Genre and campaign world crossovers

Cue the cooking gas.

You’ve decided to mix things up. Whether through strange emissaries from a mystery shore, a plane shift gone awry, or a dark portal spilling mist, mutations and obligatory retrowave synth music, you’re about to push beyond the usual boundaries and take the player characters out of their comfort zone. But remember to root characters in the setting and lore of one world before hurling them into another, so they have enough background and perspective from which to appreciate the contrasts and wonders of the new one.

Don’t be callously underhand about your Alice in Wonderland plans. Confirm player consent, making sure everyone is on board before launching them into the next realm. Prepare for all possibilities, such as availability of items the characters had previously relied on, and consider characters’ proficiencies, languages, knowledge and skills, allowing some retraining of redundant abilities if necessary. Other aspects such as the laws of the arcane, influence of the divine, and the effects of introducing various technologies, flora or fauna into a new world should also be addressed.

Many genre crossovers are possible within the same world, such as switching between low and high fantasy. Subgenres such as Arabian, Arthurian, Celtic, dark, medieval, mythic, paranormal, prehistoric, and swashbuckling fantasy might all have influences in separate continents or kingdoms, hitherto unknown though still sharing the same sky. But it’s a much greater jump through portals to alternate worlds of steampunk, science fantasy, and the new weird, and characters aren’t ever going to be the same after they return. If they return.

Clues, rumors, and hooks can include prior crossworld encounters and spillovers (in either direction), abduction, or, if the party somehow happens to consist entirely of horizon walkers, merely the promise of some wonderful new scenery. But however the characters are compelled, again, make sure your players are amenable to any major shift from the initial campaign premise that was originally promised.

Unless it’s a short chapter or taster episode, don’t introduce too much too fast. A balance between the recognizable and the weird can help characters keep their feet and help prevent players from feeling adrift. The further characters travel from their origins, the more challenging it can be to find motivations for them. Even if they’re lost far from home, don’t let them lose purpose. Relate when necessary how the worlds connect within the wider universe, and make use of complementary themes and reminders rather than risking a roller coaster through an incongruous clash of settings that proves too challenging to
sustain, flying off the rails and fracturing into pieces that drift shrieking into the void like the ranger’s eighteenth shrub otter after it’s ripped into entropy by an oblivion lord.