Curate, connect, and discover
I'm so freaking tired of seeing the same handful of tropes and storylines in isekai because it often boils down to: regular guy ends up in fantasy world and immediately gets a) op cheat skill. b)healing magic. or c) the ability to punch/use a sword really well. Regular guy runs around the fantasy world alone at first because hes been abandoned or accused of a crime he didnt commit, completely oblivious to the harem of very diverse but ultimately the same hot women he's building along the way. Regular guy is also weirdly fine with medieval fantasy slavery, discrimination and thinks he's edgy and cool just because he's being kind of an asshole.
so here are a bunch of story ideas that I came up with.
1. When a reasonable adult discovereds that rhe Chosen One (who they didn't even want to summon anyways) is a teenager, they proceed to just defeat the evil threat themselves and adopt the teenager in the process while figuring out how to send the poor kid back home
2. MC doesn't realize he's got a harem because he's very gay for a side character/villain
3. The Villain and the Hero are stuck in a timeloop that resets to the day when the Hero is summoned. This is because during the first loop there was a prophecy that was subverted by summoning the Hero to change the worlds fate. Now they are stuck in an eternal loop until the prophecy is fulfilled.
4. The summoned 'Hero' isn't granted op power upon arrival to the fantasy world. Instead they are the latest in a long line of the kingdoms failed attempts at creating a living superweapon to defeat the Villain via winter soldier style human experimentation. The villain could even be the original experiment that escaped.
5. Instead of the MC being a regular human tossed into a fantasy world with 237 different magic races, they're a non-human tossed into a fantasy world with way less variety. They might not even have other members of their race in the new world, making them unique in that way. Allows a more indepth look at fantasy discrimination and racism and could create some interesting world building implications.
6. The fantasy world and modern world are universe counterparts. Doppelganger shenanigans.
7. The Chosen One is summoned decades or even centuries before they're actually needed to save the world.
8. MCs freshly departed spirit slips through a crack between worlds into the fantasy world. Ghost shenanigans. The reason they decide to seek power and learn magic is because they want to become strong enough to be seen again by other people.
9. MC comes from another fantasy world with a magic system that no longer works at all. They have to learn the new worlds magic system in order to be able to do magic again.
10. MC is reborn into another world because their worlds deity hates them and because they don't want to deal with MC anymore, they just decide make the MC another world's problem.
11. The summoning ritual gets hijacked.
12. MC is summoned from a distant point in time rather than from another world.
13. MC is actually the deity in disguise because they couldn't find a suitable person to isekai.
14. MC is a highly successful Chosen One, to the point where they offer up their services as a Hero to desperate gods who want to save their world/chose the wrong person to be the Hero and need to fix it before its too late.
15. Instead of just joining a guild, the reincarnated MC builds one and becomes the Guildmaster.
16. The MCs modern opinions on slavery, the class system, sexism and equality in general lead to them kickstarting the fantasy french revolution.
17. MC actually liked their life in the modern world. They had a good family, healthy friend group, worked their dream job and all that other happy jazz. They really don't want to be adventuring in a fantasy world -their entire goal is getting back home.