So in TSR's heyday...

Shawn Driscoll · December 28, 2014, 09:16:34 AM

Quote from: Old One Eye;805488D&D is the most known rpg there is. Is there any reason why TSR never cloned its gameplay for other genres?

Buck Rogers XXVc does, but it was tightly connected to its setting. It was not a game for a DM to sketch out a few parsecs and go.

Seems to me TSR should have made a version of D&D in each main rpg genre, space, supers, western, cyberpunk, urban horror, etc. Include races, classes, and equipment from said genre with the same bent toward including everything under the sun as D&D.

I think they would have sold well.

D&D is not a setting in my eyes. While Buck Rogers is too much of a setting. Both may have used a similar game mechanic (I don't remember). Star Frontiers may have been too much of a setting also. TSR should have made an S&S RPG that had an SM running games for players. But fantasy will always be more popular than sci-fi, so TSR focused on fantasy.

David Johansen · December 28, 2014, 11:59:00 AM

Buck Rogers, XXVc (so called because TSR felt putting the name Buck Rogers on the box would kill sales) was a D&D variant. A very nice one even.

Star Frontiers was more akin to Dragon Quest with ranked broad skills and percentile rolls and hit points tied to Stamina.

Matt · January 03, 2015, 10:07:22 AM

Quote from: finarvyn;805791I always love hearing about how you "can't" do a thing that I've been doing for decades.

I'm not sure which edition is so limiting, but I've found that running characters like those typically require minimal rules tweaks.

I guess that phrase "rules as written" is overly complicated for the defenders of D&D.

Matt · January 03, 2015, 10:09:40 AM

Quote from: Panjumanju;805756What are you talking about? When I finally ready Robert E. Howard's Conan I was *shocked* by how --- entire segments of text were lifted --- to create the D&D barbarian class. Are you talking about some kind of miraculous hair-splitting like "Galdalf would have had more spells per day at that level"? Because if so, I roll to disbelieve how persnickety your argument is.

//Panjumanju

I like how you choose to overlook Gandalf wielding a sword, Conan's thief skills, and Sinbad in his entirety in your attempt to pretend D&D accommodates all things when in fact it is a straitjacket of a game due to its insistence on classes.

Sacrosanct · January 03, 2015, 10:18:31 AM

Quote from: Matt;807593I like how you choose to overlook Gandalf wielding a sword, Conan's thief skills, and Sinbad in his entirety in your attempt to pretend D&D accommodates all things when in fact it is a straitjacket of a game due to its insistence on classes.

And I guess you choose to overlook how in many editions of d&D wizards can use swords, fighters/barbarians can use thief skills (and even since day 1 in OD&D every class could attempt those types of skills), and something like the buccaneer class has existed since at least the early 80s.

Try again. You can pretty much play a PC based on any literary character in D&D. Especially in the most recent version where classes and backgrounds are divorced from each other.

Panjumanju · January 03, 2015, 11:08:47 AM

Quote from: Matt;807593I like how you choose to overlook Gandalf wielding a sword, Conan's thief skills, and Sinbad in his entirety in your attempt to pretend D&D accommodates all things when in fact it is a straitjacket of a game due to its insistence on classes.

1. Here, Galdalf character, have a magic +1 sword that can only be wielded by wizards. Done.
2. There is no reason why Conan cannot attempt to steal. Just because there's a Thief class it doesn't mean everyone else cannot steal - because there's a Fighter class it doesn't mean everyone else cannot fight. Conan has just about never sneaked in and out of a place without getting into a fight while in there.
3. What's wrong with Sinbad the Thief?

I'm not suggesting that D&D should be all things to all people - it is a narrow game, but your examples are exactly what D&D sets out to do, and does them just fine.

//Panjumanju

Omega · January 03, 2015, 11:50:57 PM

Gandalf also uses Druid spells. He is also an entertainer. Does that make him a Bard too? He fits no D&D pattern short of a multi-classed character.
But. Gandalf is not human. Hes akin to a demi-god or servitor celestial thingy person.

Doom · January 04, 2015, 01:02:11 AM

Yeah, Gandalf was some sort of angel, so I just don't see him fitting into any version of D&D very neatly.

Conan, in AD&D terms, was a double-classed (not multi-classed) character. Humans can't be multi-classed, but they can be one class, stop, then be another class. Once the second class exceeds the level of the first, they can use either class' abilities interchangeably.

Conan started his career as a thief, not a fighter. After around level 5 or so, he switched over to fighter.

But, bottom line, D&D is it's own game, there's no reason to expect it to be all things for all people in all ways.

Omega · January 04, 2015, 03:28:42 AM

No. Conan is your standard adventuring fighter looting places. Fighters in D&D steal stuff fairly regularly. Doesnt make them a Thief/Rogue. Vikings stole everything that wasnt nailed down and then pried loose floor stones... damn thieves all of them I guess and that whole warrior culture was a thieves guild cover. :rolleyes:

Phillip · January 04, 2015, 06:17:13 PM

Quote from: Matt;807592I guess that phrase "rules as written" is overly complicated for the defenders of D&D.

It is complicated by the fact that one of the rules as written is that we are free (nay encouraged) to make up our own stuff.

It's sort of like claiming that one is not allowed to add string or wooden block or Erector Set components to a Tinker Toy construct, or some other arbitrary stipulation that rejects a freedom that is commonly regarded as the very essence of a given undertaking - seeming so to mistake it for something else entirely. D&D is not Contract Bridge or FIDE Chess.

Phillip · January 04, 2015, 06:23:38 PM

Quote from: Omega;807724No. Conan is your standard adventuring fighter looting places. Fighters in D&D steal stuff fairly regularly. Doesnt make them a Thief/Rogue. Vikings stole everything that wasnt nailed down and then pried loose floor stones... damn thieves all of them I guess and that whole warrior culture was a thieves guild cover. :rolleyes:

Conan iirc acquired the sort of expertise at scaling walls (and perhaps other things) that would make a thief-class level comparison an appropriate modeling tool in TSR-era D&D (post Supp. I).

Doom · January 04, 2015, 07:44:51 PM

Quote from: Phillip;807852Conan iirc acquired the sort of expertise at scaling walls (and perhaps other things) that would make a thief-class level comparison an appropriate modeling tool in TSR-era D&D (post Supp. I).

It wouldn't surprise me if Conan was the inspiration for the "character with two classes" option in the AD&D rules. He very clearly took the profession of thief before he served as a mercenary.

Phillip · January 04, 2015, 07:49:45 PM

Goblinoid Games' Mutant Future meshes very well with its BX retro-clone Labyrinth Lord, as I recall.