CaptainManbeard

D&D Isekai: Render Unto Them A New World

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

One way I also imagined it manifesting is that he's got all this blank space to fill up and does so himself. Like, consider that the first (highly expansive) part of the book is dedicated to education and walks you through everything you need to know one chapter at a time, and then when he learns stuff, it's up to him to actually successfully craft the spells and add them to his capabilities in the ever-growing spells section that takes up the rest of the book (and probably just grows new pages when needed). Depending on how intuitive this is, I assume the PCs all get a "starter boost", so he probably has a few spells he already knows right out the gate maybe, but going forward, most of the work is on his shoulders to actually be dedicated to the path of the Wizard. And yeah, with that go ahead, I think I'm definitely going to spread out his abilities to have him use necromancy for healing whenever he isn't poking the secrets to conventional healing magic. :)

@Lewascan2

Hmmm... To give them a little bit of that "starter boost" you mentioned, I'm thinking maybe we rework the initial origin idea some. Hmmm... Maybe the day before our characters go to Six Flags, they are checking out a mysterious old antique shop and are drawn to the items that become their Soul Conduits. The old shopkeeper is like "interesting that you should choose these items in particular..." That night, they each have a dream of their Soul Conduits' previous owners first learning about their own abilities, though they initially forget this shortly after waking.

Later that day, they are at Six Flags and go on the roller coaster and get Isekai'd like previous discussed. While they are flying through the tunnel of lights, they each notice their Soul Conduit materialize next to them in transit. They crash down onto the beach outside a small fishing village and suddenly recall the dreams they all had the previous night, which gives them a slight bit of knowledge about their new abilities.

In this new origin idea, they start out with no idea how the items got to Earth, but they suspect the shopkeeper must have known more than he let on. Perhaps some of them believe the items marked them for death. With no idea where they are (beyond the information learned from the dreams), they head into the village and try to formulate some kind of plan what to do. Similar to the Wizard of Oz plot, perhaps there is some great wise sage a few towns over who is said to discern peoples' destinies. Perhaps they decide to head there first to see if they can learn more about their situation.

What do you think?

D&D Isekai: Render Unto Them A New World

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

At least for the Wizard's part, I was basically planning on him treating his Conduit (which is probably a Grimoire) like when a Wizard acquires another's spellbook. Except it's also his simultaneously. So, he's learning how to Wizard from it like an accelerated course. Like a normal Wizard, he's got to study it actively and be academic about how he increases in capability, learning about the Weave in a more personal sense and how to tweak it by mathing at the universe so hard it bends over. As Wizards do. XD

@Lewascan2

You could say at the beginning, the book has mostly blank pages and then the invisible ink gradually reveals itself as he levels up. Or maybe the book just magically grows new pages as he unlocks new spells from the grimoire or learns them from out in the world and copies the script. Also, feel free to spread your wings a little with magical abilities, since we're ending up with a little more freeform approach, I'm not gonna force anyone into the confines of any one class. For my evil wizard guy I was considering, I may fuse elements of Warlock into him as well and give his grimoire a living eye on the cover or something. We'll see.

D&D Isekai: Render Unto Them A New World

Also, the amusement park idea was inspired by the old D&D cartoon from the 80s XD.

D&D Isekai: Render Unto Them A New World

Alright, so as we aren't using stats, I have a question. We are using levels to determine Abilities, Spells and Proficiencies, but I know some abilities are determined by stats. Like, Wizards. A fair chunk of their spell list is determined by their INT modifier; that is, how many spells they can have prepared (their level + INT modifier). And there's some other abilities of other classes that depend on a modifier to determine uses, like a Paladin's Divine Sense. So, how should we handle that?

@Lewascan2

I haven't had a chance yet to work out the specifics, but I was thinking of the Conduits having memories stored in them kind of like Jedi Holocrons. Instead of detailing that out for every single class, I'm just going to do it for the classes we end up playing at the start of the RP and I'll probably simplify Abilities, Spells, and Proficiencies into a range of similar effects or something. We'll see.

Teen Titans: Sidekicks Unite

Everything looks good! Lots of stuff to respond to, my post is gonna be long and fun XD. There will definitely be some consequences to things that happened and it's gonna be a blast to write LOL.

Teen Titans: Sidekicks Unite

Also just a heads up for any Kryptonians getting close to the Metallo-Bot: He's got that big chunk of Kryptonite in his chest, which instantly weakens any Kryptonians who get close, and he's been deliberately designed to combat Kryptonians and their powersets.

Teen Titans: Sidekicks Unite

I'll try to post again today to give a bit more guidance to the scene and have Nightwing guide the team.

D&D Isekai: Render Unto Them A New World

Far be it from me to tell you how to run your own game. Again, I apologize for any negativity I've inadvertedly brought. I love the premise, but the present system is just a huge deal-breaker for me in many ways. If you decide going full narrative is for you, more power to you! I'd be genuinely elated, but if you have a vision for this present system, don't feel pressured to drop it just like that. I do think it would be worth keeping the levels around in either case as a way to ground progression.

@Lewascan2

No worries! I think I've come up with a good compromise - the dice rolls won't be mandatory and you can do as many as you want for your post. One dice roll, many dice rolls, or zero dice rolls. I'll throw opponents out at the start of each Battle Scenario and then I'll leave it up to each of you to decide how you want to write out that scene. I'll use the same method for my own characters as well.

D&D Isekai: Render Unto Them A New World

I guess part of it is the writer in me. Having to stop writing every few sentences to wait potentially days for multiple dice rolls just sucks the fun out of it for me. And that would be a very real possibility given different time zones and work schedules and such. I guess when I use the term "player," I'm not really being genuine. The best way to describe it is that I view us as co-writers crafting a narrative together and using the dice rolls to help us throw in a little variety and spontaneity. The only way I would be comfortable with us doing multiple dice rolls within a single Battle Scenario would be if we were all online at the same time and did everything through Discord, but that seems unlikely.

But I do understand where you are coming from and am considering just scrapping the system entirely and going full RP with no levels or dice rolls at all. I don't know. I'll have to wait till my next day off to really dedicate enough time to figuring it out.

D&D Isekai: Render Unto Them A New World

Perhaps part of my mistake was not clearly defining what I meant by Combat Scenario. I didn't envision it as an entire dungeon or anything of that scale, more like the equivalent of a single battle in a Final Fantasy game or something. Like, each player would write between three and five paragraphs for a single Battle Scenario. So that dice roll would only dictate that single three to five paragraph post.

An example of a common Battle Scenario might be a bandit attack while they are traveling. Let's say we have one bandit for each player to write out a three to five paragraph scene of their character fighting that bandit. Let's say you roll a 1. While the ultimate outcome of that post may be somewhat predetermined, it's up to you to decide how it gets there. Maybe you want to write your character totally kicking ass at first and then the bandit gets him with a poisoned dagger at the end. You still have near complete creative freedom for that post, the only thing the dice roll is determining is the overall performance of your character in that single battle post.