My campaigns basically take place in the same multiverse. The cosmology is still fluid at this point, but it basically assumes that there are different planes, worlds and timelines, each possibly using a different rules set on a simulation standpoint. I can play a Star Wars campaign at some point, then a Ptolus campaign, then a WoD campaign, with some elements that actually connect with each other on a cosmic level. Most of the time, the players just won't get aware of it. It's something that mostly gets my own creative juices running, that most NPCs and thus PCs in the game worlds have no idea about.

Now, the possibility of shifting from one plane to the next, or one timeline to the next, in different circumstances and really, completely different contexts, is not an impossible thing for me to realize. I just didn't put it in practice yet. If I have the right players (i.e. people who would enjoy the change of pace within the same campaign), I'd certainly consider doing it.

Another thing I would like to do at some point, still part of the same cosmology, is to actually run the multiple-editions of D&D within the same chronological time line. I would do it with Praemal, Ptolus' setting, and it would involve different eras functioning with different rules set. That's actually how Praemal started at Monte Cook's game table, first as an AD&D2 campaign, slowly evolving while using different drafts of the 3rd ed rules up to the point the setting started to reflect the rules and vice versa (thus confirming Vreeg's First Rule of Setting Design, BTW). So yeah, starting at the dawn of all things with OD&D, going through different times of change for Ptolus and the wider area through AD&D, up to the setting depicted in the Ptolus book per se, with 3rd ed, and the future, with Essentials D&D. With each iteration of the game informing the way this particular era will look and feel like, and vice versa.

I don't do that sort of thing with rpgs much. There was a period when I wanted to play more of the games I had with my existing players, but it turned out to be more--much more--trouble than it was worth.

But I do often take fleet games, set up a rubric where the objectives met during x number of rounds dictate the setup of a skirmish game, which in turn dictates the setup for the final rounds of the fleet game.

A current example is the obligatory rescue of the moon princess. We fly rockets in using War Rocket, mess around the small moon using Fantastic Worlds, and blast off again to escape. Fantastic Worlds is a small game using just a handful of figures, so if you set up your random encounters well, it can get very close to roleplaying without a gm.

Quote from: Benoist;412799Another thing I would like to do at some point, still part of the same cosmology, is to actually run the multiple-editions of D&D within the same chronological time line. I would do it with Praemal, Ptolus' setting, and it would involve different eras functioning with different rules set. That's actually how Praemal started at Monte Cook's game table, first as an AD&D2 campaign, slowly evolving while using different drafts of the 3rd ed rules up to the point the setting started to reflect the rules and vice versa (thus confirming Vreeg's First Rule of Setting Design, BTW). So yeah, starting at the dawn of all things with OD&D, going through different times of change for Ptolus and the wider area through AD&D, up to the setting depicted in the Ptolus book per se, with 3rd ed, and the future, with Essentials D&D. With each iteration of the game informing the way this particular era will look and feel like, and vice versa.

That sounds like a lot of fun. I've had a vague idea of running a multiple-world game where each planet/ alternate timeline uses different rules, but never did anything with it.

OK your whacko fix for today. Other than that, in terms of campaign timeline, I've often thought it might have made sense to have 4E set first in campaign timeline, then 3.5, then earlier editions. Among other things the way magic works in 4E - where you have endless magic missiles that don't do anything, makes me think of stories like Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away --characters able to repeat powers but slowly using up "mana" so that they become one-shot use.
At the same time bits of ancient history that came out of nowhere in 4E (Dragonborn kingdoms, Tiefling kingdoms) are explainable if you reverse the timeline - they're just things forgotten in later eras. Even the way the languages works (Devils and Angels both speaking the same language in 4E, evolving to become the different languages Infernal/Celestial in 3.5, and finally alignment tongues) seems to fit.
Advance forward to 3.5 I guess magic advances to the point where more powerful spells have developed, the true story of tieflings is forgotten so that they are believed to be half-demons, Dragonborn have now become almost extinct but try to keep their race alive by converting willing others through magic, and the secrets of martial manuevers survive only in a few rare monasteries (i.e. most fighters aren't martial adepts), and the primordials have been forgotten. Due to rampaging adventures, a number of weird monster races have become extinct.
Magic item creation is well known and huge numbers of magic items appear. Points of Light gives way to a functioning civilization covering most of the world.

Then forward again to 2E and many races/classes/deities from "the age of legends" are just gone and forgotten, with commoners laughing at stories of what the heroes of that age could do. Treasure vaults across the world are filled with magic items, now priceless because the secrets of their creation are lost.