D&D General Disentangling D&D Fantasy from D&D

[RainOnTheSun]

This is the reverse of a topic I saw from last month: does anyone ever feel the urge to do something with the D&D settings or lore in a system that isn't D&D? The IP and the game mechanics are owned by the same people, of course, so you can't separate the two commercially.

"Say, Doom, isn't that big floating ball with a central eye and a giant mouth a Beholder(tm)?"
"Gosh, no! This is a Cacodemon! It's completely different!"

That doesn't mean you can't do it at home, though. I've played around with converting Ravenloft darklords to 13th Age as Icons, on the grounds that they're powerful, influential, and immobile enough to need agents running around doing things on their behalf. I've tried converting high level modules to Mutants and Masterminds, to play at being fantasy superheroes more directly. And a lot of books have been sold about Elminster running around Faerun doing Elminster stuff, but I think a lot of people would agree with me that D&D is a terrible system for actually playing Elminsters running around Faerun doing Elminster stuff. Do you ever find something in D&D fantasy that you like, but not as D&D fantasy?

 

[Reynard]

I have run two "high level D&D" games that were essentially superhero games. One was called The High Guard and used Mutants and Masterminds 3E, the other was D&D 2014 with specially crafted epic monster rules. (And my current D&D 2024 campaign is about to end at 17th level.) I would use M&M3 every time in the future. High level D&D is just not worth the squeeze. It isn't as bad as many people say, but it is still complex and messy and lots too juggle for not a lot of benefit.

Aside from that, I think the best and most successful not-D&D is Earthdawn. That game took D&D Fantasy tropes and made them made sense in the fiction. Granted, its system was pure black tar 90s game design, but I loved it anyway.

 

[bsss]

I am organizing/playing three such games (Forgotten Realms via Cypher System) now, in fact.

 

[SableWyvern]

does anyone ever feel the urge to do something with the D&D settings or lore in a system that isn't D&D?

Yes, I absolutely do.

I have done Mythras conversions for Dark Sun and Al Qadim, and plan to do one for Planescape at some point (I've done a little bit of work already). In the first two cases, I feel Mythras gives me a much better platform for actually bringing those settings to life, rather than mangling the AD&D rules to trying to make it happen. Shai'irs that actually treat with and bind genies, proper support for partial armour, defiling/preserving that makes sense, clerics that deal with elemental spirits, etc.

Planescape is a bit different, in that many of the core concepts are pure D&Disms, but I still think Mythras offers a much better platform for bringing the full breadth of the setting to life. The cult system from Mythras is certainly perfect for the Planescape factions.

And, for a more conventional D&D setting, I'm currently running a game in the 1st edition Forgotten Realms Savage Frontier, using Rolemaster as my ruleset. Because I have zero interest in post-2e D&D, and Rolemaster is much better (IMO) for heroic, high-fantasy adventure then early versions of D&D (which I think are mainly great at dungeoneering).

 

[SothFan]

do something with the D&D settings or lore in a system that isn't D&D

Wasn't there a lawsuit about this in the 1980s?

 

[Mort]

Wasn't there a lawsuit about this in the 1980s?

Yes, TSR was quite litigious about anyone even looking at their IP funny. But that doesn't matter in a home game!

I ran a Palladium Heroes Unlimited game where the PCs found themselves in the world of Greyhawk. The superhero PCs has a blast demolishing all of the fantasy tropes.

 

[SothFan]

Yes, TSR was quite litigious about anyone even looking at their IP funny

Ok, was just verifying some I had heard.

 

[Stormonu]

I've toyed with using Savage Worlds for one of my homebrew worlds instead of D&D (there's also Pathfinder for Savage Worlds as well) and did an experiment using FATE for my primary homebrew for a bit. In the latter, though I liked it, my players did not - it was too "loosy goosy" for their tastes.

 

[RainOnTheSun]

Didn't people say that TSR really stood for They Sue Regularly?

 

[nyvinter]

I've toyed about doing Planescape in either Swords of the Serpentine or Cortex Prime — but I'm also one of those that thinks alignment tied to factions cheapens the belief is power in that setting.