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Post by geoffrey on May 8, 2009 13:20:54 GMT -6
The original rules note that "There is no reason that players cannot be allowed to play as virtually anything", followed by a balrog as an example. That got me to thinking...
Why not let players play ANYTHING in the rulebooks? After all, the referee gets to play anything in the rulebooks. Why not let the players and the referee live by the same rule here? Let the players start as 20th-level magic-users, or as 88 hp red dragons, or as Demogorgon, or as Zeus, or as a 1 hp kobold, or whatever the devil they want. If the referee can play all these things, why not the players?
"But the players didn't EARN those powerful characters!" Yeah, just like the referee didn't earn his powerful NPCs. In both cases they are made-up out of whole cloth.
The players will have to realize, of course, that if they want to play the entire Greek pantheon, they are probably going to get blind-sided by other pantheons from GDG&H.
And let the players start with artifacts if they want. Hand and Eye of Vecna? Here you go. Oh, and here come half-a-dozen 80-point balrogs to steal them...
Or let the players play an entire tribe of 300 orcs. Whatever they want.
In a way, this is similar to Chainmail. Both sides pick whatever troops they want--balrogs, dragons, hordes of goblins, a dwarven kingdom, or what-have-you.
Is this the ultimate in not railroading your players? By not even railroading them during character creation?
I think it would be cool to use the OD&D rules, the 4 old supplements, and the 9 Arduin supplements as the "core rules" for your campaign, allowing the players full rein of anything and everything in there.
I think this would be a lot of fun, and that after a few sessions in which everyone got their inner crazy out, most players would most of the time play humans.
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Post by Zulgyan on May 8, 2009 13:55:10 GMT -6
Well, the referee does not really "play" in the same sense/way that the players do. You are equaling two roles that are totally different, IMHO.
I don't believe in the "EARN" thing. Any campaign could start at any level, I have no problem with that, or with players playing monsters. I have no problems with disparate player power either. It's a matter of common agreement to me. But progression needs to be controlled, or nothing will stop the player from saying at his whim, "ok, now I'm stronger for no reason", and the next to him do the same, breaking the game instantly.
There must be some limits, if not, it becomes a silly players vs. DM type of play, that does not look like a good idea for me. And the GM would always be able to pull out something stronger anyway.
You could play something as what you describe, but it would be totally different to roleplaying in my opinion, and the role of the referee substantially changed.
But if you find it fun, who cares how we define it?
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Bard
Level 3 Conjurer
The dice never lie.
Posts: 87
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Post by Bard on May 8, 2009 15:19:25 GMT -6
My friend DMs Vampire, in a kind of similar way... You can write anything on your character sheet, if it's a vampire, you can play with it. You can be a 3000 year old powerful elder, or a newborn noname... Not much dice rolling in those games, rather endless talking. It is playable though... And in the old days, when no one wanted to DM, no one had anything prepared, usually I was convinced to improvise something. I used to allow anyone to bring any character he wanted to play with... It was fun... At one time when my friends got a sourcebook for RIFTS, where there were the stats for different gods, they decided that we will play each with a god from that book... I didn't like it very much, but I never really "get" RIFTS anyway... And there was a guy in the rpg club, who DMed like this: "okay, you open the door, and step into a room... and now... All of your characters against all of my characters!!!"  |
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Post by Zulgyan on May 8, 2009 16:45:57 GMT -6
Also, anybody can offer to "play" as the referee if they are so eager to "play" all the monsters.
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Post by calithena on May 8, 2009 19:57:02 GMT -6
I like this idea, Geoffrey.
It's somewhat of a piece with Jeff Rients' thing where he let people just pick their attribute scores.
"What if you take all 18's?" One guy did, I guess. It turned out to be no big thing.
It also reminds me of a game chronicled in Dragon where one player was running Tyche as a PC. Seemed cool to me.
The tribe of 300 thing would probably require multiple players running the tribe to be functional, or else a 1-on-1 game of some sort.
But anyway, if you try it, let us know how it goes!
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jrients
Level 6 Magician
Posts: 411
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Post by jrients on May 9, 2009 7:16:20 GMT -6
I see some real potential with this idea, especially if you're more interested in the strategic overland game. When the players are a running a hill giant, a tribe of 300 orcs and a wizard the most obvious thing to do would be to go to war. On the other hand, sending them into a dungeon would be a hoot.
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Post by Finarvyn on May 9, 2009 18:46:05 GMT -6
In Dave's original Blackmoor campaign, player characters included a vampire and a Balrog, so I'd say that this has precident.
The key for me is some level of game balance between characters -- if one plays Gandalf and the other plays Frodo then the Frodo character may be unhappy with his lot in life. Unless, of course, he gets to be the one to carry the ring.
Literature is full of strange and unusual characters, and it's clear that OD&D is set up where players can do this as well. In fact, the lack of "hard and fast" rules for this makes OD&D a much better system for this style of play, compared to more rules-intensive versions of the game. For example, AD&D is more precise in its use of rules so an odd racial type would probably need to have more details spelled out in advance.
Just my two coppers.
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Post by harami2000 on May 9, 2009 18:59:27 GMT -6
Have y'all been playing (almost) exclusively humans (and demihumans) for the past 30 years, out of curiosity?  I think this would be a lot of fun, and that after a few sessions in which everyone got their inner crazy out, most players would most of the time play humans. *g* Didn't really work out that way here, not "even" for o/xD&D far less any other less (notionally) non-humanocentric system. Depends as much on one's campaign world/universe to a degree and who's "in charge", I expect... But, yes, what are the players and DM in the game for? And is there any long-term campaign or more towards having fun on a short term basis? Nothing inherently "wrong" in having the balrog bash the (were)wolf, IMHO.  |
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Post by geoffrey on May 9, 2009 20:30:47 GMT -6
Have y'all been playing (almost) exclusively humans (and demihumans) for the past 30 years, out of curiosity? Speaking for my group, yes. I could count on my fingers the number of PCs who were not one of the standard PC races listed in the AD&D Players Handbook. So your games have had lots of non-standard PC types? Do tell some details! |
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Post by aldarron on Jun 1, 2009 12:52:03 GMT -6
As Fin notes - Dave Arneson's game started out that way, but Greg Svenson said in his interview with Sham that the players pretty quickly decided it was more fun to play the heroes - because monsters die. Really that's a part of the question you have to consider - what role would a Balrog or Dragon character play in your campaign? Would characters be playing against each other or cooperatively? If you are talking about a one off adventure then I see no obstacles, but the game is designed to involve multiple adventures in an ongoing storyline. Some monsters - particularly if they can shape shift - could concievably be part of a party of adventurers in a campaign, but in most medieval type fantasy worlds, most monsters are well MONSTERS. Hated and feared and not able to freely interact with the regular player character races. Imagine the balrog strolling in to the local blacksmith to have a new helmet made or asking questions at the local inn. So there is the whole aspect of how you make it work socially. The other hurdle is all the extra work vis a vis experience point tables, class and spell restrictions. Exactly how many exp. does a level 3 Balrog have anyway? I think these are prolly the two main reason why you don't often see this sort of thing despite the fact that plenty of players have wanted to play some monster or other as a character. Nevertheless, if you are willing to do the work, figure out a rational and a way to structure adventures for a polyglot party of mosters, and put it together in a way that is consistent enough and balanced enough for it to be fun, I'm sure you could let players play Balrogs and Dragons and Specters and Djinn and what have you. One last thought is that I assume you would still be restricting PC's to intelligent monsters, since it hardly makes sense to have a black pudding or yellow mold PC.
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Post by chronoplasm on Jun 4, 2009 15:00:01 GMT -6
Well, take this advice with a grain of salt here...
...you might take a look at how 4E approaches this. You might not like 4E, it's not for everyone afterall, but there are some ideas in there that might be useful here.
The 4E Player's Handbook has rules for playable dragons and devils. The PHBII has rules for playable angels, giants, and werewolves. Most of the playable races in 4E are monsters of some sort.
This newer edition handles these types of characters by humanizing them.
Dragonborn get breath weapons, bonuses to intimidation, and even wings at later levels. They have all the qualities that dragons have, but they are anthropomorphized to make them playable.
Anthropomorphization is a staple of fantasy fiction. If you don't want to look at 4E for inspiration, then look to The Chronicles of Narnia. Most of the characters in those books are not humans, but they are given human-like qualities like speech and human personalities.
Would The Chronicles of Narnia be half as interesting if the animals were just regular animals who couldn't talk? Would it be interesting if the animals were just regular people instead?
I guess what I'm saying here is... you might allow the players to play as any types of characters they want, but you might want to facilitate this by giving those characters human-like characteristics like speech.
If somebody wants to play as a yellow-mold, let them, but let them play as a magically sapient yellow-mold that can form at least rudimentary thoughts and limited speech.
If players can play as Balrogs and Dragons, then they ought to be able to play as a talking yellow-mold, right?
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Bard
Level 3 Conjurer
The dice never lie.
Posts: 87
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Post by Bard on Jun 4, 2009 15:07:51 GMT -6
I just watched Terry Pratchett's Hogfather... It was a great, fun movie, if you like fairy tales or if you like Pratchett even a little... And this topic jumped into my mind at the first at will casting of Time Stop... So it was an adventure, where the main characters were gods, high level assassins, high level thieves, high level magic users... There were plenty of 9th level spell use, artifacts... And it was cool... I can imagine something like this as a gonzo, if not wargame, style D&D... It definitely gave inspiration for post 14th level adventures... So if you haven't seen it yet, you should... ;D Maybe a the novel is as good as the film, but I stopped reading Pratchett at the third novel, so I cannot comment on this particular one... |
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Post by chronoplasm on Jun 4, 2009 15:16:40 GMT -6
I freaking love that movie! Forget what I said in my previous post; just do this. |
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Post by Finarvyn on Jun 5, 2009 5:07:15 GMT -6
Actually, if one wants to really get away from the traditional structure and guidelines of OD&D you might try Amber Diceless. While the rulebook is written with Zelazny's setting in mind, surfing the 'net will show many varient campaign settings that have nothing to do with Amber.
The rules are simple yet allow for all sorts of options. Essentially, a character reduces to 4 key stats (athleticism, psychic strength, combat ability, and stamina) and then you can buy extras like magic use, special items, and so on. I like to combine Amber Diceless with any of my couple dozen GURPS sourcebooks since both rules sets use 100 points for character builds, so there are all sorts of options for powers already developed if you like. I particularly like some of the Vampire and Fantasy sourcebooks.
Anyway, I'm sure there is at least one Amber Diceless thread hereabouts and I'll be happy to explain more there to anyone interested.
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Post by thorswulf on Aug 28, 2009 17:27:56 GMT -6
A 300 orc tribe.... Hmmm.... Probably short about 200of the little beggars, what to do? RECYCLE the figs of course! One hit = 1 kill ala Chainmail, What you see is what you got on the fig. This could work. Of course here comes 100 footmen and their level 8 superhero to give you a bad day. What's that? They brought a Wizard. Sucks to be you Orky!
Sorry stream of consciousness writing, does that to me. On a different note I have seen how old school wargamers take a more wargame approach to the mechanics of gaming with a minimal role playing approach. So I could see how this could work. It is after all Your world to play with! With some of the troupe style game ideas maybe playing a balrog as the prime nasty, his bishop servant and orc bodygaurds isn't to far out either.
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