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[Worldmaster27]

Sentient is anything that can just plain think. Sapient means that the creature is capable of higher thought, IIRC.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Sentient is anything that can just plain think. Sapient means that the creature is capable of higher thought, IIRC.

Well, it doesn't have to be sapient to paralyze everybody who's violent - just have some sort of consciousness towards emotions/agression. But I get ya.

[~Neri]

Sapient means capable going "I think, therefore I am." Sentient means capable of thought. Animals are pretty much all sentient to some level. Some plants theoretically could be sentient, as could fungi. Only humans are confirmed sapient, although dolphins, some octopi, Ravens, some primates, wolves, and some large cat species are suspected to be sapient or transitioning from sentient to sapient. Dolphins may technically have a language actually, we aren't sure.

[Empiricist]

The threat doesn't have to be omnipresent, or be "the same evil existing in multiple forms across the multiverse." I was thinking more like some hostile entity that uses the transit system to reach worlds that are easier to attack than whatever world it came from.

Yeah, it doesn't even have to be something that is strictly evil, it could just be an invasive species that is able to outcompete organisms in other worlds and possibly cause catastrophic environmental damage.

[Avis-Mergulus]

The threat doesn't have to be omnipresent, or be "the same evil existing in multiple forms across the multiverse." I was thinking more like some hostile entity that uses the transit system to reach worlds that are easier to attack than whatever world it came from.

Yeah, it doesn't even have to be something that is strictly evil, it could just be an invasive species that is able to outcompete organisms in other worlds and possibly cause catastrophic environmental damage.

Yeah, okay. But where does it come from? Does it live between the worlds? If so, how? We have to explain that, too. And if it comes from a particular world, then there's probably dozens of such things out there, and we don't need to write it into the baseline rules.

[Empiricist]

The threat doesn't have to be omnipresent, or be "the same evil existing in multiple forms across the multiverse." I was thinking more like some hostile entity that uses the transit system to reach worlds that are easier to attack than whatever world it came from.

Yeah, it doesn't even have to be something that is strictly evil, it could just be an invasive species that is able to outcompete organisms in other worlds and possibly cause catastrophic environmental damage.

Yeah, okay. But where does it come from? Does it live between the worlds? If so, how? We have to explain that, too. And if it comes from a particular world, then there's probably dozens of such things out there, and we don't need to write it into the baseline rules.

A particular world. If say a perplexicon-esque world possessed giant mercury jellyfish that used poison and disease magic, and it got linked to a modern world, those things would likely displace a lot of marine lifeforms and release a flood of poison into the ocean before they run out of mana.

[Avis-Mergulus]

The threat doesn't have to be omnipresent, or be "the same evil existing in multiple forms across the multiverse." I was thinking more like some hostile entity that uses the transit system to reach worlds that are easier to attack than whatever world it came from.

Yeah, it doesn't even have to be something that is strictly evil, it could just be an invasive species that is able to outcompete organisms in other worlds and possibly cause catastrophic environmental damage.

Yeah, okay. But where does it come from? Does it live between the worlds? If so, how? We have to explain that, too. And if it comes from a particular world, then there's probably dozens of such things out there, and we don't need to write it into the baseline rules.

A particular world. If say a perplexicon-esque world possessed giant mercury jellyfish that used poison and disease magic, and it got linked to a modern world, those things would likely displace a lot of marine lifeforms and release a flood of poison into the ocean before they run out of mana.

I can get behind that, but does it really need to be in the basic ruleset? If a GM wants eldritch voracious otherwordly creatures to attack his world, he can always do that, going by the assumption that there are buttloads of those creatures out there. We don't need to make a list of them - people can just make them up as they go.

[Empiricist]

I never said it needed to be in the ruleset, but I think it should be limited to creatures that exist in the other worlds rather than beings that have seemingly no traceable origin.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Do you mean other worlds that have a GM, or just any other world that may theoretically exist? The latter is more useful as a plot device. Otherwise, I fully agree about the no traceable origin bit.

[Empiricist]

I mean other worlds with a GM since those are the ones with the portals connected to other GM-controlled worlds. Because otherwise, either you can't trace them because the portal is one way, or you can trace them but can't do anything about it because their world doesn't have a GM.

[Worldmaster27]

There could also be unstable portals that only last a little while and lead to forgotten/undiscovered worlds where these horrors reside. Since the GMs would make these portals, the world(s) they lead to would be under his/her jurisdiction and doesn't require the cooperation of another GM.

[Tomcost]

The confusion that is erupting with the word "World" can be easily avoided via the word "Dimension".

Because every GM is basically defining a universe, not a planet. Or at least it sems that most of you want to go that way.

[WillowLuman]

We could keep the scope a bit more manageable by having the portals only present on/near a single planet in any given universe. So maybe you have a future setting where people have spread across the stars but the inter-dimensional portals are all on/near/in Earth.

[Avis-Mergulus]

There could also be unstable portals that only last a little while and lead to forgotten/undiscovered worlds where these horrors reside. Since the GMs would make these portals, the world(s) they lead to would be under his/her jurisdiction and doesn't require the cooperation of another GM.

I endorse this message.

We could keep the scope a bit more manageable by having the portals only present on/near a single planet in any given universe. So maybe you have a future setting where people have spread across the stars but the inter-dimensional portals are all on/near/in Earth.

Why, though? If it's a space-age setting, then travel between planets is certainly possible, and if not, well... I think that as a guideline, one can use the question "Do characters native to the world travel between planets often?"
Anyway, placement of the portals is up to the GM, who presumably doesn't want a portal to open on the 27th planet of Alpha Leo or something like that.

[WillowLuman]

Thematics, and if someone had a vast universe filled with all kind of worlds, the thread for the game containing it might become too bulky, depending on how far players were allowed to roam.