>>5470279

Be a real man.

Have different universes be different games. As in, you jump from a d20 modern-esq scifi to DH. Not 40k, but the DH game itself. Suddenly, all of your powers are following DH rules and everything is broken forever, i want to go home.

>>5470310
Heh, while that would be amazingly badass, translating characters would be near impossible without taking away control from the players.

What I plan on doing is to use d20 modern, with the Future and Past splat books in tow. Then, once I allow them to start making use of magic, I can just modify D&D 3.5 spells.

>>5470442

Fair enough.

Although maybe you could make use of a "lighter" version of >>5470310 and use things like "Pathfinder" and other dnd modifications to represent differant universes.

>>5470476
Not a bad idea. I've never read Pathfinder, so I'll have to get my hands on it...

Of course, having a different game for each system would still be really hard, since I'm hoping to have at least twenty different universes, if not twice that many, prepared.

You dont need to make too many. If the basic laws of physics vary randomly from universe to universe then a lot of the relms they go to would be Inimical to life.

Universes still pre-big-bang that are seething masses of writhing energy. Post-Big-chill universes where everything is near absolute zero. Universes where time is tied to another axis, as in walking to the left ages you.

If they start drifting too much start feeding them very dangerous universes, or build some kind of guidance system in to the MacGuffin that limits their choices lest they find universes with TPK physics.

>>5470279

Is dat sum Ar Tonelico?

Actually, they did a surprising amount of work on the world behind that game, including but not limited to creating a unique language for spellcasting. Why the hell hasn't anyone tried to turn it into an RPG campaign setting yet?

>>5470513
Oh, yeah, I'm planning on every universe being capable of supporting life, of some form or another, and if the physics are strange enough that they would kill Mundis-style life, the MacGuffin will change them in such a way that they can survive there, just as it changes itself to match the physics.

Also, I'm already planning to have a DMPC-esque A.I. onboard the MacGuffin, in order to give them options on new universes to jump to, and to warn them when the enemy who will be chasing them across the universes is about to find them.

Just going to toss some ideas out there

-Aquatic world where people live beneath the water in bubble cities
-Aquatic world where people only live in giant floating islands, possibly boats, possibly on the back of giant sea creatures
-Taking that a bit further, perhaps a sky universe, where people only live on giant flying creatures the size of countries or continents
-A small universe, perhaps the size of a large city or small island. The universe just ends at the boundaries, perhaps with a drop or some kind of barrier. Culture that has lived with being bottled up forever.
-Gemini world, where everything that has ever existed there exists twice, perhaps a binary planet system where the other planet mimics, some magical wall, or whatever plot device is necessary

You can always just straight up steal things from obscure material, like the road world where people feel if they're not moving they're dead, and have mobile cities pulled by slaves and horses (Elric Saga) or something.

If you really want to throw your players through a loop, use a different rule system for each separate world. Although that would require a lot of effort on your part.

>>5470563

"the MacGuffin will change them in such a way that they can survive there, just as it changes itself to match the physics."

So the MacGuffin is like the Magic School bus?

So long as the PCs aren't particularly superpowered, I've found that a d20 Modern/D&D gestalt is wondrously flexible. Each level, you choose 1 d20 Modern class and 1 D&D class, receiving all the class features and the best of each class's relevant skills.

Some more details can be found at http://dagda-mor.blogspot.com/search/label/7th%20Circle

I got 3

A Universe where gravity collects in lines of force like magnatism does in ours. This would result in giant debris band around stars instead of planets.

A Solar system sized sea, with cultures springing up on the backs of Continent sized creatures slowly drifting through the cosmic waves.

Nomadic people living atop the clouds. Always on the move because the "land"scape keeps shifting with the weather.

A world I"ve alway's wanted to see, and even worked on ones.

The world is covered with water. There is no dry land. With one, single exception. A massive volcano millenia ago thrust itself from the oceans floor. The Caldera of the volcano is dry. The ocean reaches the actual edge of the caldera. During hurricanes and such, the water sloshes over the edge and down into the caldera. The city is build along the inside straight edges of the Caldera. With the riches people living up top, and the poorest down below.

As there are infinite possible universes you will need some insta/near instakill universes. For example,

A universe where the gravety is so powerful it will instantly crush all matter into a single point.

A Universe composed entirely of magma.

A Universe that has just went through a big bang stage and is so hot matter instantly turns to energy.

A universe made of one solid, perfectly spherical Diamond.

A universe consisting of nothing but burocrats, offices and filing cabinets full of forms you have to fill before you can leave.

Universe full of elderich abominations like the alternative dimension in Event Horizon.

Etc.

>>5470585
Essentially, yeah. Partly so that when they wind up in a universe with constant gravity in a single direction and floating continents, they don't have to be falling forever, and partly so that when I put them in a waterworld universe like in >>5470568 I can give them a bad-ass pirate ship to cart around in.

>>5470588
Awesome, thanks- I've been meaning to read your blog, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Make a world where everything says it´s name.
The bigger an object is, the louder, less frequent and with a deeper tone it will say it.
A beach would produce an ultrasound hissing noise, consisting of billions of "sand grain"-shouts, while a house will once every year anounce a deep "MANOR HOUSE".
And every few billion years all live will be wiped out by a devastating shockwave that comes from within the planet itself, shouting it´s name into the universe.

>>5470568
>-A small universe, perhaps the size of a large city or small island. The universe just ends at the boundaries, perhaps with a drop or some kind of barrier. Culture that has lived with being bottled up forever.

This idea needs more weird.

How about at the boundaries of this universe, it loops back on itself? Which is to say, you go past the boundary of the universe on one end, you come out on the opposite end of the universe. And this is in three dimensions. Go high enough, and you'll soon be digging your way back to the surface from under it. Leave a settlement, never change the direction you walk in, and you'll eventually return to the very same settlement. Bonus points if the universe is small enough that you can look back and see the very same settlement *behind* you, as well as in front of you.

You need at least one Dyson Sphere or Ringworld. If you have no idea what those are look them up.

>>5470661

Or you could take it in a different direction, and have like a wall totally enclosing the universe, that everyone but the PCs refuses to recognize

This gives me an idea, too. Elephant in the room universe, where giant creatures just walk around cities and such, destroying incidentally, maybe lazily eating things, whatever, and nobody in the universe even acknowledges their existance. Only the PCs can see them.

>>5470655
But the Universe itself would explode by calling it's name to the Multiverse.

>>5470661
>Bonus points if the universe is small enough that you can look back and see the very same settlement *behind* you, as well as in front of you.

Even better, the party can see themselves looking back at themselves looking back at themselves, looking back at themselves, looking back at themselves, looking back at themselves, looking back at themselves, looking back at themselves, looking back at themselves, etc.

>Multiverse campaign
>magic
>lasers
>magic lasers

Pic related?

>>5470618
>>5470634
Yeah, the infinite-sea universe and the infinite-sky universes seem to be pretty common, and often fun, themes.

>>5470642
>>A universe consisting of nothing but burocrats, offices and filing cabinets full of forms you have to fill before you can leave.
You are an evil, evil person.
Honestly, though, see- >>5470563 The theme for this game is exploration, and insta-kill isn't really all that fun for the players. I figure, those universes still exist, but the MacGuffin's A.I. can scan ahead to find which would be deadly- not to the players, but to it- and avoid those.

Another thing I thought of toying with was having different universes run at different rates of time, but I've all but decided against it, since the point of the campaign is that the players will eventually return to their home universe in order to defeat the source of the fleet of enemies who are hunting them- which wouldn't work out if they spend a year in a slow-time-universe, then return to find that their own universe has died of heat-death.

The players jump and appear-

-inside a fancy, Victorian parlor room. Robot butlers are the only inhabitants and they address everyone in the party as "Master" (except maybe one player they will patronize and insult secretively) and will bring the party food, follow their orders, and so forth (they will not leave the mansion no matter what though). If the players open the doors to the exterior or look out the windows, they just see vast, unending space. The players could use this universe as a home base for them to return.

-underwater! You better put on your respirator fast because no matter how high you swim, there is no surface! (you can't tell up from down to begin with, either) The water is pitch black and difficult to see through even with lights. I wonder what kind of horrific creatures could be lurking in the infinite darkness! Maybe we'll be lucky enough to stumble upon some kind of ancient shrine to... OH FUCK

I'll try to think a little harder on the next ones...

A world that looks exactly like the PCs homeworld, just that everything is mirrored. People have their hearts on the right side, everyone is driving on the "wrong" lane, most people are left-handed and all the places that the chars know are flipped... could cause some confusion.

>>5470655
I gotta say, I like this. Perhaps the inhabitants of this universe know that when a planet says its name, it will destroy all life there, so they must up and move to another planet before that happens- they know it's going to, because they have specialists, Far-Listeners who can hear the saying before it occurs.
Of course, they've been hearing something starting for a long while now... the voice of the Universe, ready to destroy them all for not being able to escape to a new Universe. And they're scared.

>>5470694
Of course, but instead of these being built by sentient races, they form naturally in their universes. Perhaps >>5470618 's gravity idea brings debris together, with Dyson Sphere compatible materials on the inside, and other materials as a hard shell on the outside. The players' first challenge? Finding and getting inside of a system.

A universe that consists entirely of microscopic creatures. These things literally fill the universe. The vessel is an interloper. By taking up that much extra 'space' and causing a 'void' ( Your ships systems, completely sealed, and all the stuff 'inside' the ship) You "pop" the edge of the universe. Causing the Microrganisms to spread into other universes.

A universe filled with absolutely nothing except a single, flashing light. Somewhere far away. No matter how long you travel, the light is alway's out of range.

A universe where magic evolved instead of science. Science is considered 'Evil' and those seen practicing it are sought out and destroyed by a type of Inquisition. You could use Spelljammer type rules for this one.

A universe in which light and dark are both living entities in an eternal war against one another.

A universe inwhich the inanimate lives, but not the animate. ( Golem-verse )

I always thought of this as interesting.

How about a planet that has no core and is hollow. Because the gravity is reversed, the people living there live on the inside of the planet, and if they wanted they could look up and see the other side of the planet.

>>5470852
This is, essentially, what a Dyson Sphere is, just on a much larger scale and with a star in the center.
>>5470815
Oooh... that first idea makes me shiver! That seems like a whole campaign unto itself, however- going to all the other universes, and attempting to hold back the infection. I'd be worried that story I'd like to tell would fall to the wayside, which would be bad, considering said story is "Run the fuck away before the baddies catch up and kick your ass, while trying to collect allies and weapons that will let you turn back and fight them eventually."

>>5470919
Why not make the two stories one in the same?

Badguys ripped open the hole in the universe into the Microorganism universe. Your guys are trying to repair the 'tears' in the space/time continuum, and at the same time run awya from the bad guys who are trying to stop you from doing so.

hell. Maybe the organisms themselves are a part of a greater hole. The entire universe is a "Body" with the organisms being a the various 'cells' of the body. Each one independant, but each one existing together in unity. The holes in the universe are holes in the 'body'. it's bleeding out.

>>5470936
Well, let me better explain my plan.
1. Players are hired by giant Government that peacefully rules entire universe- everyone's fairly happy, though some of the habitable planets are very over-populated- to find the MacGuffin, a tool of an ancient, long-gone civilization.
2. Players find Ancient home planet, get through it's automated defenses by fighting, sneaking, or tricking, and pick up the MacGuffin.
3. MacGuffin's A.I. warns them that it's been watching them and those who hired them, and that the Government's plan is to kill them, take the MacGuffin, reverse engineer it, and start invading other universes to take resources and colonize their own over-populated populace over.
4. AI helps them to escape just in time before the Government's fleet shows up to collect it's prize.
5. Government gets a scan of the MacGuffin before it can escape, and begin to reverse-engineer it anyways, their first goal now being to hunt down the players before they can warn other universes of the coming invasion.
6. Players travel the multiverse, collecting tools and allies while running from the Gov's hunters, with the hope of eventually returning and either stopping the Government's plan, or helping it on their own terms.

>>5471037
Also, I figure the "tools" will be other Artifacts left behind by the Ancients, seeing as they traveled the multiverse for quite awhile before moving on to greater things. In fact, I think I'll have at least one species in each universe have been seeded by the Ancients- Humans, of course, being the ones in the starting universe.

A universe that is an infinite plane, covered with seas and continents. The "sun" is somehow able to rise and set at the same time everywhere. The plane's size is constant, but the habitable area is shrinking. Magic, and along with it, the ability to support life, are receding to the center of the plane. This process has been going on for centuries, and many find a lucrative career from scavenging the ruins on the edge of the habitable zone.

Bonus points if the receding life/magic is due to the slow breakdown of the Ancient device that created the plane.

Another explanation is that the plane was originally desolate, and some ancient civilization infused it with life. However, the process was imperfect, and the plane's nature is reasserting itself.

-A realm of Poetic Opposites. Mountains standing on their peaks instead of their bases. Water running uphill. Purple Grass and Orange Skys.

Pic so fucking related

-A world where entropy is perfectly reversed so things run backwards. Except for the PC's. But they were expected anyways, since the past is actually the future and in the future you know the past.

-Metaphoric inversion.

How about a plane totally inhabited by one person, only over and over. Like, a party member, Fred. The universe of Freds. Every man, woman, and child is this character.

>>5471260
I think I love you.

>>5471216
Ooh... this sounds like a good storyline to have going on in the Waterworld Universe- impending doom, similar to the Nameworld universe idea.

>>5471331
I think I'd be too tempted to name them Gary.

Amber.

I often have nightmares about zombie apocalypses.

>>5471387
Read books on physics, Those things are choq-full of ideas for fucked up universes.

I once ran a campaign where the group traveled from world to world in a cluster of planes. The Ancient Progenitor Race created a cluster of 12 planes. I just rolled randomly from Manual of the Planes to generate the planes. Some were interesting, some were generic enough that I had to add more details to make them interesting.

One plane I just burst out laughing when I rolled it up.

Major negative energy dominant, fire dominant, dead magic, heavy gravity.

I decided to make that the original home plane of the Ancients, which was lost in a long ago age. Now adventurers try to gate in, steal the ancient magic artifacts, and gate out before dying. The artifacts work once returned to a functional plane, but are suppressed on the devastated plane

>>5471541
Any suggestions on which ones to tackle first? Or should I just head to the campus bookstore, pick one at random, and read?

If you're willing to put some time into it, some of the best alternate universes are the "just like ours except for one small change in history snowballed and now EVERYTHING is weird"

Of course, you can't just have a big sign up that says "2009--If Napoleon had successfully conquered the world" or whatever. You'd have to painstakingly figure out a more-or-less reasonable guess of what the present would be like if X had instead been Y. Which is a bitch.

>>5471639
Michio Kaku's Physics of the impossible is cool. Stephen hawking books are great for world creation

>>5471656
I figure that I'll have one, maybe two, Alternate Universes of the main universe, Alpha. Anything more than that, though, feels like pushing it. Also, history isn't exactly my bag, so even just one or two would be pretty painstaking for me.

>>5471712
Alternate history one - mankind never embarked on intersteller flight.Whatever engine you use for FTL? Never got invented. mans limited to long trips to explore our single solar System, and great voyages in generation ships to near by solar systems. each system is completely isolated from the others because of the distances in between. There isn't even communication. It takes literally hundreds of years for a single round trip voyage.

Alternate universe 2 - Some version of Pre-man never died off. Leading to a fairly ignorant "Barbarian" species that makes excellent military 'grunts' and are often used as slaves because they are, literally, a "lesser' being.

>>5471712
building on the "whole universe is one town/island/small area."

The whole universe is very small, maybe a diameter of a kilometer or two, but extends infinitely down and up. Since the horizon loops and people can see themselves infinitely, even if smaller and smaller, it disturbs them, so they figure out where the universe "ends" and they build walls without windows around the perimeter. As their society has progressed and grown, they have had to extend up to accommodate the growing population. They mine the necessary metals and other building materials from the ground.

This leads to three things, first, they become incredible architects, capable of building sturdily soaring structures. Second, there is no war, for two reasons: first, the close proximity everyone lives to each other; second, though their world (they think of the tower as such) is almost impenetrable, the bombs and explosives they use to mine their materials become advanced faster than their building materials, so they always worry about destroying a level of the tower and killing everyone in it. The third idea is that the open air only extends so far, say 100 or 150 km up until suddenly gravity reverses itself and up becomes down. Anyone crossing this threshold would immediately fall to the ground on the other side, which is the same 100 or so km down.

>>5472048
Here's where you can decide how this goes. My idea is that in trying to circumvent this obstacle, the world's inhabitants initially just kept building "up" even after it turned into "down." After a while, the tower was too bulky to support itself in this manner (lets say 50 km) and fell to the other side, killing tens of thousands. They refer to this as the great catastrophe. After it passed, they instead built a ladder to the bottom of the other side by building from the ground up to the "ceiling" and passing it up until it eventually hit the ground on the other side. After building the tower from the other side up to meet the original tower, they destroyed the ladder and a ceiling with a trapdoor in it to the other half of the world.

So, you can have your heroes trying to prevent this catastrophe, or arriving after it to find that this enormous tower has gone to war with itself after several centuries of being cut off by the ceiling. Both sides started expanding down, finding better and better minerals as they go.

A few things about the inhabitants. They started off exactly like humans, except that they require no food or water to survive (if players push the issue, explain that the air provides all the necessary sustenance, meaning that PCs too require no food or drink in this world). Their world was always lit (as in, no night) by some unseen light, but as they completed more and more of the tower, they adapted to the smaller rooms and enclosed spaces with no light to the point that they have shrunk to about two to three feet tall and are very thin, lost their eyesight, and become very proficient at detecting tremors.

That's all I got right now.

>>5472048
>>5472056
Love the ideas! As for this-
>>except that they require no food or water to survive
I've seen this done before, where all life (or, at least, all native life) of a universe is capable of drawing energy directly from the native energy sources.

Definitely some good stuff from /tg/ tonight... So, I think I'll add another challenge for you all- I'm not only looking for universes, but also plenty of aliens- I want to have a huge variety for the players to choose from to begin with, then add at least one new race with each new universe, like how >>5472056 suggests Gollum-ites for the Cozyworld.

An entirely underground based planet as the surface is inhospitable due to lethal atmosphere/weather what have you.

A relatively modern world, say, our world in about 50 years except EVERYTHING is a giant race course. The whole fucking planet. (Or more realistically, one or two continent spanning racetracks) The vehicles can be powered by whatever xyz-punk you want.

A 1870s world inhabited by very few people. Like 10 or something. These people control legions of marionettes and they have huge wars across the world just for fun. They ask the players to join in and are very surprised when they can't create and control their own marionettes.

OPs original image looks sweet as well, its already been mentioned.

An ultimately boring but very scenic forest world inhabited by monk-like critters that live in monasteries craft from stone. The concept of violence is so alien to them it's utterly incomprehensible.

The entire universe is structured like Jupiter or Saturn.

If you somehow manage to get above the cloud tops, the "stars" you see are actually other universes.

Obviously, though, the universe would have at least one layer that's habitable to lifeforms with human needs and tolerances.

OP, your image is exactly like a campaign setting I made and ran two years ago. Brings back delicious memories.

>>5472407
Always happy to help cause nostalgia, anon.

So, any advice from the nigh/tg/uys?

>>5473603
Archive this shit for great justice.

>>5473746
Ka-Archived.

fun bump

GURPS Alternate Earths

Larry Niven wrote an article including ringworlds, dyson spheres and a diskworld so large it fills a solar system. the sun bobs up and down through a hole in the center.
Different environments and ecosystems at different distances from the cemnter.
fire elementals where Mercury's orbit would be, Fire dragons in the 'Venus band', humans further out, then cold-loving Martians, etc.

also

Space 1889- Conklin's Atlas of the Worlds

Barsoom

Planet Weeaboo- populated by sex-starved underaged catgirls

>populated by sex-starved underaged catgirls

>>5476890
Forgot mah pic.

A gigantic sausage-shaped planet, very thin but very long. You could walk around it in a few days, but to walk from one end to the other would take a lifetime. Some cities go the whole way around it like a band of civilization with areas of wilderness between them. Several suns orbit around the planet, providing light in different parts of the sausage at different times. Sometimes, when its night at one end, you can see the dawn beginning further down the sausage.

>>5476939

Another thought i had about this one:

The sausage has started to curve, so the ends will meet up like a giant donut planet. The people that inhabit the planet are aware of this, and know that in a few years, the planet will collide with itself in such a catastrophic manner that it will likely wipe out much of the life there.

The scientists (or mages, or whatever) of the planet are trying their best to somehow halt the curvature of the planet, and they require the help of the PCs before the planet itself wipes out all life.

another cool source is 'proto dimensions'
(weird pocket universes)

CS Lewis had the 'wood between the worlds' in 'The Magician's Nephew' which makes an interesting transitive plane

also

Farmer's 'World of Tiers' series has just what you are looking for.


I vote for Fredworld

A world that, when opened, appears to be filled to the bursting point with thousands of interconnected machines. If one can open a small portal, one can tap into the nigh infinite energy of the plane.

What one might not know is that the physics of this universe allow for perpetual motion, and by tapping into the machine the energy is no longer perpetual.

also Farmer's 'Wind Whales of Ishmael'

Piper's 'Lord Kalvan'

Call of Cthulhu has gates that modify the traveler to adapt to the environment they are transported to.

Moorcock's End of Time