[Whedeon-philes] What if Joss ran a D&D game?

[roguerouge]

Action points will also allow certain characters to win a combat narratively by blowing action points.

That is one of the features of drama points in the Buffy RPG, or near enough.

When fighting a character that is stronger than the PC, and has proven invulnerable to their attacks, the character will be able to blow some action points, make a determined face (and probably some sort of speech), and utterly kick their ass, with no tactics or plan at all, just using the same attacks they've proven impervious to before. The more precautions the PC takes in such a combat, the less effective they'll be. Aid Other will instead penalize them. They'll do less weapons with magical swords than with their own fists. Tactics or strategems or traps set up before hand will fail spectacularly. Guns will be dropped or jam or prove useless. Highly trained, super-experienced or magically omnipotent allies will bump their heads, screw up and make things worse or suddenly develop a phobia of using their superpowers, proving useless, and the hero must stand alone. Only bullheaded face-punching (after the appropriate speech) will win the day, especially if the villain brags that they've deliberately put the PCs in a situation they can't win.

Gotta disagree with you there. PC battle plans work out very well indeed in Serenity and Buffy season finales (season one and two excepted). That does describe some of the PC actions in Firefly, where they're "My kind of stupid," in Mal's words, and probably Angel, which definitely does feature brute force solutions to a lot of problems.

And that description doesn't fit poor, People's Choice award-winning Dr. Horrible at all. Bull-headed face-punching tends to work out very poorly for him.

A bumbler who is funny and always messes up, often resulting in the deaths of teammates will always be welcome at the table, because the terribly incompetent super-people need a terribly incompetent non-super-person to make them feel better about themselves. (Hello, Andrew!)

Actually, Andrew and the Trio are about fandom and media addiction, so the equivalent would be a plucky cohort modeled on one of the players, but also on Joss. (He's said straight out that Andrew's the character most like him.) That plucky cohort is a subtle nudge to the rules lawyer and over-worked Joss that perhaps both need to diversify their lives.

 

[roguerouge]

Also, the campaign will be about masculinity (Angel, Firefly) or femininity (Buffy) and how gender affects the exercise of power.

 

[Shroomy]

In a Joss Whedon world, the characters would likely need to atone for their past sins or be seeking redemption, but they'd never actually achieve it. Yet, they'd still struggle on, fighting the good fight.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

If I played in a Joss Whedon D&D game all my characters would just get their asses kicked by a girl.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

At the end of the campaign, enemies previously regarded as nearly unstoppable forces of destruction would inexplicably be turned into low-AC minions. This would be intended to let the PCs shine but would instead come off as the enemies just being pathetic (Reavers, Turok-Han).

 

[Orius]

It would be the most overrated session of D&D of all time.

 

[DonAdam]

This is probably relevant across media.

 

[ExploderWizard]

At some point in the campaign, the PC's WILL face Trogdor the Burninator and be completely destroyed.

 

[maddman75]

At some point in the campaign, an entire session would include periodic musical numbers.

Been there, done that.

 

[LordVyreth]

Assuming he doesn't alter the mechanics so much and ignoring the cute and inaccurate cliches people pretend he does, it could be an interesting campaign. The "super-powered" girl thing probably won't be a major issue; that's the job of the PCs, and while he may encourage stronger female characters, there's no need to force them into a story (I mean, look at Dr. Horrible, or even most of Angel.) That being said, expect there to be more female figures of authority among the NPCS than usual. The ancient wizard, wise royal figure, or captain of the guard could be women just as easily. Possibly more so.

Character backstories and motivations will be expected and necessary for proper character advancement. "I want to get treasure" types will be likely bored during at least half the adventure.

NPCs will be detailed out thoroughly. There won't be any "Bob the city guard" types. Well, his name might be Bob, but Bob will have a history, a family to worry about, etc. As far as Bob is concerned, Bob is the PC.

With a rich setting and character histories to work with, he can make his monsters and adventures a response to character personalities and ongoing plots. A dragon is never just a dragon, though the vampire will make Joss sigh as the entire table makes Buffy jokes. That thing with him on "The Office" is such a funny story. Genre-subverting character are consistent. The old wizard won't be another Elminster, the kobolds won't talk like Meepo, and the mysterious figure in the tavern will never be what you expect.

Despite all this, yes, many NPCs at least will die horrible deaths. I expect Joss to also be a "let the dice fall where they may" DM in terms of character death, and if he houseruled anything, it would make resurrection rules much harder.