Jürgen Hubert said:
Hinduism. They have what, several millions of deities? The same goes for any religion with strong animistic tendencies.
Animistic spirits aren't really what I'd call deities, at least not in the D&D sense. And I also think that the Discworld doesn't think of them as such.
The hundreds of deities on the discworld are more like the deities D&D knows: They have a certain portfolio - Mass Sacrifice, Things Stuck in Drawers, Hangover - or are national deities.
There's also the belief (or knowledge) that more or less everything has a mind/spirit, expecially in the stories about the Witches. Granny listening to the Unseen Universtiy building, Magrat convincing a dungeon door to grow, Granny communing with the Spirit of Lancre itself.
By the time you wrote them all up in D&D terms, you'd have spend most of the book on such matters, with litte left for the world description.
Not really. You'd have one section for "characters", like Midnight (for example), another for monsters. You wouldn't even have to write them all up. Just the major critters. Would not need too much space, I'd think. Oriental Adventures/Rokugan also has a chapter about Critters.
Look, I'm not saying that writing up Discworld for D&D is impossible.
Right. It might be a bit more work, but it can certainly be done, and I think that it would not be more difficult than some of the other settings we have there.
And it has one big advantage: It's D&D. A lot of people know D&D. A lot of people know discworld. I'd guess that a lot would play a Discworld game if they didn't have to learn a new RPG for it.
It's just that D&D as written has a fairly rigid set of assumptions about the characters, and the characters of the Discworld series deviate strongly from these assumptions, thus requiring very lengthy rewrites.
I'm not even so sure about that. I think it might be not too hard. They could use the generic classes from UA (Warrior, Expert, Spellcaster) or variations thereof.
They could go the way d20Modern goes - basic classes and advanced classes.
A d20 Discworld product might barely be able to cover all varieties of character types as seen in the books (though I am doubtful), but it would be hard pressed to deal with character concepts not described in the book but which nevertheless fit right into the world.
It would not necessarily have to cover them all in one book (provided they didn't manage to pull it off with ease and elegance using something like generic classes or base classes).
Here is a challenge to all who read it: Come up with the most outrageous character concepts imaginable which nevertheless fit into the Discworld, and describe their powers. I will then try to put them into GURPS. Others can feel free to describe them in d20 terms.
We will see which one is more complicated.
I don't know about outrageous, but let's just throw about some of the weirder things out there.
Hydrophobe
Tooth Fairy
Sourcerer
Gnome
Elf
Susan Sto Helit
Druid
Barbarian Hairdresser (Conina)
Evil Harry Dread.
Diamond Troll.
Assassin.
My D&D/d20 thought son those:
Hydrophobe: This cries for a PrC. Prerequisites something like "Must suffer from hydrophobia, must have never drunk wet water" and something about spellcasting maybe. Benefits would mainly be "repell water" and maybe some blight or horrid-wilting like powers
Tooth Fairy: It's just a job. Maybe go as far as a Guild/Organisation write-up including the benefits, as described in PHB2
Sourcerer: Inherited Template. Automatically applied to everyone who's the 8th son of an 8th son of an 8th son. CR/LA - something dreadfully high. Three powers: 1st: More or less every spell as spell-like ability at will. 2nd: Wizards spellcaster key ability is 20 higher for determining bonus spells and DCs. This applies to the whole disk. 3rd: Will cause the end of the world in 2d% days
Gnome: Tiny humanoid (or maybe fey). Standard monster write-up, with PC rating.
Elf: I'd have to get into a whole other gear of evil than I'm in right now to properly write those up. Alignment: always CE. Charming aura, aura of induce inferiority complex. Iron weakness.
Susan: Something like Expert / Smart Hero with the Schoolteacher PrC. Give her special powers because she's the granddaughter of death (you woudln't even have to write up the template, this sort of thing appears all the time in d20 material)
Druid: Instead of Spellcraft and (Knowledge Nature), this class would have Programming. They'd get what would mechanically work out as spells, but they'd need a stone circle (or at least parts of stone circles) as focus. Spells like levitate stone, and of course divination (usually weather prediction and the like). The spells would be of several schools, like concentric stone circle and so on.
Barbarian Hairdresser (Conina): Human (with high krisma) barbarian/rogue with profession (hairdresser)
Evil Harry Dread: I'd say dark lord PrC, mainly because every respectable campaign setting should have one of those. Has a code of concuct (like "always employ stupid jailmen")
Diamond Troll: Inherited template for trolls. Something like Paragon.
Assassin: PrC (not the PrC from the DMG). Lots of skill prerequisites (assassins need to be highly educated), maybe Sneak attack, and they must survive the final exam. Also code of conduct (never kill someone without being paid for it)