Would anyone else love a pen and paper DoD? Obviously there's very little chance that anyone would take the time to put one together, and it would be churlish to suggest that Gaslamp do it, I'm more just wondering if anyone else thinks the variety in DoD and the whole setup would work wonderfully as a semi-comedy/semi-depressing nihilistic gothic horror thing. Just my thoughts, I was interested to see if anyone else has been having odd DoD pen and paper cravings.
Well, the whole system would probably be easy to set up as either a simple tabletop game with 2 or 3 skill trees per character, or a more complicated fully-fledged dungeon raid tabletop RPG. The fact that most abilities come from skills you choose means you won't have to remember the effects of dozens of skills, but just the few you use, which would definitely be a bonus. But personally I didn't think about creating such a thing. The idea is neat, but it requires time, which is the one thing that I currently don't have much of.
The basic gameplay could work quite well for a boardgame as is, though for an RPG the skill system could work quite well, though would of course, need fleshing out to cover more of the non-combaty and NPC interactive stuff, as well as a few changes for the differences in nature of an PRG when compared to the Digital Game
It depends on how much you want it to be close to the original, because for example the main system as is, would be a b*tch to handle - the PC has no problems with it. For example the scaling effects of abilities would have to be very simplified if the game is to be played without a calculator.
I think you could do it if you scaled down all of the values to match a d20 system. Traps, haywire, blocking, and other things seem like they'd work well in d20. Exceptions could work by using multipliers or +/- after the initial DC roll.
Actually, it would be possible to make it use a d100 system, since (for all we know) DoD uses a single die for all real throws, even if sometimes more than one test is performed. Then again, d20 seems more convenient, as throwing a d100 is usually equivalent to throwing two dice, and with most things probably being simplified, the range of 1-20 seems to be wide enough.
I have written quite a few rpg's in my time (both larp, pnp and working on a boardgame currently) and, while DoD is a great game for computers, it just isnt viable for physical gameplay being as advanced as it is from a mechanical point of view. Also keep in mind that DoD is intrinsicly a single player experience - if you expand it to multiple players you might as well play descent but if you keep it a solo player experience there isnt really much "game" in it. Making it into a pnp rpg might be a better approach honestly but then you run into the same problems as above - it is a dungeon crawl and there are already systems for that so DoD rpg needs to stand out in some way from games like DnD or Toon if you want to keep it wacky. There needs to be some kind of focus to the game other than "dungeon crawl". I know this sounds very negative but it really isnt meant like that - it is just to line up a few of the things which needs to be worked around and considered before such an endavoure should take place.
A single point on d20 is like 5 points on d100, so I think it will be good enough. While DoD seems to use d100, for the purpose of a RPG or a boardgame it is indeed too fine scale.
That's a good point...there might be too many factors to consider all at once, especially with so many resistances and damage types and other things. Maybe if DoD was simplified down a little...
I could see it as a boardgame. It could be using Space Hulk-ish tiles to connect together however the fancy strikes you and then grabbing a few monster or item tokens everytime you enter a room to see what did you find. Heck, this way it could be even a card game. Munchkin uses similar system, right? Anyways, resistances could be packed into a few broader categories ("elemental", "supernaturnal" - like righteous, existence, aethereal, necromantic, etc. and "other"), same as slashing/piercing/etc. into physical. Even primary and secondary stats might be simplified. That way many of in-game items lose their differences, but the game will be quite simpler. Combat could be done with die roll+stat bonus, in case of hit target takes damage reduced by its resistances. Playable solo or even with multiple characters, in that case players will take their turns in order. It is just a simple idea, but I can expand it, should you wish.
I don't know, the last RPG I played was a home-made one, and it did use 20-sided dice. The one before, on the other hand, did use 10-sided ones. WF was sometime before that, and it was fun (though my character was an idiot).
True, Spacehulk is quite good in this respect but having a Dungeon Master kind of player would make this distinctly not-DoD for me at least. Part of the experience is that there IS no DM and thus, noone to pity you or spare your life. Using Munchkin or Warhammer Quest-esque systems might work better in this regard. There is still the matter of the number of players to consider though - making it a non-singleplayer experience will change it from a roguelike per default because roguelikes are characterized by being singleplayer by their very nature. One could expand on the Munchkin/WQ idea though with players making up the dungeon as they go along, using a "draw a token from a bag" system whenever a door is opened and thus expanding the dungeon.
Well, by using Space Hulk system of generating dungeon I didn't mean to have another player as a DM. You can still play it by yourself and draw all the tokens, ets. All monsters found in the room will spawn on the opposite side, that way non-melee characters will have a chance and melee characters have some extra time to strategize. Even rooms can consist of several (depending on their size) tiles, which could also be drawn randomly and, when character moves on them, flip them to see if there is a trap, or maybe flip adjacent tiles as "spotting" them. Monsters will be immune to them to make the game a bit harder. Disarming can be done by die roll+character level vs. trap rating (no trap affinity, to keep it simpler). Heck, even with blessing of the devs, the whole game can use in-game graphics.
So as far as I get it, people want this not to be single player (since playing a boardgame by yourself kinda defeats the idea of making it a boardgame in the first place), we want it to have no Dungeon Master while retaining random rooms, loot and monsters and traps. I will hopefully have some time the next few weeks so if people want it I would be happy to make a very rough sketch of rules for such a game. If the GLG guys are interested I would happily join in on a DoD boardgame dungeon crawler for 3-5 players or something like that with diggles, loot, traps and stuff like that all over the place.
Two ways to go for dungeon generation is (for a board game) 1. To have a deck of premade room cards (that likely corospond to room tiles), then as a door gets opened, a new room is added (if a room wont fit due to playing area the door is a wall). This has the advantage that unlike the computer game there isnt a space limitation on the size and shape of the room other than by that of the playing surface. 2. Is to have random table(s) of rooms, rather than the cards. In both ways it would simiulate the random generation of levels and the unknown parts too. While given it is layed out you could play it as single player, though why you would do that over the computer game (which would do the experience more efficiently) I'm unsure.
I think that the room generation is something that could be made similar to one seen in Dungeoneer. Though the rooms themselves would likely be different, as would the classes, since the system seen in Dungeoneer would not work in a game where there are more skills, some with rather weird effects.
