D&D 5E Stargate D&D 5e details from gencon

[MarkB]

You know, if someone asked me, 'What game system to run Stargate in?" I don't think D&D would have been my first pick.

It's hardly unfitting, though. At its core, Stargate is about a tight-knit team using their complimentary skill-sets to explore strange locales, meet new cultures and battle evil and sometimes monstrous foes. Exactly the stuff that D&D's been doing for decades.

 

[Tony Vargas]

D&D (any edition) is just not a good fit ...with its own inbult mechanical assumptions which don't necessarily fit other genres.

The d20 system boom and bust was partly due to saturation but also partly due to a thousand squares being forced into a round hole.

The whole hp-healing dynamic does not work well in other genres - except, briefly, via Surges/Second Wind/Inspiring Word - same for the daily-resource attrition dynamic being hardwired. Without those - and thus magic - you don't really have D&D, and the system doesn't hold together too well.

Anything else, though? Class/level isn't great but it shouldn't be much of an impediment to other genres, especially not 5e's BA take.

 

[Morrus]

It's hardly unfitting, though. At its core, Stargate is about a tight-knit team using their complimentary skill-sets to explore strange locales, meet new cultures and battle evil and sometimes monstrous foes. Exactly the stuff that D&D's been doing for decades.

That's all RPGs, because they involve a table around which sit a group of players playing a game together. You've merely desccribed the concept of an RPG, wihtout addressing the ways hundreds of game have been designed to emulate different genres and experiences.

I know there are people who say D&D can mimic any genre. Sure, you can put a dress on D&D and say it's a cowboy, or a spaceman, and get a shallow facsimile thereof. But what's even better is a game designed around cowboys, or spacemen.

Look at some current Kickstarters, such as Darker Hue Studios' Haunted West. Sure, you can do that in D&D. But you can do it better in its own game.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Why not, 5e is great? What system would you have chosen?

One that doesn't have magic built in to every single class.

Dungeons & Dragons is fantastical. Even medium level characters are superheroes. Magic is inconsistent and unexplained (and maybe unexplainable) and has few drawbacks or costs. The Hit Points mechanic means characters can take enormous amounts of damage before going down. In D&D, Janet Frasier wouldn't have been killed by a single staff-weapon hit.

The Stargate movie and tv shows are not fantastical. The SG teams do their stuff with rifles and brainpower. It is high-tech, sometimes invoking Clarke's Third Law, but there are few fantastical or supernatural tropes. Additionally, the world-breaking stuff usually only works once.

What systems would I consider? FFG's Genesys rules, or perhaps their Android line of games. Green Ronin's AGE rules (if you are after something relatively simple). GURPS (I liked 3rd ed, I don't know anything about 4th ed). Monte Cook Games's Cypher system. Cyberpunk Red.

I'd also consider an Apocalypse World system. Actually, the more I think about it, that could really work.

 

[MarkB]

That's all RPGs, because they involve a table around which sit a group of players playing a game together. You've merely desccribed the concept of an RPG, wihtout addressing the ways hundreds of game have been designed to emulate different genres and experiences.

I know there are people who say D&D can mimic any genre. Sure, you can put a dress on D&D and say it's a cowboy, or a spaceman, and get a shallow facsimile thereof. But what's even better is a game designed around cowboys, or spacemen.

Look at some current Kickstarters, such as Darker Hue Studios' Haunted West. Sure, you can do that in D&D. But you can do it better in its own game.

The thing is, though, D&D isn't very far off from Stargate genre-wise. They're both heroic action-adventure with some over-the-top elements and similar narrative structures. Go to strange locale, delve into ancient ruins, fight bad guys and/or monsters, find awesome loot, come home. That isn't just every RPG out there, it's exactly the sort of tales D&D likes to tell.

Re-working the classes, races and equipment to accommodate a hybrid modern/soft-SF setting isn't that tough, at least when compared with creating and playtesting an RPG system from scratch, and that's really all you need to do in order to adapt the system.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I know there are people who say D&D can mimic any genre.

Sure, because, D&D, prettymuch exclusively, gets to count as "doing another genre" when the DM throws out the entire system and does something completely different, be it improv or homebrew.

Sure, you can put a dress on D&D and say it's a cowboy, or a spaceman, and get a shallow facsimile thereof. But what's even better is a game designed around cowboys, or spacemen.

Unless those games are Boot Hill or Space Opera, for instance. ;P

The thing is, though, D&D isn't very far off from Stargate genre-wise. They're both heroic action-adventure with some over-the-top elements and similar narrative structures. Go to strange locale, delve into ancient ruins, fight bad guys and/or monsters, find awesome loot, come home.

The whole precursor-race and artifacts thing is very D&D, yes. The way SG1 is just /sooooo/ much better than all the SG*n*s out there, too, speaks to some party being high level compared to the NPCs.

Re-working the classes, races and equipment to accommodate a hybrid modern/soft-SF setting isn't that tough, at least when compared with creating and playtesting an RPG system from scratch, and that's really all you need to do in order to adapt the system.

The 5e classes (& encounter balance, & pacing) are pretty thoroughly wedded to slot casting mechanics. It'd be an undertaking.

 

[Derren]

It's hardly unfitting, though. At its core, Stargate is about a tight-knit team using their complimentary skill-sets to explore strange locales, meet new cultures and battle evil and sometimes monstrous foes. Exactly the stuff that D&D's been doing for decades.

Its very unfitting. Melee combat never played much role in Stargate. Instead they had extensive gunfights while being in cover.
And that is something 5E (or D20 in general) with its bloated HP can't do very well.
Most combats in SGRPG will devolve into genre untypical fist or knife fights.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Its very unfitting. Melee combat never played much role in Stargate. Instead they had extensive gunfights while being in cover.
And that is something 5E (or D20 in general) with its bloated HP can't do very well.

Embracing narrative pseudo-hits and/or DoaM could take care of that fairly handily.

Most combats in SG will devolve into genre untypical fist or knife fights.

Seems like there's a lot of brawling in sci-fi/sci-fantasy genre, especially the TV versions. Easier/cheaper to choreograph a fist-fight than a laser duel.
And the defeated hero being alive is less of a stretch. (Of course, that's also what the Zat'nik'tel is for.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'd also consider an Apocalypse World system. Actually, the more I think about it, that could really work.

From the little I know, and the lot I've heard, that sounds like a good possibility.

The Stargate movie and tv shows are not fantastical.

They're pretty far out into the realm of science-fantasy by some measures, I'm sure. Lots of 'sufficiently advanced technology,' you've got gods (aliens posing as gods) and wizards (holograms of ancients posing as wizards - and 'technical wizards' for that matter ) and monsters (hostile alien fauna). Really, it's shy of "Sword & Planet" by the sword.

The SG teams do their stuff with rifles and brainpower. It is high-tech, sometimes invoking Clarke's Third Law, but there are few fantastical tropes. Additionally, the world-breaking stuff usually only works once.

And, the supernatural stuff - Ori psionic superpowers and the like, for instance, and 'sufficiently advance technology' - is usually the challenge to be overcome, or the McGuffin of the week, not several of the character's daily load-out.
That gets very un-D&D, because magic is such a huge part of characters' resources & abilities.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

And, the supernatural stuff … is usually the challenge to be overcome, or the McGuffin of the week, not several of the character's daily load-out.

That is a great point. I'm jealous that I didn't think of it.