I'm talking about RPG campaigns that use multiple RP game systems, backgrounds and core books, and more specifically, not the campaigns that merely shift from one system to another, like is common when you're searching for a game system most appropriate for your game over a bunch of years or when you're upgrading from one edition of the same game to the next, but rather those RPG campaigns which, by design, use different games within the same overall game play experience, either simultaneously or not.
For instance, the multi-editions of D&D Campaign many gamers out there, I suspect, have thought about in one form or another: starting your world with say OD&D, then changing through the editions of the game as the world's Historical "Eras" unfold.
Another example would be playing say, a Call of Cthulhu campaign which would use the CoC game for whatever happens in the real world, and say, OD&D for whatever happens in the Dreamlands.
Or a huge multi-universe-spanning campaign that mixes Jedi Knights with Space Marines and so on.
What I'd like to know is if you used multiple game backgrounds and systems simultaneously or alongside each other in the same campaigns, and if so, how, and what the ultimate results of such experiments were.
Or, you could just play Rifts, which rather like playing 10 disassociated games in one.
:D
Or GURPS which is deliberately designed to allow for multiple genres in the same campaign.
Quote from: Bobloblah;412657Or, you could just play Rifts, which rather like playing 10 disassociated games in one.
:D
Well sure, or TORG, or Gamma World for that matter. I'm actually waiting for the latter.
But I think there is a huge difference between a blend-of-genres campaign using a single game system, and a multi-games campaign. This has to do with campaign design, practicality and the types of entertainment you get out of them.
First, on a campaign design point of view, the multi-games campaign assumes that you get along with Vreeg's First Law of Setting Design: "
Be very careful deciding what system to use in your setting, making sure that the system matches the game and setting you are trying to create. Because eventually, the setting and the game WILL reflect the system." This basically means that sooner or later, the campaign reflects the assumptions of the game system it uses. There are different types of ambiances and entertainment you can derive from using this or that system. Thus, you might use different systems with different parts of your campaign to derive different types of entertainment from them. Like for instance with the all-editions D&D campaign, where as the campaign unfolds, you get to play with different editions of the game, and thus can appreciate them separately, though being part of the same big picture, with different parts of the campaign reflecting the different assumptions the different editions of the game emphasize.
Second, on a purely practical level, if you are likely a huge fan of role playing games in general and own more than one hundred of them while at the same time appreciating campaign play, you might want to be able to enjoy every single of these game systems before your 70 years of age. A multiple-games campaign allows to blend the campaign-mid/long term style play with an interest in multiple types of role playing games and systems.
Third, the entertainment itself. Whereas using one type of game system for a multi-genres campaign means you have a consistent, uniform game play experience, you might want to vary the pleasures derived from different game systems at different points of the campaign, much like is the case when you vary (like me) between 3D decors, 2D mats and no-minis at all in a D&D campaign. With different parts of the campaign, you can enjoy completely different types of game system, and thus, completely different types of game play. This keeps things varied and allows the players to enjoy widely different types of play experiences in the same overall RPG campaign.
Of course, this is a very advanced form of campaign design, since it requires a lot more knowledge about the games you have than just reading one and applying the advice it provides to create a campaign that specifically fits that game instead of another. You have to structure your campaign, know the different games you want to use, and find ways to basically fit them all in a big puzzle, or big picture, that ultimately will make sense on an immersion/game world level.
You have to be pretty hard core to get much fun out of it. Most of the people I game with don't read gaming book or magazines and only think about gaming on game day. Their interaction with the system isn't much more than them asking me if they can do something, and me making a ruling. Their enjoyment has a lot to do with getting the fair shot at doing this or that, based on what they think they should be able to do.
They wouldn't know the difference from one system and another, other than that some might get in their way and irritate them.
I more or less ran The Enemy Within campaign using a mix of 4e and WFRP rules, does that count?
It was funny, one of the players (a wizard, no less), bowed down before a Chaos Warrior of Khorne and swore allegiance to Khorne (telling me out of character that his character is faking it).
He had a bit of a surprise when it turned out that an oath to Khorne is an Oath to Khorne, "faking it" or not....
Quote from: Cranewings;412668You have to be pretty hard core to get much fun out of it.
Not necessarily. Gabe from Penny Arcade basically did something like this when he used OD&D in his 4e campaign (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/4/7/odd/). That's basically the type of stuff I'm talking about.
Quote from: Doom;412678I more or less ran The Enemy Within campaign using a mix of 4e and WFRP rules, does that count?
Did you blend the game systems into a single one? Because then that wouldn't count. If however you used 4e for some things in the campaign, and WFRP for others, then it might qualify.
I've never done this.
We considered doing it once with Earthdawn as our early game and then Shadowrun as our later game, but it never came to fruition.
My homebrew setting has used D&D 3e, D&D 4e, and probably WFRP 2 the next time we play in that setting. My wife has played the same character across all three.
I've wanted/intended/attempted to do that sort of thing several times but never had it get off the ground.
One particular plan, which still might happen, was to play CoC... up to a point where the characters had some significant success (or failure)... then, when one of them went insane or was mortally wounded... have him approached by Stalkers from 'The Whispering Vault'... and run the group through a few sessions of 'Noumenon' with each PC as an aspect of the dead/converted character's psyche... and once they figure out the Silhouette Rouge they emerge as a new Stalker circle in a Whispering Vault campaign (probably an initiate in one of the Buffyesque 'watcher' locations... with a more Lovecraftian cosmology).
The different systems would portray the shift from 'reality' to dreamland to strange alien cosmos.
A guy I know wrapped up a long-running 4E campaign by having the players take on the roles of ancient heroes fighting the Big Bad Guy way back from the last time he needed fighting. This was the next-to-last session, and they switched to OSRIC instead of 4E for that game.
Although I didn't realize that the Penny Arcade guys had already done something similar. That doesn't make it less cool, but now I am less impress with his brilliance. (Unless he came up with that on his own, of course).
Quote from: Simlasa;412728One particular plan, which still might happen, was to play CoC... up to a point where the characters had some significant success (or failure)... then, when one of them went insane or was mortally wounded... have him approached by Stalkers from 'The Whispering Vault'... and run the group through a few sessions of 'Noumenon' with each PC as an aspect of the dead/converted character's psyche... and once they figure out the Silhouette Rouge they emerge as a new Stalker circle in a Whispering Vault campaign (probably an initiate in one of the Buffyesque 'watcher' locations... with a more Lovecraftian cosmology).
The different systems would portray the shift from 'reality' to dreamland to strange alien cosmos.
Quote from: BWA;412748A guy I know wrapped up a long-running 4E campaign by having the players take on the roles of ancient heroes fighting the Big Bad Guy way back from the last time he needed fighting. This was the next-to-last session, and they switched to OSRIC instead of 4E for that game.
Both good examples of what I was talking about. Thanks. :)
Not entirely sure this counts:
I was running a Chill game set in the alternate Victorian Era of the book 'Anno Dracula.' The players were part of a resistance cell fighting against Vlad Dracule, current crown prince of England (the book is kind of out there, but a fun read).
Anyway, the party was wiped out when their big plan backfired and they all wound up being killed. So, rather than pitch the whole campaign, I got out my notes for Vampire that I had been working on which stripped out clans and the presented kindred politics of the book and restarted the game with them as newly fashioned vampires.
It turned out to be a lot of fun since they kept their resistance sensibilities, but now had to work from within the vampire power structure to help bring about Dracula's downfall.
It really is not what you are asking about, but the GS rulest was built for Celtricia was certainly not built in a day. 26 years later, There have been hundreds of small changes, sometimes fullblown philisophical changes, sometimes small minor ones.
When I look back to earlier notes, I see a very diffferent game. Most of the changes and refinement have been more about the setting, though recentlly the experience rewards mechanics needed some tweaking based on player feedback.
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.