claremont, because of its trans-dimensional adventures; the combination of the serious-minded characters finding themselves in strange and sometimes humorous situations was done well. My favorite role-playing book is still D&D's first edition Manual of the Outer Planes, written by Jeff Grubb. This book opened a door to other realms by giving playable game mechanics to places that were only vague concepts before.

Science fiction has long been the playground for philosophical theories and esoteric concepts. Many science-fiction TV shows explore other worlds or dimensions. Often these shows have interesting ideas, but varying degrees of quality in the execution. The Twilight Zone conceptually wrestled with a variety of metaphysical ideas, but like most science-fiction productions they had a tight budget, which I felt hurt the implementation. Any production that requires entirely new sets and costumes every episode will have difficulty producing a high-quality show. Star Trek dealt with this problem by having the same actors, costumes, and sets each episode with only a few new locations added when they visited another world.

When creating your own strange world, it's best, especially in the beginning of your project, to quell the many great ideas and focus on only one or two. The broader the scope of strange, the more difficult the implementation will be and a limited scope allows you to concentrate on the quality of the execution. Quantum Leap had a limited scope for its science-fiction elements—one guy time-hopping into other people's bodies, which gave a good hook for each episode, since he often jumped into dramatic situations.

It is to your advantage to use the science fiction or strange elements to help tell the story. The "characters experiencing a strange event" scenario is always a good way to hook and hold the interest of an audience, as the characters try to discover the why behind the strangeness. If the quality of the story is good enough, then even after the audience is shown the reasons behind the strangeness they will still have their interest held to see how the story plays out.

The audience wants to experience a satisfying story, not only discover a strange new world. Try to keep the focus on a personal level: how the strange world affects the characters individually. Little details in a character's everyday life that are different because of the strangeness can give the story immersion.

TV shows are good examples of the "make it up as you go" approach to writing a story. Even the shows that aren't episodic, like Lost and Battlestar Galactica, still use a lot of inspiration along the way to make the story more interesting. This can be a slippery slope if you don't have a solid core concept at the heart of the explanations, which becomes clear to your audience when the story's payoff is either satisfying reasoning or deus ex machina.

Games more than TV shows have the ability to demonstrate strange new worlds, allowing players to enter the world as characters and explore it. I'm often surprised how the worlds we create in games represent the same physics and reality as our own. With the possibility of creating our own universal laws, there are plenty of worlds we have yet to create.

The concept of my own game, Cyber Run, has changed from a futuristic science-fiction story to a multi-dimensional traveling adventure. I've decided to focus the game on the characters' personalities and their out-of-the-ordinary experiences. Each adventure has its own strangeness linked to a larger, flexible explanation that drives the campaign.

Thanks for reading, and please comment on what you think is a good discovery of a strange story, or what you think is important to keep in mind when creating strange new worlds.

Sounds like you might be interested in the new Luther Arkwright RPG that Design Mechanism just brought out for RQ6... a bit Dr. Who, a bit James Bond... characters are agents working for a secret faction that works across parallel dimensions... some being very Earth-like and others not so much, but never uncomfortably bizarre. More alt-history than 'dinosaurs driving dirigibles'.

Usually when I'm making up an 'other' setting I start from some bizarre assumption and then try to work the mundane and familiar back into it. Like reskinning an onion with something not-onion at the core. A layer of comfort over the deep center of strange. Someplace you might spend an hour or two before you begin to realize you're not where you thought you were.

Quote from: Simlasa;833469Sounds like you might be interested in the new Luther Arkwright RPG that Design Mechanism just brought out for RQ6...

Thanks, I'm checking it out. That is a good metaphor, it is so much more surprising when there is soemthing big at the core that only had small clues initially.

Ideas for source material, if you're interested:

Roger Zelazny's Amber novels, involving as they did powerful beings with the ability to travel through different dimensions.

The Grimjack comic book series, with its setting the pan-dimensional city of Cynosure.  

Stephen King's novel "From a Buick 8".  Doesn't get nearly the credit it deserves.  A car with a gateway to another dimension in its trunk. Not as dumb as it sounds.  

The Rifts RPG.  Adventures across the Palladium books multiverse.  The Dimension books may be particularly useful.  There's also a world building guide, but I have yet to purchase that so I'm not sure how useful it is.

I'm sure more great ideas has to be better than less great ideas.
Its just a matter of 'weaving together' the different ideas so that they fit together in some way. If its an alternate world being built, for instance, you might want to try to imagine a 'common cause' that would lead to all the various changes.

Or you can get away with more if you're dealing with an all-new world where you actually want just a specific similarity but where various differences are background details (e.g. why wouldn't your space western have space vampire Nazis, an Egyptian-style pyramid, and sandworms? It becomes easier to try and find an excuse to stick a cowboy veneer over Mars - where the cowboyness then becomes the 'weird detail' - than it would be to cram all of those other things into an 18xx America.).

You'd probably dig Lords of Olympus. Its wide-screen multiversal roleplaying full of possibilities and potentially very heavy on the role-play.

Quote from: IggytheBorg;833620Roger Zelazny's Amber novels, involving as they did powerful beings with the ability to travel through different dimensions.

The Grimjack comic book series, with its setting the pan-dimensional city of Cynosure.  

Stephen King's novel "From a Buick 8".  Doesn't get nearly the credit it deserves.  A car with a gateway to another dimension in its trunk. Not as dumb as it sounds.  

The Rifts RPG. The Dimension books may be particularly useful.

Thanks I'll check those out!

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;833799easier to try and find an excuse to stick a cowboy veneer over Mars - where the cowboyness then becomes the 'weird detail' - than it would be to cram all of those other things into an 18xx America.).

That is a great point, better to keep the weirdness down when adding to a setting that is already established. Also, the connection is very true for keeping everythign making sense, I'm going to leave that up to the GM, will provide some examples.

Quote from: RPGPundit;833988You'd probably dig Lords of Olympus. Its wide-screen multiversal roleplaying full of possibilities and potentially very heavy on the role-play.

I tried to find some ules or examples of play, but came up short. How does the game rules or mechanics aid the RPG in trans-dimensional adventures?

Quote from: attevil;834517I tried to find some ules or examples of play, but came up short. How does the game rules or mechanics aid the RPG in trans-dimensional adventures?

The PCs are dimension-hopping lesser scions of the Gods.  They can travel by one or  more of four or five different methods through a vast multiverse (not every method allows them to reach each world).  They can even create their own universes.  Their own family members, as well as other powerful beings, are similarly capable of interacting across multiple dimensions, and these will usually be the core antagonists to the PCs.

I hope that's what you meant by your question?