The Everest Elevator - You know how so many climbers go missing climbing Everest each year? Well, they haven't fallen to their deaths, they've found the Elevator and ascended to the planets. You think the ascent to the summit is hard, try climbing to the stars.

The Paintings of Mr. Finch - Locked up in 1886 in a London sanitarium for losing his mind and talking about 'aliens' and 'hidden doorways', Mr. Heironymus Finch has left behind several floor to ceiling landscape paintings in stately homes the length and breadth of England. They show harsh, unearthly vistas - no doubt the result of a diseased mind. However, shed blood onto the canvas and walk forward eyes closed, and you're in for a surprise.

The Unfinished Bridge - Standing starkly proud over half the gorge in the Chiltern hills, this wooden edifice stretches like a seeking hand for the other side it never reached. The locals swear that on moon-lit nights cowled shapes can be seen walking across the unfinished bridge to disappear in a flash of light at its furthest extent.

Quote from: The Butcher;799693Hey, Star Trek TOS had the Enterprise visiting planets explicitly patterned after Imperial Rome or 1930s Chicago, and still gets away with billing itself as science fiction.

And Nazi Germany... and Hiawatha-style Native Americans...
Not the show's best moments but yeah... I guess I was just wondering if S&P had an implied aesthetic requirement that most characters be wearing as little clothing as possible.

Quote from: Gib;799716What is a good starting point such a campaign?  On Earth maybe before the transition; just at the time of/after the transition, or maybe after the Pcs have been on Mars for a little while?

I generally picture some sort mid-action scene on the home world/Earth... and then the transition. Like a chase scene that ends with the protagonist/Characters going down a dark alley and running into a strange old man who zaps them off to wherever. Just to have that moment of contrast... here and then there.
I suppose you could start from an amnesia moment, post transition, where the hero has no knowledge of either world... but eventually learns his origins as he explores his new home. Den had a bit of that.

QuoteAny more ideas for moving from Earth to Mars?

I've used a bunch of goofy ways to move Characters off world.

• The Hell Spirals from the Arduin Grimoire.
• Being swallowed by an enormous creature that is a conduit to another world (a Navigator from The Whispering Vault).
• A 'bottomless pit'... with a falling civilization inside built out of junk from other worlds. A 'fairyland' transitional zone to the multi-verse.
• Weird drugs that induce astral travel and 'body-swapping'.
• The mysterious 'clock' from Lovecraft's Through the Gates of the Silver Key
• Summoned by an alien sorcerer.

Quote from: One Horse Town;799748The Everest Elevator - You know how so many climbers go missing climbing Everest each year? Well, they haven't fallen to their deaths, they've found the Elevator and ascended to the planets. You think the ascent to the summit is hard, try climbing to the stars.

The Paintings of Mr. Finch - Locked up in 1886 in a London sanitarium for losing his mind and talking about 'aliens' and 'hidden doorways', Mr. Heironymus Finch has left behind several floor to ceiling landscape paintings in stately homes the length and breadth of England. They show harsh, unearthly vistas - no doubt the result of a diseased mind. However, shed blood onto the canvas and walk forward eyes closed, and you're in for a surprise.

The Unfinished Bridge - Standing starkly proud over half the gorge in the Chiltern hills, this wooden edifice stretches like a seeking hand for the other side it never reached. The locals swear that on moon-lit nights cowled shapes can be seen walking across the unfinished bridge to disappear in a flash of light at its furthest extent.

Thanks. These are well worth stealing.

Quote from: Simlasa;799770I generally picture some sort mid-action scene on the home world/Earth... and then the transition. Like a chase scene that ends with the protagonist/Characters going down a dark alley and running into a strange old man who zaps them off to wherever. Just to have that moment of contrast... here and then there.

That's the set up for Simon Tregarth, the protagonist in the first of Norton's Witch World novels.

Well, gotta say, the Mongo of the original 30s-40s Flash Gordon comics would make for an *AWESOME* D&D setting.

Quote from: One Horse Town;799748The Everest Elevator - You know how so many climbers go missing climbing Everest each year? Well, they haven't fallen to their deaths, they've found the Elevator and ascended to the planets. You think the ascent to the summit is hard, try climbing to the stars.

The Paintings of Mr. Finch - Locked up in 1886 in a London sanitarium for losing his mind and talking about 'aliens' and 'hidden doorways', Mr. Heironymus Finch has left behind several floor to ceiling landscape paintings in stately homes the length and breadth of England. They show harsh, unearthly vistas - no doubt the result of a diseased mind. However, shed blood onto the canvas and walk forward eyes closed, and you're in for a surprise.

The Unfinished Bridge - Standing starkly proud over half the gorge in the Chiltern hills, this wooden edifice stretches like a seeking hand for the other side it never reached. The locals swear that on moon-lit nights cowled shapes can be seen walking across the unfinished bridge to disappear in a flash of light at its furthest extent.

Quote from: Simlasa;799770I generally picture some sort mid-action scene on the home world/Earth... and then the transition. Like a chase scene that ends with the protagonist/Characters going down a dark alley and running into a strange old man who zaps them off to wherever. Just to have that moment of contrast... here and then there.
I suppose you could start from an amnesia moment, post transition, where the hero has no knowledge of either world... but eventually learns his origins as he explores his new home. Den had a bit of that.


I've used a bunch of goofy ways to move Characters off world.

• The Hell Spirals from the Arduin Grimoire.
• Being swallowed by an enormous creature that is a conduit to another world (a Navigator from The Whispering Vault).
• A 'bottomless pit'... with a falling civilization inside built out of junk from other worlds. A 'fairyland' transitional zone to the multi-verse.
• Weird drugs that induce astral travel and 'body-swapping'.
• The mysterious 'clock' from Lovecraft's Through the Gates of the Silver Key
• Summoned by an alien sorcerer.

All this stuff is great.

Quote from: Gib;799716Which brings to mind the questions:
What is a good starting point such a campaign?  On Earth maybe before the transition; just at the time of/after the transition, or maybe after the Pcs have been on Mars for a little while?

Any more ideas for moving from Earth to Mars?

I've had most success with PCs waking up on the new planet post-transition. For RPG purposes it's best to avoid railroaded scenes - scenes where the outcome is predetermined. That means avoid starting on 'Earth' if the PCs MUST end up on 'Mars' at the end of the scene.

It usually seems to work best if the PCs immediately or quickly come into contact with friendly natives who can explain things and get the PCs started on their adventures. I've run several 'arrive in hostile environment' campaigns and they have been quite fun, but never had the legs for long-term play. A friendly princess or similar is key to making it work longer term.

One or a small number of NPCs transported along with the PCs works very well. Which reminds me - is Lost S&P? I played in a PBEM years before Lost which paralleled it so exactly, I wondered if the Lost creator might have been in that game.

Quote from: S'mon;799826I've had most success with PCs waking up on the new planet post-transition. For RPG purposes it's best to avoid railroaded scenes - scenes where the outcome is predetermined. That means avoid starting on 'Earth' if the PCs MUST end up on 'Mars' at the end of the scene.

I don't think it has to be a railroad though.
Just play a session, or more, to establish who the PCs are to each other... what their Earth jobs were... with the agreement that, at some point, it's going to shift into S&P (so it's NOT bait n' switch).
Like start as a Western but know that the desperado they're tracking 'Isn't from around these parts' or start as 'weird science/atomic horror' with various experimental devices that might fuck up real bad. They know it's coming but not from where.
Then POW! the whole crew gets zapped to Planet Poontang just as they're about to save the Chrysler Building from giant hamsters. (still not a railroad, there's just a high chance that happens whenever they use the molecular atomizer... which is most likely going to be a crisis moment).
That also helps sets up the campaign hook of them desperately trying to find their way back to earth... while fighting their way to glory amongst the centipede-men of Throbos.

I am have one pc from Earth and one from Mars so far. I think I'll start them out as prisoners (press ganged deck hands) on a crashing airship, shortly before it hits the ground.
I have al lot of ideas and stuff I have already done for such a setting, but didn't get to use. Here is some of it...

Quote from: Gib;799837

Gib's stuff is always scary-cool.

I should mention that I often run Judges Guild Wilderlands as a sword & planet setting to a large extent, with 'magic' (including the gods) drawing on the energy of the Gaia, the planetary crystalline entity. The only real problem with it is not enough desert for my liking; the coolest (best) part of the Wilderlands is the Pazidan Peninsula, and that's mostly subtropical. Wilderlands could probably be skewed even more S&P quite easily with more emphasis on the exotic non-human races and the technology, and fewer elves & dwarves.

The "Land and Overland" Trilogy by Bob Shaw - The Ragged Astronauts (published 1986), The Wooden Spaceships (1988) and The Fugitive Worlds (1989) - might be of some interest. I don't remember much about them except interplanetary flight by balloon through a shared atmosphere.

Quote from: Ronin;799581Had a random thought. Would "Space 1889" be S&P, or is it more of Victorian sci-fi with S&P elements?

The latter, I would say.

Quote from: Simlasa;798224And often rising to become a leader who conquers a good portion of it... because of his unique and special human qualities... or something.

With Blackstar, he was just the only one who wasnt a dwarf...