Getting a good look at how some folks did dungeon adventure/RPG 40 years ago got me thinking what would be more entertaining to see these days dungeon adventures written to specific rule sets/edition of a game or house rules madness?
Why do so many of us keep reworking the wheel, we have the wheel, we have most of the wagon there are plenty of reference points out there that house-ruling can be a little more extreme and be embodied in the adventures/dungeos people share online (and elsewhere). Back in the good old days I didn't blink an eye at lifting a RuneQuest, Chivlary&Sorcery, Tunnels-n-Trolls, or FantasyTrip scenario I came across and using it in the game i was running (most likely D&D).
Some folks get really rigid on converting from one game to another or from one variant to another. Loose conversion guidelines are sure handy but it isn't really necessary to be so gosh-darned conformist. I managed a campaign that ran about two years using the BFRPG rules and used modules and materials written for D&D editions and Simulacra that spanned decades (including originak D&D, B/X D&D, AD&D 1st and 2nd ed,LL, S&W, and 3.X) . Back when I ran a 3e campaign I used plenty of original judgesguild material along with modern stuff and the players never noticed I was converting on the fly 99% of the time.
I think so many of us are chaining ourselves down trying to emulate style and format for specific versions of the game(s). I myself seem to enjoy the less picky adventures. Time to get more creative.
We would use anything for any system in old white dwarf - so desperate for content and it seemed bursting with ideas
ReplyDeleteThere was a scenario by the name of "Ogre Hunt" for Chivalry and Sorcery that was in one of the first couple issues of White Dwarf I got, played it using D&D rules. We'd use anything and everything in the olden days. For a while the PCs in an AD&D campaign were running about with a POW stat scribbled on their sheets and some were learning RuneQuest BattleMagic spells. It was all part of the cargo cult nature of pre web-browser D&D/RPG.
DeleteI agree that 'mathematical accuracy' isn't a major factor in converting - but I do think 'style' does play a part. I've run Runequest scenarios for D&D where Trollkin have become Goblins and Broo really degenerate Orcs (with some nice disease rules thrown in), or where Chaos cultists from WFRP have been given their most sensible D&D equivalents - '3 Normal Men, 2 1st Level Fighters and a 2nd Level Cleric' or whatever. I think the trick is taking something from one system and making it understandable (if sometimes unusual) in terms of the other system.
ReplyDeleteI think the 'style' of early D&D was so mixed up - with elements from Tolkien, Moorcock, Greek mythology, the tales of King Arthur and Robin Hood, John Carter and Conan all mixed up together, that taking inspiration from many sources and converting on the fly does more to evoke the spirit of the early editions than any careful working out of how much damage a short sword does or what the rules for bears are in different systems.
Twenty or Forty years ago it would never have occurred to any of us NOT to mix'n'match scenarios to rule sets.
ReplyDeleteI knew folks back in the day that wouldn't buy basic D&D modules or supplements because they played AD&D not a kids game...pretty darned silly really but plenty of such folks out there.
DeleteBecause I had been thinking of similar things myself recently - specifically, how I'd stat up the Hulk as an NPC, for no particular reason - I ended up doing a post about this subject to my blog here - http://fantasyadventuringblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/superdungeonfantasyquesthammer-or-d.html
ReplyDeleteI think part of the excitement from a players' point of view might come from the tension between recognition and unfamiliarity. If they 'know' the Hulk, or Broo, or Elric, or whatever, and find them in a D&D game, they have some idea about what they are, but don't know how you statted them - which can be a bit thrilling. All of a sudden they're confronted by a familiar - even legendary - monster or NPC, and don't know what its stats are. Is it like a Goblin? Or is it more like a Bugbear? Is he a 4th-Level Fighter, or a 12th? Is he like a Troll, or an Ogre, or some sort of Hill-Giant Berserker?
I suspect that's part of it at least. I suspect too that in some ways players try to 'beat the game' by metagaming, even though they know they shouldn't, and that throwing in wild cards like this stops them doing so quite so much.
I agree with everything you and the commentators have said. Original White Dwarf was a great source of material, even Traveller modules could be played with D&D, stripping out or replacing tech depending on what you would accept in your own D&D environment. We did have trouble with metagaming players who would argue non-stop while opening a well-thumbed and memorised supplement, and they just wouldn't understand that sometimes monsters or even spells and effects could be different in another person's gameworld.
ReplyDeleteI am currently trying to put together a Swords and Wizardry module for small-scale publication, but I find myself drawn to creating an occasional magazine-type affair with adventure situations totally 'un-statted' instead. Maybe both (or neither) will appear one day.