Results 1 to 22 of 22
-
2020-12-11, 09:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
I just thought of something, what if Dungeons & Dragons was a fighting game just like the one in the Super Smash Bros. series? Think about it, all the Iconic D&D Deities, Cosmic Lords, and Elemental Lords fight to the death of the D&D Universe. I can see Corellon Latherian fighting against Grummsh using his signature moves. The name of the video game should be called D&D Cosmic Royale or something like that? What does everyone else think of the idea?
Last edited by Bartmanhomer; 2020-12-11 at 09:44 PM.
It's time to get my Magikarp on!
-
2020-12-11, 10:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
Something tells me there's not a ton of overlap between fighting game fans and D&D players. And I say that as someone who is both.
Moreover, D&D's not exactly ripe with good options for characters for such a game. It's a bunch of disparate settings that often have little in common besides including the same sets of fantasy races. The overlap of certain deities - mainly the non-Human racial ones like Correllon, Yondalla, Tiamat, etc - is the biggest link between many of them. But unless you did a fighting game of just gods, most of the D&D crowd would likely complain about a game in which much weaker, mortal characters can fight evenly with gods. (While it's hardly unheard of for fighting games to just handwave such power level differences for the sake of a fun game, I strongly suspect that D&D players are among the groups most likely to protest doing any such thing, given how focused we can get on rules that exist to delineate such power levels.) And yet it's those mortal characters that are more the famous faces of each setting - more people will recognize Drizzt and Elminster than Shar and Selūne. Makes the whole concept rather hard to pull off in a way that would satisfy the main audience you'd be aiming it at.
Also, what "signature moves?" Aside from spells that are named after certain wizards like Mordenkainen or Bigby, of which there are only a handful when you get right down to it, D&D characters (and gods) don't really have those.Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
-
2020-12-11, 10:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
There was a Dungeons and Dragons fighting game. It was called Iron and Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft and it came out for the Playstation in 1996. Came to DOS systems a year later. It got, as one would predict, terrible terrible reviews.
-
2020-12-11, 10:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
Wait, there was? *goes and looks this up*
Wow. My god, the camera angles. And the voices. And are those random torches on the side of the screen supposed to be your health bars? Damn. I've seen jankier old fighting games, but not many.Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
-
2020-12-11, 10:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
-
2020-12-11, 11:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
gods? not good as fighters. you want each fighter to be as iconic and memorable as possible. and gods in most DnD games are a name or a plot device in the lives of the PCs. maybe a villain. you don't need to bring them in.
but really, If DnD was a fighting game?
Drizzt and Elminster would definitely be in it as Ranger and Wizard representation. Drizzt would probably be the main character of any given story mode since he is probably the more relatable and down to earth and fighter-like of the two. they'd probably put Wulfgar in there as the barbarian representation and to be Drizzt's Krillin. the question is what characters you give to the other nine classes, which this being DnD might be entirely custom (bard would easily be the lethal joke character that everyone plays to be funny and style on more serious ones). when all twelve or thirteen classes are filled probably with some artificer from Eberron, you'd probably start thinking about what things from the monster manual can be used as a fighter. a doppelganger or changeling would make great copycat fighters, some small dragon with switch scale colors would be for the draconic representation and to have a heavier super armor fighter, a mindflayer would be one of the fighters and so would a Beholder, then a mimic, of course a succubus would be in there as well because marketing, if they're pandering put in a Matt Mercer/Wildemount character, put in a Slaad and Modron just to be two other joke characters, a lich to be the former evil boss character you unlock, and maybe some devil and demon as well, probably one angel to represent the upper planes, you might get some kind of ooze as a fourth joke character, maybe a vampire because they're cool for some reason....
after that it becomes a question of what you want take to represent specific settings. I could see a Thri-Keen being the Dark sun representation, Planescape would probably just have Sigil be a stage to fight on with the Lady of Pain watching in the background despite how illogical that is (maybe the story is that the Lady of Pain randomly decided to hold a tournament for some reason and brought a bunch of fighters across the planes to fight?) I dunno any ravenloft stuff, the vampire might be ravenloft representation I don't know, if they'd have Dragonlance representation they'd probably go for Raistlin, don't really know any of the other settings to say much.
But then they'd have a crossover fighter from Magic the Gathering show up which stirs up controversy and buzz about the game and thus increase sales from everyone being so curious about what fans are getting angry about this time.
but yeah it'd probably become a monster manual display game as more DLC comes out, because things like a fighter or whatnot, those are common, they're vanilla and in every fighting game with medieval aesthetics you want to play nothing but those, you can go play Soul Calibur stuff, so to differentiate you'd have to focus on the monsters and how they fight which is something people have not seen before but have the normal DnD classes in for new players to pick up easily.
-
2020-12-11, 11:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
- Location
- Imagination Land
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
The main issue here is that fighting games are primarily character based, and in D&D people generally create their own characters.
But beyond that, it's just a genre mismatch. RPGs for the most part don't easily convert into fighting games, and that's even considering video game RPGs with a fixed cast of characters. Not to say it's never been done, but it's pretty rare. To do it with D&D would be even harder, because while D&D as a game is more about fighting, the D&D films or novels that would have solid characters to use are more about the story.
It would be at least as hard as turning The Lord of the Rings into a fighting game.
On the other hand, there are other action genres that can work better for D&D. Arcade beat-em-ups or games like Gauntlet would be fine for generic D&D character classes, and have been made with relative success in the past.
-
2020-12-12, 12:28 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
Well see, that you could absolutely do much more easily than D&D. It has a cast of well-known characters to use, many of whom could easily be assigned common fighting game playstyles (the hardest would be deciding how to differentiate the four Hobbits). There's nothing like D&D's hyper-specific rules system spelling out how powerful characters should be relative to each other - you might upset some people depending on how you handled magic-users like Gandalf, but that's about it. It has a deep well of additional characters to draw upon to add to a game via DLC or sequels. The only problem I'd say it shares with D&D is that there's probably not a ton of overlap between big LotR fans and fighting game fans - though more, I'd wager, than there is between D&D and fighting game fans, thanks to the movies giving LotR more mainstream popularity than D&D.
Really, the characters are the biggest thing. Your point about how D&D is designed for player-created characters is kind of a big one - D&D's classes are far more iconic to it than any individual characters are. But nobody is going to want to pick up a D&D fighting game to play Generic Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard. You either need to use existing individuals like Drizzt & co, or make up characters to fill the class' roles - the latter of which will not draw half as much interest as the former, while the former has very limited options to choose from before you get into characters that only longtime D&D players will recognize.Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
-
2020-12-12, 12:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
-
2020-12-12, 02:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
This is the key. You can make a fighting game by grafting movesets onto pretty much any array of characters and positing some scenario where they all have to fight each other because reasons that doesn't actually make any sense and so long as the combat and art style are compelling you can make a popular fighting game. Witness the madness that is the Melty Blood franchise, a game where multiple playable characters are chibi-cat versions of other characters and there are not only playable maid characters but mecha-versions of those characters. Fighting games are also relatively cheap to make if you already have all the artistic assets in place, so you can make them as cheap cash grabs like Persona 4 Arena.
Consequently, you couldn't make a D&D fighting game because D&D has no characters but you could make a Baldur's Gate fighting game, because those games have characters people actually like and the characters have pre-existing class/race and sometimes even favored weapon combinations you could use to graft a moveset onto. I would play Baldur's Gate Ultimate All-Stars, especially if you gave Minsc an ultimate move where Boo grows Godzilla-sized and stomps your opponent.
-
2020-12-12, 04:24 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
- Location
- Imagination Land
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
-
2020-12-12, 11:09 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
Last edited by Zevox; 2020-12-12 at 11:28 AM.
Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
-
2020-12-12, 03:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2015
-
2020-12-12, 08:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
D&D Multiverse Royale sounds like a better name for it.
It's time to get my Magikarp on!
-
2020-12-13, 08:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
I could see it. I'm actually thinking of a fairly old fighting game, Hippodrome
The default is that you're a warrior, and you're fighting these various monsters. You buy equipment for your fights, getting you better and better at facing opponents. But what if we went full-on Street Fighter 2 with it?
Instead of "You are this one dude", you've got five to ten different options. Each has their own, notional, storyline (it's a fighting game, after all; the story is told in cut scenes between the fights). Each has their own abilities and style.
Now, as a fighting game, you don't have a lot of choices in the stories. Your "fighter" is always going to be a dragonborn, and one of his special abilities will be fire breath. Your halfling will be able to disappear and slide somewhere else as an escape move (though, those skilled in the game know exactly how far she goes). You might even be able to buy certain kinds of advances... your sorcerer could choose to improve certain moves, leaving others fallow.
It would be more D&D branded than proper D&D, but it could work.The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
-
2020-12-14, 08:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2006
- Location
- Poland
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
A D&D-themed fighting game is theoretically feasible. I'm not sure why it would involve deities instead of D&D characters and monsters, though. That's what people care about in D&D, not deities.
My FFRP characters. Avatar by Ashen Lilies. Sigatars by Ashen Lilies, Gullara and Purple Eagle.
Interested in the Nexus FFRP setting? See our Discord server.
-
2020-12-14, 09:02 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
-
2020-12-14, 09:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
So, thinking on this, I see a few ways to do it.
I'd have you pick your character. Simple method is simple characters... dragonborn fighter is different from dwarven cleric is different from halfling monk. If you wanna get fancy, pick race and class, and certain move combos are set up for races, others for classes... so the classic down, right, fierce might always correspond to a special class attack, but down down jab might always be a race attack. This would make halfling monks different from human monks different from human wizards. The simple method lets you do more of a story, but you could also toss in a "background"... which doesn't add to the game play, but creates a story you're following... your "Abandoned at birth" monk will have the same story as your "abandoned at birth" wizard, whether a tiefling or a gnome.
Now, most of the action is character v. character, and if the system randomizes a bit, this could make story mode fun (Last time, you were fighting a halfling monk, who is short and fast; this time, it is a half-orc barbarian, who has incredible reach). However, you'd also have "challenge stages", like Street Fighter 2's "Beat up a Car" stages... but instead of a car, you'd fight monsters.
In my head, TBH, I'm picturing Tower of Doom, but that's because I'm old and you damn kids should get off my lawn.The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
-
2020-12-28, 01:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
There were those two side scrolling beat 'em ups made by Capcom, Tower of Doom and Shadow over Mystara, I figure if you were to use those as a base then going from "Final Fight, but D&D" to "Street Fighter, but D&D" wouldn't be too much of a stretch
-
2020-12-28, 07:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
Ahead of y'all. It would work %100, we just need someone to make it.
Also it's deities precisely because they're the closest to "iconic characters" you can get outside of various novel protagonists. Monsters aren't unique enough.Founder of the Fanclub of the (Late) Chief of Cliffport Police Department (He shall live forever in our hearts)
CATNIP FOR THE CAT GOD! MILK FOR THE MILK BOWL!
Shameless shill:
-
2020-12-30, 12:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
- Gender
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
What I'd picture for a D&D fighting game is something like a Soul Calibur but with more magic and projectiles. I think it would be best as a multiverse-crossing game rather than setting-specific, so that you can throw in Drizzt, Elminster, etc. alongside people like Strahd von Zarovich, Mordenkainen, and Raistlin Majere. And it'd be a great way to make Tasslehoff Burrfoot piss off a whole new generation of D&D players.
I thought about writing out a list of characters I'd like to see included, but I stopped when I realized Faerun made up about 50% of the list. Not because it's my favorite, but because WotC haven't promoted other settings as much and so I just don't know enough about many of them, even as a nearly 20-year D&D vet, to represent them equally. At the very least I'd want to see several notable Dragonlance characters, a few good Ravenloft picks (Strahd obviously but at least one or two others), some Greyhawk characters, and at least token representation of a few others that I'm less familiar with.
I wouldn't get bogged down in worrying about representing every specific class, let alone representing them equally. If we have three wizards but no sorcerers, that's not gonna bother me at all.
One other thing I'd like to see which is difficult (though not unprecedented) in such a game is a robust create-a-character mode, with characters that end up as more than a clone of an existing character. This could be accomplished either by having generic move sets in the Create-A-Fighter mode, or (my preference) something like the the CAF mode in Deadly Arts for the Nintendo 64, where you can mix & match individual moves by training against different opponents to develop a customized move set over time.
-
2021-01-01, 07:06 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
Re: What If Dungeons & Dragons Was A Fighting Game?
Instead of a traditional 2d fighter, why not go the Ultimate Ninja/Jump All Stars-esque route? 3d arena fighter, characters have their unique specials and you can have a custom loadout of limited-use items like poisoned darts, potions with special buffing effects, scrolls with spells, aoe bombs like thunderstones/alchemist fire/etc... Embrace the goofiness that can come about with D&D's actual combat and go a bit more towards the exaggerated end rather then realistic combat.