Running D&D in current day

Gwaihir

Explorer

• Sep 27, 2006

• #1

If you were to transport your characters to current day how would you handle this mechanically?

In no particular order:
-Assume they would retain some or all magic ability.
-Would you alter feats?
-Would you convert to D20 modern rules for a few sessions?
-Force them to leave obviously archaic items (shields for example) in hiding.

Has anyone moved D&D characters forward in time and if yes, how did you handle this?
Thanks

 

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I

Ilium

First Post

• Sep 27, 2006

• #2

Answers (in the same order )

1) Yes, I would let them retain their magical abilities. Bit of a drag for the party wizard otherwise.
2) No, I wouldn't alter feats. This is basically a D&D game where the PCs have found their way into a weird plane. It's still D&D.
3) See above. The rules aren't different enough to bother with the headaches anyway.
4) How would you "force" them? You can make it clear that tromping around in full armor carrying 30-inch blades is a bad idea (via a friendly NPC) but if you force them it's no fun.

Assuming this is a temporary situation, I wouldn't make myself crazy with a big conversion. Just assume the NPCs they deal with are competent at what they do and have fun.

 

S

Sandain

Explorer

• Sep 27, 2006

• #3

I think your main problems will be the game mechanics, but rather adding in a certain amount of believability to the game. If they do not have a magical way of communicating then your players will be in an extremely bad situation.

What adventuring party disarms and removes amror at any time apart from sleeping and bathing? The police will be called, they will be detained. When they cant offer ID they will be sent to a mental insitution or similar.

If they do magic the governem,tn will take them, and if they discover a priest can remove disease etc, he will never be allowed free. Same goes for the wizard who can teleport or cast invisibility.

 

K

Kmart Kommando

First Post

• Sep 28, 2006

• #4

well, if the wizard can cast teleport and invisibility, then exactly how is the government going to catch and detain them?

Agent Smith says: "we're going to study you to find out how you can turn invisible and teleport.."

Wizard says: "O-RLY? Teleport" BAMPF!

Agent Smith: "hmm, guess we didn't quite think this one through.."

 

brehobit

Explorer

• Sep 28, 2006

• #5

The old 1E DMG had rules for this interestingly enough. There was even a rather fun adventure in Dragon I think where the party can to the modern day to recover an item. Nicely written and addressed the issues you raise as I recall.

Mark

 

Gwaihir

Explorer

• Sep 28, 2006

• #6

Does anyone know which adventure in Dragon (Dungeon?) that Brehobit is referring to?
Any idea which issue #?

Thanks

 

Byrons_Ghost

First Post

• Sep 28, 2006

• #7

Dragon #100 had an adventure called "City Behind the Gate" in which modern characters go after the Staff of St. Cuthbert- housed, naturally, in the London Museum.

It's for higher level characters, IIRC, and fairly tongue in cheek.

 

Henry

Autoexreginated

• Sep 28, 2006

• #8

Byrons_Ghost said:

Dragon #100 had an adventure called "City Behind the Gate" in which modern characters go after the Staff of St. Cuthbert- housed, naturally, in the London Museum.

It's for higher level characters, IIRC, and fairly tongue in cheek.

Click to expand...

Minor corrections: D&D characters have to find a magic gate on a remote Island, which transports them to London, and the Mace of St. Cuthbert is in a display case in the Museum. (I read that adventure a LOT.) The conversions were pretty straightforward, and used a lot of the stats from an Ed Greenwood Article in a previous Dragon Mag (#57, I think?)

The only think I didn't like was the "borrible" analog children, though I like the idea they represented -- having a modern day "guide" who empathizes with the characters, takes them in, and helps acclimate them a bit instead of throwing them to the wolves immediately.

 

Henry

Autoexreginated

• Sep 28, 2006

• #9

I would honestly use either the d20 Modern rules for modern day people, and D&D rules for the PCs, and the only difference where they intersected would be to reduce the MDT for the characters from 50 down to their CON score (essentially giving them an MDT like a Modern character) to better represent the increased damage potential that a firearm has over a sword.

 

P

(Psi)SeveredHead

Adventurer

• Sep 28, 2006

• #10

Henry said:

to better represent the increased damage potential that a firearm has over a sword.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure that's true, but it comes up all the time. You can stick a spear pretty deep into someone.