How would you run a D&D-based isekai game?

Not really. I like the idea that the PCs are special because they're PCs. Like, the whole point is that they're total strangers but we need a plot device that would allow them not to be killed, because - realistically - travelers from another world would be severely disadvantaged against people who've actually grown up in the world.

The easiest way to do this without breaking the rules is to go "Congratulations, you're the first PC party in existence. Now go forth!"

I have a good one.

The players are from another world, yes. But they're trained professionals. Each of them is wired to be recorded, and their experiences are livestreamed to millions of people on Earth.

What do they do? They fuck around on the alternate world. They do all the things adventurers do. They also assassinate people, start wars, plunder treasure, and otherwise ensure that the world is ideal for adventuring.

Back on earth, they're rock stars. They live in penthouses, they earn millions, they're the George Clooneys and Christian Bales with the risk of really dying. On Earth, stuff like magic doesn't work, of course - So they're just highly-trained killers on earth - but in the Otherworld, they're Conan, the Grey Mouser, Elric and so on.

The only people who don't understand this are the poor bastards in the Otherworld, who don't realize that their universe has become XXX-rated reality TV for us.

PCs must begin play as level 0 commoners.

...

I hate Re;Zero posters. Isekai is a shit genre and you should be ashamed of ever entertaining the idea of running one.

While I agree that playing the genre in tabletop would be shit since you could just play fantasy anyways instead of self inserting as a self insert, and there's a shitton of other media on the genre, your first sentence can fuck off.

Re;Zero is absolute edgy "deconstruction" crap meant to appeal to people that think they are soooo smart. All it has going for it is shock value and edge (neither of which are good things to aim for in a narrative) which ultimately makes it a shallow story. So you have shit taste.

IT'S CALLED PORTAL FANTASY

WE'VE CALLED IT PORTAL FANTASY FOR YEARS

APPENDIX N HAD A SHIT LOAD OF IT

HACK LIGHT NOVEL WRITERS DON'T JUST GET TO RENAME THE GENRE

YES I MAD

>Anything that has tragic elements and violence is absolute edgy, shock value and edge, ultimately shallow, shit taste
Don't step too close guys, it's a whole hive of buzzwords.
Go tell that to Shakespeare or something.

Except that's not what I said at all. Try taking those waifu goggles off and reading what I said.

Wait, you wanted me to post my waifu? Shoulda said so.

Re:Zero is entertaining, but that doesn't really make it great. Probably the most overrated show of the season.

>Re;Zero is absolute edgy "deconstruction" crap
Considering you're so staunch in your conviction, surely you can explain to us mere plebs what and how exactly Re:Zero is deconstructing.

I put deconstruction in quotations because most people think it is. As to what it is deconstructing, it is interpreted by most to be a deconstruction of the isekai genre.

Are you people even going to remember Re:Zero in a couple years?

Meh, it's AOTY but 2016 has been a lackluster year overall for anime. Kabaneri had the potential to be memorable but it's shit.

That's a pretty girl. What's her name?

So isekai just means 'transported into another world'? Like in the D&D cartoon!

>Girl

id still fuck him though.

YES IT DOES

FUCKERS WILL TRY TO GET ALL UP IN ARMS AND BE LIKE "WELL USUALLY THE WORLD IS TREATED LIKE AN MMO" OR SOME SHIT AND THEY THINK THAT JUSTIFIES IT.

IT DOESN'T.

Do something like Or alternatively like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Lord_of_Derkholm

Should you bait-and-switch the players into thinking that they'll be playing a regular modern game at first?

If you're gonna do it, either be up front with it or just say something like "hey, this is going to start out in a modern day setting, but it's going to switch to something very different, just go with me on this" if you really need it to be a surprise.

Doesn't Veeky Forums have lots of good stories about the players being bait-and-switched in an awesome way?

So it's a worse Now and Then, Here and There?

So, what we all wish SAO would have been?

Basically.

It has a handful. And several times more of being bait-and-switched in an awful way.

Sure, but bait-and-switching is always, always a crapshoot. You either need total trust or pure hope that what you're switching things out for is also what the players are interested in.

That's the problem with so much anime coming out these days: anime fans tend to have the collective memory of guppies. Now, Then, Here, and There really is a much better Re:Zero, and I like that show.

What about a game where the PCs are genderswapped as part of the transformation?

What if your character is androgynous?

I'd run it like normal, but casually explain at the beginning of the first session that metagaming and real world knowledge is allowed.

The whole thing is a plot by the god of knowledge to expand his domain.

What happens if THAT GUY gets kicked out for playing a crossdressing shota trap kitsune?

.... Fuckin' weebs.

>crossdressing shota trap
That's rather redundant

tfw transall saga

>trap kitsune
Then they voluntarily marched straight into my magical realm and I'm not taking any responsibility for whatever happens to their character.

What is that fox from?

Kitsune Shuugen by Makuro.
exhentai.org/g/541541/1bbb4511e9/

I fapped to that like 2 hours ago. Why is there barely anything in the kitsune (male) department?

I take my current 5e party and swap settings to modern.

You sound like a fun GM, can I join?

D&D is terribly suited to this concept. As it is to any concept that is about more than killing whatever is in front of you on a tactical battlemap grid.

But isekai is already patterned off MMOs and JRPGs that are about killing everything.

What the heck is isekai

I'm glad I'm not the only one who got tipped off by his use of Felix, a.k.a. /a/'s current shitpost mascot.

Remove catboy

portal fantasy apparently.

How could such a cute catboy possibly be a shitposting mascot?

Japanese for "Another World". Basically, a fantasy story that's set in another world, but has a protagonist who's a modern-day Japanese person; if prose then it's generally written in first person.

It's such an overused device in LNs and WNs nowadays that one major writing contest banned it.
Most stories just use it as a shortcut to avoid having to establish the protagonist's place in the world, and ignore it afterwards. I mean there's at least a dozen reincarnation-based Isekai stories that spend a chapter or two introducing the protagonist, then have them die and reincarnate without any memories of their old life, making the whole thing a complete waste of time.

IT'S JUST ANIME INFLUENCED PORTAL FANTASY REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

D&D isn't either of those things. Its mechanics are completely unlike MMOs, JRPGs, or typical isekai worlds.

To begin with, Vancian magic is completely unique to D&D, and totally alien to common sense or video game logic.

Second, the power level of D&D is completely off kilter, as wizards are stupidly broken and fighters have only the power to roll d20+atk mod to do paltry damage. In Isekai the "Hero" class is almost always an ultra-powerful martial that is capable of ridiculous, impossible feats which are outright impossible in D&D.

Third, D&D is not suited to Japanese/anime tropes, as its core design is absolutely chock-full of Western memes.

For this kind of game, setting aside generic systems, there really is no choice other than Anima: Beyond Fantasy.

>Second, the power level of D&D is completely off kilter, as wizards are stupidly broken and fighters have only the power to roll d20+atk mod to do paltry damage. In Isekai the "Hero" class is almost always an ultra-powerful martial that is capable of ridiculous, impossible feats which are outright impossible in D&D.

You know not all editions are 3.5, right?

Why not have it be 3.5/Pathfinder isekai where the MC is a wizard and gets to be better than everyone else because of that?

Right, and the Fighter in 5e can do [Slash], [Whirlwind], and [Tsubamegaeshi], and not just repeatedly stab at enemies, right?

The other two aspects mentioned.

There's no reason why the MC can't just adapt to Vancian logic.

There's no reason why the "DM" can't be weeaboo either.

Doesn't portal fantasy generally have getting home as a core objective?
As far as I'm aware, isekai is 50/50 on the issue of wanting to return to the "real" world.

There is. Overlord.

That exists and it's called Overlord.

I don't just mean tonally. I mean its mechanics are blatantly ripped from D&D 3.5, with only minor changes like number of levels.
youtube.com/watch?v=FAbil33AvWw
youtube.com/watch?v=6dxICJHd518

Some does. Some like Spellsinger, has the person settling down in the other world.

Though Spellsinger's kind of cheating, given that there's a permanent portal between the two.

WHILE SOME DO, SOME OTHERS INVOLVE HAVING TO LEARN TO LIVE AND ADAPT IN THE NEW WORLD. EVEN IF THAT WASN'T THE CASE, HOWEVER, IT STILL WOULDN'T JUSTIFY ISEKAI BEING USED AS A TERM SEPARATE FROM PORTAL FANTASY. AT BEST IT WOULD ONLY BE A SUB-SUB GENRE AS OPPOSED TO A JAPANESE TERM FOR AN OLD MAINSTAY IN FANTASY LITERATURE

ARGLEBARGLE

Okay, since we're on the subject, has anyone ever heard it called a "Lethal Rewrite"? One of my players for a good three months insisted we run a Lethal Rewrite campaign, and kept insisting that "no it's where you make yourself a character and put yourself in the game" despite that not making much sense with the title.

Funny part is that it's never even based on an MMO. It's more akin to Dragon Quest.

>Google show name
>Final Episode Air Date: 2000

No. I assure you that Re:Zero is outright better than whatever lackluster garbage the late 90s/early 2000s has ever put out. Period. Full stop.

>I assure you that Re:Zero is outright better than whatever lackluster garbage the late 90s/early 2000s has ever put out.
You are a fucking retard. Stop eating shit and actually stop and think about what you are consuming.

Wow you take that back, Generator Gawl is a work of art

I do. All the time. Anime from 1995-2004 is objectively shit. The computer graphics are shit tier, the voice acting (Japanese AND English dubs) are shit, and the pacing of the plot and individual conversations are autistic at best.

Shit from 2012 and beyond have been far more challenging, well paced, and far better thought out and put together, baring shit like studio A1.

I can tell just from that screenshot alone that this show I have never seen would bore me to death within 2 episodes.

Both of you grandpas need to take off your nostalgia glasses and fuck off to the geriatric homes.

There's a lot of fun but warped shit you could do with the concept. Imagine that you've just got back from the Otherworld. They sit you down in a chair, and your manager goes:

> "So, Mr. user...Your sword-and-sorcery adventures are going really well, but the audience wants something a bit edgier. You know, a bit more jazz."
> "We want you to try and seduce the princess. You know how people like the buxom blondes, right? Yeah, we know she's married and the Prince is your best friend, but a romantic subplot would be exciting for everyone."

Or:

> "Listen, we kind of want to go with a different angle with this one, you know? This time, we want you to actually *torture* that guy, not just slap him around a bit. You know, take out a knife, wave it in his face, stab him just a little. That's what brings in DVD sales."

But conversely, this can help a lot if you're in deep shit. If you have enough star power, they can teleport you back to earth if it looks like you're going to die. Party gets wiped by a dragon? No problem! They teleport you home, give you skin grafts and so on, then they teleport you in a cavern underneath with the narration going like this:

> "And so the Grey Mouser awoke, to find himself in a cavern littered by the bones of a forgotten expedition. He vowed not to rest until he slew the dragon that had so cruelly laid waste to his companions."

Except all the shit there, the magic sword and the healing potions and the food, they're all planted by your sponsors.

And sometimes you run into other adventurers. Fucking Robert Downey keeps showing up in your storylines and taking over, because he's the top-rated actor, the god damn glory hound. What's he going to do with all that fucking money, buy himself an infinity pool?

>Right, and the Fighter in 5e can do [Slash], [Whirlwind], and [Tsubamegaeshi], and not just repeatedly stab at enemies, right?

A 4e fighter has all sorts of interesting tricks.

>Anime from 1995-2004 is objectively shit.
Oh hoooo. Now that's just objectively wrong. Those are some nice opinions you have there.
>baring shit like studio A1.
>can't even name A-1 Pictures
Let me guess, you watch Digibro?

Ornstein, is that you?

>Oh hoooo. Now that's just objectively wrong. Those are some nice opinions you have there.
I'm objectively right. And I say this having recently come back from all of my favorite animes of the time to see how they all held up.

They didn't.

>Let me guess, you watch Digibro?
Welp, you caught me on that. Though, to be fair, I actually disagree with him 90% of the time. I'm not even subbed to him, honestly.

>I'm objectively right.
Listen, I say the exact same things sometimes but when it comes to a piece of entertainment media then the majority of things are bound to be subjective. Your observations are no exception.
>I'm not even subbed to him, honestly.
>claims to watch Digi
>doesn't agree with him
>not subbed to him
You seem to backpedaling a lot there.

4e seems perfect for this kind of setting. Just tell everyone you are running a

Final Fantasy Tactics
Tactics Ogre
XCOM
Fire Emblem
Super Robot Wars

Inspired campaign, then pull the twist

>Your observations are no exception.
Incorrect. If you were to try and pass a shit tier anime from the late 90s today, it would overwhelmingly be shitposted to death and would die off in two episodes. Opinions are as unique and individualistic as you think they are. Humans tend to agree with each other a lot. It's how we're programmed.

>You seem to backpedaling a lot there.
How? I watch him. I am not subbed to him. I disagree with him. None of those statements are mutually exclusive. I'm more than fully capable of listening to opinions from people I may not fully agree to. Every once in awhile, I look him up to see if he's talked about anything. Are you sure you're alright in the head?

>If you were to try and pass a shit tier anime from the late 90s today, it would overwhelmingly be shitposted to death and would die off in two episodes.
Except there's no way you can prove that.
>Humans tend to agree with each other a lot. It's how we're programmed.
Then please explain the numerous ideological conflicts throughout human history. Surely if we agree with each other so much we wouldn't wage wars over disagreements.
>Are you sure you're alright in the head?
Yeah but I'm unsure that you are, seeing as you think Re;Zero is actually good.

>Draw a cute girl
>Call it a boy

Why is this fucking permitted

what the fuck is isekai

>Except there's no way you can prove that.
Sure I can. Show someone under the age of 20 your shitty anime. Watch how bored they look. It's quite magical.

>Surely if we agree with each other so much we wouldn't wage wars over disagreements.
>Thinking we wage war only over disagreements
>Not from resources, desire to conquer, backstabbing for greed, or even as a plain old sport.
Disagreements are probably the least likely cause of wars.

>seeing as you think Re;Zero is actually good.
Re:Zero is good. Stop with your contrarian act and go tip your fedora elsewhere.

>Show someone under the age of 20 your shitty anime.
Funny thing. I actually like a lot of modern anime. I just don't like shitty anime.
>Disagreements are probably the least likely cause of wars.
That's factually untrue and you know it.
>Re:Zero is good.
Please provide your reasons for why it is.
>implying I'm contrarian

>I started watching anime in 2012

I'm telling you people, anime fans have the memory of guppies. They can't stand to watch anything before they got into it, and they forget most of what they watch. No one's going to remember or even like Re:Zero as much by this time next year, I guarantee it.

...

>No one's going to remember or even like Re:Zero as much by this time next year
While I can't see the future, I'd like to say that's baloney.

I'm guessing it'll be somewhere in the Steins;Gate category: an A/V adaptation of a more complete work that lost a bit of clarity in the retelling, but with a number of memorable shock moments and waifus that occasionally get dragged out for a meme parade.

But then, all this counter-popularity shitposting might drag it down into the abyss of ignominy. Trap catboy has already drawn in his inevitable cloud of didn't-even-watch-the-show shitposters, so all that remains to be seen is whether or not the waifu wars have a second outburst.

I honestly don't know why I'm trying to posit my thoughts in an anime bait thread on Veeky Forums, but since pic related is pretty much the state of all discussion on /a/ this cesspit is all I've got left.

The problem isn't with /a/. The problem is with you.

If waifu and memes were enough to actually keep something in the collective anime fandom memory, we'd all still be taking about Nadiesco.

Waifus, memes, an interesting premise, and strong dramatic execution by the production studio, really.

What is isekai?
My immediate google search turned up an anime I have no paitence to read up about and no desire to watch.

>Trap catboy

What's wrong with this?

By providing the players with a cute catboy to pat as much as they want.

The rest? Fuck it, I'll think something up.

That's a cute boy.

> kitsune shuugen
GM a game for me sometime?

Funny, this used to be a very novel idea a year or 2 ago