D&D with a twist

[Ragnar69]

Check out Iron Heroes from Malhavoc, it's a refreshing twist from the standard magic D&D.

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, I've heard all about it. I'm not sure it's exactly my cup of tea (sounds way too mechanical for my taste) though.

 

[Tonguez]

Did anyone archive mmadsens Campaign Pallette threads?

There was quite a comprehensive list of possibilities that came up as to how a twist of flavour could be added to the standard package.

One idea I was drawing yesterday was a 'prehistoric world' in which Humanoid-dinosaurs were the dominant race (and thus replaced humans) and the other races described in relation to them. A small weasel-like mammal would take the place of halflings, as would amphibian goblins, avian elfs and an insectoid. Like I said its just an image atm with no further development...

 

[mmadsen]

Did anyone archive mmarsdens [sic] Campaign Pallette threads?

Naturally. The compilation post is at:

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=141546&postcount=121

The whole thread is at:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=9033

 

[Twowolves]

You could take a page from the old Greyhawk plots (in which a cleric prays to one deity but has his spells granted by another) and have the demons not only replacing the gods, but masquerading as them as well. Imagine the look on the cleric's player's face when he realizes his cleric of Pelor was actually serving Orcus!

 

[SpiralBound]

I think that the idea of replacing the gods with devils or demons is very cool, making this a secret - even from the players(!) - is brilliant!! Imagine the high level cleric who finally attained the highest level secrets of his order... What a revelation!! I have an idea for how to set up the masquerade as well... Picture this:

"In the ancient past was a terrible war between the Gods of the Heavens and fiends from the depths of Hell. For many Human generations the battle raged on and on, in Hell, in Heaven and across the world as well. Great losses were sustained by both sides. Eventually the Gods won, but only just barely due to the surprisingly great power of the Demon Lords. The Gods had underestimated their might and almost paid for it with their very deific lives! Thankfully, the Gods were able to barricade the Demons within Hell and now stand ever vigilent and almost fearful(?) against their return."

Of course, this is the player handout "here's what you know that the world is like" version. The GM's "here's what really is going on" version is slightly different...

"...and as the battle raged on and on, the Gods were weakened by the overwhelming numbers of Demonic Fiends. One by one, the Gods fell until there was only one. The original First Deity, he who cannot be destroyed for to destroy him is to destroy existance itself. So, instead the Demon Lords imprisonned him deep within the deepest levels of Hell, bound by the undead and corrupted aspects of the other Gods who were partially resurrected in this shambling form, no longer capable of being true Gods, just powerful enough to mindlessly keep the First One within his Hellish torment. Forever. Meanwhile, the Demon Lords adopted the pretense of pretending to be the surviving Gods, spreading the lie that the demons were defeated. They then began their slow process of corrupting an entire world with their gradually introduced poisonous deceptions. They've been doing this for a long time now, gradually adding tiny tainted elements into the world's theologies. Slowly twisting the priests, generation by generation. They have time, there's no one left to stop them, they can savour their victory..."

 

[Desdichado]

Not to hijack my own thread (but it is my thread, so I'll hijack all I want, thankyouverymuch! ) but Mallus; that Story Hour is absolutely fabulous! Do you have any other information about [smallcaps]the City[/smallcaps] setting? A webpage or anything? I haven't completely finished reading it, but I'm enjoying it immensely.

 

[Mallus]

that Story Hour is absolutely fabulous!

Glad you're enjoying it. Most of the credit goes to the guy playing Burne, for finding away to do the write-up, then actually writing it up.

Do you have any other information about [smallcaps]the City[/smallcaps] setting? A webpage or anything?

Unfortunately, no. There might be one soon. If we ever get around to starting the project. The campaigns been going for almost two years and the Story Hour just made its debut last Spring.

Aside from my laziness, there’s the little problem of my general disorganization. CITY exists as smattering of Word docs. (one being 100 or so pages of cut-and-pasted emails between me and CITY’s co-creator, compiled during those heady days right before the WotC Setting Search deadline), a sad small handful of crude maps, and stuff floating around in my head.

CITY is mostly a state of mind, addled by a couple of stiff Maker’s Marks.

For the time being, I’m going to keep posting setting details to the Story Hour, as well as embedding information in the narrative parts that I write. That’s basically how the players learned about CITY; listening to a bunch of chatty NPC’s…

If and when we get a site/wiki up, I’ll be sure to post about it.

Let me re-hijack back to your setting ideas. I *really* them, particularly used together. It's got me asking questions; Why is there a massive city (or cities)? Is it essentially a prison? Or a larder for its demon gods? A Hobson’s choice-kind of safehaven from even worse horrors outside it? What are its citizens’ like? How do ‘good, plain folk’ fit into a world where ‘demon’ and ‘god’ are the same thing? What about the psionists, do they have a particular belief system/philosophy? Are they like Buddhists? Psy-warrior Buddhists? Is is like fantasy India?

Three ideas and already want to cook up a new homebrew…

Also, another poster suggested that the demon gods should be duping their worshippers. I think that’s a bad idea. It works so much better if the players are aware of the choice they’re making if and when they want access to divine magics.

 

[Desdichado]

Let me re-hijack back to your setting ideas. I *really* them, particularly used together. It's got me asking questions; Why is there a massive city (or cities)? Is it essentially a prison? Or a larder for its demon gods? A Hobson’s choice-kind of safehaven from even worse horrors outside it? What are its citizens’ like? How do ‘good, plain folk’ fit into a world where ‘demon’ and ‘god’ are the same thing? What about the psionists, do they have a particular belief system/philosophy? Are they like Buddhists? Psy-warrior Buddhists? Is is like fantasy India?

Three ideas and already want to cook up a new homebrew…

Also, another poster suggested that the demon gods should be duping their worshippers. I think that’s a bad idea. It works so much better if the players are aware of the choice they’re making if and when they want access to divine magics.

I've decided to develop them in my blog for the time being, utilizing Ray Winninger's Dungeoncraft Methodolgy (heretofore known as RWDM, which is a heck of a lot easier to type.) Although I'm thinking of actually separating the psionics idea out of it and making another setting entirely around that.

And I agree on the duped worshippers--while the temptation to have a big "No. I am your father" reveal is very strong, it also means that a fundamental aspect of the tone of the setting is hidden when it can otherwise be trotted out from the beginning to establish a darker and more hopeless tone. It also makes a good explanation for general lawlessness and whatnot; would you really expect a world that worshipped archfiends as gods to be peaceful and cozy?

Because, again, I'm such a helpful guy; here's my first blog post using RWDM.

Ray Winninger wrote a famous series of articles in Dragon Magazine a few years ago in the Dungeoncraft column that espoused and detailed a pretty neat-o methodology for campaign design. Basically, in a series of relatively short and easy steps, it allowed for creating a unique "homebrew" campaign setting that was complete enough to play in and feel robust, yet which minimized the upfront workload of the GM.

I think it's actually a pretty brilliant methodology. I think I'm going to devote a number of posts here on my blog to using Winninger's Dungeoncraft methodology to flesh out the ideas I had last time I posted. Notably; I'll be doing the "dark" D&D setting with demon lords and/or archdevils replacing the gods and combining it a bit with the "no standard races except humans" schtick. Magic will be lower overall; I'll have to limit the pallete of classes. I'll also get a bit of a piratey theme going (and not just because Dead Man's Chest just came out and I enjoyed it immensely: I promise; I've always loved pirates!)

To get a bit more diversity of culture, I'll make a small microcosm of the the entire southern hemisphere circa 1650-1750 of pirates too--Barbary Coast "Arabic" pirates on one side, European colonists and the remnants of pseudo-Aztecan or other Indian cultures combined with South Pacific Islanders more in the middle, and South China sea pirate types on the far side.

Of course, the entire setting won't be "pirates" but I'll have the game focus more on them as well as frontierish areas and naval adventures. Or should it be "Dune Seas" with low-flying airships taking the place of traditional naval ships? I don't know. I'll give that some thought too. And even though I'm doing "pirates" I want to maintain the idea of pretty much the whole world being either a massive city, or the derelict remains of abandoned (and flooded?) districts.

And that really sums up what needs to be done in the first day of Ray Winninger's Dungeoncraft Methodology (RWDM for short)--come up with the "twist" that separates your setting from run-of-the-mill D&D. I've still got lots of details to hammer out, of course, but I can get there in the next few days.

 

[Nyaricus]

J-Dawg, is it possible that you ahve these RWDM articles saved as a pdf? If so, I would love you forever if I could have a copy. If so, Nyaricus @ hotmail . com is the email, if not thanks anyways (but I'd appreciate if you could tye up the issue #s).

Cheers!