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

Guest 6801328 · Jun 14, 2019

Wait...D&D is middle ages?

I must have missed that memo.

Tony Vargas · Jun 14, 2019

Elfcrusher said:
Wait...D&D is middle ages?.I must have missed that memo.

The original said "Medieval " right on the cover, 45 years ago....

....and, y'know, 45 is middle aged. ;P

Charlaquin · Jun 14, 2019

Sci-fi, man. But, like, Firefly-style.

StormbringerAUS · Jun 14, 2019

I am about to play in a Super Hero campaign based in today's world, the characters are being ported over from Marvel Super Heroes - from what I have seen so far the DM is doing a good job in this transition.

So that is the genre I would pick.

Lanefan · Jun 14, 2019

I can think of three, of which [MENTION=53176]Leatherhead[/MENTION] already hit one and [MENTION=6750235]Ashrym[/MENTION] narrowly missed another:

Classical Roman/Greek sword-and-sandals (say, -200 to +200 era)
Age of Fighting Sail (1750-1850 except neither the steam engine nor industrial revolution come along to ruin it)
Full-on Steampunk (1875-1910 era)

robus · Jun 14, 2019

My issue with D&D rules in other genres is challenging the characters at higher levels given their HP and damage dealing increases. In the Age of Sail setting, for example, how does that work out? Or do campaigns need to be level limited?

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 14, 2019

I have extensive notes on a never-run post-apocalyptic 3.5Ed fantasy campaign, based in part on:

Dannyalcatraz said:
Here's an interesting fact: Aspen Trees are a clonal species- they can spread by runners. One of the largest organisms on Earth is an Aspen grove in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains that has 41,000+ trunks.

That inspired this:

No Man's Land:

5000 years ago, a druid (whose name is lost to humanity...) of great power picked a large and remote island devoid of human life as his home, choosing a grove of aspen trees his most sacred space. At some point, he chose to cast Awaken upon one of the aspen...and the entire grove came to life! He had forgotten that Aspen spread by runners...the entire grove was actually one plant- and now it had a mind equal to his own. He trained it in the ways of the druids.

Eventually, death found the druid, but his greatest student lived on. Eventually, the Aspen grew enough in power that it began to experiment with Awaken itself. First, it made other Aspen and a few other mighty trees as self aware as it was, forming the Green Council, each a druid, cleric or mage in its own right. They, in time and in turn, granted awareness to some of the animals of the forest...bringing them into a society ruled by the Green Council, each day's food created by powerful magics.

As decades passed, the island became a great druidic haven, but still unknown to man.

1000 years ago, Man came...and he was not ready for what he found. The animals and trees welcomed those who resembled the one who had made their haven possible, but the ignorant sailors who found the island hunted for food for their journeys, and were driven back by the island inhabitants. The sailors returned to civilization to tell tales of the mysterious island to the East, where both animals and trees thought and fought as if men.

The Council's research of the civilized world (directly and through its awakened, shapechanged agents) has brought them much information about the destructiveness of man...and also solutions as to how to fight back. Those shapechanged agents often lived lives among the so called civilized men, bringing their children, natural shapeshifters, back to the island. The Council did much the same.

Now, the island is inhabited by more than trees and awakened animals. Alongside them now live natural shapechangers and other curious hybrids of man and beast or beast and plant...all members of an insular society on the island.

And they are leery of Mankind's intent.

(In game terms, the island is inhabited by Awakened Trees of the Green Council (each with 20 levels of some combination of Druid, Cleric, Wizard or Sorcerer, some with Epic levels); Awakened animals (any class, Rangers and Druids most common); Anthropomorphic Animals (see WOTC's Savage Species); Shapeshifters (see WOTC's Eberron, but instead of being linked to Lycanthropes, they are linked to Druids); and Woodlings (see WOTC's Monster Manual III).

Other elements included races altered by the events that created the new world’s realities: a Cyberman/Dalek-like race of Dwarf/Warforged; only 3 kinds of “elf” (loosely described as starry, shadowy, planty); orcs with translucent flesh; a different take on Planetouched, etc.

Because surface civilization had collapsed, I intended published spells to be hard to find, with players encouraged to try creating their own.

*****

I have also done some design work on a fantasy version of the Civil War, recast as the war between surface elves and Drow.

Bupp · Jun 15, 2019

Sacrosanct said:
The wild west has all the same emphasis on adventure and danger, seeking of treasure and glory, and spirit that D&D traditionally captured, which made it super easy to fit in the D&D clothing.

While D&D traditionally had all the trappings of a medieval setting, swords, armor, kings, and castles, I always thought the feel was always more wild west. In fact, for new players I always described it as a western with swords and magic instead of six guns and technology.

I've always wanted to use colonial America as a setting, much like Northern Crown or Colonial Gothic. (Those are affiliate links, btw). I have copies of both and was planning on picking and choosing the best bits of each. One version in my head I was wanting to have the players replacing Lewis and Clark on a hex-crawl.

I also started up (but it fizzled before getting going) a full on zombie apocalypse type game.

MarkB · Jun 15, 2019

Giltonio_Santos said:
I'd love to see Shadowrun with the D&D 5e rules. It would be an instant buy for me.

I've run that. There was a sadly-unsuccessful Kickstarter project called Code::2050, and I used their basic SRD to run a 12-session campaign at our club. It worked really well.