Settings and stories the rules can't handle (or don't handle well)

[RangerWickett]

I ran into Brandon Sanderson at Dragon*Con and played Magic with him, and afterward I picked up the first book of his Mistborn series. In it, magic comes in 10 varieties, and to use magic you have to ingest different metals, turning your stomach into a sort of alchemical forge.

That's pretty hard to work into D&D, whether we're talking 2nd, 3rd, or 4th edition.

Have you ever read a book or come up with your own setting and thought, man, D&D just doesn't have the rules for that?

 

[FreeXenon]

I have not read the series or know anything about it beyond what you have said here, but one thing that came to mind is that the ingestion of metals (or other materials) could be a purely fluff driven thing.

Primal Magics (power source) could be reflufferalated to be a magic powered by copper/mithril or whatever as a part of the rights of investiture or training. Entire individual schools (of magic) could have the same thing done as well. Illusionsist main require arsenic/silver.

There may be other mechanical benefits you could prescribe based on this too, but that is another issue.

Just a thought.

 

[RangerWickett]

Mostly it's the idea that there are only 10 things you can do:

1. Pull metal objects toward you.
2. Push metal objects away.
3. Soothe people's emotions.
4. Incite their emotions.
5. Sense other people using magic.
6. Hide your magic.
7. Make yourself physically stronger.
8. Enhance your senses.
9. See a few seconds into the future.
10. Something else I don't remember.

All these powers are limited only by how much metal you have of the appropriate sort, which I suppose could be fluffed into dailies and encounters, though theoretically you would be able to rob a metal storehouse and turn everything into at-wills.

 

[MortonStromgal]

Dresden Files comes to mind thats why they made a rpg for it

 

[Dausuul]

Have you ever read a book or come up with your own setting and thought, man, D&D just doesn't have the rules for that?

I would venture to say that, with the exception of novels explicitly based on D&D properties and settings specifically made for D&D, I have never encountered a novel or a setting where I felt D&D did have the rules for that.

Although I haven't read the Dying Earth books.

 

[Beginning of the End]

All these powers are limited only by how much metal you have of the appropriate sort, which I suppose could be fluffed into dailies and encounters, though theoretically you would be able to rob a metal storehouse and turn everything into at-wills.

It wouldn't be hard to rationalize a personal metabolic limit on the amount of metal you can process in a day in order to address balance concerns.

Alternatively, assuming that the metal is consumed by the magic, you're just looking at some very specialized potions. Balance the pricing accordingly and you should be good to go.

 

[gamerprinter]

Again and again, I see threads regarding rules and story. Honestly that's apples and oranges. It ain't the system that can't handle the story, its the DM. Sometimes it takes some adjunction to the ruleset, if you want to be more precise with some 'new' mechanic. But generally it should be able to be shoe-horned in within an existing mechanic - psionics, arcane, divine, ki, clockwork/alchemy, or an alternate rules using one of those subsets.

While you could come up with some bizarre, unrealistic setting requirements and task the system rules you use. It shouldn't be too difficult.

Story is completely in the hands of the DM, and really has nothing to do with the rules. If the DM can handle the new story element, the mechanics should work right off no problem.

GP

 

[Dausuul]

Again and again, I see threads regarding rules and story. Honestly that's apples and oranges. It ain't the system that can't handle the story, its the DM. Sometimes it takes some adjunction to the ruleset, if you want to be more precise with some 'new' mechanic. But generally it should be able to be shoe-horned in within an existing mechanic - psionics, arcane, divine, ki, clockwork/alchemy, or an alternate rules using one of those subsets.

You can make any system do anything if you squint hard enough and don't ask questions about why stuff doesn't line up right. You could play a high-concept epic fantasy game using the Monopoly rules. (Aragorn, roll the dice... uh oh, Sauron's got a hotel on that property! Out of money? Looks like Aragorn's been killed by the Nazgul. Frodo, let's see if you can get out of jail, which represents the psychic domination of the Ring. You might want to use that Get Out of Jail Free card to have Sam give you a vaguely homoerotic pep talk, because if you fail this roll and have to pay the fine it means you've gone over to the Dark Side.)

But being able to bash and squint and shoehorn the rules into something vaguely, sort-of resembling the setting is different from having suitable rules for the setting. Honestly, I find it very hard to imagine a ruleset that could handle any fantasy setting well other than the one it was built for--or the ones that were built for it.

 

[Diamond Cross]

One of the most difficult sitations to run would be from the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series episode called "Once More With Feeling".

Dawn accidentally summons a demon which wants her to marry him and he causes everybody to express their angst through singing as though they were in musical theater.

Try encouraging players to sing like this, especially since they more than likelye would not have taken any kind of singing lessons ever, and see what you get.

 

[gamerprinter]

You can make any system do anything if you squint hard enough and don't ask questions about why stuff doesn't line up right. You could play a high-concept epic fantasy game using the Monopoly rules. (Aragorn, roll the dice... uh oh, Sauron's got a hotel on that property! Out of money? Looks like Aragorn's been killed by the Nazgul. Frodo, let's see if you can get out of jail, which represents the psychic domination of the Ring. You might want to use that Get Out of Jail Free card to have Sam give you a vaguely homoerotic pep talk, because if you fail this roll and have to pay the fine it means you've gone over to the Dark Side.)

But being able to bash and squint and shoehorn the rules into something vaguely, sort-of resembling the setting is different from having suitable rules for the setting. Honestly, I find it very hard to imagine a ruleset that could handle any fantasy setting well other than the one it was built for--or the ones that were built for it.

Of course I was referring exclusively to RPG rulesets, rather than including board games.

However, I've used both 2e and 3x to build magic dead worlds especially suited to martial only characters (post apocalypse), I've built magic weak worlds with limited level sorcerers, bards, and clerics, but mostly consisting of martial characters for sword and sorcery. I've built settings of far flung, sci-fi, stellar empires, with rogues, fighters and psionicists as the majority of classes with assorted alien races - all of this with very little shoe-horning needed (none really). I used the 'shoe-horning' phrase, as I can imagine someone coming up with a unique and odd world that using D&D rules may seem poor, or less manageable, and those might require shoe-horning.

But in all my various disparate game settings, the D&D rules worked just fine. I could even imagine an historic fantasy setting - Old West, Colonial America, pre-Columbian America, Jurrasic Era, Paleolithic settings - all would work fine using D&D...

GP