PDA

View Full Version : Dungeons & Doctors: Campagin as Dugeoneering Physicians



Leliel
2008-02-05, 06:35 PM
I was watching House the other day when I began to think: "I wonder if D&D has medicine in it? I mean, sure cure disease and heal substitute for it a lot of the time, but what about health issues they can't fix? I have trouble believing that in a fantasy world, there isn't one stubborn germ which hasn't evolved an immunity to magic, nor do I believe positive energy can cure cancer (Which, by the way, I think it would exacerbate, since cancer is caused by an excess of cell growth, and cell growth is the way heal works)." Thus, I came up with an idea:

Players are recent graduates from medical school, or at least, interns/nurses at the clinic where the others go to work. There, they find out about your fairly basic "mad scientist plot to further human evolution" through the strange and normally rare illnesses they have to combat. Of course, they have to deal with normal medical drama problems (Office courtships, Patients developing potentially fatal symptoms, the d20 version of Dr. Gregory House working in the same clinic...), and having to do normal things one would expect in a normal D&D game, such as dungeon crawling (Its surprisingly hard to barter with someone for a medicine that a patient desperately needs if that someone is an illithid). So...

Is this a good idea? What sort of illnesses should the players combat? Should I expect good roleplaying from them? How many times should I kill the player who wants to play the aforementioned fantasy version of Dr. House?

Leliel, I am pleased to inform you that your computer has given birth to a bouncy baby thread.

Now, if it only won't die of malnurtriton...

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-02-05, 06:39 PM
d20 is bad for modeling this, there may be a better system out there, or just homebrew. Other than that, good idea, I hope you enjoy.

horseboy
2008-02-05, 06:43 PM
Shadowrun had campaign notes for stuff like this. The players would work for Doc Wagon, doing hostile extractions for their clients. It would take some pretty good sand lot style players to get it to work.

Illiterate Scribe
2008-02-05, 06:44 PM
http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/thumb/b/b6/Lupus_house.png/353px-Lupus_house.png

More like Mummy Rot, amirite?

Caracol
2008-02-05, 06:46 PM
Nice idea, but d20 is not good to this. Try to develop some personal rule system, with dices if you want (a d6 always work), because the d20 has so much rules that are useless to the setting you want.

Some advices:
-make a BIG research about illness and such.
-more roleplay and less rolling.
-put in some supernatural stuff, (example: vampirism/lycantropy as diseases, supernatural abilities that comes with bacterias or so) but don't let the players know such things from the begining.

If you are still too bound to the d20 system, try d20 Modern.

Grug
2008-02-05, 07:45 PM
There's a passage in Start of Darkness about a magic disease that suppresses the magic power of the infected wizard or sorcerer.

Ever hear of the game Trauma Center: Under the Knife? That had some crazy diseases, like little sharks that use their fins to cut up your liver, or crawling blobs of puss that grow tumors as they pass.

I imagine the players gaining an incredible reputation, and are eventually asked to operate on a god... by going inside it's giant body and fighting germs and squatters at a macro/microscopic level.

Ascension
2008-02-05, 08:56 PM
I imagine the players gaining an incredible reputation, and are eventually asked to operate on a god... by going inside it's giant body and fighting germs and squatters at a macro/microscopic level.

Okay, now that would be awesomely badass and something you could model with a d20 system. A Fantastic Journey-esque dungeon crawl through a god. I want to play this campaign now.

Mewtarthio
2008-02-05, 09:21 PM
Okay, now that would be awesomely badass and something you could model with a d20 system. A Fantastic Journey-esque dungeon crawl through a god. I want to play this campaign now.

Heh. Check the Homebrew Forum for Zeta Kai's Elemental Plane of Flesh.

Prometheus
2008-02-05, 09:35 PM
I think you should turn curing diseases into a strategic minigame on a microscopic level, rather than simply the end result of all their journeying. Something like Trauma Center

-The background is flesh, with zones that empower germs, zones that are particularly vulnerable to germs, and zones that germs cannot pass or are inhospitable. The players are not in the least bit in danger, but the subject is.
-Pathogens/Parasites exist at various points on this background, wrecking havoc everywhere they step. Some are moving randomly, some are moving directly to their targets. Some are harder to kill, larger or smaller, or deal more damage. Some have special abilities that allow them to be harder to detect, only able to be hit with certain types of attacks, be indistinguishable form other pathogens, or deal damage when they are destroyed. Damage goes against the subject's "vitals", ability scores, or hp.
-In addition to normal character advancement, players receive a variety of "powers" that are effective against the pathogens in differing ways. They weaken or destroy them, cover different areas, are effective in varying amounts, possibly relocate, slow or charm pathogens, and sometimes have the additional effect of harming or healing the patient. Other modifications can occur, such as creating zones, creating antibody responses or strengthening them. On that note, some spells just outright heal the person.
-Most if not all the game can be derived from a simplified/modified attack & spell system already in place.
-Some characters receive more microscopic "powers" and less normal "powers", so it is a trade off or specialization like any other.
-Fighting microscopic battle takes normal time, so players may be forced to operate under a time limit, or chose between contributing to each battle.

Riffington
2008-02-05, 09:46 PM
But I play D&D to pretend I'm *not* a doctor!

http://pics.livejournal.com/purrzah/pic/000a04w0/

Leliel
2008-02-06, 06:02 PM
There's a passage in Start of Darkness about a magic disease that suppresses the magic power of the infected wizard or sorcerer.

Ever hear of the game Trauma Center: Under the Knife? That had some crazy diseases, like little sharks that use their fins to cut up your liver, or crawling blobs of puss that grow tumors as they pass.

I imagine the players gaining an incredible reputation, and are eventually asked to operate on a god... by going inside it's giant body and fighting germs and squatters at a macro/microscopic level.

Yeah, that's partially what inspired me.

Now, thaks to Prometheus, I have an idea of how to go about it. Thanks.