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

CapnZapp · Jun 25, 2019

MarkB said:
[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] I still feel that your argument that D&D favours moving to close in to melee rather than using cover feels more like theory crafting than actual gameplay practice. But even conceding that it might occur in standard D&D, I still don't see that it will be a factor in a Western setting.

In a Western setting, ranged combat is king. Your primary damage dealers are pistols and rifles and shotguns, with things like knives and tomahawks coming in second and also being throwable.

So, in this setting, where's the motivation to charge into melee? What purpose is there in a character running around in the open? Sure, the HP model may somewhat mitigate the downside of such a tactic, but what's the upside? Why wouldn't people make tactical use of range and cover in those circumstances?

I'm afraid you need to go into specifics.

As long as we just take "ranged combat is king" for granted, sure enough, there's little motivation to charge into melee.

But how to accomplish the change?

I'm sure you agree D&D as written is very much a game with prolific motivation to charge into melee. Something needs to change. And that something is crucial to giving an answer.

MarkB · Jun 25, 2019

CapnZapp said:
I'm afraid you need to go into specifics.

As long as we just take "ranged combat is king" for granted, sure enough, there's little motivation to charge into melee.

But how to accomplish the change?

I'm sure you agree D&D as written is very much a game with prolific motivation to charge into melee. Something needs to change. And that something is crucial to giving an answer.

Well, to me, that something is the change from "guys in plate armour with huge axes fighting big monsters" to "guys in shirts with pistols fighting other guys in shirts with pistols", but clearly your mileage may vary.

Michael Silverbane · Jun 25, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
Star Wars is a prime example of the being no one correct approach. Edge of Empire and Star Wars D20 used hp, Star Wars D6 did not.

And the d20 versions of Star Wars are very much D&D with guns... in space. It works fine for me and my group.

In the session that I ran last week, the party got set upon by a troop transport full of soldiers. The ~~cleric~~ healing/medicine focused jedi got shot eight times in the first round of combat. No one was complaining about the realism. They were mostly worried about not letting their ~~cleric~~ medic get killed.

Oofta · Jun 25, 2019

CapnZapp said:
This is a straw man. You don't need D&D or hit points to run reasonably fast paced combat. Nobody has called for an "overly realistic simulation".

The difference is instead the hit points itself. The presence of absence of a "backpack shield generator" informs how your characters act during play.

Neither is bad. But disregarding criticism against one as merely a call to "modeling real combat" is.

You've said basically "it won't work because any single shot should kill you". It's been pointed out time and again that the same could be said of any weapon that does damage. You've never been able to clearly state why a gun should be handled differently. Well, other than "because I said so".

On the other hand when you come up with some specific house rules for how you would handle it, feel free to start a different thread. Don't think it will ever work and we should use a different system? Then why you shouldn't be posting to a D&D board.

Tony Vargas · Jun 25, 2019

CapnZapp said:
My point is that any movement not modeled by D&D is "ducking and weaving" even if it means backing up a staircase and then climbing back up.
And how that isn't relevant. Since it isn't modeled.

You mean it isn't mapped to an actual move action. It's modeled in attack rolls, however. It doesn't take six seconds to swing a sword once - let alone the full minute of a 1e combat round - there's a lot of attacking, parrying, dodging, "ducking & weaving" if you like, and movement in the course of the round.

5e lets you attack within a move action, so you can model moving-and-fighting a little more closely than in the classic game, which just assumed that any 'melee' was a mass of fighting individuals moving around and you couldn't even take aim at one of them in particular.

And, yes, all that is a big fat abstraction. Melee characters aren't /really/ meant to be interpreted literally as figures that stand perfectly still in base-to-base contact and trade thwacking great blows at six second intervals.

What is relevant is the player's choice; how to move his or her character across the battle map.
I'm claiming that the damage model impacts the player's decisions for movement.

Certainly the melee system in some editions has led to decisions that resulted in 'static' melees where everyone tried to move no more than 5' per six-second round so as to get in their full attacks. While that was criticized, it was hardly grounds for claiming that D&D couldn't handle melee, and could be defended with visualization of more 'realistic' (if you needed realism) or 'dramatic' (if you wanted genre fidelity) movement that just netted out to that 5'/round nudging about.

Derren · Jun 25, 2019

Oofta said:
You've said basically "it won't work because any single shot should kill you". It's been pointed out time and again that the same could be said of any weapon that does damage. You've never been able to clearly state why a gun should be handled differently. Well, other than "because I said so".

On the other hand when you come up with some specific house rules for how you would handle it, feel free to start a different thread. Don't think it will ever work and we should use a different system? Then why you shouldn't be posting to a D&D board.

The entire point of guns is to kill someone before he comes close. In a D&D/HP system that is simply not possible. You can set up any amount of level appropriate ranged combatants and barring environmental obstacles like cliffs you will never be able to kill someone before he can punch you in the face.
That changes the usage of guns completely compared to real life.

Melee weapons on the other hand still work like they are supposed to. You get close and you kill the enemy, it only takes longer. The only problem is with 1 hit stealth kills, but that is a separate issue and ranged weapons suffer from it, too.

Oofta · Jun 25, 2019

Sacrosanct said:
This thread is about what other genres would you like to apply D&D mechanics to.

I have toyed with the idea of a weird west campaign, which is why I wanted to discuss some implementation specifics. All of that has been derailed of course by "guns and D&D don't mix".

I think you could also do something like Team Fortress or Halo with either pseudo-modern or futuristic combat. It's really not that far off from D&D with it's classes and archetypes. Plate becomes advanced armor, combine it with a girdle of strength for a mech suit. Use strength for heavy gun's attack bonuses because you have to control the recoil. Dex based classes don't need a lot of modification. Maybe give people some variant of light sabers. Replace gold with the ubiquitous "credits" of course.

But I already borrow a lot from other genres in my current games that don't need any adjustment. Horror, lost jungle kingdoms, borderline steam punk ... all have fit in at one point or other.

Paul Farquhar · Jun 25, 2019

CapnZapp said:
This is a straw man. You don't need D&D or hit points to run reasonably fast paced combat. Nobody has called for an "overly realistic simulation".

I think the main strength of 5e rules is it's ability to resolve combat quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

I have played games with cover and action points and they are sloooooooow. Like set aside a whole Sunday for a single fight and don't expect to get home before midnight.

Oofta · Jun 25, 2019

Derren said:
The entire point of guns is to kill someone before he comes close. In a D&D/HP system that is simply not possible. You can set up any amount of level appropriate ranged combatants and barring environmental obstacles like cliffs you will never be able to kill someone before he can punch you in the face.
That changes the usage of guns completely compared to real life.

Melee weapons on the other hand still work like they are supposed to. You get close and you kill the enemy, it only takes longer. The only problem is with 1 hit stealth kills, but that is a separate issue and ranged weapons suffer from it, too.

Really? There's no other weapon in the PHB who's purpose is to kill the enemy before they get up close? Have you never played with someone who has archery style and sharp shooter?

Tony Vargas · Jun 25, 2019

Oofta said:
Really? There's no other weapon in the PHB who's purpose is to kill the enemy before they get up close? Have you never played with someone who has archery style and sharp shooter?

I'm not sure which is more out there, the denial that ranged weapons can & do kill in D&D (ask any number of imaginary orcs with imaginary elven arrows sticking out of them - the death toll over the last 45 years must have been staggering), or the denial that people /do/ close with gunmen in spite of being shot at, or even actually hit several times?