Different System, Different Genres, Same Game?

Running different games with different groups of players has allowed me to “self-populate” these same game worlds with ongoing, behind the scenes world building which may be the holy grail of what I am after with TTRPG’s. World building by borrowing elements from other campaign games I have or am currently running. For example, in my Blood of Heroes bronze age comics game PCs encountered “Trans-Arcana Radiation”. In my Traveller games PCs can uncover disturbances in the “G Band” which will lead to “secrets of the ancients”. If any of these characters have a chance to compare analysis, they are the same thing. So what are the wizards wielding in Rom’Myr. Some might call it magic, but at the scientific level it is the same. G Band disturbance, physics-defying radiation, pure Vancian magic… its all Trans-Arcana Radiation in these wildly different games.

Once I started tinkering with this idea it was only a short jump to keep PC events and encounters in play from other games. My next Traveller game will have built in the fallout from previous groups’ play. Since those previous groups were poking around in the “Secrets of the Ancients”, I now have built-in ramifications which can occur in the background of any new group’s actions and inclinations. Cosmic-scale occurrences and planet-shattering events are daily occurrences in your average comic book stories. The phenomena and powers encountered in my supers campaign give a bridge to walk over into my fantasy campaign, without even getting lost!