The Game: The basic premise is this, 2-4 players in 2012 (city to be determined by the players once we get moving), who are at one of the players’ apartment late one night when they experience what feels like an earth quake and the power goes out.
Of course, nothing is what it seems and it turns out that the entire building the players are in was transported to a strange land by a magical ritual, and that is where the adventure begins.
Setting: A fantasy realm that is either an alternate history earth (say if magic was discovered back a thousand years ago, meaning the world would have evolved a lot differently) or another fantasy setting. Regardless, humans (or the equivalent) will be the dominant species of the planet, but there'll be room for standard and not so standards races and creatures. Magic will exist, but not be so common that regular people use it to sweep up their front porches.
Tone: The world will be a bit on the dark side, but not depressingly so. The world you are entering is in some turmoil, what good is a hero if there’s nobody to save, right?
Edition: 3rd Edition.
Characters: The characters are 2012 PL 3 (45pp) humans, but the transition across the magical barrier into the new world unlocked latent abilities within the players (i.e., the ability to fight, use magic, etc.)
Since the characters are just regular people in their 20s, their 30pp should be spent on things that would make sense for “regular” people in 2012, but at the same time, make sense for a fantasy setting. If their background calls for it, characters can have an extra 10pp to spend on 2012 flavor (i.e. Expertise: Computers, other earth-based languages, Vehicles, etc.)
For example, a character might be a Cross Fit addicted accountant (points in STR, AGL, Athletics, etc.), a rookie lawyer who’s interested in the ancient history (points in INT, Deception, Insight, etc.), an EMT who’s into MMA (points in AGL, DEX, FGT, INT, Close Combat, Treatment, etc) or anything else.
Finally, what the character is like in 2012 should have some influence on their latent abilities, but I don’t want to fall completely into stereotypes (skinny, weak book worm is a magic user; big strong guy is a barbarian). A player who is adept with magic, might also be a master swordsman, etc.
Advancement: As characters grow, their latent abilities will begin to emerge (a player who wants to be a magic user will start developing the ability to cast, players who are ranged or melee fighters will start gaining advantages, skills will improve, etc.). Depending on what those powers are, they might need to seek out trainers and teachers. I feel that this will allow players to grow organically.
On the technical side, I'd be using the 1/4 PL advancement that seems to be a popular method of "leveling" a characters, so as characters get extra PP, they can increase their offense and defensive slowly so they become more powerful gradually.
Builds: If there is enough interest, I’ll post further about builds and more importantly equipment. I still have a few open questions about things like magic weapons (like if I’m at PL cap with a sword, and then I get a magic sword, does it break PL?).
EDIT: Battle Suits, Gadgets, Paragons (Superman types that is), traditional Speedsters, etc. just won't work in this setting. That doesn't mean that you can't take some of their aspects and use them.
In the Lord of the Rings movies for example (not everyone's favorite, but I imagine everyone's at least seen it), Aragorn can't fly or shoot lasers out of his eyes, but he's a ridiculously good fighter (probably got a lot of skills, advantages, and perhaps a bit of powers thrown in there plus his sword might be a devise). Gandolf has powers, but at the same time he can also fight hand to hand if he needs to. The Legolas has some innate powers (like how he can walk on the snow and camouflage) mixed in with skills and advantages.
The Man in Black from Princess Bride is another example, he'd be very skill based, but a swashbuckling wise cracker with some additional skills like deception and powers such as immunity to poison would work.
Playstyle: Out of combat, it’ll work the same, but in combat I want to try something a little different. Combat will be resolved via OOC or PM if it is required, and the players will post the result of the combat. Why do I want to do that? What I find is most combat posts (including mine when I’m a player) go something like this: First the player puts what the character is thinking followed by a description of the attack, finally at the bottom a quote tag with the invincible castle of the attack with a “if it hits, it’s DCXX”. Then the GM posts explaining the result.
The problem I have with that is the player doesn’t really get to finish what they are doing, they don’t get to explain how they hit or miss (unless it’s very obvious), and they don’t get to explain the result (or lack of result). Maybe as a GM I have them punch an opponent in the air, then slam them down with two hands to finish someone off, but instead the player would prefer if they punch their opponent so hard that it sends them through a nearby wall. I know it’s just flavor, but I think most players would rather script out their full combat move rather than leaving that in the hands of the GM (artistically that is).
Another benefit of this is if someone is reading the thread, it reads more like a story. A player will post their character’s intent and the result of that intent all in the same post. As a GM, I’ll still post the NPC turns, and out of combat it’ll be the same where I’d post to set the scene.
Of course, I could be way off on this, so if it doesn’t work I’ll switch it back.
About Me: I’m currently running a Western game on here, and I was running a pair of JLA games that recently closed. I had a few players drop from those games, but the main reason I closed them was I started them without really thinking them through before making the kicking them off. It wasn’t until they were started that I realized I didn’t like the idea of using full fledged characters of such a high PL without any development. Which lead me back to this game that I ran years ago, and how I enjoyed bending the old D&D rules to allow players to create their own custom fantasy characters that suited them.
Interest
So if there’s interest, I’d be curious to hear any questions/comments about what you’ve read, what type of 2012 character you’d have and the type of fantasy character you’d be learning towards.
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Saving the world, one d20 roll at a time
Saving the world, one d20 roll at a time
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