How to un-cheese D&D?

[Stone Dog]

Is it too late to make a "and for the next article, how to un-tortilla a burrito!" joke? Yeah, thought so. Ah well.

 

[billd91]

To me, getting rid of the cheese would entail getting rid of things that make the game more like a superhero game than a swords and sorcery game - teleports, flying magic, that sort of thing. The magic of an item pretty much never bothers me... unless it's too much like something I saw in a superhero comic book. Other than that, stat boosters and raw plusses on weapons are small potatoes. They just add to things in really predictable ways without making things really "fantastic" or "superheroic".

As far as the Magic Item Compendium goes, there are plenty of cheesy things in there (there is a ring that takes character from being armed and armored to being in civies and back at a command - I'm reminded of the ring Flash used to keep his super-compressed costume in). But there are also plenty of things in there that offer nice bonuses for very limited uses per day. They're fairly complex for the player to learn, but offer a lot of variety for relatively low expense, and non-outlandish utility.

 

[Quartz]

Lots of good stuff has already been said, so I'll just add two things:

Make magic non-obvious. The +2 sword being non-magical has already been covered, but you could remove fireballs, flying, teleports, spells like Colour Spray, change Dimension Door to be the ability to take a 10' step at any time, etc. Magic should be subtle and inobvious. You might want to drop the wizard and sorcerer entirely and just go with the bard.

Make a very restricted list of monsters and creatures and stick to it. Pick one humanoid monster, not several.

 

[Klaus]

Wow, thanks for all the great ideas and feedback! I'm interested in the "item levels" from Magic Item Compendium. That sounds like it might really help.

I was hoping that I could be lazy and find some resources already created, but maybe I'll just have to write up the conversions myself and present them here as variants, with as much forethought and guidance as possible. Then other GMs can apply them to published adventures and avoid having players roll their eyes when a half-black dragon/minotaur shows up swinging a +2 spiked chain (bonus points if you can figure out which adventure that encounter is from).

Two more ideas:

1 - Give every character a toned-down version of Vow of Poverty (Book of Exalted Deeds), in exchange for not giving away magic items. The usual benefits of magic items are already included in the VoP table.

or

2 - Run a lower-level game, requiring more XP to advance (up to 10x the usual XP). Lower-level challenges don't require magic to deal with. If you go this route, top out the game at 10th level, where magic like Raise Dead is the ultimate spell.

 

[LordofIllusions]

Is there a set of guidelines for how to convert D&D adventures to use d20 Modern?

I personally think d20 Modern is cheesy too. I would reccomend kind of mishmashing editions of the game together to create your own version of D&D. Another way to handle it is to look outside of WotC products and at other d20 companies. Many companies don't think like WotC and hence actually have some material that is GM-friendly and that promotes roleplaying over hacking things on a miniature grid.

~~~

 

[Henry]

Green Ronin's Black Company Campaign Setting book, if you can still find it, has some pretty good ideas in it for changing to a lower-wealth, lower-magic, higher-death setting.

Among its ideas:

1) Weapons and Armor have special mastercraft abiltiies, instead of just being magical, or a plus to hit.

2) Magic is VERY low-powered until the wizards hit 10th level or so.

3) The main enemy are men - there are no elves or dwarves, or gnomes or halflings, or half orcs. Only Monsters that exist are some of the most alien otherworldly horrors.

4) Combat contains an instant-kill mechanic that pops up on the occasional critical hit.

5) No clerics or conventional healing magic; all healing converts lethal to nonlethal damage, which must be rested off in the usual fashion.

6) No gods, but there are godlike beings.

Really nice book to check out-- its only cheese to speak of are the place names and the character names. Your band might consist of people with names like Croaker, Sleepy, or Big Bucket, and you might be off to kill the otherwordly demon known only as Toadkiller Dog.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

"Cheesiness" goes far beyond low-magic/high-magic. You can have a non-cheesy high-magic setting or a very cheesy low-magic setting.

EditorBFG's post on the shortcomings of the "everything and the kitchen sink" approach and on the prevalence of "adventurers" in the world, and Quartz's suggestion on restricting the monster lists, address some of the deeper issues.

If you can make your world immersive and "real"-feeling with the "everything and the kitchen sink" approach, more power to you. Ptolus might be able to be like this with the right DM, and I don't know about Eberron. But I imagine it's much easier to get that "real" feeling with a setting where the exotic is exotic.

 

[NilesB]

I think you have three options:

1>Modify the D&D rulesset until it fits your preconceptions. This has no advantages over the other options, is a lot of work will create huge balance problems and renders it almost impossible to solicit player without false advertising. I do not recommend this course of action at all.

2>Use another rules system that better fits your preferences.

3>Cap advancement at a very low level(3-4 maybe). Almost all of the things you dislike about D&D are capabilities PCs are assumed to develop as they level, if you will not allow PCs to possess the capabilities of mid-level characters, it is sends exactly the wrong message to your players to allow their characters to advance to mid-level.

 

[Kunimatyu]

I'm telling you, guys -- it's easiest to do this with Tru20, since character power isn't linked to magic items and it's perfectly possible to create a spellcasting class (via True20 Companion) that only has access to less flashy powers.

 

[molonel]

Modify the D&D rulesset until it fits your preconceptions. This has no advantages over the other options, is a lot of work will create huge balance problems and renders it almost impossible to solicit player without false advertising. I do not recommend this course of action at all.

?!!?!?

I'm sorry, but given the number of threads we frequently see on low-magic, grim and gritty games, and the popularity of Conan OGL, Iron Heroes, Midnight, C&C etc. etc. I really don't see how this can be said. Yes, I know, the examples I listed are other rules set, but their availability and continued interest shows that there are MORE than enough people interested in playing these sorts of games.

And, if nothing else, I run these sorts of games, and I modify the rules, and I still have people on a waiting list to get into my games.

Impossible to solicit players? Pfft. I have to turn them away.