Certain D&Ds for campaigns/flavors? (Just me?)

[machfront]

Poor thread title. Best I could do.

I've this affliction.

I look over my preferred iterations/editions of D&D and clones and I think things such as:
"Man.....campaign inspired by The Hobbit and only The Hobbit. That's gotta be Holmes. Can't use anything else. Just can't."

"Swords & Wizardry: WhiteBox. Ah...'WhiteBox Warhammer'. I just don't even wanna think of any other."

"B/X is pure, absolute, concentrated D & muthereffin' D, baby. When I want freaking, true-blooded D AND D, it's B/X or nuthin'!"

"Since AD&D1E is too much for me, D&D as D&D the way D&D was really D&D when I first met D&D...mid-80s Dragon Magazine an' all...it has to be LL + AEC or S&W Complete. ...Ravenloft too for the same reason."



I've hung these nigh absolutes upon these types of D&D for certain campaigns or ideas, for better or for worse.
I actually don't see it as limiting. It's just that it seems that different types of D&D speak to me in different ways.

Maybe it's shallow after a fashion. Narrowminded.
Obviously, if I truly wanted to run (for example) Ravenloft with OD&D 3LBBs-only I could, but... ya know?

I have to wonder if these identities come simply from my first impressions and that's they way I now view them....stuck in campaign/atmosphere/flavor 'time' in my head?

Really. Yank a random paperback from my fantasy fiction collection and I'll very likely have a D&D that I identify with it. Maybe there's a legit and reasonable reasoning for it...or maybe I just have a love-that-peanut-butter-with-that-chocolate dummy 'non-reason' for same.

Anyone else like this? Or are you guided by, say perhaps, whichever type of D&D you're in the mood for and then apply whichever campaign idea you have after? Or...something else? Nothing?


Separate but related: This is why I love people who speak aloud what they view for campaigns. The main reason I now think of The Hobbit-Holmes is mainly because of a thread that Geoffrey created on DF a few years ago. (Of course, I'll admit I could supplant Holmes in this case with S&W: Core...but that's as far 'afield' as I'd go....Silly, yes, but there ya are)
Folks inspire me with things as simple and straightforward as Falconer insisting a LorR campaign with OD&D, and so forth.

I'm rambling, but I hope I've illustrated my thoughts well enough. I pray you pardon me.

[idrahil]

I guess it depends? I have never associated editions with campaigns settings like LOTR or such. I am most famliar with 2e and 3.x+ (sadly) but since becoming more familiar with B/X and OD&D I have to say that I think you could play anything off the 3LBBs (I feel like such a fraud using that term heh).

What I find most appealing about these rules systems is that they provide the foundatio upon which you can add bit by bit. Easier to take the basics and add provisions for Nazgul, White Walkers or The Sword of Truth than to try and distill the rules back. "Oops you took out that rule, now you've screwed up the rules for x, y and Z as well and if x is broken, then B is ruined"

[barrataria]

I do... when I got the Birthright setting it seemed to me perfect for B/X with a few tweaks.

About this time I realized I enjoyed designing worlds from scratch, and started doing so backwards... looking at the rules, then thinking about what elements would fit them well. I've been through C&C, B/X, AD&D over the years, never finishing but having a great time working on them as I get interested and distracted now and again.

[Finarvyn]

OD&D is more "big picture" oriented and is more like the Hobbit. AD&D is more detail oriented and is more like the Lord of the Rings. It makes sense to have the rules match the style of the campaign.

Another factor to consider is the scale of the characters. AD&D goes to level 20 but most of my campaigns are much lower level than that, so using AD&D doesn't make much sense. Unless someone would come out with a "AD&D throgh level 8" type clone. Maybe I would play that.

[blackbarn]

I do feel that certain versions of the rules fit certain campaign themes or ideas better. I never had it set in stone in my mind, but I get a feeling that some just work better than others, for whatever reason.

[kenmeister]

I think the rules have a great deal of affect on the campaign world. In B/X, all elves are magical. The world needs to account for that. In AD&D, you can have a non-magical elf, so now things are pretty different. Likewise, 1st level magic-users can create scrolls in Holmes D&D, so scrolls will be much more available. In B/X, protection from evil can keep out vampires (keeps out all +1 or better weapon to hit creatures, if I'm not mistaken), making the elf or magic-user a fairly good vampire hunter. There's less defense against them in AD&D.

Etc.

[thorswulf]

Honestly, my first reaction to reading a fantasy novel isn't which version of D&D would fit it, but why D&D doesn't quite work! Most swords and sorcery yarns are to power heavy as regards magic and or monsters versus rule structure (That is to be a 9th level plus character). Most high fantasy series are reworkings of Tolkien with a twist and the game works well with that. Most Low fantasy has little magic, and it is either all powerful or non combat oriented.

Yes, I know I'm nipicking. Any good ref can twist rules to fit. I'm just lazy or spoiled for choices I guess.

[mordrene]

I hear ya but i get into a bigger quandry on which set of rules to stick with. If i had to pick just one set and nothing, fantasy novels and movies feel like b/x houseruled to split the race/class features. or basicfantasy. no matter how far i stray i keep coming back to that. now im going to try delving deeper/odd/snw to see if it holds up but im like you b/x is my core dnd.

[machfront]

Oct 25, 2012 19:50:23 GMT -6 thorswulf said:

Honestly, my first reaction to reading a fantasy novel isn't which version of D&D would fit it, but why D&D doesn't quite work!

Yes, but that's not quite what I mean.
I mean that I often have identified or 'hung' a campaign on a version of D&D while reading/experiencing said version of D&D.
(If I were to think of 'which rpg for this book/movie' it would be T&T or RISUS more often than D&D anyway... for better or worse, right or wrong. ;D)

I know I shouldn't and I know that it's more than a bit silly, as I can twist and yank any rpg, no matter what, to what I want, no matter what. Still...I seem to do so. That's why I think it's odd and wondered if others did the same for whatever reason.

Oct 25, 2012 10:21:56 GMT -6 kenmeister said:

I think the rules have a great deal of affect on the campaign world. In B/X, all elves are magical.

This is part of it, yes, despite the power of houserules. With regards to B/X and the above fact and I think, in the case of Middle-Earth: "Legolas....yeah....not a fighter/magic-user. Elf Fighter."
So little bits inform my feelings on the matter, certainly.

[machfront]

Seems odd, to me, coming from me.
I had a mini-rant of a DF thread about Warhammer and using D&D. At one point I said something to the effect of 'I can't believe that gamers, considering how imaginative they are, have this can't-get-there-from-here attitude about [not] using D&D for WFRP or any rpg for any setting no matter what. Seems crazy.'....or something like that.

Yet. Here I am. Derp!

I could use S&W: Complete or LL + AEC or OD&D + Greyhawk for Ravenloft and any of those would work and they'd all feel right to me.... even though I certainly could use, say, 3LLBs-only... part of me would think it was 'wrong' somehow.
...Yet I could use 3LBB only for Warhammer via D&D and not think twice.
Weird.

[llenlleawg]

Oct 24, 2012 14:22:52 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Another factor to consider is the scale of the characters. AD&D goes to level 20 but most of my campaigns are much lower level than that, so using AD&D doesn't make much sense. Unless someone would come out with a "AD&D throgh level 8" type clone. Maybe I would play that.

Perhaps your experience is different, but for my part I never experienced AD&D as being able to move much past 12th level or so, cleric and magic user tables for spells notwithstanding. Indeed, these tables rather remind me of Christians in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages projecting the dates for Easter hundreds of years after their own. It's theoretically accurate, but not of much use to the people actually consulting those tables (who will be *long* dead before these years come to pass)!

[As an aside, this is what makes BECMI such an odd rule set — not a bad one, mind you! — since the amount of play time it would take to get even to the Companion levels is staggering without either hand-waiving level gain or just making characters already at high levels.]

[jeffb]

I def have fallen prey to this phenomenon. Certain settings just do/don't work with certain editions. But I've challenged myself over the past year to NOT do that...get past my hangups about published this and that, AND do things the way I want.

Of course as times, certain settings won't work at all...like trying to run a Glorantha game in D&D (though 4E is not too bad at this, just re-skin some things).

Currently I am running a game for my 13yo son and his peer group, its what I call threesy peasy for the rules set (3.0 on the surface, no major skill system, rulings not rules), I am using the OGB for the Forgotten Realms as the base, and I'm giving it a Wilderlands type S&S spin. Its been super fun, for them, AND for me..NO worrying about what I should be doing ala canon FR or BTB 3.0.

[havard]

Oct 24, 2012 14:22:52 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Another factor to consider is the scale of the characters. AD&D goes to level 20 but most of my campaigns are much lower level than that, so using AD&D doesn't make much sense. Unless someone would come out with a "AD&D throgh level 8" type clone. Maybe I would play that.

BECMI is the only edition of D&D that does high level stuff well IMO.

The detailed nature of AD&D is what bogs it down when you reach 12th level or so. BECMI runs smoothly all the way to 36th level.

-Havard

[kesher]

havard, have you actually run a BECMI game up that high?