Inspirational Material for Plane-hopping Campaigns

[nikolai]

I'm thinking of running a campaign which isn't limited to one world or universe, but instead has the players jumping between worlds and universes. I'm obviously aware of Planescape and the standard D&D Great Wheel cosmology, but am thinking of trying something different.

So my questions are: which books have this sort of universe jumping theme in fantasy literature? Are there any good RPG books (planescape aside) which deals with this sort of stuff well? What's the best way of managing and controling this sort of campaign, in terms of enemies and plot and methods used for plane-hopping?

Any advice or ideas you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Scotley]

I'm thinking of running a campaign which isn't limited to one world or universe, but instead has the players jumping between worlds and universes. I'm obviously aware of Planescape and the standard D&D Great Wheel cosmology, but am thinking of trying something different.

So my questions are: which books have this sort of universe jumping theme in fantasy literature? Are there any good RPG books (planescape aside) which deals with this sort of stuff well? What's the best way of managing and controling this sort of campaign, in terms of enemies and plot and methods used for plane-hopping?

Any advice or ideas you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

For literature try Roger Zelazny's Amber books. Lots of interesting ideas in there for different worlds/planes.

Scotley

 

[Mac Callum]

In some of Raymond E. Feist's later Riftwar books some of the various characters began to explore the Hall of Worlds and The Inn, which is a gathering place that does not exist in any world.

Briefly, you have to know where the Gates were on any particular world - and they didn't look like gates. One "gate" was a sewer pipe beneath an random bar in La Mut. Hold on to the pipe and 'shift', and suddenly you were in the Hall. The Hall was an infinitely long Hallway with alternating doors (right, then left) every 20 yards, each door a gateway to a World. To leave the hall all you had to to was step through a gate. There was no choice as to where the gates took you - they were fixed.

If you stepped off the hall at any point other than a gate you either 1) stepped into the foyer of The Inn, or 2) dissappeared out of the Universe never to be seen again. John, the Innkeeper, was the first person to step off the hall and return - entrances to the Inn are few and far between, and most folks vanish.

Watch your step.


Planewalking campaigns need all the elements of regular campaigns (good story, good NPCs, good fights) but they need two additional elements that will define them - alien settings and travel. As for the alien settings, the various planar handbooks are excellent, but one thing that will really define your campaign is how easily you can travel between Planes, and how dangerous the travel itself is. Can PCs warp from anywhere, at the drop of a hat? Can they control with specificity where they end up? Are there special gates that have to be found? Boundry wardens that have to be bribed? Are the paths between worlds travered in the blink of an eye, or are they actual paths that must be travered, with their own rules and time?

Think about Ravenloft. Imagine the PCs could summon the mists, but there was a chance that innocent bystanders would get sucked along for the ride. Imagine that the mists were an environment that had its own monsters, dangers, and maybe even valuable things sought by the PCs. Imagine the the Darklords could control the mists, and allow people to leave at their pleasure - what would a Darklord ask for in return?

Think about Abalon, the 'other world' of Celtic lore, which could be reached by certain ceremonies. Time worked differently there - and the paths were sometimes dangerous. Sometimes people were lost and never made it across.


A Planewalking campaign is as much about the journey as the destination.

 

[Mac Callum]

dang - double post.

 

[kamosa]

Stargate

On TV you might check out Stargate SG1. That is essentially a plane hopping campaign. Different milleu, but you might be able to pull in ideas for where to take the story.

 

[Zappo]

I second Amber. Plus, Moorcock's Elric saga has quite a bit of plane hopping.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

GURPS Time Travel has lots of good information on travelling between parallel universe. It also has a campaign setting, Infinity Unlimited (which will get its own book this December), in which two different Earths (one basically like ours, one very authoritan) wage a shadow war across multiple realities to prevent the different timelines from falling into the hands of the other side... while also trying to keep the secret of universe-hopping from worlds like Caliph, which has a starfaring nanotech Islamic civilization despite being only in the local year 1683, or Reich-5, where the Nazis have won WWII... And there's a magic-using parallel Earth called "Merlin" where the Trinity nuclear blast created a permanent "hellstorm" that showered the planet with mana-active radiation and made magic work again.

You might also check out the Nobilis RPG, which has a multiverse on a vast scale - including some truly terrifying foes from outside of it. In fact, it would make a handy sourcebook for epic-level D&D in its own right, if you ever despair of what to do with your high-level PCs...

 

[Agback]

G'day

As far as plane-hopping goes, the classic is the "World of Tiers" series by Philip José Farmer. I think the first volume is "The Maker of Universes", then "The Gates of Creation", then "A Private Cosmos", then "Behind the Walls of Terra", then "The Lavalite World" then "More than Fire". The first three are even reasonably good. Though overall the quality is not so high that Zelazny didn't think he could improve on the idea with his "Amber" series.

Regards,


Brett

PS. Many of the faults of this series have to do with breakneck pace and lack of characterisation and character development: should be perfect for D&D! Agback

 

[Maerdwyn]

I'm going to make a suggestion that's possibly too strange, but still, I think, potentially useful.

If you've never read Flatland, a Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbot, give it a look. I've linked to a free ( it was was published in the late 1800's and the copyright has expired) online version - There are print versions which are simply, but effectively, illustrated.

The premise is that the protagonist of the story lives in Flatland, which has only two dimensions, but encounters denizens of Spaceland which have three. It's part social satire, part allegory explaining the existence of a 4th dimension humor, and it's entirely cool for showing what it's like for a native of one reality who is experiencing, or even trying to explain, the existence of another.

 

[JEL]

I'm going to make a suggestion that's possibly too strange, but still, I think, potentially useful.

If you've never read Flatland, a Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbot, give it a look. I've linked to a free ( it was was published in the late 1800's and the copyright has expired) online version - There are print versions which are simply, but effectively, illustrated.

The premise is that the protagonist of the story lives in Flatland, which has only two dimensions, but encounters denizens of Spaceland which have three. It's part social satire, part allegory explaining the existence of a 4th dimension humor, and it's entirely cool for showing what it's like for a native of one reality who is experiencing, or even trying to explain, the existence of another.

You forgot to mention the theological aspect, which was the intent of the author.

Anyway, back on topic, for a less than serious plane hopping inspiration, I recommend Robert Asprin's Myth books.