Subjective Reality Game

Okay, here's my idea:

Probably would only work in exclusively text-based game, somewhere on Roll20 or PBP.

Everyone in the party is playing either in his own SETTING or his own SYSTEM altogether. DM describes party members as approximation of their translation into each member's setting/system.

>John is playing a Tech-priest in Dark Heresy.
>He sees Jane as healing-oriented Priest and Mark as Assassin with Bolt Pistol

>Jame is healy Cleric in D&D 5th Edition.
>she sees John as Warlock and Mark as Rogue

>Mark is Lasombra
>He sees Jane as Tzimisce and John as Tremere

All their actions are obviously translated into something else for their version. So do monsters encountered. Kobolds become gretchin. Ork warboss becomes huge Werewolf. Cultists... stay cultists alright.

All they say will be either translated by the DM to others, or omitted/filled in to maintain the picture.

However, each also sees only a part of the picture. The door will be locked tight, but detect magic will show nothing and the tech will be inscrutable to Victorian vampires. But a techpriest will just punch in a code, 'cos he's the only one to see the keypad - and door will open. An artifact may do strange things to both Techpriest and the Vampire, but all it needs a Remove Curse from D&D Cleric.
Etcetera.

Now, every now and then characters will be allowed clues and slight glimpses to what goes on in the worlds of their allies... Requiring them figuring it out NOT ON META LEVEL and working in tandem to unravel the plot.

The whole point is to cause sever mindfuck.

Thoughts? How could this concept be improved?

This seems like a good Idea user. And since I Always crave for mingfuck ideas it interests me.

But it would be fucking hard to pull off since you'd have to inform your players separately of everything (which would be heavy organization for you and hard for them not to meta)

that's why I was thinking about play-by-post. it's slower and more relaxed as it is, and provided all letters go only to/from the DM, players don't even need to know who other players are

And also, may I add, you would have to choose from a pool of systems and settings which can interact this way without them acting REALLY WEIRD with each other, or else they will realiza the truth fast.

For example if a techpriest starts babling about tech shit to players who see him as a Vampire or Mage it will confuse greatly. You'd have to translate everything they say to each other... And that is, again, pretty convoluted.

The concept sounds awesome, though overly ambitious. Wouldn't a single universal system be simpler?

That would require a pretty specific mindset for your players.

Namely "I want to play through text, dealing only with a DM that may or may not lie to me about those other players I can't communicate with and/don't even know about"

I suppose players should know the truth... gotta know at least a bit on meta level, for character to start thinking in the right direction

maybe, though I'm wary of making up new systems. first of all, many people don't like homebrews, secondly, my homebrews suck (no, the latter is not the cause of the former, i don't release my homebrewed abominations of systems to public)

I realize it would require a bunch of weirdos, who are also capable of thinking in-character so the meta knowledge they have to be aware of doesn't screw up the in-game mindfuck... yeah.

although now that I think of it, I could just use some sort of modular stuff, like GURPS, with some minor modifications...

or maybe rely purely on Storyteller?

With a simple system (after all it's text-based you can bend stuff as much as you need) and a good way of dealing with the concept (through messages or on roll20) it could be a truly fascinating experience...

You would just need to be sure you want to make it to the end, since it will be a lot of work.

Oh no don't, you should absolutely not tell them about the truth. It would ruin the whole concept.

I'm not exactly sure of what it's gonna be in the end, truth to be told. I'll have to really work out the story to even have an idea what kind of mindfuck I gonna lead it all to...

hm, how do I convince people to play by post without knowing other people? just tell them it's an experiment I'm conducting? What random guys play by post in 2016 anyway?

Well I don't know by English-speaking folks' standards but here in France there are still lany people on forums roleplaying by posts.

You need to make the reveal consistent, not just a "Haha it was all a dream/lie/illusion" and then that's all. I kind of have an Idea actually let me type it in full I'll get back to you

oh, it wouldn't be that, it would be legitimate subjective versions of same... platonic truth, I guess? I need to read up on philosophy before doing this, I guess.

and if you guys say players shouldn't know, then I guess I can let it go and cram it full of buddhist and lovecraftian references, just to give them a meta-clue

OP also has to decide if everyone in the campaign has their own subjective reality, or just the PCs and maybe some NPCs.

heh, is it bad if GM himself stops having any idea what the fuck is going in his game at some point? 'cos I feel it just might

Alright so... Think about this : there are many, many settings and fictions in which it is admitted that there is an Infinite number of parallel universes.

What if the settings and universes humans invent and create are actually us communicating with those parallel universes, perceiving them with something we call "imagination". It is stronger in children but some adults retain it even in their old days, and the reason why most stories sound the same and are similar to our world in some way is that for our "imagination" it is easier to perceive universes which ressembles our own.

Think now of an agency, à group of scientists, a megalomaniac or whatever BBEG wants to exploit those universes and are looking for a way to Travel between them instead of just perceiving stories from them.

So they test stuff on tabletops players (those who are whispered to be the only ones who can interact with other World with their "roleplaying")...

1/2

And they succeed forvthe first time with a sort of virtual reality thing. They make several people play in different universes but by making it so that they still interact with each other, they start creating breaches between universes.

And when the players realize they are being tricked they discover they are the only ones who can seal breaches menacing the entire multiverse.

First off, amazing idea
What rustles me about it is that it seems incredibly complicated to put into motion and it takes away the social component of rpgs
I tried coming up with a more "practical" idea :
>tell your players that you'll be mastering a few short campaigns or series of scenarios, each in a different setting
>preferably, as many storylines and settings as there are players and let each player choose one of the settings, make each "choosing" player involved and make sure that they pick a setting that they truly love
>of course, there is a multidimensional metaplot (I like a lot), but it manifests subtly and bleeds more and more from one world to the other as the players progress and create bridges and rifts between world by interacting with elements of the metaplot in different realities
>have them visit alternate versions of the same places from one game to the next, have them interact with NPCs that are alternate versions of each other, while doing completely different questlines
>one major NPC in the D&D game might have a counterpart in the 40k game that's just a footnote and a semi-important counterpart in the WoD one, but what counts is that somehow, the players interacting with them in different realities starts to create incoherences and "glitches" after some time
>if the players catch on to that, they can even learn to communicate with their other selves
when it all comes together and they realize about the multiversal dickery, you can even allow them to choose which of their characters to use for a "final arc" set in a torn multiverse
bonus points for involving the player's actual selves at some point (the adventurer's final goal might be to save "themselves", in the end)
as bad as some of the games might be, I think there could be inspiration to be drawn from the Assassin's Creed series, what with all the timeline fuckery and shared consciousness (there are certainly better sources, but that's the first that came to mind)

bump