Regardless of whether 2e was "objectively better" than 1e, or vice versa, I think that 2e does represent the pinnacle of a tendency that may have started with late 1e, and that was probably to some degree compounded by both the "D&D is Satanic" crowd and by TSR's booming IP-building, novel-selling business: moving D&D's tone and feel away from its Sword-and-Sorcery roots, towards a Romantic High Fantasy aesthetic.

I think that removing certain subsystems from the DMG, and changing the art and layout, probably did more to contribute to this "new" perception of D&D than any actual rules change; in fact, under the hood, the system is mostly backwards compatibility (which Dave Cook notes was a design goal from day one), and more clarified or streamlined than actually changed.

So my impression is that if AD&D 2e set out to make a "high fantasy" D&D, it failed miserably. While the art does look like a folder of Mercedes Lackey novel covers, you're still playing Fighters, Clerics, Mages and Thieves. Farmboys with great destinies, undercover princes and prophecies foretelling the Dark Lord's demise are nowhere to be seen; the DM is free to make them up, but there's no support for those in the rules. What we got was a schizoid RPG in which the art said one thing, and the text another.

Now, the OSR has been doing a lot of experimentation with the forms of TSR-era D&D. It's been twisted towards SF, horror and other genres. Mechanics have been tacked on to improve genre emulation, like SWN's skill system, and TotG&D's Fear, Horror and Madness saves, or derived from exisiting mechanics, like ACKS' use of henchmen loyalty tables to determine vassals' loyalty towards a PC ruler.

So, the challenge I put before this board is: how would you go about building a High Fantasy RPG on a TSR-era, old school D&D chassis? Is it even feasible or desirable?

I'm definitely more of a Howard, Leiber, Vance or Moorcock fan than an enthusiast of, I don't know, Terry Brooks or Mercedes Lackey or Guy Gavriel Kay. I haven't even read anything by these people. But since the stereotypical plots of Romantic High Fantasy touch on some fairly universal stuff (mostly the Campbellian Hero's Journey), a D&D variant that supports some of these elements could find a favorable reception at least with some of the 2e-loving people I play with.

Quote from: The Butcher;596332So my impression is that if AD&D 2e set out to make a "high fantasy" D&D, it failed miserably. While the art does look like a folder of Mercedes Lackey novel covers, you're still playing Fighters, Clerics, Mages and Thieves. Farmboys with great destinies, undercover princes and prophecies foretelling the Dark Lord's demise are nowhere to be seen; the DM is free to make them up, but there's no support for those in the rules.

Raid the Complete series and you'll find a Peasant Hero kit, and a Prophet Priest kit. Some of the campaign sourcebooks like Vikings and I think Celts had "Gifts" that could include prophecies, birthmarks, heirlooms and stuff like you sometimes see in this sort of fiction.
 
Mercedes Lackey is often referred to, I think, as "romantic fantasy" rather than high fantasy (?): to do that, you could mess with the the Beastrider kit to make something like Lackey's Heralds, and probably giving them and every other PC a free psionic power or two would also fit the genre.

Giant eagles fly in at the end of every adventure and save the day.

Quote from: Gib;596494Giant eagles fly in at the end of every adventure and save the day.

Fits the genre but seems a bit railroady...I think you need a random table for who saves the PCs.
 
1-5  giant eagles
6-7  gryphons
8-9  dragons
10-11 GMs favourite 29th level wizard
12+ ends on cliffhanger, reroll next session
 
 
Modifiers:
PCs are incompetent    +1
Player ate last slice of pizza   +1

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;596505Fits the genre but seems a bit railroady...I think you need a random table for who saves the PCs.
 
1-5  giant eagles
6-7  gryphons
8-9  dragons
10-11 GMs favourite 29th level wizard
12+ ends on cliffhanger, reroll next session
 
 
Modifiers:
PCs are incompetent    +1
Player ate last slice of pizza   +1

Your new school bullshit is really pissing me off.

Well, this thread hit rock bottom fast. Sorry Butcher.

Didn't Blue Rose already do this?

I don't think you need to do much just a suppliment on how to handle the tropes of prophesy, chosen ones and the globe spanning epic. Add some sort of fate point mechanic

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;596512Well, this thread hit rock bottom fast. Sorry Butcher.

This is not rock bottom by any stretch of the imagination. Im sure we can think of a few much worse recent examples over at the main forum...

Quote from: The Were-Grognard;596527Didn't Blue Rose already do this?

I confess to not having read Blue Rose, which should probably be required reading for this. Does it extend any sort of mechanical support for high fantasy stuff, or are we just supposed to play standard issue True20 in the the Venisonocracy?

Quote from: jibbajibba;596539I don't think you need to do much just a suppliment on how to handle the tropes of prophesy, chosen ones and the globe spanning epic. Add some sort of fate point mechanic

I  know it can be done like this, jibba, but I want something different.

Maybe "Romantic Fantasy" was a misnomer. I originally thought of "High Fantasy" or "Heroic Fantasy" but then we might get bogged down on debates over whether this or that book is High Fantasy or S&S.

I think what I really want to try is Hero's Journey D&D. Which is to say, a modular set of rules that you can tack onto your favorite TSR-era D&D game or simulacra thereof, that plays down the whole greed-based adventuring model in favor of player characters who are agents of cosmic forces of Good doing battle against Evil.

This is what a lot of people want from their D&D, if later editions are to be believed, but I don't think anyone in the OSR is trying to tackle it. I don't even think I'm the most qualified person to do write this (I'm a huge S&S nerd), but I think it's novel, it fits with the preferences of some of the people I play with, and I'd like to take a shot.

The first thing we need, I think, is Destiny.

These stories are all too often about the protagonists fulfilling some predetermined Destiny, though this is a bitch to do on tabletop games without turning the game into a railroad, or into a highly abstract ruleset that presumes dramatically motivated authorial decisions rather than players operating within the mindset of their characters. I'm still not sure those are necessarily mutually exclusive, mind you, but I want to work with a TSR-era D&D for shamelessly nostalgic reasons: I want this to be the game AD&D 2e wanted to be.

Maybe Destiny is a fairly traditional pool of action (fate, drama, hero, etc.) points that can be used to reroll dice; limited plot immunity as a resource to manage.

Maybe it's a save to be invoked when all else fails.

My favorite idea right now is a seventh ability scored rolled on 3d6 which confers bonuses on rolls pertaining to it. If you have Destiny 16 "Overthrow the Dark Lord" you get +2 on all rolls that contribute to this. A low Destiny means the sword of doom hangs over your character and you're likely to die tragically trying to fulfill it.

True to old school tradition, we can have a bigass random table to determine PC destinies.

Better still, we can have multiple destinies! The same character might have Destiny 16 "Overthrow the Dark Lord" (he's the promised hero who will free the land) and Destiny 7 "Betrayed by Love" (fated to die at the hand of a lover).

What do you think?

Quote from: Gib;596507

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;596505

Quote from: Gib;596494Giant eagles fly in at the end of every adventure and save the day.

Fits the genre but seems a bit railroady...I think you need a random table for who saves the PCs.
 
1-5  giant eagles
6-7  gryphons
8-9  dragons
10-11 GMs favourite 29th level wizard
12+ ends on cliffhanger, reroll next session
 
 
Modifiers:
PCs are incompetent    +1
Player ate last slice of pizza   +1

Your new school bullshit is really pissing me off.

Best exchange in these forums, ever.

(Pokes head out again...)
 
The destiny thing could work (though I have similar reservations).
 
An option might be to have Destiny rolled and monitored by the DM rather than the player, with the score giving a varying number of die rerolls per game (higher score, more rerolls).
 
On blue rose-some changes in Blue Rose from normal D20 were:
*Conviction points (level-based) that could be used to get rerolls.
*two alignments, Light and Shadow, and you track "Corruption Points" which are a bit like Darkside points in Star Wars d6, I guess.
*list of motivations something like Storyteller, which let you recharge Conviction.
*Reputation rules
*Wealth score instead of GPs

Hi folks,

this is my frst post on the RPGSite.

I think another way to implement the "predestination" aspect in the rules might be to have double stats. Do you remember Rolemaster, in which you had both temporary and potential stats?

In a heroic/romantic fantasy rpg maybe during character creation you might have to choose what your character is predestined to be: a great fighter or sorcerer or thief or whatever. For example, you create a stableboy that is predestined to become a great fighter, or a street child that is predetestined to become a great wizard. To do so, you roll his starting attributes/abilities as usual, but you also assign him "heroic ratings" in his key stats.

Then, during game, you can either use your character's heroic stats instead of his actual ones by spending a point of your favorite meta-game resource (Hero points?), or use your character's heroic stats to calculate his margin of success when you roll a critical, or both things, or someting else.

In this way you can have those typical "This kid is not just a stableboy!" moments.

It's all about incentives, baby. The reason why OD&D PCs are sword & sorcery murder-hobos is that they all want gold: they want to accumulate it so they can advance in levels. This is because gold = XP. The incentive is to dungeon-delve, rob, steal, and sell their services to the highest bidder.

Change the XP system to reward heroic play and you will incentivise the PCs to act heroically. I'm not sure how to do this - they tried to implement it in a half-arsed way in 2nd edition. XP for killing monsters certainly isn't the answer, because that just encourages endless fights.

Quote from: noisms;597335It's all about incentives, baby. The reason why OD&D PCs are sword & sorcery murder-hobos is that they all want gold: they want to accumulate it so they can advance in levels. This is because gold = XP. The incentive is to dungeon-delve, rob, steal, and sell their services to the highest bidder.

Change the XP system to reward heroic play and you will incentivise the PCs to act heroically. I'm not sure how to do this - they tried to implement it in a half-arsed way in 2nd edition. XP for killing monsters certainly isn't the answer, because that just encourages endless fights.

All PC's are DRAGONS (Side note in Council of Wyrms, GP and Magic items were needed for dragons to level up.)

Quote from: The Butcher;596641I  know it can be done like this, jibba, but I want something different.

Maybe "Romantic Fantasy" was a misnomer. I originally thought of "High Fantasy" or "Heroic Fantasy" but then we might get bogged down on debates over whether this or that book is High Fantasy or S&S.

I think what I really want to try is Hero's Journey D&D. Which is to say, a modular set of rules that you can tack onto your favorite TSR-era D&D game or simulacra thereof, that plays down the whole greed-based adventuring model in favor of player characters who are agents of cosmic forces of Good doing battle against Evil.

This is what a lot of people want from their D&D, if later editions are to be believed, but I don't think anyone in the OSR is trying to tackle it. I don't even think I'm the most qualified person to do write this (I'm a huge S&S nerd), but I think it's novel, it fits with the preferences of some of the people I play with, and I'd like to take a shot.

The first thing we need, I think, is Destiny.

These stories are all too often about the protagonists fulfilling some predetermined Destiny, though this is a bitch to do on tabletop games without turning the game into a railroad, or into a highly abstract ruleset that presumes dramatically motivated authorial decisions rather than players operating within the mindset of their characters. I'm still not sure those are necessarily mutually exclusive, mind you, but I want to work with a TSR-era D&D for shamelessly nostalgic reasons: I want this to be the game AD&D 2e wanted to be.

Maybe Destiny is a fairly traditional pool of action (fate, drama, hero, etc.) points that can be used to reroll dice; limited plot immunity as a resource to manage.

Maybe it's a save to be invoked when all else fails.

My favorite idea right now is a seventh ability scored rolled on 3d6 which confers bonuses on rolls pertaining to it. If you have Destiny 16 "Overthrow the Dark Lord" you get +2 on all rolls that contribute to this. A low Destiny means the sword of doom hangs over your character and you're likely to die tragically trying to fulfill it.

True to old school tradition, we can have a bigass random table to determine PC destinies.

Better still, we can have multiple destinies! The same character might have Destiny 16 "Overthrow the Dark Lord" (he's the promised hero who will free the land) and Destiny 7 "Betrayed by Love" (fated to die at the hand of a lover).

What do you think?

Ilike the destiny idea.
I was looking at something similar as a reult of the Fighter versus Wizard thread where we talked about how to give things to high level mundane characters that felt right for the game but didn't rely on them learning magic or goign Wuxia on us. One of those was the idea of a Doom or an Event where the PC battles the Hydra and as a result picks up some sort of trait or power.
That has a feel similar to the destiny idea.

I would say that a lot of what you describe though is fairly typical of a lot of 2e era games where there was backstory and a plot arc. Something that OSR folks would rail at as being "story" or "railroad" or "plot immunity". Its why i suggested a hero point mechanic as  way to save PCs without plot immunity etc.
The desiny idea is nice though as it supplies a thing for the PCs to move towards that isn't just alignment.
You could if you want take it a stage further and have 'feat-like' powers that the PCs can aquire as they move toward their destiny. Thsi might be too much or twoo complex though.

Noisms point works too. XP for resolving plot driven goals will make PCs do plot driven stuff. You can allow the PCs of course to set their own plot goals which one hopes tie into the backstory of their village being wiped out by the servants of the Snake when they were 5 but don't have to. This will reduce railraody feel. Make the steps small though if a PCs only goal is kill the Snale High Priest who is a 15th level bloke 2 continents away then whilst that might be worth 50,000 Xp if you can do it you won;t see any benefit until you are already 12th elvel or whatever ....