GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by thrash

This makes it an excellent introductory genre for new players. They can concentrate on playing without having to consider whether they should be able to apply their own knowledge of germ theory or magnetism. The novel setting means that they can learn about the world as they go, rather than be expected to know anything about how it works a priori. The lack of language and customs familiarity can be a drag if played too strictly, however. A brief "training montage" at a friendly village near the portal should allow them to write off the worst effects, while giving them the chance to develop a few of the necessary survival skills for their new environment.

That's exactly one of the points. And of course it has advantages for readers of books or viewers of films, too.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Late to the party, but I do want to say that I've run a lengthy Portal Fantasy game in the past. My main inspiration was Juuni Kokki/The Twelve Kingdoms (one of the references cited in the PDFs) - I strongly recommend viewing the anime. In particular, what impressed me was that

the heroine decides not go home, but stay in the "fantastic world"
and face her responsibilities there. Furthermore, this happens at the end of the first story arc, and the anime examines the repercussions of her decisions at length.

I used Exalted as the background setting - the PCs were people from modern-day Earth where they became Solar Exalted (sort of demigods and larger-than-life heroes) and then fled/were abducted to the world of Creation (the default setting of Exalted). And Creation is this Bronze-Age society with lots of oppression, tyranny, and slavery - lots of things for people with values from modern-day Western societies to get offended by. And they were given enough power to do something about it all, which made for some very interesting discussions about the nature of power and responsibility.

I didn't use GURPS as the rule system, though - converting the powers and abilities of the Exalted to GURPS is not something for the faint-hearted, and I decided against the attempt. Though I sometimes contemplate a similar setup for the Infinite Worlds setting where the PCs are from a "modern Earth" and then get sucked up in a catastrophic magical mishap caused by the Cabal which causes them to end up on a "mythic" version of Greece in the Early Roman era - complete with the powers of nascent gods.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Because (A) in cases I've seen there's typically no expectation of a means of return, and (B) if a return did happen the story, and by extension the campaign, would be over.

Those may be the literary cases, but they are certianly not required.

For example: Lovercraft's Dreamlands stories in general, and a long running CoC campaign I was in back in the day that was very much popping back and forth between the Dreamlands and the real world solving interwoven problems between the two (using different physical stats and skills for the characters for each world).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Those may be the literary cases, but they are certianly not required.

For example: Lovercraft's Dreamlands stories in general, and a long running CoC campaign I was in back in the day that was very much popping back and forth between the Dreamlands and the real world solving interwoven problems between the two (using different physical stats and skills for the characters for each world).

That wouldn't be Portal Fantasy, that'd be world-hopping.

If the adventure starts before you go through the portal and continues after you come back and goes on through multiple cycles of this you're just hopping back and forth during an adventure.

It's a principle of Portal Fantasy that there's a mundane world on one side of the portal and a fantastic one on the other and the adventure starts after you step into the fantastic.

Lovecraft tends to all be Wainscot Fantasy where the world looks mundane to most but hides fantastic secrets. You generally can't go back to mundane ignorance after you gain knowledge of the fantastic too.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Lovecraft tends to all be Wainscot Fantasy where the world looks mundane to most but hides fantastic secrets. You generally can't go back to mundane ignorance after you gain knowledge of the fantastic too.

For the campaign I was in, there was nothing fantastic about the mundane world. It was all mundane problem solving.

The Dreamlands also tended to be mundane problems solving, or rather... Conanesque problem solving in a fantastic world, as our two 'casters' tended to miss most of the adventures (they tended to make it to game on 'mundane' adventure days... and completely miss out on most of the games where we were in the Dreamlands. It was amusingly frustrating).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

For the campaign I was in, there was nothing fantastic about the mundane world. It was all mundane problem solving.

The Dreamlands also tended to be mundane problems solving, or rather... Conanesque problem solving in a fantastic world, as our two 'casters' tended to miss most of the adventures (they tended to make it to game on 'mundane' adventure days... and completely miss out on most of the games where we were in the Dreamlands. It was amusingly frustrating).

Unless your "mundane" problems involved grocery shopping or such like even having adventures makes the world "fantastic".

[warellis]

Anyone ever done summon/portal fantasies where the characters sent over to the fantasy world are themselves from an urban fantasy-style setting? Like they already have magic or other supernatural powers but they also lead lives where they have to hide their powers while often interacting with normals in one way or another?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Unless your "mundane" problems involved grocery shopping or such like even having adventures makes the world "fantastic".

So... cops arresting criminals or detectives doing their jobs is 'fantastic'?

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

So... cops arresting criminals or detectives doing their jobs is 'fantastic'?

It could mean that the world was just really, really good.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

So... cops arresting criminals or detectives doing their jobs is 'fantastic'?

If it makes for a good roleplaying session it almost certainly isn't realistic.