D&D feel/fun in games without class, level, etc. (+)

[Autumnal]

Tales of Xadia (a Cortex Prime game based on the Dragon Prince series) gives me much of the same setting kicks that D&D does while not really focusing on attrition or detailed spells. I get ancient empires, conflicts between fantasy creatures, primordial dragons, magic items, various form of spell casting with esoteric fictional differences, but get to run a game that is just as focused on the emotional/social layer as the physical/exploration one. The scenarios really do a good job of backing that up.

It's not really tactical at all, but when I'm reaching for it that's part of the point.

I really wish Cortex worked better for me. My brain keeps turning off somewhere in the process of creating and applying dice pools. It’s not like they’re complex, I just have the kind of trouble that others do with Fate. I should give this a look, though, since sometimes things percolate through after repeated watering.

@Thomas Shey , the above is a good roundup of things I like about D&D. See my comments to Morrus and Reynard below for some context.

BRP Classic Fantasy has a very D&D like feel when we used it for a one-shot. It was actually surprising how close it felt.

Oh, I believe it. Vintage BRP stuff is fun for me, and the author of the most recent Magic World is a good friend.

D&D’s primary core defining tropes is the zero-to-hero thing which it accomplishes via a 1-20 level progression.

Im certainly not going to argue against them at as a valid generalization, but it’s not true at all in my particular experience. The furthest I ever got from 1st level is 4th, and the only times I ever got to double-digit levels were starting from 3rd or 5th. D&D as I have been able to play it is a game of zeroes or heroes, and I’m interested in more hero-type experience.

If I did want to recreate the whole arc, I expect I’d do it with Fate Accelerated and focus on modifying aspects to mark progress.

For the last 8 months, I've soloed BX 1981 (using OSE + Advanced OSE) to quell my D&D nostalgia symptoms. I run five characters (magic-user, fighter, cleric, thief and a ranger). I've used parts of BX and AD&D modules to create the adventures. Characters started level 3 and are now level 5 or 6. I have a few house rules, and since I'm The Soloist, no one can argue with me about my changes to the game.

I’m a big believer in solo play for getting exactly the mix you want.

I'm a big fan of Trophy Gold for this sort of application. It's pretty rules light but was designed to fill this precise design space. I've used it run original D&D modules converted on the fly and it's been grand (although that does take some experience GMing the system). There's a great dark forest sort of setting book that goes with it called Trophy Loom that is quite brilliant. Loom entirely based highly evocative and tightly themed random tables. I would highly recommend both books, but especially TG for as an answer to the OP.

That’s based on Cthulhu Dark, right? I really need to check that out.

If I wanted kitchen sink high fantasy adventure with competent to powerful heroes I would likely use Mutants and Masterminds or Hero (depending on how fiddly I wanted to get; I have run "high level D&D" with M&M before and it works great).

I’ve talked with friends about doing something like this for years, and would love to give it a try. Consider this an invitation to reminisce with tips.

 

[jdrakeh]

FAE and Risus, both for the same reason - flexibility with regard to character realization (in both system, I've found that I can pretty much build any character that I can imagine right out of the gate).

 

[Reynard]

I’ve talked with friends about doing something like this for years, and would love to give it a try. Consider this an invitation to reminisce with tips.

Context: I run games at a couple regional cons in the NE, and have developed into running mini con-campaigns: 3 or 4 slot ongoing adventures. There are Usually 6 player slots and a couple of those are filled with people that play every slot, a couple are filled with people that play at least a couple slots, and the rest are one offs. Characters are ongoing and folks who previously played the character have dibs.

Anyway: I wanted to do big epic high level D&D inspired by things like WoW cinematic trailers. I was going to do a 17th level D&D game until I realized that at that point the characters are just superheroes, so I went with M&M3 instead. Pregens were conceived of as high level D&D characters with all the requisite tropes, but then distilled to their main features which were then built as M&M3 powers. I did not try to emulate things like spells per day, but did try and make smite feel like D&D smite in the context of M&M3.

In play, it was a super hero story. The PCs were the High Guard: the high level.D&D party that saved the world then retired to their domains. They had rivals and character specific villains, making it very much a JLA vs Legion of Doom scenario with a world eating dragon problem at its center. I run these things with a broad outline and a bunch of nonsense in my head and just go, so it is never about "telling the players a story."

As to specific tips: the most important one, I think, is aiming for the feel of D&D, not trying to recreate its mechanics. You don't need to give the super mage a spells per day limit. Instead you need to make his power pool feel like D&D spells.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Though I'm thinking in terms of lower power than Reynard is above, I'm more and more thinking of a properly configured Fantasy Hero game. Given some of your premises, I think I might aim a bit toward a simpler incarnation than I'm naturally prone to (not use hit locations for example) but still build toward a D&D look-and-feel including construction of magic system(s).

 

[aramis erak]

I found ICE's MERP to be better D&D feel than Tolkien feel. Works REALLY well in that mode.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I found ICE's MERP to be better D&D feel than Tolkien feel. Works REALLY well in that mode.

Isn't it class-and-level though?

 

[aramis erak]

Isn't it class-and-level though?

Only in as much as it's levels get you skill points. Every skill is available to every character, albeit not always cheaply.
There are no class benefits that aren't skills, either, so functionally, it's a skill based game.

 

[Reynard]

Though I'm thinking in terms of lower power than Reynard is above, I'm more and more thinking of a properly configured Fantasy Hero game. Given some of your premises, I think I might aim a bit toward a simpler incarnation than I'm naturally prone to (not use hit locations for example) but still build toward a D&D look-and-feel including construction of magic system(s).

Yeah, if I was going to go lower power level I would be inclined to use Hero also. You can really drill down on what you want, character wise, in Hero and the complexity is all front loaded. Once you start playing it is a moderately crunchy medium tactical game.

 

[ichabod]

I don't know if you want to go with Random Dude on the Internet (TM), but I am working on a classless, level-less D&D 5E. The key points to my redesign are:

• All class features are now feats. They cost 1-12 feat points, which can be given directly in lieu of experience points.
• It uses a spell point system. If you know a spell, and have enough spell points, you can cast the spell.
• Advantage is gone, instead you have edges (+2) and penalties (-2), which stack.
• I'm trying to shift away from natural language to more clearly defined technical terms.

However it needs a lot of work. I am about 80% through the first draft, which I expect to have done by the end of the month. That will need a serious editing pass, and there are several rules changes that have yet to be figured out. Plus, since it is only based on the SRD sub-classes, it needs some filling out in terms of class features. It is also going to need a lot of play testing. In an open system like this there are a lot more opportunities for over-powered synergies. Also, the spell point system is going to radically change the caster/martial balance, and I expect that will need a fair bit of tuning.

I should note that there is a vestige of the class system left over in that there are five different spell lists (bardic, divine, primal, sorcerous, and thaumaturgic). You pick one of those lists when you get the Spell Casting feat, and those are the spells you have access to knowledge feats where you actually learn spells. There are some ways to get around that, based on class features that get around the class spell lists.

 

[Aldarc]

Index Card RPG: It's level-less. 2E leans more into classes; however, 1E progression is rooted more in magic items. There are pseudo-classes that are like starting packages.