Creativity by modification (w. WotC article)

[shilsen]

For those of you who haven't already, check out the following article at WotC:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/bs/20041224a

This article hits on something which I find a very useful approach as a DM - taking the mechanics from one or more existing rules, creatures, spells, items, etc. and use them exactly as written but with a completely different flavor which fits my campaign.

For example: I posted a couple weeks ago about wanting the PCs in my Eberron campaign to meet a warforged that had been built with unusual augmentations. So I just slapped the half-dragon template on a warforged, changing the claws to metal ones on the fingers, the breath weapon to a "blaster" attached to the arm, etc. Surprised the heck out of the PCs and sent them scurrying off to find out what they could about it, opening up a whole new plot arc for the campaign.

I'm sure other DMs also do the same. Care to share any interesting experiences?

 

[philreed]

Thanks for the link! I hadn't seen that article before.

 

[hong]

And now that WotC has cottoned on to the creeping HEROization of D&D, can the rest of the world be far behind?

 

[shilsen]

*beats Hong with a stick* (maybe this should be a Christmas ritual!)

Next!

 

[Gez]

Oh! Me too! I haven't beaten Hong with a stick for far too long!
*beats Hong with a stick*
Why a Christmas-only ritual, I ask? There are Hong-beating opportunities every day!

But to go back on topic, you can look at threads like this one.

 

[Ferret]

I definatly like the idea an I think I might try to use it next time I set up a game.

 

[Von Ether]

The real trick to this tactic is to hand write (or type) your "conversions" or it destroys the illusion. Once your players see you looking up the half-dragon template in the DMG when you use your hand-blasting warforged, they'll suddenly get less excited about.

Mostly it's because a lot of players are very straight-forward or literal. I wouldn't be surprised if some players call you on the carpet for the "dumb idea of having a dragon mate with a warforged" and not get past the idea that your only using the rules as short hand for unique effects, not literal truth. This advice comes from the painful times I've tried to covert a game world to a different game system (like a epic fantasy game world to a superhero game system) only to have my players complain that the pictures in the rule book "ruined the mood." Dude, it's just rules!

I wouldn't call this "HEROisation" of a game. This is just an old GM trick, though other games bring this to the player's side. BESM and Savage Worlds comes to mind.

 

[Garnfellow]

Nice link -- I hadn't seen that before. I've often thought that designers, before they make a new spell, class, feat, item, etc., should first consider whether an existing mechanic can already handle the desired effect. Why make 7 variants of the same spell when 1 does the trick?

 

[Von Ether]

Nice link -- I hadn't seen that before. I've often thought that designers, before they make a new spell, class, feat, item, etc., should first consider whether an existing mechanic can already handle the desired effect. Why make 7 variants of the same spell when 1 does the trick?

Or even 7 new races?

It's been a long time, but I remember doing things like having a rodent race represented by halfling stats, Half-Orcs for a race of genengineered soldiers, elves for a race of sniveling servants and lizard folk for a strange race of ice-elementals that could swim through snow (in fact that harkens back to the WotC article since I pretty much replaced all swampy references to snow and ice packs.)

I think quite a few GMs do this sort of thing with monsters already. I was considering using a lot of the demon stats to represent different castes of alien bugs (I’m not big into demons and undead since my local GMs overuse them all the time.)

Garnfellow’s quote resonates really well on the Savage World’s boards. It seems every week someone wants to convert over a DnD setting to SW and the first thing they say is “I’ve only got 30 different SW powers [which can be customized with minor special effects such as fire or ice], there’s a lot of conversion work for left over spells.”

The first thing we say is “How many damaging spells do you really need? SW has one for targets, one for “auto-fire” and one for area effects, the rest is just special effects.”

 

[seankreynolds]

Monte Cook suggested this very thing in an article (in 2002, I think), using a winter wolf modified to be a bony creature with a "breath weapon" of bone spikes.