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

CapnZapp · Jun 16, 2019

Ancalagon said:
I think people need to be clear if they mean a genre or a setting. "Middle age" is a setting, not a genre.

Absolutely. You quoted the wrong poster though.

CapnZapp · Jun 16, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
Nah.

All you need for a non weird western game using 5e’s basic engine is new classes

Hush - you'll anger the mockery guy.

Seriously, as I've just explained, a D&D wild west is not what most people expect of their wild west. That doesn't mean you can't do it, just that it's not what you need if your guns are sensitive to "mockery"

Ancalagon · Jun 16, 2019

CapnZapp said:
Absolutely. You quoted the wrong poster though.

I wasn't implying that you were wrong, I was trying to support your post, sorry it wasn't clear.

Derren · Jun 16, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
Nah.

All you need for a non weird western game using 5e’s basic engine is new classes with plot tokens of various kinds instead of stuff like spells and guns that do massive damage. Just use the optional lingering injury and gritty healing rules from the DMG, and run with it. It’s about as much extra material as running Eberron.

High Noon. They meet at the middle of the road, draw and shoot. And shoot. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, shoot and shoot and the loser drops dead has his 60 HP are out....

The D&D combat and HP system favors melee so much that any setting with primarily ranged weapons will look very strange, no classes or not.

robus · Jun 16, 2019

Lanefan said:
Well, first off just because it's an Age of Sail setting doesn't mean conventional adventuring can't exist. In such a campaign the early levels could be maritime or navy based*, with the characters moving farther away from that as they advance (either that, or becoming fleet commanders etc.).

* - it'd be easy, for example, to run U1-3 Saltmarsh series with the characters based on ships rather than onshore. Ditto X1 Isle of Dread or any other adventure set near the sea.

Ah I was thinking it would entail a less fantastical adventuring world.

MarkB · Jun 16, 2019

Derren said:
High Noon. They meet at the middle of the road, draw and shoot. And shoot. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, shoot and shoot and the loser drops dead has his 60 HP are out....

Not very realistic for that specific sort of duel, I agree. But in an RPG where I'm hoping to be playing the same character for more than a session or two, I'd prefer that to having the outcome essentially determined by who rolls the higher initiative.

Fenris-77 · Jun 16, 2019

77IM said:
I once had a dream about a D&D setting in the roaring twenties -- orc gangster, elven bard who runs a speakeasy, human private eye ex-paladin ("I knew she was trouble the minute she misty stepped into my office..."). I think I called it the "Roaring d20's" or something like that. It was totally epic.

D&D is a perfect fit with pulp 20's storytelling. D&D is pretty pulpy anyway, and the mechanics support pulp action in all three pillars quite well IMO. I don't know that I'd run the above, which sounds like pulp Shadowrun, but generally speaking pulp action work work well.

*edit* Woodring-Stover's fantasy world of Ankhana has some good ideas in this direction. Not exctly 20's tech, but some very pulp fiction storytelling.

Torm · Jun 16, 2019

Xeviat said:
WW1 era but with magic would be neat too. Old planes and dragons in the sky ...

When WOTC did the campaign world competition that Eberron won, I submitted "Vie Victus!", which was a 3.5E campaign world I had come up with that was sort of WWII meets the Flintstones (air travel and combat were done by equipping large flying creatures with weapons, passenger compartments, etc) meets Ravenloft (the Nazi leadership was made up of powerful undead who were blotting the sun from the lands they conquered). Simple magics had been domesticated (such as messaging boxes that could cast Sending back and forth once activated by inserting a coin), and more complicated magics were being experimented with by governments (specially bred Bulettes with enhanced abilities for combat, hints of a project to develop a fireball spell with a 1.5 MILE radius, etc).

It obviously didn't win the competition, but that campaign was a lot of fun to run.

Oofta · Jun 17, 2019

Derren said:
High Noon. They meet at the middle of the road, draw and shoot. And shoot. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, shoot and shoot and the loser drops dead has his 60 HP are out....

The D&D combat and HP system favors melee so much that any setting with primarily ranged weapons will look very strange, no classes or not.

Well, in the "real" shootout at the OK Corral (which didn't take place at the Corral) there were about 30 rounds shot in 30 seconds. So 30 attacks in a 5 round combat? Sounds a little low for the number of attacks, but it's in the ballpark. The whole concept of standing 20 yards away from each other and ending a fight with a single shot was a convenience for old westerns that rarely had the budget or desire to have realistic gunfights. Not that there were all that many gunfights to begin with.

As far as one bullet always being fatal, somebody should tell this guy that that was shot 21 times that he's actually dead. Or this guy that was shot 27 times after being knocked unconscious by a grenade. There are more stories just a google away. Of course recovery is far too easy in D&D, but that can always be hand-waved by "magic".

Lanefan · Jun 17, 2019

Derren said:
High Noon. They meet at the middle of the road, draw and shoot. And shoot. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, shoot and shoot and the loser drops dead has his 60 HP are out....

It'd never get that far. During the second reload phase (or maybe even the first) one or both of the duelists would say screw this and just charge the other one with fists swinging...