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

Satyrn · Jun 26, 2019

Oofta said:
@Satyrn speaking of Hasselhoff ... not necessarily SFW, but if you want a really good dose of the Hoffster, google Hasselhoff Sharpei. Just be warned, the images may haunt your dreams.

"Cthulhu's in the next room. Go on, open the door." :uhoh:

Sacrosanct · Jun 26, 2019

Matthia05718273 said:
Guys the OP has requested you stop arguing about something unrelated to his original intent. Can one of you just start your own thread and continue this there (since it will clearly never end)?

For the record, I don’t mind the “here’s what I’d like to do, with a tweak here and there”. The gattling gun discussion for example. I think that’s still in the spirit of the thread. What I’d like to avoid is the “that’s dumb, D&D sucks for that” or the endless argument why dnd rules aren’t realistic enough, or how HP are garbage.

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 27, 2019

Sacrosanct said:
For the record, I don’t mind the “here’s what I’d like to do, with a tweak here and there”. The gattling gun discussion for example. I think that’s still in the spirit of the thread. What I’d like to avoid is the “that’s dumb, D&D sucks for that” or the endless argument why dnd rules aren’t realistic enough, or how HP are garbage.

I just had a vision of a magical Gatling gun: a set of bound wands, staves or rods that fire magic missiles...with the firing crew being made of guys & gals who would be auctioneers, rappers, or radio/tv legal notice readers in our world*...

* Rapper Mac Lethal has a YouTube vid showing him doing 400wpm. (It contains cursing, or I’d post it.) It is intelligible, and he even alters his tempo and cadence, so it isn’t even a constant stream.

ParanoydStyle · Jun 27, 2019

I'm not sure EXACTLY what the answer is, but I think it might be found somewhere out around the Barrier Peaks.

Paul Farquhar · Jun 27, 2019

Satyrn said:
Yeah, what genre is Fallout: New Vegas? That's my second choice for an answer to the OP.

Post-Apocolyptic Western.

See: Gamma World.

The original Fallout was Based on Wasteland, and Wasteland was an unlicensed Gamma World CRPG.

Lanefan · Jun 27, 2019

All this stuff about guns and westerns is fine but doesn't get me any closer to what I'd like to know: how much mangling (beyond the obvious removal of ranged AoE damage spells) would it take to get D&D to work halfway well in an Age of Sail setting?

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 27, 2019

Lanefan said:
All this stuff about guns and westerns is fine but doesn't get me any closer to what I'd like to know: how much mangling (beyond the obvious removal of ranged AoE damage spells) would it take to get D&D to work halfway well in an Age of Sail setting?

I’m thinking elemental/weather magic would make the world go ‘round. Wind & water spells controlling ship speed; fire & earth magic supplanting gunpowder and MAYBE even making sailing ships impractical...if not impossible.*

In fact, a magical world might skip sail altogether and develop steam power as early as their analog of the Bronze Age.**

So that all probably has to go.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have corsairs & pirates & swashbuckling. Just that it will look different.

* yes, this should be true even in regular D&D.

** see also animated constructs and/or necromantic engine systems.

Paul Farquhar · Jun 27, 2019

Lanefan said:
All this stuff about guns and westerns is fine but doesn't get me any closer to what I'd like to know: how much mangling (beyond the obvious removal of ranged AoE damage spells) would it take to get D&D to work halfway well in an Age of Sail setting?

The answer is pretty much the same as for a Western - as much as you want to do.

Because you can do it in several different ways:-

1) You could transport regular D&D characters though a portal. In which case all you need to do is create stat blocks for the people and things on the other side.

2) You could use a real world setting with near-standard rules, limiting players to human-only low magic classes. Then you just need to tweak equipment lists and proficiencies. Firearms are martial weapons, two handed swords are not, rogues are proficient with firearms but not longswords. You might go further and remove most armour, increasing the AC bonus for soft cover from +2 to +5.

3) You could do a complete reskin with all new setting specific classes: this option is a lot of work, you are basically creating a new game.

4) You could advance the technology level in your generic fantasy setting. In which case just add the new stuff and make it very slightly better than the old stuff (Players will choose any weapon they see as better, even if it's only +0.5 average damage better). See Pillars of Eternity 2.

5) You could advance the tech level but have magic instead of tech. This is Eberron, which works fine for both Western and Age of Sail adventures. You still have black hats and white hats shooting at each other from behind barrels, but they are shooting wands of Firebolt instead of sixguns. Also see: Harry Potter movies.

Tony Vargas · Jun 27, 2019

Lanefan said:
All this stuff about guns and westerns is fine but doesn't get me any closer to what I'd like to know: how much mangling (beyond the obvious removal of ranged AoE damage spells) would it take to get D&D to work halfway well in an Age of Sail setting?

Literally, quite a bit: you'll want detailed rules for amputations and primitive prosthetics.

Seriously, though, hardly any, you would need to add some sort of specialized combat system for ship battles, depending on how historical you want to get with them. If you just want to do a Pirate Movie kinda Age of Sail, though, the action will usually come down to boarding, anyway, and the kind of relatively small-scale combats already familiar in D&D.

Beleriphon · Jun 27, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
Seriously, though, hardly any, you would need to add some sort of specialized combat system for ship battles, depending on how historical you want to get with them. If you just want to do a Pirate Movie kinda Age of Sail, though, the action will usually come down to boarding, anyway, and the kind of relatively small-scale combats already familiar in D&D.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh has functional rules for ship combat: rules for attack other ships, individual ship component damage (attack the sails, helm, rudder, weapons, etc.), officer roles for the PCs, and enough ships you could bodge together a few carracks or galleons as needed. There's even an ENworld poster that has an document with some additional ship types.