D&D 5E D&DNext for all Appendix N worlds

[Doug McCrae]

As an aside, I think with a little tweaking 4e could do a bang-up job emulating the Barsoom books.

Personally, I prefer D&D to be a whole crazy mess of literary and cinematic influences blended into a slurry. I'm not so keen on it being used to emulate specific works and settings, not matter how much I might like them.

Yeah, default D&D is a crazy kitchen sink. And a lot of DMs seem to use it to emulate material such as Lord of the Rings by stripping away much of the craziness. I played in a 2e campaign that did that in the early 90s, it worked well and the DM was good, though personally I found it to be too dull and slow moving. As in LotR, geography was described in detail, and travel took a looong time.

I'm wondering if I was wrong in saying D&D can't do planetary romance or lost world, because the action is pretty similar to D&D, just with guns and spaceships instead of platemail. The BECMI D&D supplement Hollow Earth specifically tried to do lost world.

But otoh, D&D is a strange mix of kitchen sink and the weirdly specific. Even though there's a plethora of monsters from many, many sources, and classes from several cultures and places (druid, bard, monk), there's only one kind of magic - Vancian. And only religious types can cast healing spells. And it's a late medieval/early renaissance sort of Europe crossed with the Wild West setting. And you need to have a gajillion fights a day or casters are overpowered. Etc. 4e does suffer from less of these problems, admittedly, but it does still expect four fights a day.

Though I admit, the idea of completely dishonoring the genius of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun by setting a D&D campaign in it has a perverse appeal...

Haha, yes, BotNS is too good to use for D&D. I'm a big fan.

 

[El Mahdi]

What say ye ENWorlders...?

I'd say that only a small percent of those would be of interest to current gamers, and that the younger one is, the more likely they haven't even heard of most. Hell, I'm in my mid 40's, and I've only read a rather small percentage of those. And for the most part, I'm really not interested in reading the ones I haven't gotten to.

I think that with the exception of a rather small percentage of D&D fans, most D&D gamers would likely respond with "Never heard of em', and really don't care to."

 

[Dungeonosophy]

As an aside, I think with a little tweaking 4e could do a bang-up job emulating the Barsoom books.

Yep others think that D&D can do Barsoom too:

"These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs' Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, [...] will not be likely to find DUNGEONS and DRAGONS to their taste."

From the introduction to the 1974 Original D&D edition​

Gygax even did a Warriors of Mars game, further elaborated as an amateur OD&D setting (pdf download). The original Greyhawk campaign visited Barsoomian Mars, and there's a gateway to Barsoom in Castle Zagyg. And former WotC designer Sean K. Reynolds has a 3e Barsoom page.

Personally, I prefer D&D to be a whole crazy mess of literary and cinematic influences blended into a slurry. I'm not so keen on it being used to emulate specific works and settings, not matter how much I might like them.

I agree that D&D worlds (many of which are a crazy patchwork) ought to be D&D worlds. Yet the core rules of D&D can and do serve to depict specific literary settings, including d20 Wheel of Time and OGL Conan.

Since D&DNext is supposed to be even more stripped down and streamlined, its core would serve as the basis for roleplaying in literary fantasy worlds.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Vance's Dying Earth would make for a pretty gonzo setting.