Hey, you're a poster over at the Atomic Thinktank, aren't you? (I think you helped me build a character once!)
Anyway, Dungeon and Dragon are both exclusively D&D products. Any other time the publishers put non-D&D stuff inside they get a raft of sh!t from their regular buyers.
You wouldn't believe the flak they got for converting their sub-magazine, Polyhedron, into an experimental vehicle for all things d20.
That being said, I would fully support an M&M exclusive print magazine. That game is amazingly good.
I remember when Dungeon flirted with idea by publishing a Marvel Superheros and Top Secret adventure back in the late 80s or early 90s. I really disliked the shift away from AD&D/D&D at the time, and there is no way I would support such a move today.
Contributor
|
Hey, you're a poster over at the Atomic Thinktank, aren't you? (I think you helped me build a character once!)
Anyway, Dungeon and Dragon are both exclusively D&D products. Any other time the publishers put non-D&D stuff inside they get a raft of sh!t from their regular buyers.
You wouldn't believe the flak they got for converting their sub-magazine, Polyhedron, into an experimental vehicle for all things d20.
That being said, I would fully support an M&M exclusive print magazine. That game is amazingly good.
What John said. (Including the idea for an M&M magazine: I love that game!) :D
Okay, these magazines are called, respectively, Dungeon and Dragon. See where I'm going with that?
Why not start new magazines? You could have one called "Mutant" that caters to players, and one called "Mastermind" that caters to GMs.
Stop trying to get your superheroes in my fantasy! They _don't_ taste great together. ;-)
Okay, these magazines are called, respectively, Dungeon and Dragon. See where I'm going with that?
Why not start new magazines? You could have one called "Mutant" that caters to players, and one called "Mastermind" that caters to GMs.
Stop trying to get your superheroes in my fantasy! They _don't_ taste great together. ;-)
Yes, yes they do ;-)
At least to the point that you can steal a lot of material from comics and use it as a basis for a DnD adventure, or even a whole campaign. Of course, I tend to steal inspiration from a lot of non-traditional sources.
*Anyone else remember the old Marvel feature that used to run monthly in Dragon during the TSR days?
Oh, I remember them. I still have a couple of those issues around, and my quip about not tasting great together was just me being flippant, but I guess I failed my Tumble check. (insert rim shot).
To put it more succinctly, I don't think either magazine should have anything _but_ D&D material, _that's_ their purpose. Back when they included non-D&D stuff the web wasn't that which it is now. There is no need for the mags to become diluted, interested non-D&D gamers can probably find and/or create and share that type of material online.
And yes, I agree that comins are an excellent source for D&D. I mean, who _hasn't_ statted-out their favourite superheroes as a D&D PC? (I know I have with Spider-man and Batman!)
On the topic of superheroes in D&D, when you consider that there are "NPC" classes it becomes obvious that by virtue of the fact the PCs excel not only to a higher degree, but MUCH faster than the common. lowly NPC, they are in fact the medieval-fantasy equivalent of superheroes.
I remember when Dungeon flirted with idea by publishing a Marvel Superheros and Top Secret adventure back in the late 80s or early 90s. I really disliked the shift away from AD&D/D&D at the time, and there is no way I would support such a move today.
Hear hear.
*Anyone else remember the old Marvel feature that used to run monthly in Dragon during the TSR days?
Remember the Marvel features? I used to make monthly trips to the local library with a pocket full of dimes to photo copy every page in all its glory.
I still have those photo copies today.
Having played some superheroes, I've gotta say that d20 just doesn't cut it if you really have an imagination, and so I personally prefer my superheroes from Champions (The Hero System 5th ed.).
If anyone has tried it, then you too know that the point buy system created for Champions is a mathematical masterpiece with better balance than anything ever seen in Gaming.
Hey, I love D&D though, I played it first... and I've played Rolemaster too for years, and love the critical hits, but found it too slow in the end.
Dungeon and Dragon mags for fantasy gaming is fine for me.
Adventures likely wouldn't be greeted well. But, I could see an article in Dragon offering suggestions on how to angle D&D as a superhero game — magic and psionics as "superpowers," employing the tropes of the superhero genre in a sword + sorcery setting, etc...
ahhh, I can see it now: a sidebar on each Dungeon adventure called 'Scaling this adventure for other genres'...
|
Contributor
|
Adventures likely wouldn't be greeted well. But, I could see an article in Dragon offering suggestions on how to angle D&D as a superhero game — magic and psionics as "superpowers," employing the tropes of the superhero genre in a sword + sorcery setting, etc...
That's an interesting idea. It's what I actually strive to do with the D&D/d20 Modern game I run. I use the d20 Modern elements for the run-of-the-mill real-world stuff and the D&D elements for the "okay, you're special, here's how" stuff. It actually works out really well. :)
That's an interesting idea. It's what I actually strive to do with the D&D/d20 Modern game I run. I use the d20 Modern elements for the run-of-the-mill real-world stuff and the D&D elements for the "okay, you're special, here's how" stuff. It actually works out really well. :)
Low level stuff might work for low level heroes (Power Man, Iron Fist, Daredevil, etc.). In my opinion, D&D at high levels (say, level 15+) is already virtually super-hero designed. D&D characters fly, teleport, fire laser beams, etc. usually at will. These advetures would work for medium to high powered super heroes.
The biggest problem (and not the only problem) are D&D adventures typicaly invlove Dungeons. The Avengers don't usually spend a week in a dungeon.....
That's an interesting idea. It's what I actually strive to do with the D&D/d20 Modern game I run. I use the d20 Modern elements for the run-of-the-mill real-world stuff and the D&D elements for the "okay, you're special, here's how" stuff. It actually works out really well. :)Low level stuff might work for low level heroes (Power Man, Iron Fist, Daredevil, etc.). In my opinion, D&D at high levels (say, level 15+) is already virtually super-hero designed. D&D characters fly, teleport, fire laser beams, etc. usually at will. These advetures would work for medium to high powered super heroes.
The biggest problem (and not the only problem) are D&D adventures typicaly invlove Dungeons. The Avengers don't usually spend a week in a dungeon.....
No, but they do tend to get involved in short episodic encounters and battles ;-)
I tend to throw short (3-5 encounter) "dungeons" at my players, and compensate by making the encounters tougher, usually +1 or +2 EL over what the DMG guidelines would suggest. The "dungeon" could be an actual dungeon, a series of linked encounters within a certain neighborhood of a large city, a battlefield, etc. It doesn't have to be a literal dungeon bound by wall of stone with distinct boundaries and rooms.
These smaller "dungeons" get linked together with story elements and set piece encounters that might be 2-3 EL higher than the DMG would recommend. It usually works out (but I fudge a bit with story XP awards) that my players level up with around 8-9 encounters, rather than the standard 12 or 13.
And with having the smaller "dungeons", it makes it easier for my group, since we hit natural break points between the smaller dungeons, rather than stopping at an arbitary point because it got to a certain time in real life, and people had to go home or to work, etc.
If you set all this among a big city like Sharn or Waterdeep, or at least have the campaign routinely return back to the PCs home "metropolis", it can be fairly easy to adapt storylines from comics to DnD. Afterall, you've got a fairly large base of material to cull storylines from that appeal to you ;-)
*One of my favorite blendings of this was working the Eberron equivalent of the JSA into Sharn, with the Last War taking the place of WW2. The PCs then ended up being the new generation of heroes, taking up the mantles of their predecessors. They started off fighting street level crime, and graduated to more "cosmic" villains and world-threatening threats. Plus by making the PCs the 2nd generation (some actually sons/daughters, others sidekicks, or inspired by their childhood heroes, etc), it gave me a good reason to have such disparate heroes meet and work together when the campaign started.
If anyone has tried it, then you too know that the point buy system created for Champions is a mathematical masterpiece with better balance than anything ever seen in Gaming.??
Oh, I get it, that was a joke. Ha ha! Good one!
I'm glad you appreciate my humor.
What a fun game to obscenely power game, though.
If anyone has tried it, then you too know that the point buy system created for Champions is a mathematical masterpiece with better balance than anything ever seen in Gaming.??
Oh, I get it, that was a joke. Ha ha! Good one!
I'm glad you appreciate my humor.
What a fun game to obscenely power game, though.
It's a great system for flexibility. You can, if you figure out how to model it in game mechanics and afford to spend the points, do pretty much anything. It's also reasonably balanced by active point cost. It's a hideously math-intensive process to build a character, though.
I still have all my 4th Ed Champions material and love the system. However, to return to the original topic, I think adding non-D&D adventures to Dungeon would be a bad idea. With the limited page count per issue and the profitablity concerns with possibly alienating core readers, branching out too far (again) would likely "kill the goose." There are people who get upset when setting-specific adventures occur too frequently; how many more would be upset with non-D&D adventures (even other D20 material like D20 Modern)?