D&D 5E A modern fantasy setting?

[Kobold Avenger]

I'll admit I kind of want a D&D Wild West setting. I want six-shooters and train robberies. I want gun fights at high noon, but I also want wizard duels at high noon. I want there to be technology, but also magic and some magitech. Maybe even different lands have different balances of what they favor.

I want bandits robbing a train while flying in on griffin back.

If there's Gunslingers, then there's Hexslinger Warlocks...

 

[Mind of tempest]

If there's Gunslingers, then there's Hexslinger Warlocks...

spellslinger sounds better

 

[Sithlord]

Yeah this is one of the biggest myths pushed on us about boomers, by boomers. The Vietnam war protesters were on the right side of history, but most Americans, including young ones, were not on their side at all. In a poll after Kent State a majority of Americans responded that the students were to blame. Dark stuff.

I avoided politics throughout the game except as background. And I tried to not misrepresent either side. For example, I am very pro-Vietnam and think that was a very winnable protest. I did not misrepresent or try to make the protesters look bad. And I really hate Jane Fonda. So I avoided using her in anything. Because I wasn’t out to make a campaign about my personal philosophies but to showcase the art and culture of the 20th century. And I could get more political with this group because we all have the same values in a very Rural America and are the same culture, although not ethnic group. It’s been fun. We traveled and visited many places in America at different times. New Orleans, Harlem at the Apollo. Las Vegas during the prohibition. A fireball spell explosion in the wrong place convince gutzon borglum to build Mount Rushmore at its current location. Little things like that.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I'll admit I kind of want a D&D Wild West setting. I want six-shooters and train robberies. I want gun fights at high noon, but I also want wizard duels at high noon. I want there to be technology, but also magic and some magitech. Maybe even different lands have different balances of what they favor.

I want bandits robbing a train while flying in on griffin back.

The setting details for what’s happening in the U.S. in Castle Falkenstein are along these lines, and it’s great. Not that I’d ever suggest using Falkenstein’s actual system, but I think it’s some of the best-conceived stuff in TTRPGs.

 

[jgsugden]

I would adore a setting that had the world in different time periods. The worlds "medieval" period for generic fantasy, an "industrial revolution" era, a "world war" era with advances in military technology and a "modern" era.

My inspiration for the original post was a campaign in four parts. Players would play 4 PCs, one in each time period. Each week we'd cycle through the time frames. The events of the 4 campaigns would tell the full story. A bit like the way Jupiter's Legacy was telling the story of how they gained powers and then the 'present' story, this campaign was going to tell the story of how an artifact was created, used and lost, found and used again for a different purpose and then, finally, destroyed. Each story would change as they uncovered things in the future and past of the storyline that changed things.

I have it all mapped out, but it isn't going to work for any old group. And I'd still have to do a lot of creation to get things to work as desired.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I'll admit I kind of want a D&D Wild West setting. I want six-shooters and train robberies. I want gun fights at high noon, but I also want wizard duels at high noon. I want there to be technology, but also magic and some magitech. Maybe even different lands have different balances of what they favor.

I want bandits robbing a train while flying in on griffin back.

Definitely!

Your description reminded me of the Alloy of Law supplement for the Mistborn RPG, which is western themed with magic. But that's less D&D and more Brandon Sanderson's novels.

 

[humble minion]

In terms of advancing the tech level, I've been messing around with some 1800s/Napoleonic-era rules modifications, and to be honest it's very difficult mechanically.

The big hurdle is that the fundamental guts of the combat system in D&D is very melee-focused, and it operates under the assumption that armour is effective and useful. The later the time period, and the better the firearms, both of these become less the case.

Basically, Strength becomes pretty much useless, and as armour also becomes obsolete and ranged combat increasingly dominates, Dexterity becomes an uber-stat. I've messed around with assigning firearms a Str prerequisite that a PC must meet in order to use them without suffering to-hit penalties from the recoil, but this is really just tinkering around the edges. The AC issue is one that I haven't thought of a way around. But without some sort of tweaks there, non-spellcaster PCs would all be a bit samey with high Dex and Str as a dump stat. Except barbarians might do ok, but to be honest I haven't had much experience with the class, and how well any melee-only PC would do in a setting where ranged combat was the base assumption is another question...

 

[Stormonu]

Deadlands with more prominent hexslingers?

I'll admit I kind of want a D&D Wild West setting. I want six-shooters and train robberies. I want gun fights at high noon, but I also want wizard duels at high noon. I want there to be technology, but also magic and some magitech. Maybe even different lands have different balances of what they favor.

I want bandits robbing a train while flying in on griffin back.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

In terms of advancing the tech level, I've been messing around with some 1800s/Napoleonic-era rules modifications, and to be honest it's very difficult mechanically.

The big hurdle is that the fundamental guts of the combat system in D&D is very melee-focused, and it operates under the assumption that armour is effective and useful. The later the time period, and the better the firearms, both of these become less the case.

Basically, Strength becomes pretty much useless, and as armour also becomes obsolete and ranged combat increasingly dominates, Dexterity becomes an uber-stat. I've messed around with assigning firearms a Str prerequisite that a PC must meet in order to use them without suffering to-hit penalties from the recoil, but this is really just tinkering around the edges. The AC issue is one that I haven't thought of a way around. But without some sort of tweaks there, non-spellcaster PCs would all be a bit samey with high Dex and Str as a dump stat. Except barbarians might do ok, but to be honest I haven't had much experience with the class, and how well any melee-only PC would do in a setting where ranged combat was the base assumption is another question...

If it's modern day, I'd say Strength would be quite important dealing with heavy weapons such as machine guns. Depending on whether or not an automatic burst is an attack roll I'd say that Strength could be the stat used instead of Dex. If the action is something like Suppressing Fire, which is a Dex Save for half damage special ability, I'd say that for the attacker Strength could be the stat that sets the Save DC.

 

[humble minion]

If it's modern day, I'd say Strength would be quite important dealing with heavy weapons such as machine guns.

From my (limited) understanding from my mates in the military, in a boring real-world scenario, strength is mostly useful for machinegun usage in terms of actually carrying the thing around. The gun itself it not light, and you're probably also carrying a spare barrel, and the gun's weight again in ammunition, maybe a bipod/tripod.... it's a lot of metal and the weight adds up fast. A fully kitted-out automatic weapon could easily mass as much as a set of full plate armour and be considerably more awkward to bear - which is why the load is normally split over multiple people in actual militaries.

But of course in a game context that gets us into the world of encumbrance and load limits, and that's not fun for anyone really.

And again, in the real world I think weapons like these are usually fired from bipods etc. I could certainly see Strength being useful in a Hollywoody full-auto-from-the-hip scenario though - and this IS a game where cinematic stuff should happen, so that sounds like a reasonable way of doing things.

Still doesn't solve the armour issue though. Or what Str is useful for in my pre-Gatling Napoleonic rules hack...