Favorite D&D Decendant

[turkishproverb]

I was wondering what everyone's favorite decended game from Dungeons anddragons is, aside from later Editions.

There are a few of them out there, after all. Castles and Crusades, for example. Or Hackmaster (4E).

This second is my personal favorite, what with the sheer amount of bizzare rules (TELEPORT: Intercampagnia) and the character background tables (your mother never loved you)

[bosssmiley]

Labyrinth Lord.
It reminds me of the days when I was a small, squeaky geek.

*sighs nostalgically, goes rooting for his old BECMI boxes*

Jeff Rients' Incomplete Guide to Retro-clone Games

[LibraryOgre]

Palladium, especially Palladium Fantasy.

[OverdrivePrime]

I love the Palladium settings (particularly Rifts and Phase World), but I hate the system with an unholy passion. I seem to be somewhat of a masochist, because I'm running a Heroes Unlimited Game in Rifts where the heroes have been D-Ported in to fight the Mechanoids, and good freaking lord, I'm just constantly houseruling everything to get even some semblance of functionality out of the system. The storytelling part is an absolute blast though.


Favorite D&D descendant of mine though is Shadowrun. Love the setting, love the system, and love working on a way to port the system to a medieval fantasy setting.

[LibraryOgre]

I love the Palladium settings (particularly Rifts and Phase World), but I hate the system with an unholy passion.

Honest question: Why?

Favorite D&D descendant of mine though is Shadowrun. Love the setting, love the system, and love working on a way to port the system to a medieval fantasy setting.

I don't think I'd call Shadowrun a D&D descendant. They share some Tolkienian DNA, but it's mechanically and thematically pretty different from D&D.

[Tengu_temp]

I don't think if Shadowrun is a DND descendant, either. Unless all non-DND RPGs are DND descendants.

As for the actual question - Mutants and Masterminds (2e), baby!

[OverdrivePrime]

Fair enough, I was questioning myself when I wrote that. I figured Elves, Magic, Magic Swords, Trolls, Dragons... eh, it's a descendant. But maybe only thematically.

Honest question: Why?

Well, as I mentioned, I have to do a ton of on-the-fly houseruling to run a game. Rifts+Heroes Unlimited is probably a worst case scenario, so I'm torturing myself, but I still haven't found rules for something as simple as a spot check.

But maybe that's because of my other complaint about Palladium Books, which is that they have the worst editing and book organization of any system I've ever played. That they didn't even have the decency to clean up the glaring typos in their recent updates to the Rifts book is unconscionable.

I like the skill mechanics, but I hate that there is no difference in attributes ranging from 8-16 (except for speed), and I really hate that Physical Prowess is the end-all-be-all god stat for the game. If people used a point buy system to create Palladium characters, you'd find most people sinking as many points as possible into physical prowess, and then just enough into PE & ME to keep above awful. Maaaybe a little strength if you're a warrior.

I strongly dislike the amount of bookkeeping that needs to be done on both the part of the player and the game master to figure out if you've managed to hit someone. Target number is 5, but are they dodging? Okay, well what if you're doing a called shot? How about if they're running? And you're prone? Modifier after modifier, and they're all in different parts of the book, and not in any sort of index.

Seriously, I'd probably enjoy the system a lot more if I just spent a year copy-editing and indexing pro-bono for Palladium Books.

[Ethdred]

I'd always thought of Shadowrun as 'D&D meets cyberpunk' (and I'm sure I'd heard it described as that in several places). yes, mechanically very different, but it felt very similar to me. Maybe that was just the way we played it :)

[Kurald Galain]

DND sector in Alpha Complex.

[LibraryOgre]

Fair enough, I was questioning myself when I wrote that. I figured Elves, Magic, Magic Swords, Trolls, Dragons... eh, it's a descendant. But maybe only thematically.

See, I have problems with saying that having things like that makes it a D&D descendant. You see most of those in the stories of Sigurd, Beowulf, Roland... heck, Poul Anderson wrote a fair number of fantasies with those elements before Chainmail broke off from medieval war gaming.

Well, as I mentioned, I have to do a ton of on-the-fly houseruling to run a game. Rifts+Heroes Unlimited is probably a worst case scenario, so I'm torturing myself, but I still haven't found rules for something as simple as a spot check.

Perception rules were first published in Nightspawn/Nightbane; they've been in every game since then, IIRC.

But maybe that's because of my other complaint about Palladium Books, which is that they have the worst editing and book organization of any system I've ever played. That they didn't even have the decency to clean up the glaring typos in their recent updates to the Rifts book is unconscionable.

True dat, though the second printing of the RUE did.

I like the skill mechanics, but I hate that there is no difference in attributes ranging from 8-16 (except for speed), and I really hate that Physical Prowess is the end-all-be-all god stat for the game. If people used a point buy system to create Palladium characters, you'd find most people sinking as many points as possible into physical prowess, and then just enough into PE & ME to keep above awful. Maaaybe a little strength if you're a warrior.

I've got an article submitted to the Rifter you might like; "Pimp my Skill Monkey" that addresses a lot of these problems (including the Perception question).

Seriously, I'd probably enjoy the system a lot more if I just spent a year copy-editing and indexing pro-bono for Palladium Books.

Actually, I've been slowly working on a PDF for them of their basic system. I'm just lazy at finishing it.

[OverdrivePrime]

I've got an article submitted to the Rifter you might like; "Pimp my Skill Monkey" that addresses a lot of these problems (including the Perception question).

Actually, I've been slowly working on a PDF for them of their basic system. I'm just lazy at finishing it.

Mr. Hall, your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. No, seriously.

I've got a Rifts limited edition book (black, not RUE unfortunately), would the perception rules somehow migrated into there? All of my Palladium books are a minimum of 10 years old, with the exception of the black Rifts book, Heroes Unlimited 2nd edition and a few copies of the Rifter.

[Matthew]

Hmmn. Dunno, hard to say really. I prefer the iterations that remain closer to the source, but I don't know that I have a favourite, as I borrow from almost all of them to some degree.

[Dhavaer]

As for the actual question - Mutants and Masterminds (2e), baby!

Agreed! Agreed!