D&D General If you could put D&D into any other non middle ages genre, what would it be?

I would love a mythic Mesoamerican setting. Not Mazatica but something like Dragons Conquer America for 5E.

MarkB said:

if you just take the stats of standard slings and crossbows and longbows, and change the names to phasers / blasters / whatever, then D&D handles guns just fine.

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I've seen that work well enough, but it doesn't capture the tropes you see in fiction around guns.
There's not nearly so much dodging and seeking cover and just, well, missing - unless you really whole-heartedly embrace the 1e/4e psuedo-hit - not to mention the tense stand-off of characters held at gunpoint.

Immortal Sun said:

No. That's precisely what it doesn't handle well.

When you have one or two "shots" per turn at say 5th level that deal 1d6 or 1d8 you're not simulating guns. I don't know what you're simulating, but it isn't bullets. Even a "crit" with a gun is so minimal damage as to make a mockery out of the lethality of firearms.

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Good.

I do a modern setting where only humans are allowed. But my elves are more like something out of the chronicles of amber so they are really an npc race or monster.

Dark Sun.



Yeah, that's it.

Damage shouldn't be a sticking point in modeling firearms - they kill people, so do knives, clubs, knitting needles, slipping in the shower, and swans - they need to do damage, but it needn't be crazy.

With older firearms, RoF could actually render them pointless in the context of 6-second rounds, while the RoF of a revolver or semi-automatic weapon could be problematic in the other direction... and then there're automatic weapons. So there's that.

Then, as I said, there's the gunfight tropes that permeate fiction.
Lots & lots of bullets, few off then contacting human flesh, with those that do tending to instantly kill minor characters while consistently finding the hero's shoulder (which, realistically is a much nastier wound than old westerns'd have us believe, but thats so not the point - so's getting brained with a mace).
Then there's the whole guns are magic wans thing - mind-control devices and talismans that protect you from bullets as long as you keep shooting...

...But, to D&D sensibilities, a gun is a weapon, weapons do damage, iff they hit, otherwise, nothing -if they make people drop prone or surrender or whatever, it can only be because of fear of massive damage, and if you empty a glock twice without hitting anyone, you must just be a terrible shot. That's not tenable - resolving 32 shots as individual attacks, none of which hit, is going to be tedious and make the gunfighters look like clowns.

So, it's not just the system, it's attitudes and expectations.

I'd go bronze age.

Mogul India - mahasarapa worked ok, I’d love to add the Moghuls and East India Company to the milieu

I consulted my wife, and we came up with:

Weird West. The old west, but it’s dnd, so there are tieflings and Dragonborn and wizards.

Modern Urban Fantasy. Dresden, Bright, Buffy, etc

Fairy Tales. Mix old fairy tales with the Heroes of The Feywild book from 4e, with bits stolen from Dresden Files and Neil Gaiman’s body of work, and other popular media that does interesting things with Fey. Also, make Feywild and Shadowfel one world, called The Otherworld.

Space. Star Wars 5aga Edition, but also just space elves. What is the Feywild’s space like? Shadow-space? What terror lurks in the hearts of stars? Is that a moon, or an egg? My Dragonborn Aether Ship Pilot is from a world that rests on the back of an immense sapient turtle that swims through space. Babylon 5 meets Dresden Files meets Neverwhere meets fairly tails.

Magical Girls.

Animal world. Redwall, Disney Robin Hood, Mouseguard, but magic as hell. No humans.

1920-36 Earth, but with dnd magic and races fitted in to the world as if they’d been here for thousands of years, but somehow the world still looks mostly the same at a surface examination.

[sblock=Crossroads] Alt 1630’s Earth where Mordred Pendragon became High King of The Britons, after defeating Arther The Usurper, with the help of The Morrigan, who blessed him with powerful magic, long life, and children who would share his gifts. The line of Mordred are now Shadar-kai, and rules the British Empire. The national language is Brythonic Celtic (actually Welsh), capital is Cardiff, and the Empire encompasses the Isles, France, Parts of Iberia, and has alliances with many nations in other continents in the form of The Great Commonwealth. There is religious freedom, but by far the primary faith is Celtic Druidic Paganism.

Free Spain is largely Catholic, as are parts of Italia, and much of the European disaspora in The New World and elsewhere. Orthodoxy is more widespread, as it’s seat of power is still intact in Byzantium, once called Constantinople.

Southern Spain, the Arab Penninsula, much of North Africa, and parts of Eastern Europe and South Asia, are controlled by the Caliphate, which has regained its place as a center of learning after several centuries of decline and dedicated effort toward renewal.

In the north, the Allthing of Reyka governs over Scandinavia, Finland, Iceland, and a large chunk of what we know as the North Eastern US and Canada. The Federations and other governing bodies of the Natives of those lands progressed from the usual mix of conflict and trade, into a partnership, and are now equal representatives, and in many cases, founding members of the Allthing.

To the East of that, Moscovy Princes hold tenuous “alliance” with The Golden Horde, who in turn battle and trade with rivals on all sides.

And what of the races of dnd? In Egypt and surrounding lands, Aarakokra, Kenku, Tabaxi, Lizardfolk, and Shifters take the form of classic Egyptian depictions of the gods, while Dragonborn in old Mesopotamia still hold to their ancient gods even as newer faiths dominate their lands, and Gnomes and Goblinoids and Eladrin from The Otherworld ply the trade routes and secret ways between worlds called Crossroads. Goliath and Firbolgs from Otherworld and Jotunheim come to Earth as guardians and wandering mystics. German Kobolds live peacefully in forest villages, their human neighbors remember the old tales. Halflings from the Pacific Islands travel the seas, some in traditional vessels, others in the ships of the continents, while other Halflings have adapted to river boats and caravans.

The New World is not conquered, there has been no Great Dying. Hispanolia refers to the system of coastal Mission fortress-cities from which Spaniards and others make trade, and occasionally war, with each other and their native neighbors. Japanese Samurai guard Spanish and African caravans to Aztec cities, or further north to the trade towns of the Comanche and Even into the San Juaquin River Valley, where dozens of native peoples from hundreds of miles of wetlands meet in the spring and summer along river-roads to trade their goods, their stories, and their company.

Africa is likewise free. The technology of Europe and Asia has spread through trade and minor wars, unable to defeat the spirits and warriors and armies of Africa’s many nations.

you get the idea. Every area of the world has its magic, it’s fantasy, and it’s own unique flavor through which DnD can shine. The global population is probably 40-50% higher than it was in the real 1630’s, and a solid chunk of it isn’t human, but that’s been the norm for over a thousand years, since Mordred won and fulfilled his deal with a Goddess who foresaw the decline of the supernatural world on Earth and said no. From that turning point, the world becomes a strange mirror of our own, recognizable but anachronistic, and much more fantastical. [/sblock]

doctorbadwolf said:

Animal world. Redwall, Disney Robin Hood, Mouseguard, but magic as hell. No humans.

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You ever read Spellsinger? It's not a world with no humans, but humans are definitely in the minority, with animals making up most of the intelligent population.