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Leanne · **11-17-2015, 01:59 PM**

It's world changing to most, indeed. That's why as Marti said, denial and pass a dimension hopper off as looney are legitimate answers. If someone in real life just hopped through a portal saying that they come from the future/past/alternate universe, my world would shatter in one mili second.

Now, to people who see weirdness on an almost constant basis? They will not be wholly shocked. They will give it the benefit of doubt too, in case. Instead of Leanne, let's...call a character named Adventurer McDonaldson. His life is a parade of daily weird crap. As a baby, he crossed through a void gate because their parents were cultists. As a child, he saw the summoning of Leviathan because one of those void gate landed him exactly on the spot where the thing was happening. As a teenager, he sees a fisher ICly landing a create named the Nepto Dragon using only a fishing rod. As an adult, he finds our mysterious traveler, Dimension Bunny Hooper. Will he be shocked? Or just treat it as another weird occurance in his already weird life?

Yes, the examples are ludicrous, but that's one of the major points. There are several cases of the extraordinary happening, not only from in-game events, but from other players too, which sometimes manages to fall within the purview of lorewise possible, but still extraordinary feats. And for those that have seen it, a dimension traveler will be just another weird thing in a world that is already very, very weird.

That's my opinion, at the very least.

Martiallais · **11-17-2015, 02:01 PM**

(11-17-2015, 01:34 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: *snip*
Do you know anything about Eldritch Horror? The Lurking Horror kind of stuff, the madness and insanity that comes from really, truly realizing that we are insignificant in the face of the vast cosmos and that our world is a mote in the black emptiness of space? When adventurers from dozens of other worlds just start falling out of the sky it's going to destroy the concept of the world for most people who buy into it. It presses hard on the suspension of disbelief that comes from playing a character set in a world: You either go "huh, that's weird!" and roll with it, or you do the opposite, wherein you realize your entire world can be taken from you in an instant because you happened to accidentally slip between the cracks of the world.

It isn't something that should be taken lightly. Cross-dimensional stuff gets into heavy territory. Remember, the NPCs during the Shantotto event put her appearance on the level of the Calamity. It's world-changing.

Slightly off topic and I may be the weirdo here...but I'd actually be pretty thrilled if something like this came about in RP for one of my characters. >_> In that subtle, ever growing nagging/tugging in the back of their mind? Hells yes. That's the kind of RP that (while taking a LOT of trust to pull off) would certainly (if not irreparably) change a character.

Do you try and secure power to make certain you don't slip between the cracks? Do you try and hunt down other things/people that have? Not to mention the effect on your view of the world.

*ahem* Apologies.

You're right though, it's very, very heavy stuff. But I agree, bad apples can most definitely spoil it overall. There's nothing wrong with just saying "Nope this isn't for me", either...whether it's to dimensional RP or anything else. But for those who want to try it, there's bound to be someone who will roll the dice on it.

EDIT: And I'm not saying carte blanche on just any and everything, mind you. I, and most people, definitely don't want to sift through an RP concept free for all, that's why I think having some things to check off along the way is good. Works for me at least.

Paradox · **11-17-2015, 02:03 PM**

Well, a lot of the reason Shantotto's appearance is compared to that is that Shantotto herself kind of *is* a Calamity. She wasn't thrown across dimensions, she didn't step into a gateway and wake up in Eorzea, she kicked down the door all by her lonesome, and set up shop. She's a Black Mage in a world where Black Mages are rare, and generally don't speak up because they're outlawed to holy hell and gone, and she's powerful enough to wipe out whole armies on her own without breaking her rhyming. The actual act of moving dimensions isn't necessarily a major event on its own. It all depends on the why.

We know very little about the void and how it connects to other worlds in the XIV sense, if it does. As of right now all we know is, a bunch of demons live in it. We know gateways can be opened to the void from Eorzea. So is it the same Void as Exdeath's Void? Who can say. With the suspension of disbelief present, one could say it's entirely possible for someone to have come across the void. Gilgamesh is the biggest offender. He specifically travels via the void to other Final Fantasy universes. Yes, it's a gimmick, but joke character or not, he's still a character in the lore of the world. A lot of people dismiss the fact because of his hilarious sidekick status, but the fact remains he does exist. Just because he doesn't meet people's 'standards' of what makes a character viable doesn't mean the viability isn't present, just that their opinion is to dismiss it.

Now, there are some things that are silly. I'd say if someone wants to import an older character of theirs as I do at times, there are ways to go about it to make them fit and still keep the original being. Or if you want to bring in a character from another final fantasy, make sure it's an OC, not a canon character or related to one. That's really Sue territory anyway, even in its own world unless the forum being played in specifically lets one play canons, but I digress. But there's a great deal of fun to be had. If you had someone who was a mage from a different FF reality, suddenly they have to adapt to Aether. What if their personal aether in *this* reality isn't enough for them to become a mage? Maybe they were an offensive caster, and now they have to use Conjury because they can only draw from outside.

Certainly being from another FF, they're used to odd things happening, so being a stranger in a new world would be jarring at first, but they were from the home of flying gods and dancing moogles. Some things would still be familiar to them (like the moogles, spell names, certain monsters like Morbols, and the like), so adjustment could be moderately easy once they figure things out. And while I know that some say things like Crystal Tower aren't necessarily canon, that's up for debate. maybe Eorzea is similar to Memoria from FFIX. A place where memories are stored, kept, brought into physical form. Maybe it takes things form other realities, like the Crystal Tower, hell, Xande's whole empire, and adapts them into itself to create its own history. if Hydaelyn is the mother goddess, and the One Crystal, it was seen in FFIX that *all* memories came to the Crystal at the end of all things. Maybe Hydaelyn contains the memories of all those realities in herself. Maybe that's why we see Krile from FFV, yet she's different from her original self. Maybe that's why Xande and his tower exist but have a history as an empire here that's very different in ways from FFIII. The Cloud of Darkness. Made a voidsent, but still no less dangerous. Eorzea might be the next world being repopulated with memories from many others. This could also explain why there are multiple warriors of light (Yes, multiple, get over it), in terms of numbers much higher than the usual four. Because they're all being transitioned, and created anew. Maybe that's why the world is under such stress at times.

In this case, someone could easily be a minor person from FF??, and it still be well within a potential lore theorycrafting. Maybe they didn't actually come here from another dimension. Maybe they were from another dimension, another final fantasy. But their world ended. Time is subjective. When does Eorzea happen? IN the same timestream? Outside of it? Hydaelyn is a High Goddess, so that means that time is irrelevant to her except in its passing on where her nature is currently present. This being the case, to build this current world, she takes from others. A person begins to have memories of themselves from their other life. Or they just woke up one day, and the world is wholly different, to them. They were indeed born here, but perhaps spontaneously. Who can say? there's a thousand possibilities or theories to tie other worlds (Edit: Final fantasy worlds at least) in and still technically be *from* Eorzea and still have 'traveled', but too many think traveling has to denote 'moving from one world to the next via portal or gate' or some such. Perhaps it's just 'being reborn while retaining memory' or 'incomplete transition from the central memory of the crystal'.

You never know.

-no longer matters- · **11-17-2015, 02:08 PM**

I really think this all depends on how it's handled.

Realistically someone whose found themselves trapped on another world probably wouldn't run around and announce it. They'd likely keep it on the down low, and try their best to acclimate into the surrounding culture (especially if they resemble the people of this world and can do so.) while working on a way to get home in secret. When they did reveal this secret to someone else it'd likely be someone they trusted or out of necessity.

If done like that, I think dimension or even world hopping could work out well, and can be a great story device n a personal level. But the player would have to remember -it is- on a personal level.

Now if someone runs around telling everyone they are from this alternate timeline/word/dimension. That's where trouble starts and it can be more problematic than a good personal narrative.Â

It's also up to the RPer to handle it in a way it doesn't become a confining piece as well. Because while Dimensional travel etc. Can be great for a story, movie, comic book, anime etc. It doesn't lend itself well to a fluid RP unless done correctly knowing that it can be more of a hindrance for your character in the long run more so than anything else. Because you have to accept your character is destined to fail, unless you have a limited shelf life on the character, and intend to Fantasia/Name Change or quit it to send it home.

So food for thought while I wouldn't discourage someone that was doing it the way I described above, I would point out the cons of it so they could make an informed decision as to whether this is the route they want to head down.

FallenFedora · **11-17-2015, 02:14 PM**

While I myself do not support the idea of 'world-hopping', I do however agree that from a lore perspective, however iffy, it is feasible (See The VoidÂ - as it is described to link parallel universes)Â but entirely impossible for us as players to make use of from a game mechanic stance or to feasibly use it as a roleplay concept without a plethora of negative backlash.

I'd be more inclined to support the idea of being 'out of time' instead, and even that's incredibly iffy - While you're more than welcome to the idea and making use of it, be prepared to be outright ignored at worse, and at best, dismissed ICly as being insane. Just my weigh in.

No Longer Exists · **11-17-2015, 02:49 PM**

*Snooze bubble pops*

I'll try to describe this as briefly as possible, but it's really NOT something that can be summed up.

Galen Aubrey crossed over from Gilgamesh World to Balmung (via character transfer) and my partner and I RPed that they were pulled through a void gate that shouldn't have been there in the first place. It was a cataclysmic experience for both characters.

Galen woke up outside Limsa Lominsa alone, separated from Fram, so his first thoughts were absolute terror that she was lost to him. So he walked into Limsa and immediately booked passage to Ul'dah, planning to return to his company house and look for her or organize a search party. Everything seemed normal to him until he reached the housing wards. Suddenly, it was apparent that whole companies of adventurers that he had known did not exist. GROUPS OF PEOPLE SUDDENLY -GONE-. Imagine waking up and finding out half the people who knew and worked with had ceased to exist Rapture style. Chew on that for a moment.

So he returned to Ul'dah, where everything looked the same but he now had this sense that everything was just slightly to the left of what he knew was real. After running through the wards finding every company, every home, every group of people he knew were replaced, Galen spent two weeks wandering around Ul'dah looking for clues. Two. Entire. Weeks. Each day, that paranoid sense that either he was utterly insane or a victim of some cataclysmic prank lingering for fourteen days where I RPed with people who wondered why he talked about stuff that didn't exist or looked at every person with suspicion. He was a nice guy, but something was off about him and everyone he met took note.

(I bought a house OOC) He began to squat in a small cottage in the very back of the residential ward and spent many weeks after amassing equipment, crafting, diligently writing out theories and research into madness curses, aether-sickness (to explain how he confused things maybe?) and eventually surmised that he was not where he was meant to be. That singular thought shattered his mind and he began to gather aetheryte, even voidal energy, while building a massive machine in the basement of the cottage he squatted in. He withdrew, spent less and less time out in Ul'dah unless he needed supplies. All that mattered was putting right what was wrong with the universe, returning home. (OOC: The character became less and less fun to play because of this, his disassociation actually crippled my ability to RP him out in the world.)

When the machine was finished, he didn't test it, he didn't double check it. He was so lost to his obsession by then that he pulled the lever and vaporized the house, and himself, in a terrible explosion.

That is crippling madness. It's a side of RP I don't think I'll ever venture into again after that. It's a dark, sad, frightening place to visit. I would not wish it upon even my worst enemies.

NOW. This isn't to say that everyone would react that way, sure. We can wave our magic wands and say our characters are made of tougher stuff. I could've handwaved a retcon when I realized where it was going. I have the powah, I am He-Man of my RP. BUT! It's a consideration that I feel should be considered when hopping a pre-fabbed character over into a different setting/game/world.

But as with anything around here, this is all based upon the whim of the individual. There's no legislation involved, only advice.

Cheers.

*Snooze bubble*

Momoka · **11-17-2015, 07:54 PM**

(11-17-2015, 02:49 PM)Black Hat Wrote: *Snooze bubble pops*

I'll try to describe this as briefly as possible, but it's really NOT something that can be summed up.

Galen Aubrey crossed over from Gilgamesh World to Balmung (via character transfer) and my partner and I RPed that they were pulled through a void gate that shouldn't have been there in the first place. It was a cataclysmic experience for both characters.

Galen woke up outside Limsa Lominsa alone, separated from Fram, so his first thoughts were absolute terror that she was lost to him. So he walked into Limsa and immediately booked passage to Ul'dah, planning to return to his company house and look for her or organize a search party. Everything seemed normal to him until he reached the housing wards. Suddenly, it was apparent that whole companies of adventurers that he had known did not exist. GROUPS OF PEOPLE SUDDENLY -GONE-. Imagine waking up and finding out half the people who knew and worked with had ceased to exist Rapture style. Chew on that for a moment.

So he returned to Ul'dah, where everything looked the same but he now had this sense that everything was just slightly to the left of what he knew was real. After running through the wards finding every company, every home, every group of people he knew were replaced, Galen spent two weeks wandering around Ul'dah looking for clues. Two. Entire. Weeks. Each day, that paranoid sense that either he was utterly insane or a victim of some cataclysmic prank lingering for fourteen days where I RPed with people who wondered why he talked about stuff that didn't exist or looked at every person with suspicion. He was a nice guy, but something was off about him and everyone he met took note.

(I bought a house OOC) He began to squat in a small cottage in the very back of the residential ward and spent many weeks after amassing equipment, crafting, diligently writing out theories and research into madness curses, aether-sickness (to explain how he confused things maybe?) and eventually surmised that he was not where he was meant to be. That singular thought shattered his mind and he began to gather aetheryte, even voidal energy, while building a massive machine in the basement of the cottage he squatted in. He withdrew, spent less and less time out in Ul'dah unless he needed supplies. All that mattered was putting right what was wrong with the universe, returning home. (OOC: The character became less and less fun to play because of this, his disassociation actually crippled my ability to RP him out in the world.)

When the machine was finished, he didn't test it, he didn't double check it. He was so lost to his obsession by then that he pulled the lever and vaporized the house, and himself, in a terrible explosion.

That is crippling madness. It's a side of RP I don't think I'll ever venture into again after that. It's a dark, sad, frightening place to visit. I would not wish it upon even my worst enemies.

NOW. This isn't to say that everyone would react that way, sure. We can wave our magic wands and say our characters are made of tougher stuff. I could've handwaved a retcon when I realized where it was going. I have the powah, I am He-Man of my RP. BUT! It's a consideration that I feel should be considered when hopping a pre-fabbed character over into a different setting/game/world.

But as with anything around here, this is all based upon the whim of the individual. There's no legislation involved, only advice.

Cheers.

*Snooze bubble*

That...is brilliant. Not gunna lie. For me, if your character acts like a whackadoodle, Ill still RP with you, but IC my character will likely treat you with a degree of pity as you are very clearly touched in the head. My duskwight has met people who have made outlandish claims, and he just smiles and nods, then goes home to tell his friends "guess what crazy I met in Limsa today!". OOC I have absolutely no reason to shun anyone, but if you act crazy you will be treated crazy. its that simple.

rainichan · **11-22-2015, 06:27 AM**

I don't fully have a problem with it, mainly because I see it like this: we don't know what an Atomos is fully capable of. In XI it was what was sending adventurers back in time, and from what it looks like in XIV, it spits out voidsent in the Crystal Tower raids. Who is to say the streams don't cross in some way (I know, I know, DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS!) and that adventurer trying to get to Jeuno in the past gets dropped outside of Ishgard?

I mean. Gilgamesh, in some way, traveled to Eorzea somehow from wherever he might have been before. Shantotto, despite the fact that she knows how to do that sort of stuff, we're not sure how and what sort of things she did to travel (just that she figured out a link between worlds) but she did. So I can see it, but getting too crazy with it, as mentioned earlier in being more the foreground story might be overbearing. Depends on how it's gone about for me, and as long as it's plausible, go with it. RP is, after all, about creativity and making things work within boundaries that are either preset (lore and slight lore bending), or boundaries you create yourself.

***Teadrinker*** · **11-22-2015, 06:53 AM**

(11-17-2015, 01:34 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: the madness and insanity that comes from really, truly realizing that we are insignificant in the face of the vast cosmos and that our world is a mote in the black emptiness of space?

I think it's this concept right here that a lot of players try to avoid.

I am convinced that a lot of players walk into RP with the mindset of, not playing a character in the predefined world, but being the most awesome thing in it even if that means bending the world's laws rather poorly.

You can make legitimate arguments all day about how it's not feesable. About how it doesn't make sense. About how it makes their character akin to an NPC or the WoL. But at the end of the day they are not trying to hear that. And it all stems from the initial moment of them deciding to come into RP with that mindset.

Personally, I have way for fun RPing characters low on the power scale. Characters that need help, somehow. Characters that, at the end of they day, if they died nothing of great value would be lost except to those close to them emotionally.

A lot of people do not enjoy that concept. They do not enjoy thinking of themselves as inconsequential. They don't want to be just another guy in Ul'dah. A speck. A passerby. A face in one-thousand. They want to be able to make a difference, to be powerful, to have an effect on things even if it's through some obscure power or method like dimensional hopping - or perhaps simply being the prettiest girl anyone has ever seen!

"I don't WANT to be a nobody..!"

At the end of the day, it's all escapism. That is just their flavor and I hate the way it tastes.

I've also thought of my RP characters from other universes and I've never had an inkling to drag them into FF14. They just....square peg, round hole, ya know? It doesn't even sound fun. I can't fathom being so attached to a character that you can't let them be in their world and I've RPed one of them going on...13 years now.

That being said I have done dimension hopping RP ONCE and it was with the above character. However, it was closed RP with another person who had also ported a character from a separate universe. This was not in FF and we never took it outside party chat. It was not so much being very attached to the characters as it was the goal of seeing how they would survive and react when thrown together in a strange land. Truth be told, we played our mains WAY more. It felt like a one trick pony is a very small corral and it got old quick.

Kellach Woods · **11-22-2015, 03:36 PM**

(11-17-2015, 12:42 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: 1) A godlike figure sending someone to Eorzea for reasons
2) A godlike figure sending herself to Eorzea for reasons
3) The hope of an entire world being sent to Eorzea at the end of the world

4) Random ass Brickmans/Golems spawning just because.

Or am I the only person on the RPC that gives a shit about Dragon Quest?

On Gilga, there's argument to be made there because he dimension-hops even in other games but no proof means just a whole lotta words.

Warren Castille · **11-22-2015, 03:43 PM**

(11-22-2015, 03:36 PM)Kellach Woods Wrote:
(11-17-2015, 12:42 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: 1) A godlike figure sending someone to Eorzea for reasons
2) A godlike figure sending herself to Eorzea for reasons
3) The hope of an entire world being sent to Eorzea at the end of the world

4) Random ass Brickmans/Golems spawning just because.

Or am I the only person on the RPC that gives a shit about Dragon Quest?

On Gilga, there's argument to be made there because he dimension-hops even in other games but no proof means just a whole lotta words.

Admittedly the DQ crossover is largely forgotten in my head aside from zee Puff Puff scene for obvious reasons. Were the mobs for that actually cross-dimension or just randomly appearing? I don't remember there actually being an explanation involving alternate worlds.

Kellach Woods · **11-22-2015, 03:56 PM**

Brickmans are at least claimed to come from Aetherial Rifts according to the Wind-up Brickman flavor text. The NPCs don't.

Lost River · **11-22-2015, 04:00 PM**

I think it may be far more likely to be trapped in a rift in time (as it has happened a few times) or in the void itself, then come back as a person out of time than it is to dimension hopping. Not to say what has happened isn't canon, the dimension hopping is; just, great circumstances cause it to happen for certain individuals.Â

But, I am not one to tell you cannot do it, I just hope you have a great explanation as to why instead of just "Just cause I can".

Just my two cents.

Cato · **11-22-2015, 04:03 PM**

It can be done well but it's rare for it be handled tastefully. It's the sort of plot point that pretty much forces a particular character to be the centre of attention if it's ever uncovered - because it isn't really something that you can realistically pretend that it isn't a big deal.
I feel like it's better suited to stories that don't involve other players. Almost every major example of a character 'dimension hopping' involves what is essentially a legendary and iconic figure.

If someone's character is on the same level as Gilgamesh or Lightning then I wouldn't be particularly interested in interacting with them. I like stories and role-play that leave room for everybody to participate in. I loathe stories involving super special snowflakes and characters that directly or indirectly end up hogging the spotlight at almost every turn.

You can achieve the exact same effect of being 'displaced' by playing a character that hails from a distant land within Hydaelyn itself. I'm having a lot of fun playing a Garlean who has to disguise and fend for himself whilst outside of Garlemald for example.

There's the culture shock, the unfamiliarity with locations and people, the sense of being overwhelmed and also the lack of being able to act and dress as he normally would without drawing attention. All the themes you could explore through 'dimension hopping' can easily be embraced by going down that route and it's a lot less jarring overall for everybody involved.

Kellach Woods · **11-22-2015, 04:07 PM**

Most of the RP hooks someone from another world has can be done by simply hailing from a different place in the world.

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RP Discussion: Dimensional Hopping and You

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