Urban/Natural mix Fantasy campaign with Isekai components -- FABULA ULTIMA (Interest Check)

Choose two to three starting Classes

Your character begins play at level 5. This means you will have five levels to distribute among any of the fifteen available Classes. Your character must have at least two Classes when they begin play, and no more than three.

Your Homeworld Identity does not have any of your Classes. Those are things you take on in your Fantasy Identity.The following Classes are also available, but are either High Fantasy classes meant for a brighter, more mystical setting, or are bonus classes from a splat that has not gotten as much playtesting.

Do you anticipate travel rolls and discoveries coming into play often? I might consider taking levels in Wayfarer if that is the case,or I'll focus elsewhere if not.

Some of the fantasy worlds will be relatively "small," and all will be more compact than your average fantasy setting. The idea being that the Hidden World as a whole is partitioned into these individual fantasy "worlds". Lower-case "world" versus upper-case "World." I'd say crossing the small ones would be no more than 2-3 days of travel roll. But the medium, large, and the rare very large ones would be suitable for your Wayfarer abilities.

I'd recommend you put more focus into what else Wayfarer does, and make the call based on that. In any system, I always say "take options that have more features you care about, then sprinkle in pieces from the less interesting ones if at all." In this game, that is important because you must Master a class before you can start adding your fourth class to a build. If you take three classes that you only want small portions of, you'll take a looooong time to get to Mastery in any of them.

Don't know if there's room but the isekai part drew me in. It's my favorite genre. Never tried the fabula ultra system but I've heard it works well with this type of game and I'd love to get into it so I can run my own isekai, not using a d20 system like TotV or D&D.

I've started brainstorming a potential character concept, but I want to make sure everyone is accepting or comfortable with it first. Since one of the central ideas of the campaign is to use what is learned/experienced in the fantasy worlds to combat injustice/higher powers in the mundane world, I thought a law enforcement officer of some kind that is unwilling to participate in the rampant corruption or abuse of power could be a good fit. However, I understand this concept might be a bit too close to home for some. Even if it would be acceptable for the campaign, I would come up with something else if it made anyone uncomfortable.

I will note that the people in this thread are not necessarily the player group of the game. Thus, this is not the time for vetting character concepts or deciding to not participate because of someone's proposed character.

Once I am ready to open the game page, I will begin discussing rules of play and the time table for how I intend the game to be played, and other such logistics. That process will help select who I give admission. In the meanwhile, I appreciate everyone's interest and look forward to hearing more ideas.

I assumed based on the discussion of character creation that it would be appropriate. Sorry for misunderstanding.

I'm down to go that route if you want! Send me a DM if some of your ideas or what you're looking for and we can figure something out!

how much will it matter what our characters job was in the real world? Would there be any type of character creation or stats for the PCs when they are there?

Let me clarify. Saying what character you were considering, especially as a "this is one idea I have", is totally fine. The part that I'm advocating for putting on hold is running characters by the others. Approval, disapproval, that whole thing.

More broadly, I wanted everyone to hear that if they have a problem with a character someone else is proposing right now, that's fine, but this is not the time to voice it. No one here has been made a player of this game yet. We are all discussing the game, from a standpoint of gauging interest in it and in different concepts.

Like I was saying in other responses, this is good fun and all, but don't get attached. Neither of you have been confirmed as a player yet, we are just discussing from the level of gauging interest.

Depends what you mean by "matter." It will not control anything about your fantasy identity. Rolling will be slim or none in the Homeworld, and abilities will not be accessible. It's a place to roleplay as a normal person who can't storm the police HQ, take over the government, or defeat an MMA fighter in battle. The most fantastical thing they can do is use the app to go to caches and fall into another reality.

Well,unless the character is in fact an MMA fighter or equivalent in real life.

But that's very understandable. I look forward to exploring the contrast.

I will say this, calling your character an MMA fighter will not have any mechanical benefit. Not in the Homeworld, not in Fantasy. If you want them to be one, and want to make your Fantasy Identity someone for whom that makes sense, I'd suggest working Fury and Dancer into the build.

Oh yeah that's fair. We can table that discussion. I do like the idea of making characters that change drastically in some way would be pretty interesting. Especially if they like the otherworld person more than the real world

That is a very, very good concept there. Especially because I'm not particularly interested in these fantasy selves being, "Me, but with armor." We'll get into that in character creation proper, but I'm hoping that everyone's otherworldly self is very different from their Homeworld identity, visibly, internally, and otherwise.

Sorry, with all the character creation talk I misunderstood and got ahead of things in my enthusiasm for the premise.

More generally, it strikes me that there are many interesting possibilities if some of the characters know each other in the real world. It's by no means necessary, but I think it would add an additional layer as characters not only have to figure out the other world and who they want to be in it, but also how they will present themselves to someone who already knows them. How does that relationship change or grow? If everyone is a stranger a lot of that becomes internal since the others don't know who they're 'supposed' to be.

Some random ideas/examples:

One person sees the other world as a fun escape while their connection begins to see it more and more as their real home.

Similarly, someone might decide they prefer their self in the other world and expects to continue the new relationship dynamic they have with their connection in the real world.

There are lots of different ways that the other world might bring them closer or drive them apart and that's just with normal social dynamics.

What happens when the wallflower student now knows magic or the office secretary is now a master tactician?

Maybe the student council president is pleased to no longer have all of the social pressure that's made them a neurotic overachiever? That might not sit well with their kouhai who can't come to terms with the person they admire 'throwing away' all of their accolades and accomplishments.

How would the popular one feel about being suddenly overshadowed by their suddenly more capable sibling, armed with a wealth of knowledge from all their dorky pursuits? Or do they both settle into a new dynamic that they can appreciate while sharing a secret?

All of that is without getting into all the additional possibilities that arise if the characters are physically different from their real world selves.

I think there's a lot of potential for shared back stories once things get that far. If I get to play, that's something I'd want to hammer out before deciding things like class since I'd want to pick something that matches the dynamic.

I like the idea of playing a technology geek, that ends up skeptical of magic existing. And spends thier time trying to 'figure out' magic. Not sure which classes would fit best for that.
Or just playing a character is forced to be their opposite in the fantasy world. There would be plenty of options for that.

It depends on how much you'd want them to retain their use of technology in the other world,I imagine.

If you wanted them to start off immersed in a new perspective and set of abilities,probably Loremaster plus one of the caster classes (Elementalist,Entropist,or Spiritist). If you wanted them to apply their understanding of tech to the fantasy world,you might pick Tinkerer or Pilot instead.

Dancer,Chanter,Symbolist,Esper,or Invoker are also "magical" classes of a sort. While the Chimerist has a theme of learning/emulating monsters of specific types.

I'd echo much of what Nellancholy said, with the caveat that Tinkerer tech (and likely Pilot tech) may not work the way your Homeworld identity understands tech to work, and that could be even more confusing to them than finding an analogous magic system.

Entropism tends toward a lot of the same thinking as science, while Elementalist, Spiritist, and Invoker are much more steeped in animism and empathy.

Orator, Dancer, Chanter, and Symbolist are more artsy rather than methodical.

Esper has potential, perhaps as an expression of your science-minded character slowly expanding their mind into avenues that were not possible before. Less of "Esper is scientific or technical" and more of "My striving to find sense in this nonsense world is unlocking the power of my mind."