How to Create an Isekai D&D Campaign That Doesn't Suck
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- Опубликовано: 22 дек 2018
- After running a few trapped in another world D&D campaigns, I have accumulated a few tips & trick that would help you run your own Isekai / Trapped in another world campaign. Some of the tips here are universally applicable, actually.
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6:38 Tip 3 - People
8:35 Tip 4 - Difficulty
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10:58 Tip 6 - Politics
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#isekai 
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The sudden realisation that you've been playing an Isekai campaign for a year REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Kek!
Top Kek
Bottom kek
Maximum kek
Here's a fun idea. Your characters can travel freely between the fantasy world and their homeworld at any time. But there's something happening in the fantasy world that's effecting their homeworld, so they constantly travel between the two to stop it. Think the Persona games or Code Lyoko
I’d start my players as level 0 characters, 4+con hp and no class features. Hitting level 1 would take 100 XP and turn them into standard level 1 PCs. This would give the party a particularly vulnerable phase where they’re on par with the commoners of the world which makes sense seeing as were all commoners of this world. The ability to gain years of real world experience in a few days would be the party’s cheat and other characters would acknowledge how fast they’re gaining power. Aside from acknowledging how fast PCs level up early on in universe the PCs would be expected to use a certain amount of meta gaming, things they already know about monsters and settings rare fair game and if they knew they’d have to fight a specific type of monster they would be rewarded for researching it beforehand.
See I see what you're saying but what about cool powers just saying
The points about metagaming and how people can roleplay more directly as themselves are super good and would be great for getting new players in. Instead of thinking out of character "Hrm, how can I min-max this..." you can make that a character motivation and even roleplay out how your character might be thinking about mechanics.
I kinda wanna run a game like this now.
(Unrelated, however, it sounds like there's audio clipping going on with your voice track D: )
My first RPG campaign (wasn't D&D tho) was an isekai. It was great, it's so funny seeing a character go like "Y'all have so much HP! Why do I have so little hit poiiiiiints?"
Ah yes, finally I can be a weeb and secretly lure in other players to being a weeb with me without know it ! Ehehehe
If we’re doing that, try to have a guy using a revolver called Markus Deuce
Risu-chan the best plan ever!
Thanks to your "Tell a better story with Monk" I finally picked him up with a twist, That monk is an isekai but unlike in Konusuba or ReZero, he's not a Hihikimori, but a trained kungfu cop, inspired by the likes of many Donnie Yen & Jackie Chan movies. I even had him multiclass in level 2 fighter to get Action Surge and proficiency in hand crossbow with the feat Master Crossbow and Athletic. In the end my highest stat was intelligence & Dexterity but my worst was my Charisma & Str, both of which were 10.
In the end I had some great interactions, particularly with a Tiefling Bard.
Harris Zeboki let me see if I understand that.
You made an isekai where an 80’s action hero got stuck in DnD?
That sounds like an amazing idea.
Call of Cthulhu: Dream Stone. Amazing trap in another world
Lamentations of the Flame Princess running the Maze of the Blue Medusa or Blood in the Chocolate.
"Find new ways to make your players suffer!"
That's the quote of the day people.
like Goblin Slayer's GM
I would not know. Haven't seen Goblin Slayer.
@@sebastiancollins01 You should see the anime was nice but what's better is the manga or light novel 😁
i recommend you to check out Re:Zero, it gives great tips on how to make your players suffer
my current character is basically an iseki protagonist who while making chocolate milk to help them get to sleep was called into another world. my character is the only party member like this but I know I am not the first denizen of "our" world who arrived in this one, nor will I be the last.
These animations are so great!
Also, return of Waifu the Tiefling!
What sort of "Cheat" gimmick will you be homebrewing for your isekai?
I will allow a character a trinket, item, equipment, or tools that they have prior to being summoned. I'll ask them what they were doing at a specific time and date, and the items close to them will be with them as they get transferred to another world.
@@Ugg207 If you want to know some isekai here are the best ones from the subgenres comedy: Konosuba Politics: Log Horizon horror-lite: Re-zero and action: Overlord or That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. They are all fantastic shows and probably the top 5 isekai and you will probably enjoy most of them if you want more reccomendations ask me
I've seen this in a bunch of isekai but what if whenever you killed a creature you rolled a d20 and if it was a 20 then you get one of the creatures skills
Don't Stop Thinking That’s a hard one, since there are hundreds of ways to go about it, but i thinking would pick between these three.
An enhanced weapon of the players choice, enhanced abilities or two extra skills with expertise.
They have the ability to read the stats of any entity in the game and can communicate telepathically with there party as well as being able to slightly alter reality. y'know all the things you can do in most tabletop games as a player
Some of the dice affecting abilities already in the game, like second chance, cutting words or portent are probably a good base for cheats.
We recently finished our isekai dnd campaign. My players played themselves with their own stats and knowledge of our world. They had shitty stats of course. Two of them woke up in a cave and the other 2 in a forest and ended up in a medieval village and was super confused about everything. Their goal at first was to get home and they met a group of adventurers stopping by town called the Vindicators and trained with them. Eventually they made their way out to the next big city. As they became more and more powerful they eventually become more and more integrated into the world and forget about going home. At the beginning they had to fight rat people and bandits and in the end of the campaign they became gods and stopped the Devil King from consuming all life in the Universe.
A scientist and his young granddaughter along with a portly librarian and aged museum curator gathered for one fateful night, where they were transported to a world of their own design. That disaster left the mansion unoccupied since the 1960's, when a boy in the 1990's chased his dog into the dilapidated building. They couldn't find the cat the dog was chasing, but pet and master managed to find the transporter machine, and accidentally activate it.
Bonus points if you know what videogame I described. Hint? It is on the SNES.
Ah! Good old Secret of Evermore.
A good way to do Isekai (as supported by the game setting/system itself) might be 'The Strange' by Monty Cook games; especially if they end up in one of the other worlds through means not their own; they can always open up to the greater setting of The Strange once they've managed to do some great deed and discovered an item or location that can unlock the way between worlds. Now they can jump between the worlds, they might keep falling into other isekai, with new abilities unlocked in each setting.
Time to run *Goblin Slayer* ,only good goblins a dead goblin.
I was hoping Curse of Strahd (Wizard's official isekai campaign) would be discussed a bit in this video.
Never played D&D my entire life but i love listening to videos of stories and things of it. I once in a while think of a campaign idea while doing so. I thought a cool Isekai one would be to take people that are famous "warriors" through history that died in combat like say a Spartan solder that was part of the 300 that fought the Persia army. Someone from WW2 from either side. (Isekai nazi?) And toss in a cowboy some western mischief and some barfights.
Her power level it’s over 9000
What 9000!?
I think I asked this before, but are you planning on making more "how to play" style videos for games other than 5e D&D? I really want to learn games like Call of Cathulu, or Starfinder.
Yes, I do. It will be sometime mid next year, hopefully. I am in the preproduction process, so I can't tell you guys anything yet.
@@DontStopThinking Ooooooh, sneaky sneakrets! Can you give us a clue for what game or games are you planning on? Fantasy? Science fiction? Something else? I always wanted to learn how to play superhero tabletop rpgs!
DARK HERESY PLS
3:16 carnage amongst the stars pls
I'll admit, I was rolling my eyes a bit at the thought of running an isekai campaign. After watching I think I've got a few good ideas, a very good watch.
"The limitations of a magic system are more interesting than its capabilities. What the magic can't do is more interesting than what it can."
THANK YOU!!!! I've always found it WAY more interesting to come in with a clear set of rules and try to work out puzzles using the limitations. That's part of why Full Metal Alchemist and Death Note were so brilliant. They had a clear set of rules established early on that the characters had to work around. Even when in FMA it turns out that the rules are maybe not as strict as they thought, it's still the only way they know how to use it which continues to keep them in line.
This is true even outside of magic. Ask me to write a poem and I'll stare blankly at the screen for three hours before half-assing something. But give me a subject matter and rhyme scheme and suddenly I'm off the the races!
“Drifters” seems to be a fictional world that would lend itself to this kind of thing well.
I always wanted to run a Gamma world game where a session starts, a big explosion happenes and all my players are mutated, beginning the adventure. The best parts are every one knows the map cos it's earth and if someone dies they can roll up a new version of themselves from an alternative universe. If the game takes off the big bad is a council me! And the only way do stand a chance of beating us is doing something at the table I would never expect.
“Smartphones as their spellcasting focus?” Sounds like an anime with an OP character I remember
Love your content man keep up the great work!
Absolutely FANTASTIC video. Even beyond isekai flavor, there's a lot to digest for any GM- I love the discussion of failure states besides just killing the PCs
11:59 You just described the problem with Civilization's government bonuses.
Log Horizon answers many of the questions posed in this video.
Also make sure that your players know what isekai is, using an example like The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe from The Chronicles Of Narnia or A Kid in King Arther’s Court , would probably be very helpful if your players are not familiar with the terminology. That way they can get a basic idea of what the basic idea is. However the campaign it’s self should end up being its own thing.
Also,alice in the wonderland to peter pan and Gulliver's travels,they could also be really good example of isekai...
For me. Isekai = Planewalker (MTG)
I like to make it open start - open end. Characters from totally different world, Adventuring together with totally different commonsense, try to tackling weird problem with weird ally that either of those are seems not familiar to them.
Surprisingly generally good advises overall. Also, never expected to hear Brandon Sanderson and isekai cheats in same context.
Wait the whole "black holes destroying the planet and if you get caught in one your sent to a plane of infinite loneliness" isn't that just the plot of the subspace emissary in smash bros brawl?
Is It? I haven't played it yet?
I was so happy to hear someone else has read A Conneticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court
Thinking about it, there are some isekai anime that feel like D&D campaigns like Rising of the Shield Hero.
I did this it really cool thanks for making a video on it
"Find new ways to make the players suffer folks" lol
I want a campaign that focuses on building yourself up from nothing like Rimuru in That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.
I'm actually writing a fic about transporting some anime characters from their worlds into DnD like world, because some high powers wish to balance powers in cosmos (in two of three of anime worlds there are demigodlike person active which character means absolutely no good to both gods and mortals), and so these powers transported champions/heroes from these worlds into one of their worlds, so these heroes could become stronger and defeat the evil.
Is Savage Mum a new class?
Proficiencies: Intimidation(she can put fear in the hearts of the fiercest teachers), Insight (she's always right), and Nature (if she tells you it's going to rain, IT'S GOIN TO RAIN)
A Red and Pleasant Land
Or Gardens of Ynn great modules.
Make an reverse isekay world: you are from another world, but you wake up in D&D world.
Can someone list all the Anime that's being used for me? I really want to watch all the anime I just saw throughout the video.
It reminds me of our current campaign right now
I have a human who is from earth and brought into my dm's personally created fantasy world
Swept away by this phenomenon called the chaostide
Sometimes some other worldly beings are brought there due to the chaostides
These foreigners are considered as Chaoslings
Specifically lost ones swept away from other worlds
My human has some background of being a medieval martial arts instructor so he started off as a fighter
He also happens to be a huge fan to legendary rock bands like Queen
So he then decides to learn bardic ways of magic
So then multiclassed into lore bard to learn more about the new world around him while preaching the legendary rock gods back home
He isnt too worried since he was informed magic exists
When magic exists so do spells that can send him back home
Therefore being confident he can go back home
But in order to do such he has to contribute in the rebuilding effort of the civilization he is in now
Think of a refugee camp or something only its on elevated lands surrounded by sturdy walls and other structures
0:17 "...and I've began" (and I have BEGUN. The past participle)
English obviously isn't his first language (despite speaking quite well in it). Don't be a wangrod.
@@jjbb84x He studied in an English-speaking school, though. He said so.
@@Dracopol What's that got to do with anything? There are native speakers born and raised into the English language who can't even speak it half as well. Being needlessly picky about a minor grammatical error that has no adverse effect on your ability to understand a statement is just irritatingly pedantic.
I guess you could say that bothers me just as much as your initial irritation at his error.... so there's that...
@@jjbb84x Wrong is wrong. People should be corrected at any level. I offer this information just for general edification.
@@Dracopol Maintain the pledge, officer! Grammar police: "To annoy and correct" ;)
I always thought this might be fun. Although I’ve got problems with most isekai anime, since they all use more or less the same setting with the same characters.
I know what you mean. They are geared more towards wish fulfilment rather than adventure, but that trend makes sense in the Japanese context because there are just too many adventure stories and the isekai genre is being used to fill a different niche.
Can you make a video on unofficial 5e classes like artificer and mystic your really good at this stuff and I would appreciate it if you do!
I don't know why but every single time I listen to your videos while wearing earphones you sound like you're coming out of a old radio
I’d honestly like to see some of the anime you’ve shown here
I find using the Civilization games as a rough guide for pros and cons to particular government types to be good enough. Too bad Meritocracy is missing.
Cool!
I got motivation to stay in the fantasy world. No student loan debt! lol
Speaking of R.A Salvatore it's going to be a year till Boundless comes out, >_< Sept 2019...
Can anyone tell me what anime that is around 3:50? I'm intrigued, but I don't recognize it. I have admittedly not watched a lot of anime in quite some time, so I'm out of touch with what's been airing over the last couple of years.
knight's & magic anime
I would love to see you do a video on how to run a political game
Just gonna use all those anime clips and not list them?
Konosuba and rezero hang where u at
8:53 *IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAND!!!*
With this topic, I want to introduce Magic the Gathering's world to some of my friends thru Guild Master's Guide to Ravnica. I want the option of having one of there older characters being transported to this world, and having them join one of the guilds and being able to build up there renown in there guild, but I don't want to railroad them to it. Any suggestions?
Have you ever done a D&D campaign focused on Time Travel?
There's a ttrpg about that, it's called Continuum I think
Dr.Disrespect is that you?
0:21
Looks like rustage did well in making a fun isekai D&D
I think you can use real world politics as task or quest in the world
9:30 this confirms my worst fears, CJ is a flat earther
This comment is a joke please don't take it seriously
Dream Stone From COC best isekai adventure aver
Am I the only one who saw the over 9000 reference?
What footage did you use and from which shows?
00:30 What is this from? Looks interesting!
Say in 7:43 mark, what anime is this from? and btw, awesome topic for D&D.
What about Barrier Peaks, at least in “sci fi in DND”?
I mean it has mechanics for isekai, like rolling to learn if you can use laser or power armor.
what is the name of the anime at 5:36?
How do they get there? Truck-Kun obviously
I'm playing an Isekai character in my campaign
5:31 what anime is this?
"Find new ways to make your players suffer"
Oh boi do I love making my players suffer :3
you're gonna love Re:Zero
Crazy Question: Which genre of horror would best fit a DnD Isekai?
Okay is it just me or does the voice audio clip hard in this video?
Pokemon mystery dungeon games is one game
Weird issekai idea.
Players roll up DnD characters with respective backstories and backgrounds, with a twist. The PC's are then transported to the empire of Ivalice, islands of Spira, or some other world from a Final Fantasy game. The DM homebrews subclasses, like the Dragoon for the fighter, the Blue Mage for the ranger, Summoner for the wizard, or an extra warlock boon replicating the abilities of a Red Mage.
It may take some work, but it is likely the DM could craft a narrative which doesn't have to involve teenagers banding together with the power of friendship to kill a god. The DM could also really tone down the esoteric aspects of said narrative and go for some good old Dragon Quest JRPG charm... instead of the usual overrated tropes in a lot of Japanese roleplaying videogames.
What's the name of this game from 1:07 to 1:19 ?
Anybody have ideas on a solo isekai adventure?
Have you thought of using classless character when starting an adventure
Check out Zee Bashew's site for idea:
ruclips.net/video/vJ-yyhZcXQU/видео.html&ab_channel=ZeeBashew
wait, is the Wizard of Oz an Isekai?
yep
answer: make a Re:Zero inspired campaign
8:34 Quite the contrast to a certain other bunch of goblins.
I know I'm a weeb...
I know I play D&D...
But why is this in my recommended 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
How to make a great isekai story:
1-weak pc's or strong npc's and enemies
2-everytime pc dies he respawns in certain point in time (he does not have the control of the spawn point)
3-create wholesome friendly npc's *(speedwagon FTW)* with cool/tragic/basic background
4-make said npc's have tragic deaths in front of pc's eyes for traumatic experience
5-kill the pc's right after the npc's
6-they are revived and (not?) suffer mentally for seeing said npc's alive after tragic death and don't know they died because the pc's were the ones who respawned in said point of time,in other words,go back in time
7-the pc's can't tell to any npc's their respawning capability or else [insert Big Bad Evil Consequence here]
8-after some sessions,tell your friends this was a Re:Zero reference all this time
9-*repeat*
About being dumb - people of the past weren't dumb. They weren't educated. They still had good thinking skills, just not the mountain of knowledge we have nowadays.
Edit: As for politics - usually, i find it best when people engaging in smth like dnd are more or less around the same political views. Like, having a left wing person and a more center-leaning person would work, but right winger and left winger?
Especially considering how often politics involve human rights. Then again, why would i ever invite a bigot to my table if i know they are a bigot? Like, even if i don't have a minority player at my table (which i usually have).
So eh. It can be interesting, but probably best to either skip politics or make sure that the group has a somewhat significant common ground. A player calling DM biased for portraying a selfish rich guy, who exploits people with his wealth, as a lawful evil character (using (or subverting) existing systems for personal gain at the detriment of others and such).
But eh...
Otherall, isekai might be fun to do, although maybe also a bit hard.
Another idea for an isekai is "what if there is no system". This works for more ttrpgs than dnd. It does lose the popular "system" concept, which doesn't work as well for primal quest, but works quite well for dnd5e or pf2e
IDEA: if you had a campaign that ended with the player characters sacrificing themselves to save the world, run a new campaign where THEY the human beings, go on a field trip and wake up there, post the campaign, as normal people.
How to Create an Isekai D&D Campaign That Doesn't Suck: just do what Re:Zero did, the PCs are Subaru in this case
I wondered why I hadn't seen your channel around. Why are you going so deep with the manga and anime related stuff? Honestly, your video series on the basics of DnD and running the game were the best, hands down best, videos out there. This stuff and the last few videos, have really been lacking. As someone who subbed for DnD and not anime, can you please go back to the original type of content?
Entry is easy, clearly all my players where going about there normal days...... then they where hit by a van, simple
you have too much gain on your mic
If you are not going to talk about Japanese stuff you don't have to call it isekai.
Eh, it's the same guy who tried to jump on the let's bash goblin slayer bandwagon when it was still popular (which I thought this would be the follow up he promised tbh). I'm honestly not too surprised about it...
The concept is VERY old. It was originally known as "Stranger in a strange land". Gulliver's Travels was the earliest known example (or possibly Sinbad from 1001 Nights). It had dozens of examples in the west before the Japanese took a liking to the concept.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_universes_in_fiction#Stranger_in_a_strange_land
1
Why go home?
2
Why care about a character if it's a video game inside of a roleplaying game. You can't even pretend they are important.
3
There is no point. Isekai is dumb.
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