Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Yankee 10-17-03, 02:07 AM	In a shameless ripoff of a famous movie / TV show, I intend to run a d20 modern game, where members of the british military, and a few associated people (PCs) find a mystical artifact. This artifact will, in short, be able to cast gate & some kind of planar protection spell so folks can travel around the D&D cosmology. Okay, so if you think its a crap idea, I don't need to know, but if you have any ideas that might be usefull, lemme know. At the moment I'm thinking of having Earth-as-we-know-it an ancient demi-plane with the impeded magic (all) trait. Of course, this means that there is a proper Prime Material out there somewhere...
Twisted Puppy 10-17-03, 10:53 AM	If you have access to any of the Palladium RIFTS books, there are some cool ideas in there.
PenderGrass 10-17-03, 11:14 AM	No real ideas - yet. Just some pointers - if you are gonna have the PCs in the military, be careful as I have noticed that such campaigns run the risk of becoming a Rail-Roading type of thing.... Players - "WHY? Do we have to stay here again?" DM - "Because MI-5 says there is vital weapon plans in the area." Players - "But the place has already killed 3 of us and we are still getting our butts kicked! We want to leave - NOW! and oh yeah, we quit the military as soon as we return, they can keep their stupid gate and mystical lands! We have decide to become Mercs and hunt down Bin Ladan!" DM - "Uh..., you can't.................. argh!"
BRJN 10-17-03, 12:29 PM	Permit me to suggest the obvious stereotype plot device for British characters: The PCs enter a plane much like IRL Earth, except that they find EXCALIBUR and hints as to the location of :king: Arthur's tomb. And when they bring it back... :fight!:
Damren 10-17-03, 06:38 PM	Originally posted by Yankee ...d20 modern game, where members of the british military, and a few associated people (PCs) find a mystical artifact. This artifact will, in short, be able to cast gate & some kind of planar protection spell so folks can travel around the D&D cosmology. You might start with your modern world being very similar to our own. Little to no 'magic' (that I'm aware of, anyway) and all the standard intrigues. If you have not yet figured out what the artifact will be & it is a device you want to function magically - you could try going the stonehenge route. Consider if the 'military' finds an exact, full configured stonehenge relic in, say, Greenland. They covertly return it to the UK after carefully cataloging its positioning, alignments, etc. After some 'genious' determines that the 'lay lines' of the earth have adjusted "so-far" after "so-many" years, the military re-configures the monoliths (oddly enough, to a pattern very similar to that of Stonehenge) - and gates are formed. This action will have a number of affects. Depending on how you want your game to run. Once the gates open, magic returns to the world. The full power of the gates is realized as the military discovers they can't actually shut them down or even move the stones from their new mystical alignment. It is further discovered, that certain people who now posses 'talent' can alter the focus of the gate network. In effect, the magic that has awoken in people can be used to alter the gate 'frequencies' but not shut it down. It's been determined that no single source of energy is powerful enough to counter the activation affect. Most believe, however, that the alignment will again drift & the gates will eventually 'power down'. Targets could be very subjective & you could rule that at each target location a monolithic circle, circle ruin, or single gate still exists. Theorizing a vast, mystical network of planar travel. With the right 'spell', a 'talent' could even open a gate to Stonehenge or other unknown monolithic gates on earth, the moon or in the solar system (granted, dangerous in some cases, but lets assume the military has taken precautions with an environmentally sealed and (now) warded chamber. Destinations, as a whole, could be pretty much anything that can, or at one time could have, supported monolithic construction.
Yankee 10-19-03, 10:25 PM	Good stuff so far (but don't stop)! I had intended to have the initial campaign world identical to modern earth. I was even going to have the british military discover the artefact in the ruins of a town in Iraq. To give PCs a chance to get used to things, I was going to bring magic back to earth only slowly... I'll have to think about the all-at-once approach. Its certainly very exciting. Heres another idea seed. If creatures from the D&D cosmology get loose on modern earth... A Dragon or Vampire is bad enough, but think of the implications of Ghale Eladrin or Solar going public. "I am sorry, mortal, I do not know this Jesus of whom you speak." "Who is Allah? I serve the noble Pelor." Etc... P.S. In case that offends anybody, this is purely a GAME IDEA, no implications for real life intended.
Sheriff Yoda 10-20-03, 09:17 PM	Another way you could do this is have the device either be huge like the Stargate, only gating to other universes instead of worlds. Or make it a handheld device like the Timer in Sliders.