Different Games for the Referee and Players

[overgeeked]

Here’s a recent video from Sly Flourish about playing multiple 5E variants at the same table.


The video reminded me of a thought experiment I was working on a few years back based on the story of Dave Arneson running players through a D&D game with players having characters from different editions of the game.

Could you play every edition of D&D at the same time, at the same table?

Impossible?

Hardly. Mike hit on the core idea during his video. The game the players are using doesn’t have to be the same as the referee is running. Further, the players don’t even have to be playing the same game as each other.

Take that a step further and you could fairly easily have PCs from any edition in the same game. The trick is translating things from the disparate systems for the players into a common rule or system for the referee then translating them back to the individual systems for the players.

And this doesn’t only apply to D&D. Which is why this isn’t in the D&D forum. As long as the genres are compatible, you can have all kinds of systems running on either side of the screen.

 

[Autumnal]

I’ve never tried it but am very entertained by the thought. Anyone here got experience with it?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Could you play every edition of D&D at the same time, at the same table?

The trick is translating things from the disparate systems for the players into a common rule or system for the referee then translating them back to the individual systems for the players.

I did something like that…by translating everything into HERO. Worked fine.

 

[pemerton]

The game the players are using doesn’t have to be the same as the referee is running. Further, the players don’t even have to be playing the same game as each other.

Take that a step further and you could fairly easily have PCs from any edition in the same game. The trick is translating things from the disparate systems for the players into a common rule or system for the referee then translating them back to the individual systems for the players.

And this doesn’t only apply to D&D. Which is why this isn’t in the D&D forum. As long as the genres are compatible, you can have all kinds of systems running on either side of the screen.

Don't these different systems need to have the same basic game-play structure and procedure? Like, the same expectations around what an action declaration is for, what the GM's role is in saying what comes next, etc?

 

[John Dallman]

And this doesn’t only apply to D&D. Which is why this isn’t in the D&D forum. As long as the genres are compatible, you can have all kinds of systems running on either side of the screen.

I'm surprised that this is an unusual idea. At conventions, I've played games with all kinds of mixtures of characters.

I think my record was a heroquest at the first Convulsion that had AD&D1e, AD&D 2e, RuneQuest II and Marvel Superheroes characters. There might have been more, this was 35 years ago. The GM was remapping game systems on the fly.

At a more recent convention, there were AD&D1e, HERO and Macho Women with Guns characters in the same game. That GM tends to say "take whoever you feel like playing."

 

[Morrus]

Really, what we're talking about here is using compatible resources from different games.

A new class or a new spell (even if they're named the same or similarly) don't constitute playing a different game. If I'm running a D&D 2014 game, and somebody plays an artificer from the Eberron book, or casts a spell from Tasha's, they're not playing a different game to me. Similarly, if I'm running that same game and somebody plays a marshal from Level Up, or uses a feat from 2024, they're not playing a different game to me. We're still playing 5E, just with a wider selection of options. 2014 monsters and A5E monsters aren't different games, they're just different monsters.

If we were really playing different games, we'd be talking about playing D&D and Pendragon and Fate at the same table. Now that would be trickier!