How Far Are Gamers Willing to Stretch D&D?

[Mallus]

High-jumping swordplay, gunkata, and mysticism set against a background of blasted desert, personal honor, and rough justice? I think that'd work fine.

It kinda sounds like the anime Trigun.

Now if he could work in a crashed spaceship and insurance claims adjusters...

 

[Turanil]

So I'm wondering....is there room for a setting, intended for use with the core rules, that is so far from the standard fantasy tropes? Or is a new rules set the way to go?

My suggestion is to do your setting without rules of any sort. Just tell about typical characters / adventurers, what they look like and what they do (martial arts, etc.). But don't give any crunch. That way, players will be able to use whatever ruleset they prefer, be it D&D 3.5, Grim Tales, Blood & Fists, Legends of Samurai, True20, Savage Worlds, etc.

Otherwise, my own answer is that regular D&D doesn't fit such a seting, with its paladins, druids, elves, and gnomes. I would rather use True20 or Savage Worlds for that.

 

[Kafkonia]

This seems like it would be relatively easy to build while keeping in line with the OGL. It may not be the first system that springs to mind, but certainly I think it could hack it as well as the other 'generic' rules sets I'm familiar with, GURPS and Hero.

And would I play it? Absolutely, pahdner.

 

[GMSkarka]

I had been considering at as something for D&D, not a new d20-based game.

It is true, though, that while Fighters and Rogues would port over fairly easily, a magic system that suits the setting would be such that Clerics and Wizards would be near unrecognizable.

Hrm. Again with the pondering.

 

[takyris]

If it's for your own campaign, then just taking classes out sounds pretty easy. And you may not have to do even that.

In terms of Wild West/Wuxia power groups, you've got:

The Natives: (Aboriginals, hermits, wild men, etc)
Barbarian: Native American warrior class
Druid: The Native healers you go to when you can't go to the town doctor
Ranger: Skilled woodsmen with some knowledge of the Native ways

The Locals: (Common folk trying to make it in a rough land)
Bard: Minstrel, jack-of-all-trades class -- Maverick in a Wuxia western
Sorcerer: Untrained but naturally skilled
Fighter: A gunslinger or a hired sword
Rogue: Another jack-of-all-trades who has no magic but better swordsmanship

The Government: (Representatives of a distant but mighty civilized world)
Paladin: Swordmasters and destroyers of the unclean
Cleric: Spreading the faith with powerful magic
Monk: Agents of the government who need no weapons to do their jobs
Wizard: The learned scholars who hold the true arcane power

If you set up class distinctions like that, then you've got most of what you need. A lot of magic is changed with flavor. (Personally, in wuxia, I'd change cleric and druid to spontaneous casting classes and ditch wizard altogether.) After that, it's just individual rule changes -- like how far a given Jump check lets you go or what the Balance DC is to run along a wall. Ideally, you drop the DCs a bunch, or multiply all results by 4, or something like that, to get the feel you want. (And you may have a rules supplement that already does this -- I know someone was advertising "setting change"-type quick rules that would do this kind of thing.)

So yeah, I could see that working pretty easily. The key for me would be restricting spells on a case-by-case basis, making sure that everybody was on-board with the flavor, and keeping the levels relatively low. (And possibly, for magic classes, requiring multiclassing to keep things in line -- all wizards must multiclass with monk on a 1/1 basis, for example...)

 

[Wormwood]

a magic system that suits the setting would be such that Clerics and Wizards would be near unrecognizable.

Fantastic! Arcana Evolved did a good job of re-interpreting d20 magic, but I thought Monte Cook could have gone even farther with his concept.

Go for it!

 

[Nellisir]

I had been considering at as something for D&D, not a new d20-based game.

It is true, though, that while Fighters and Rogues would port over fairly easily, a magic system that suits the setting would be such that Clerics and Wizards would be near unrecognizable.

Hrm. Again with the pondering.

So, Dragon Fist meets Weird West?

I think Psion got it generally right; the hard part is breaking out of the WotC box.

I'm not sure it'd be a great fit for generic Dungeons & Dragons (where do the elves go?), but d20 could be doable. True20 even moreso. I'd present it as a complete unit vs "this needs the PH". The most important thing is to give the players something to relate to - clearly identifiable niches they can fit their character concepts into. And no complicated pointless mechanics just to make a point. Personally, I think mechanics are pretty much flavorless - it's all in the names - but some people like to introduce some "thing" to make it "asian" or something.

 

[jmucchiello]

In order to do Wuxia right you are going to have to fiddle with the combat system. Feats alone won't do it justice. If you are making new classes, feats, magic and combat systems, you aren't really retaining much of D&D. And in terms of marketing, I don't think you'd want "requires the use of the D&D PHB" on such a book as it is misleading. So yeah, you are beyond D&D from a Needs a PHB point of view. But rolling your own d20 variant would work no problem. Your own Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. I'd like to see more products like that. Heck, I'm still disappointed that AU/AE didn't fully replace the magic item system with something else. But I digress.

 

[WayneLigon]

Personally, I don't see Eberron as even near the boundaries of D&D-style fantasy.

Oh, me neither. I see it as almost straight D&D, certainly no stranger than some other things I've done with D&D. I've seen it mentioned, though, as 'almost outside the bounds', so I thought I'd bring it in for comparison.

Even so, I would say Skarka's idea pushes the utility of the D&D rules to the straining point, is probably a poor fit mechanically, and doesn't have any strong thematic connection to the D&D tradition.

I really wouldn't say D&D has a tradition to break.

 

[WayneLigon]

I had been considering at as something for D&D, not a new d20-based game.

It is true, though, that while Fighters and Rogues would port over fairly easily, a magic system that suits the setting would be such that Clerics and Wizards would be near unrecognizable.

Hrm. Again with the pondering.

Aha. I was confused. See, to me, 'D&D' and 'd20' are perfectly interchangable terms. No, you'd probably need a different magic system, and probably different classes.