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

Tony Vargas · Jun 26, 2019

Oofta said:
As far as running into a gatling gun, they fire 6,000 rounds per minute. If targeted on an individual, I doubt many PCs could survive a hundred ranged attacks per round. Which is one of the things I'd have to think about from an implementation standpoint.

FWIW, in one instance I statted a minigun as an Area Effect that attacked everyone/thing in its beaten zone.

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 26, 2019

Hmmm...

This:

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

Plus this:

Dannyalcatraz said:
Personally, NPCs I run react in accord with the situation and their personalities, not what a system says is “safe” or not. If an NPC is running through gatling fire, it’s probably because he’s gotten a direct order or he’s desperate, not because “he knows he can’t be killed by it” unless that is the literal in campaign truth. Like, he’s a werewolf, and they didn’t load the gun with silver bullets.

And even then he may prefer to seek cover, because silver or not, those bullets may hurt.

D&D Elves or not, I find the idea of civil war soldiers firing munitions at 1 or more classic supernatural beings that they cannot actually kill somehow...compelling. Cinematic, even.

I may have to revisit the concept in earnest, either as the elfwar I posited, or as a “weird west” campaign.

Maybe I’ll yoink some stuff from other threads I’ve participated in, like this:
https://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?256063-What-would-this-society-look-like

Bawylie · Jun 26, 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.

I want to make this. Inter-war era noir-ish.

Maxperson · Jun 26, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
That's another reason to seek cover, I guess.

It would certainly make gunfights less interesting.

Referee: Alright! Walk ten paces forward, dive for cover, then turn and shoot!

Maxperson · Jun 26, 2019

Oofta said:
A theme to this thread seems to be "D&D doesn't work with firearms because people won't fight because people won't approach combat the way I expect them to".

But end of the day I don't care what tactics my players use, it's up to them. I don't care if they play "the right way" as long as they're having fun.

As far as running into a gatling gun, they fire 6,000 rounds per minute. If targeted on an individual, I doubt many PCs could survive a hundred ranged attacks per round. Which is one of the things I'd have to think about from an implementation standpoint.

If we are discussing westerns, gatling guns fired 200-900 per minute or 20-90 per round, depending on caliber. 6000 is for modern versions, and would be 600 per round, not 100.

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 26, 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.

[video=youtube;3xruJ10C19U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xruJ10C19U[/video]

Paul Farquhar · Jun 26, 2019

CapnZapp said:
It's simple and friendly, yes.

Some are, yes.

If you use your limited experience to dismiss *all* non-hp based games, however, you need to widen your horizons...

You persist in conflating no-hp with cover, when they are actually two separate and unrelated features. It's not hp, or the lack of them, that make games like Snapshot (which is basically X-Com) slow. It's cover and action points. Which doesn't necessarily make them bad games, but it doesn't leave time for role playing. Hence Snapshot (and Asteroid and Azhanti High Lightning, which used the same rules) where released as stand alone tactical boardgames in the Traveller universe, with the role playing game retaining a much simpler cover-free range band system for resolving combat. (no hp in either though).

Star Wars D6 has no hp (It had light, medium, serous and critical wounds if I remember correctly), and is faster and simpler than 5e. And player characters have plot armour that is at least as thick. I think it had rules for cover, but I didn't notice anyone using them.

Boot Hill is the game of the type you are thinking of. But I would NEVER play that as a role playing game. Because no matter how carefully you use cover, one unlucky dice roll and your character is permanently dead. So don't bother getting attached to them. The only sensible strategy in Boot Hill is to never get involved in combat at all. Which might be realistic, but isn't much fun.

IchneumonWasp · Jun 26, 2019

I've played a game based on the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, where 'science and logic' were the discovery of magic as a science.

It was awesome.

CapnZapp · Jun 26, 2019

Oofta said:
I might still let my cowboys wear armor because the world would be different with magic and dragons. Maybe instead of steel it's hardened giant spider silk, needs to be adamantium or even just say that the dwarves make really high quality steel.

But then your fighters don't need cover, which means you don't get the kind of movement expected from a Western.

Not saying it's wrong to have your gunslinger shrug off arrows as if he was Conan, only that MarkB is onto something with cover for those of us that wants a different experience from our Old West games than our Forgotten Realms ones...

CapnZapp · Jun 26, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
You can, in D&D, at a point. That point is reasonably high level, and if you're willing to have your Conan be more the later REH version, in full armor.
If you're insisting on the oiled-up bodybuilder movie version, you'll really need a whole lot of hps, more than D&D typically gives you.

Please. D&D is not exactly low on the spectrum here. D&D is *definitely* a game constructed to allow the Barbarian to break cover and rush into melee.

Exactly the kind of behavior many people expect a firearms-enabled game to discourage, not encourage.

The difference is between hp-powered games, and D&D is the archetypical example, and between games where your health points increase much more slowly, if at all.