I'm thinking about making a campaign based on the concept of a Dark World akin to the one from A Link to the Past. Basically a parallel world that is similar in topology to the "light world". The PCs can travel between these two worlds. Events in the light world influence the dark world in certain ways and vice versa. Destroying a dam of a dry riverbed in the dark world will cause a flood in the light world where the river still had water. Generally the dark world will be a negative or distorted version of the light world. For example, an honourable person in the light world will have a devious dark world doppelgänger. A beautiful green forest will be a dead and brittle copse. Etc.
Have you done something like that before? Got any ideas or tips to share? I think a lot of interesting questlines basically write themselves with this kind of premise.
I'll be stealing this for my upcoming campaign. Thank you.
You can't steal it! You can, however, purchase it for the cheap price of one (1) idea as contribution to this thread.
Yes, very well.
I planned on incorporating these Dark World as a form of ancient parallel. It wouldn't just be an "evil" or grim version of the world the heroes are accustomed to, but also their deep mythic past, full of wretched monsters and powerful dark lords.
So having the Dark World be the world of myth (similar to Berserk's astral plane) and the Light World be the ordinary world?
Why would they do that?
Not "ordinary" as in the real world, but high fantasy.
>Why would they do that?
*cough*Stranger Things*cough*
>OP hasn't seen Stranger Things
>Doesn't know what the Upsidedown is
Stranger Things is a netflix series set in the 80s I'd rather not spoil, because season 1 was pretty good. It's about these smalltown kids playing D&D, after the game ends one of the kids named Will goes home alone and goes missing. Dumbass cops don't really go looking for him because it's a small town and they think he'll turn up. He doesn't. He's gone.
This whole idea of a dark mirror world you have. The boys don't have any name for it other than the one they came up with when they were told by another kid where Will was, showing them by flipping their D&D board over to its dark side and putting down Will's figure from the game, then sticking a Demigorgan beside it. Will Byers is gone.
The first season is well made, and it has a lot of love for D&D and 80s movies. Your idea made me think of it. Try the first episode and see if you'll like it. Pic... related I guess?
How much do you want to bet they'll call the other world "the upsidedown"?
Disgusting. I prefer "the Black personverse".
Metroid Prime 2 uses a similar idea, though the dark version of the world isn't natural. The world was split into two separate dimensions after a meteor struck it, and the 'planetary energy' that keeps it stable was split between them. The game's primary objective is recovering this planetary energy from the dark world, which ultimately causes it to collapse.
It would be tricky to implement my idea, but here it goes:
When evil people die in the light world, they become the twisted denizens of the Dark World.
In the Dark World, when these evil freaks are slain, they become ghosts, yokai, goblins, etc. back in the light world.
I'd determine the form of the slain evil ones by their level, or HD, etc.
Just an idea.
As is it the reincarnation wheel seems one sided. The evil get worse, but what happens to the good?
Do good people in the Dark World become light world denizens when they die? If Light World denizens are particularly good do they become some particularly good being in the Dark World that hunts evildoers?
What about Light World and Dark World people who aren't particularly good or evil.
So are the ghosts/yokai/goblins weirder or less weird than what they were in their prior lives in the dark world?
Soul Reaver had a variation on this where the mechanics made for compelling gameplay.
>in the spirit realm, material machines and the like are immovably frozen. A seesaw in the material world is a ramp in the spirit realm.
>the very flow of time between the two is distorted. In the short term, spirit actions seem to take no material time at all.
>in the spirit realm water is completely insubstantial. You can fall or walk through it.
>some spirit realm travellers can phase through barriers like gates and fences.
>geometry twists between material and spirit. A chasm may narrow or a doorway may seal shut. A long journey in the material realm may be shorter in the physical.
>you cannot freely transition without great mastery. Moving between realms means finding set points where the barrier is weak. If you wish to steal an object in the material realm it may be trivial to get to it in the spirit realm, but you cannot move it that way and if there is no nearby point of transfer then you are stuck.
>Moving between realms means finding set points where the barrier is weak
Adding to this, IIRC, because Raziel is a wraith, he could shift to the spirit realm at will. But returning to the material realm requires a full health bar as well, which constantly drains in the physical world.
Very true. If "killed" in the material his body dissolves and he just shifts over. Gathering the energy to return takes time, but can be done over and over. He also eventually learns to shift wherever and gains an item that sustains him indefinitely on the material as long as he isn't injured.
I need to play that series again. You can tell they put a lot of thought into the mechanics of the spirit world.
might wanna check out Chronicles of Darkness' "Shadow" concept, as explored (mostly) in Werewolf the Forsaken and Mage the Awakening for ideas on a fricked up parallel spirit world that influences and is influenced in turn by material reality
I did!
And I used the concept to try something special:
>Map is drawn in green, red and black lines.
>Players are given coloured filters, depending on which world they are in.
>Black lines exist in both worlds, red lines are only visible in the green world, green lines are only visible in the red world.
>PCs are chased by monsters in both worlds, they have to switch from one world to the other in order to evade them and navigate the area.
That is a pretty fricking cool idea, Anon.
There are two dams that are "connected" somehow. If one is destroyed, the other one is structurally weakened in some sense. They are not identical, but rather two similar entities that are spiritually close. Or any such bullshit explanation.
Really, it is just an example to get the general idea across: thing in one world has related effect in other world. I will have some points layed out, other stuff I will have to improvize as players experiment with the two worlds.
And no, the worlds are not perfectly symmetrical, but similar to the point that they may appear vaguely symmetrical at first. With some obvious twists. In the place of the righteous and beloved king's castle stands the frightening tower of the evil warlock lord, and that kind of jazz.
Ah, you're bumptroony. I see.
No, I am OP and responding to posts in the thread, one of which asked a question. Do you genuinely have schizophrenia or do you find it normal to get upset about on-topic discussions?
If you want this discussion to be on topic and prove you're not an autistic crossdressing content farmer, you should provide some evidence of your participation in the hobby and name the game you're supposedly planning a campaign for.
My table is mostly playing The Dark Eye 5, and I plan to use the concept of globules to explain the dark world phenomenon of a minor section of the world (though that's a bit wonky lore-wise, I think it's generally a good fit). The campaign will be set in a village in the wilderness of Andergast.
Now can you prove that you are actually playing any games rather than shitposting online all day?
Of course, just hours ago I created a map in Dungeondraft for my new ACKS game. I won't share it here as it's incomplete, with only the walls, floors, and ziggurat of the dungeon in question done at this time. Dark Eye is a meme game with meme reputation but I don't think bumptroon or his minions know it exists so I'll let you off the hook here. However, be aware that there are greasy, obese homosexuals who make money on YouTube by creating fake discussions very much like this. You asking for ideas without giving your own (other than the random nonsense in the OP) doesn't help your case either, as a hallmark of the bumptroony is that he never shares any ideas of his own, except the sort of frivolous thing you can ask an AI to generate.
Black person Dark Eye is the most popular RPG in Germany, what are you on about? I don't care about what some homosexual on youtube supposedly does with the stuff I post on an anonymous Austrian basket weaving platform, so I don't really know what I am supposed to be aware of here. People will post in my thread? Okay? Who the frick cares? I genuinely believe you have some form of schizophrenia.
>Black person Dark Eye is the most popular RPG in Germany,
Exactly you dumb Black person, it has the reputation of being the exclusive RPG of Germany in the way D&D is for the US, it's a stupid lowest common denominator meme game with die hard fans that shit and freak out at the mere mention of other games. Have you never used this board before?
>it's widely popular
>it's a meme game
I'm sure there is a logical throughline for this in your head. I will now stop interacting with you.
I don't know what that is.
it’s a plane that overlaps the material plane in dungeons & dragons and it works pretty much exactly like what you described
i may be wrong but i think it started with ad&d
what the frick, man.
/tg/ sucks now.
I blame the election tourists.
This is a cool thread though, don't let one schitzo ruin it.
you deserve a (you). absolutely sick job
>Map is drawn in green, red and black lines.
>Players are given coloured filters, depending on which world they are in.
>Black lines exist in both worlds, red lines are only visible in the green world, green lines are only visible in the red world.
This is the raddest thing ever.
In AD&D, there was the Ethereal Plane that overlapped the Prime Material Plane, and the Demiplane of Shadow was an area within the Ethereal.
>destroying a dam of a dry riverbed in the dark world will cause a flood in the light world where the river still had water
Eh? Are you saying that there are two dams, and both are destroyed if one is? Otherwise I don't see how this scenario makes any sense, and even then, I'm not sure that that makes sense really. After all, surely not everything can be paired between the two realms.
Iirc Seventh Sea did something like this but the shadow world didn't have any water in it.
homie that’s already just the plane of shadow/the shadowfell
>when you bump the thread even though anon doesn't want you to