How would you run an Isekai campaign Veeky Forums?

just use maid rpg and change it by making the maids into the members of the MC's harem.

or just use any other system, and players act like they were teleported in this world

>By throwing away everything that makes it stereotypically isekai
I used to think isekai wasn't that bad, until I saw that new smartphone isekai anime.

>Guy is killed by accident, God sends him to an alternate world
Alright, standard enough for isekai stories
>He can take one item with him, which is a smartphone with an eternal battery, universal internet access and God's phone number
Hey, that's actually a pretty interesting premise. He's a normal guy in a world of might and magic with an item that, though not directly powerful, can be incredibly useful. I wonder how he'll use this to work around his weakness and inability to get magic?
>All of his stats are also boosted to superhuman levels, he can use all six major schools of magic when even people who can master three schools are exceedingly rare, and he can use every single 'null magic' type spell he comes across
>He also cures a blind woman in the second episode, effectively making him the Jesus of that setting
Yeah, fuck that shit. The only reason I'm not dropping it is because there's not much else airing this season worth watching.

Oh, and let's not forget that everyone is devoid of personality.
>The MC is a blank slate
>The two main love interests are a cliché "strong, assertive sister and smart, meek sister" pair
>The samurai girl speaks in a very formal manner and loves to eat, this makes her the most developed character so far

Fucking hell, and I can't believe I actually defended the isekai genre before now. I guess I just lucked out and only watched/read the ones that were at least passable.

Bathroom Goddess is the only isekai genre story I've read that isn't cliche trash or epic Japanese memes.

>Bathroom Goddess
Is that the one where the MC literally becomes a toilet? After hearing about the one where the MC becomes a hot spring and the one where the MC becomes a vending machine I shouldn't be surprised.

It's about an office lady whose bathroom window occasionally acts as a portal to a non-JRPG fantasy world

The biggest problem I imagine would be making the person transported into the world part less pathetic. I like the idea of running a game in world where the rules of it are overtly videogame like, but I can't really get my group into it
It's fun to just look at the titles of light novels and never read them for all the shit similar to this you find

What's even the point then? The reason that the PCs choose to go to go to the alternate world after my dying is because it's better than the alternative. If you make it worse they have no reason to accept the offer and will just choose to pass on. Congratulations, you've made Isekai even more shit by taking away any sense of internal coherency it once had, now the only reason the PCs have to do anything is because the plot tells them to.

Dying and having any choice in the world they go to are really only a sometimes thing in isekai

By running it as Isekai. All those harem tropes are just associated with Isekai, they aren't a required part of the genre. Alice in Wonderland is an Isekai. The party is a bunch of various people who for one reason or another, are bored with their everyday life. So they get teleported into a fantasy world as part of a bet between two gods, and now have to figure out how to literally slay a deity by exploring the fantasy world they find themselves in.

>one shite example ruins an entire genre.
I guess you literally don't enjoy anything.

So... Drifters then?

That's called "a stranger in a strange land" plot, and it's nothing new.
>B-b-but!
Wizard of Oz, Gulliver's Travels, Alice in the Wonderland etc. etc.
Stop making this thinly veiled anime general thread for umpteenth time, for fuck's sake. You will receive no new wisdom out of it.

How would I?

I would go to my players and say "stat yourself"

Never seen Drigters, actually.

>I would go to my players and say "stat yourself"
And you'll get either overestimation of stats from Those Guys, or underestimation from anti-social spaghetti-dropping fa/tg/uys.

Nah, more like I can see why it's so hated on /a/. It doesn't make the isekai I already enjoy any less enjoyable. In my eyes the smartphone one *defines* what makes a bad isekai.

>the smartphone one
How is it any different from literally any BROB thread on SpaceBattles, though?
I mean, seriously, it's the bottom of the bin.
This anime would've never got funded in the 00s.

I know them

they aren't "those guys" and they aren't anti-social
in any case they would all do the same thing because of the really similar mindset of them all, so...
>oh, you all want to play the "high stats shit?" worry not because the encounters you are going to find are going to be fucking difficult as shit
>oh so you are being humble? (the most likely scenario) worry not, because coming to this magical realm has given you super powers to fight evil and shit, so you have now great stats fitting your assigned archetype

I'm too used to high power campaigns, I can't balance low level for shit

Which works perfectly. After all, the two main types of Isekai protagonists are:

1. Spaghtti-droppers who are terrible at everything, but get OP Cheat skills that make up for how garbage everything else about them is

2. Faggots who are inexplicably master kendo fighter super-geniuses who have memorized everything from modern medicine to agriculture to manufacturing modern firearms, and are also better at fighting than legendary warriors in the setting.

erm.. solo campaign I guess.
I mean.. I guess it could be fun with a party of main characters fighting over who gets to be the übermain character.
But only if you get a huge kill-for-all ending.
You need to make the characters want to kill the others. Have them all have some "kill and get their power" ability beyond their unique skill.

But yeah, tons of powerups (probably have them roll for it so it makes some stronger than others), harems.. or even better, have them fight for harem members. You know that cute 9000 year old asura unicorn centaur loli that you just met? Well fight for her. Fight for her LOVE!

TL;DR: PvP I guess

> I can't balance low level for shit
You know those first-level quests like "kill the rats in the inn's cellar"?
Well, guess what, the thing is, if the first-level PCs are tasked with this, then it means that commoners are simply incapable of doing it.
Like literally, commoners die to rats.
There's your go-to "low power" measure for encounters.

Which is fucking unfortunate.

Japanese isekai is a mistake, and unfortunately, there's nothing that can fix it besides changing the Japanese culture of escapism and power fantasy itself.

into traffic

I haven't watched it and know nothing about it, but I just assumed that smartphone isekai thing was a thinly veiled advertisement for a phone or an app or something similar considering how bad it looked

Or just only watching/reading the few good ones. It's not like you need to fully embrace a genre to enjoy something

>nothing that can fix it besides changing the Japanese culture of escapism and power fantasy
What is wrong with those things? They are basically the cornerstones of tabletop gaming.

no

Grimgar but played straight, not the edgelord angsty murderfest the writing turns out as.
Focus on exploring and learning the rules of the world, don't give the PCs any information at all about it unless they learn it themselves the hard way.

>BROB thread on SpaceBattles
wat?

It's not. Perhaps it's bad to judge an anime by only its first two episodes, but the guy has only once used the smartphone the anime is named after in a clever way. Every other problem he has solved by simply being OP.

>wat?
Spacebattles is a relatively obscure sci-fi forum that many of its users seem to believe is widely known about.

The BROB subforum is basically just quests under a different name, and many of them are just as poorly written and blatant wish fulfillment faggotry as any of the old Veeky Forums quests.

SpaceBattles, BeastLair, user-kun, /qst/ - all of these serve the same purpose and all of them are bottom of the bin.

Besides, the only reason I know about SpaceBattles is because I read fanfiction on regular basis.

Make the characters showing up in the setting the threats, cast the PCs as natives dealing with entitled fucks that are nonetheless terrifyingly powerful and that have a horrifying ability to attract the weak-willed.

...

I wouldn't

DEUS VULT

>Falling for the loli Hitler meme

The aspect of the genre where the characters come from a "the real world" is basically free license to be as metagamey as possible. Plenty of isekai examples would have worlds that would be fine to base a game in, but I wouldn't want to run a game where the players are actually from earth

This is a pretty good example of the other end of the isekai spectrum I really fucking hate with things like Re:Monster or shield hero

>A party of mages in the Youjo Senki setting
Would actually be a pretty neat idea, if there was a good system to run it.

Just remember: Never. EVER. EEEVER piss of the Smug Duck of Imminent Victory, lest you get stationed in a pillbox or something worse.

Good luck smug duck!

Yeah it fucking sucks. everything sucks, everything.

close enough.

As a hybrid of Ninja Warrior and Dynasty Warrior obviously.
I'd probably run it in 4e

I was planning a MMORPG based one where would-be players get transported in a mixed-reality universe of the game due to a chaos magic autist hacking into the game to switch the title screen for a arcane sigil.
Would probably play like Log Horizon, but with more gender issues.

Now available in anime-free flavor with 20% extra edge.

>gender issues
Try watching Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari, there's a bit of that going on, when it's not busy being a Tenchi Muyo spinoff.

I wouldn't

Is this a series with an uncensored version?

Not exactly, but it was an OVA series, so the best you'll get is barely obscured by a wet, white bathing suit.

The Wandering Inn is probably the best Isekai story I've ever read.
wanderinginn.wordpress.com/
One of the characters who gets focused on is an insufferable cunt at first, but she gets better later.

Players are a bunch of guys who died doing something good. Like saving someone else from death tier good, kind of action. A minor Goddess, impressed by their noble efforts, decides to help them out a bit by letting them skip the cycle of waiting to be reborn, and simply pop them into a nearby timeline where they never existed.

In that way, they are now on a new quest. The Goddess, with her last bits of strength that she could reserve for them, told them that should they do something mighty again, she could maybe bring them back to their worlds, maybe even their time.

And que the, "They're in a fantasy/sci-fi world" thing. They'd get the generic Isekai perk of having something unique about them, I figure I'd go for near REEEEE:zero tier, in that they'd get to just pop back to being alive again. Anyway, in the end it would be revealed that if they had helped the minor goddess and achieved glory, she was only using them to get more power. Their selfishness to go home (despite the good actions) was the fuel required to help kickstart another rebellion against the more Major Gods.

Then there could be some God fighting, siding, etc.

Meanwhile, if they just choose to live a normal life in the fantasy setting, then shit is cash and nothing happens. They just enjoy being immortal forever.

How so?
Wiki sinopsis doesn't really say a lot.

I was thinking of playing around how a lot of guys play girls and a lot of girls play guys.

The setting is one where instead of conventional weapons and warfare, they have giant robots, and the pilots are called Seikishi,
Not everybody can pilot a robot because of the Ahou energy they give off, and even those that can will eventually have to give up for a while as it makes them sick.
Ahou resistance is genetic, and it's mostly found in women. So, most of the pilots are women, and rarely, say 1 in 100, maybe, will be male.
So, if you're a male pilot, you're treated like a prized race horse and expected to impregnate as many female pilots as you can.
As a woman, you're expected to have a couple of children, preferably with a male pilot, though not all get the chance, and fight in the wars and shit.

There's a bit more, but that's about 75% of it, except for the little details that didn't get into the anime, like what Marriage means to a male pilot.

That sounds weird, which is great.
And it just happens that I was looking for some animu to watch.
Thanks, user.

Start with Guardians of the Flame.
stop there.

Do it the other way around, transport a normal band of adventurers into our world.

Do isekai, but do the genre as if it was made by a gritty Occidental person rather than an otaku fiction mill. In other words no harem, no JRPG memes, relatively subtle humor if any, and almost no bizarre or wacky things. The main characters are also not gifted with anything but instead rely on their sheer knowledge and wisdom to get through their problems.

3 Hearts and 3 Lions is THE archetypal Isekai*. Also one of the main inspirations for D&D.
Also, people played as themselves in the original Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns.

Half-ass your setting as hard as Arneson and Gygax did, and you game should superficially resemble Isekai.

*the only thing is does wrong is have a coherent plot with good pacing

None of the PCs are Earthlings. They're trying to stop the Earthlings from ruining everything.

Like so.

Grimgar.

Grimgar is all about a group of randoms thrust into an OSR setting. First the party leader dies, then the tank dies, then the love interest dies. Then the protagonist sets off on a doomed quest to resurrect her.

user, you don't understand how bad Smartphone Isekai is. It's so bad that it taints the entire genre. Remember when Batman And Robin killed superhero movies for a decade? This is worse. I'm not sure the author understands any other plot device besides Deus ex Machina.

>The samurai girl speaks in a very formal manner and loves to eat, this makes her the most developed character so far
Not one, but TWO character traits! Guess we know who wins the blandbowl. Spoilers, 90% chance nobody wins.

Now and Then, Here and There.

Dying then having a choice of going to another world is shit. Guy gets pulled into a conflict from another world, and winds up in a terrible shithole mad max world where a psychopathic king uses an army of child soldiers to take control of water to power a super weapon.

Wait, WHO dies?

Best girl.

Mary dies. She's killed by a poison arrow. She tries to tell Haru she loves him, but the breath just won't come.

Run it like Drifters.

The PCs are already established historical figures that have been summoned to save the world from other more malevolent historical figures.

This is how I Isekai.

Does fucking Ranta die as well?

Like it was 9 Princes of Amber

Replace ahou with ahegao and you have an ERP.

Actually they all marry him.
Also later there are giant robots

I have to say, there are times when anime pulls off the genre blender right but this does not sound like one of them.
Someone recommend me good isekai/reincarnation novels

I like Konosuba. At least it breaks the mold somewhat by having a jerk MC and a non-harem group.
I don't watch much anime, though.

The same way you would run any other parallel universe story.

Isekai isn't new: it's Narnia

He's still alive, but he's fucked. He's on the run from Dark Knights, who want to gut him for being prick. Also, he fought Haruhiro and lost, then Haru basically exiled him from the party. (To be fair, Ranta was implied to be holding back.)

By keeping the reincarnation a theme of the narrative

Son, when Mexiah is on the screen, it's already an ERP.
And Yukine tried, bless her heart.

>it's Narnia
Hell, it at least dates back to John Carter of Mars.

Literally Alice in Wonderland

The Grimgar spoilers I've heard for a while now are kind of frustrating. I really liked the anime, but they make it sound like the tone just completely shifts at some point. Hearing them I don't even want to read it to check

Depending on how far we go with this, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court or The Blazing World predate it.

The Blazing World predates pretty much everything else, coming out in fucking 1666.

Counterpoint:

Run it like Drifters, the PCs are already established historical figures that have been summoned to ruin the world harder than other historical figures.

Do it like an 80's Fantasy B-movie.

The players are fantasy characters, by the power of PLOT and BUDGET they are transported to downtown LA for their adventure.

The super mario bros movie?

Isekai has its problems, but that's no reason to inflict the He-Man movie on your players

Honestly, I'm pretty torn between having a normal fantasy world and drop people in it and having the PCs have some special role.
A normal fantasy setting avoids all the bullshit and would work great for a sandbox campaign, but you don't have much that you can't get in a normal campaign. It really depends on your players to bring something unique via their character's modern knowledge.
If you give the players a special role, that might scare of a few genre savvy players or feel to rail-roady, but you also can establish a goal early on and give the PCs a chance to acclimate to the setting.
You could also play on narrative conventions by having the world set up as your standard wish fullfilment, but instead of MC-kun the players got transported into it. "Why are there five reincarnations of the great hero?", "You have been born with the only power that can defeat the demon lord" "No, I'm a sysadmin", etc.

Guess it depends on your playerbase in the end, but I feel you're loosing something when you have to discuss their knowledge of anime for an hour before you know where to take the campaign.

Konosuba is good isekai.

Made in Abyss looks promising, but.it's not isekai.