(Campaign Setting Open Development) Adventurer's Realm: An OD&D/OSR Setting

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Doc Sammy

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Author's Note: This text is cross-posted from the OD&D '74 ProBoards website (my username there is darien), where I intend to run a PbP very soon. I will also post this idea on Pundit's site for a wider audience as I really want to develop this idea out more and more.

Okay, I've recently come up with an idea for a campaign world and I intend to run it as a play-by-post campaign once the holidays are over with. It is a unique and somewhat meta setting heavily inspired by the likes of Westworld and Sword Art Online as well as open-world sandbox video games such as The Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy XV, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Minecraft, and Day Z. Minor inspirations include Digimon Adventure, InuYasha, the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime series, and Digimon Tamers.

The premise of the setting tentatively titled Adventurer's Realm and the premise is that the PC's are essentially gamers/tourists in a super-immersive VR-driven hybrid of a theme park and MMORPG. Essentially it is Westworld meets Sword Art Online, as I had mentioned before. The PC's are immersed in this multiverse where they can essentially play out the lives of the characters and personas they create and LARP to the extreme.

But there's a catch.....

A malfunction happens and the PC's are trapped in the world as their personas and they cannot get out. Goals can include surviving and exploring long enough to escape the simulation or alternately, reinvent themselves in this brave new world and make a name for themselves. Heck, you could even do a combination of the two (for example, you would gladly level up to become a hero and build a barony, but you'll gladly exit the simulation once a way out is discovered).

There would be many sub-worlds within Adventurer's Realm, starting out with Medieval Realm, an old-school D&D-style Sword & Sorcery medieval fantasy world. There would be many sub-realms that can be unlocked through map exploration and leveling up and there are several ideas in mind including the following ideas...

Medieval Realm (Default Setting, essentially it's classic OD&D)
Roman Realm
Western Realm
Sengoku Realm
Pirate Realm
Space Realm
Gangster Realm (not sure if I want 1920's Prohibition Pulp Adventure, 1950's Mafia Noir, 1970's Urban Nightmare, or 2010's GTA-style action. All of these ideas could work for Gangster Realm)

For the starting point of Medieval Realm, we will be using the core rules from OD&D via Full Metal Plate Mail (it's free and as close to the 3 LBB's as I can currently afford to get) and the following races and classes would be playable at the very beginning of the game.


Character Classes
Fighting Man
Magic-User
Cleric

Character Races
Human (Any class up to any level)
Dwarf (Fighting Men up to Level 6)
Elf (Fighting Men up to Level 4 or Magic-User up to Level 8)
Hobbit (Fighting Men up to Level 4)
Faerie (Magic-User up to Level 7)

Classes, Races, and Spells from the other OD&D supplements would be added as the game progresses and there will be homebrew classes and races added for the other realms (like alien races for Space Realm and more modern classes and sub-classes for Gangster Realm)

Strongholds and Domain building as well as homesteading would play a major role in gameplay, especially at higher levels. A player can build a Stronghold at Level 9 and build a Homestead at Level 3. A homestead gives the character a "home base" for themselves, along with any fellow party members or NPC followers they have. It doesn't offer the prestige, power, or protection of a proper domain or stronghold, but it can be useful.

Homesteads can be built in wilderness terrain only and can be as big or as small as the player wants, provided they have enough coins to afford a large house. (A small shack or cottage would be easily affordable for a typical Level 3 adventurer, while a manor house would be extremely expensive and would most likely accompany a stronghold)

Of course, homesteads and domains will be present in the other realms, but modified to fit the setting. For example. a space station or planetary colony would be a typical stronghold in Space Realm, while a homestead in Gangster Realm would be more along the lines of a safehouse and a domain would be a fortified compound.

Now comes the issue of character death, which I have yet to work out. I'm torn between perma-death for the PC's persona or having a finite number of in-game "lives" for characters like a video game would have. Of course, out-of-character, if a player's character dies, the player can just roll up a new one if they want.

Do any of you like the ideas I have for this setting so far, and should I pitch this idea as a Play-By-Post campaign? (initially for the OD&D '74 ProBoards site, but I can host it elsewhere too)

Feedback and Suggestions are greatly appreciated.
 
I like it. Perhaps not coincidentally, it mirrors some ideas I've been playing around with in regards to the setting, or meta-setting for games. A couple of other places you might look for inspiration are the descriptions of the OASIS in Ready Player One (Dennis Laffey had a great blog post about this about a year ago), and the portions of Nick Cole's Ctrl-Alt-Revolt! that take place in the Island Pirates MMORPG. The latter, especially, is very close to what you're describing here, only limited to elements that fit in a Caribbean/South Seas adventure mashup setting.

Which reminds me: this setting should really have a Pulp Realm to allow for various Indiana Jones-esque Lost World, Evil-Empire-punching, dungeon-and-hex-crawling-with-guns style adventures. You might be able to have your Prohibition Gangsters here, too.

As for character death, I wouldn't give it too much thought unless you're really keen on having "escape the simulation" on a potential endgame. Honestly, I think the premise works fine enough as a justification for kitchen-sink genre-blending and leaning on genre tropes.

Man, now you've got me excited about this. If you ran it here you'd have one player already. :thumbsup:
 
I like it. Perhaps not coincidentally, it mirrors some ideas I've been playing around with in regards to the setting, or meta-setting for games. A couple of other places you might look for inspiration are the descriptions of the OASIS in Ready Player One (Dennis Laffey had a great blog post about this about a year ago), and the portions of Nick Cole's Ctrl-Alt-Revolt! that take place in the Island Pirates MMORPG. The latter, especially, is very close to what you're describing here, only limited to elements that fit in a Caribbean/South Seas adventure mashup setting.

Which reminds me: this setting should really have a Pulp Realm to allow for various Indiana Jones-esque Lost World, Evil-Empire-punching, dungeon-and-hex-crawling-with-guns style adventures. You might be able to have your Prohibition Gangsters here, too.

As for character death, I wouldn't give it too much thought unless you're really keen on having "escape the simulation" on a potential endgame. Honestly, I think the premise works fine enough as a justification for kitchen-sink genre-blending and leaning on genre tropes.

Man, now you've got me excited about this. If you ran it here you'd have one player already. :thumbsup:

I am very glad you like the idea and would love to have you on board as a player if I get to run this.
 
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