The person from another world arriving in fantasyland is a genre staple. Typically, these off-worlders, whether they be John Carter on Mars or the kids from the
Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, have some sort of edge that gives them a fighting chance or better in their new environment. But what if that wasn't the case? What if they were as unprepared as the survivors in zombie apocalypse fiction?
The death rate would be pretty high, particularly if you drop them in a typical D&D world and allow for the almost absurd horrors of the dungeoncrawl. It would be an interesting way to do a DCC-esque funnel with starting characters other than the usual suspects.
Here's another image of regular folks dying tragicomic deaths from "Planet of the Damned" in Starlord #2 (1978).
Oh my, a Starlord reference and Planet of the Damned at that!
ReplyDeleteFor more of a lost world style take on this sort of thing, Skull the Slayer would be worth a look.
I think this would be fun, and it's my casual observation that DCC players have an inexhaustible appetite for ultra-lethal funnel adventures.
ReplyDeleteCall it "Planet of the Red Shirts," hire Patrick Wetmore to lard it up with "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stranger" devices, throw money at Jason Sholtis until he agrees to provide the art, tweet about it @ John Scalzi and/or "The Orville" fans to generate "buzz", and then just sit back, relax, and wait to receive the 2020 Nebula Award for best gaming product in the mail.
@Mamanding - Not as many pointless deaths in Skull but it definitely has a similar vibe despite its Comics Code Approved tone!
ReplyDelete@Anne - Your logic is flawless, though Stefan Poag might also need to be added to the art for some Mars Attacks levels of carnage.