Dungeons & Dragons Mod???

[Archilles]

I rummage the forge from time to time, and I think it will be fun to play the
"Warhammer-Mod". I didn´t find something about Dungeons & Dragons.

Warhammer is quite cool, but wouldn´t it be cool to have a D&D-Mod too?

Has anyone heard of someone trying to do that one?

If not, has any modder the desire to start a D&D mod?
I would want to help a bit in this case, if I can.

[Epistolary Richard]

There are a few fantasy mods running around, Warhammer obviously, Blue Lotus as well which you'll find in the Hosted Mods section. Nothing specifically for D&D though. It's not really caught on because of the problems in doing creatures like dragons within the RTW engine.

[Archilles]

You seem to be very knowledgable about those two brands of Fantasy Games. I know Warhammer a bit, collected the Figurines too.

You say that Dragons will be a PITA when created for RTW-D&D-Mod. Well that might be the case, BUT!!! there are dragons in Warhammer too.
Well, and Rome is a strategy game, right? You play a faction, do battles against other factions etc.

I think dragons are no necessity for a D&D-Mod. Just leave the Dragons out, and perhaps the griffons too.

What about an Ogre-Merc-Unit, recruitable by a Factions Family Member,...Trolls would be nice too...and Centaurs, and ... and ...and...

Coming back to Warhammer, the guys doing that mod say that they will do all races ( if I read it correctly ), well thats a lot....and a lot of work. Are they making a dragon? Naahhh. I don´t think so. I check their site sometimes.
-At least they will not spend so much time in making a completely new campaignmap, since Warhammer takes place in...uhm...well... Europe, called "the old world" or so.


I think that they will take no offence if I put their webadress in here, since it seems that their topic swamped down in the forge. The work seems to go on, slowly but hopefully until completion. There are some screens to look at.

Warhammer url : http://www.zodiak-productions.com/

D&D... well, isn´t there anyone........?

[wlesmana]

I'm not familiar with D&D's universe but somehow it makes me think more like "a group on a mission, quest, thing" than "epic melee battle of hacking and slashing" which is what RTW's engine is about.

[Archilles]

That´s alright if you think so Wlesmana.
Primarily it is, as you mention it a classic RPG. That doesn´t have to mean that a D&D Mod for RTW must be in RPG-Style.

In D&D there are many cool Races that have established communities. You know they build Cities, recruit Armies....you see.

D&D would rock hard because of the multitude of Races. Surely there are the same "Major-Races" in D&D and Warhammer.

I only find the D&D setting a bit cooler. There are much more montrous creatures than in Warhammer, that could be well used in RTW.

-Think of the possibilities. Use your imagination wles.

[wlesmana]

Yea, I know that but does it have big batles or wars?
My point is, if there's no big battle or war in D&D universe, why make it D&D?

I'm not saying it's impossible or you shouldn't do it. It's just that the appeal is off. If you want trolls and elves and orcs duking it out, there's METW and FATW. Those got an appeal because people do think about huge wars when they heard the title "lord of the rings".

It'd be like if I were to start Harry Potter: Total War.
Or Tarzan: Total War. Lions vs elephants!!
It's doable. But seems out of place, no?

Of course, you could be more specific and do Dragonlance: Total War or whatever other titles that got huge wars and based on AD&D. Or was that Forgotten Realms? Or something. I don't know all these fantasy books.

[Archilles]

Mmmm...you make me feel sooo cozy, suggesting a Harry Potter Mod.
You´re too funny. ( Naahh, not really )

Ok there are no great wars in the general D&D Setting...I think.

As for the books you did NOT read: Yes there is the Forgotten Realms setting, which is based on the D&D universe. There were some major battles.

As I mentioned before: "-Think of the possibilities. Use your imagination wles."

If you like to read good fantasy you start up with "The Darkelf Trilogy" , then "Icewind Dale Trilogy" and then "The Drow Legacy" <- ( or so ).

Even if there are no big wars in D&D, then we can make it so.

Lord of the Rings is nice, but the "Lord" (Sauron) is a little blockhead that binds his whole power to one ring. What a booby!!! By the way do you know the name "Morgoth"? He was the real Big Badass.
So why not make "The Silmarillion Total War"
But I guess you didn´t read the Silmarillion either.



so proceed to waste your time reading Tarzan and Harry potter!!!


p.s. : What is that FATW you are talking about?

[Archilles]

(Addition, because post was split up)

Even if there are no big wars in D&D, then we can make it so.

Lord of the Rings is nice, but the "Lord" (Sauron) is a little blockhead that binds his whole power to one ring. What a booby!!! By the way do you know the name "Morgoth"? He was the real Big Badass.
So why not make "The Silmarillion Total War"
But I guess you didn´t read the Silmarillion either.

so proceed to waste your time reading Tarzan and Harry potter!!!

p.s. : What is that FATW you are talking about?

[Tittils]

Silmarillion: Total War is already under progress HERE

And FATW, is The Fourth Age: Total War

[Archilles]

Amazing. I haven´t heard of FA:TW until now.

So, there will be the war of the ring, and another setting in Middle Earth.
I´m anxious about that one, since Sauron the Chump will not be the Big Bad Guy.

( Anyway, what was Sauron at all. I missed that part. I mean, what race did he belong to? If anyone knows the answer, please tell me. )

The site: http://www.firstagemods.com/ dosn´t seem to work, I had a blank site.

Thanks for the info Tittils.

So Me:TW and FA:TW are being made, but there is still nothing about D&D.
I still hope that sometime....somewhere....someway....

[Bwian]

Sauron was originally one of the Maiar, the lesser gods. He was one of Aule's folk ( the Smith God ). He was a servant of Melkor, later known as Morgoth and followed him to Angband becoming the most evil of his followers. When Melkor was overthrown by the united forces of the Gods and the Eldar, Sauron went into hiding. He returned in the Second Age to engineer the downfall of Numenor and to set up his stronghold in Middle Earth.

For the full story of the history before the Lord of the Rings, read the Silmarillion.

[Archilles]

I read it, but that was several years ago. And I read it in german. :-(
It was a good book though, and certainly better if I had read it in english.
Sometime I bagan reading books and playing games in original, thus in most cases in english. I think I will read the Silmarillion again...original.

Sauron should be called "Souron", because of his sour mood. :-)

Ok...thanks for remembering me what he was. (So I admit, he was big and bad though, but Melkor was his master right?)

[Bwian]

Melkor was the equal in power of Manwe, the chief of the Valar. So, basically, when he went bad, he was about as bad as it was possible to get. Sauron was less bad, to quote Tolkien, 'only because for many a year he served another'. Melkor's name meant 'He who arises in power'. He was renamed 'Morgoth', meaning 'the black enemy' by Feanor after the theft of the Silmarils

Incidentally.....'sour' IS the correct pronunciation for the first part of Sauron's name. The name meant 'The Abhorred'

OK...thats enough from me...I think I have overdone the sadly encyclopedic knowledge of Tolkien, and must now return to the real world

[Archilles]

Ok then.

Poor Sauron, nobody liked him.

As for Melkor, he wasn´t as powerful as Tulkas, was he?

This is as much Tolkien as it can get.

Sadly I realize that Tolkiens Realm always pounds D&D to the ground.
It seems that not many R:TW Players like D&D much.

[Archilles]

I just want to update this thread a bit, perhaps someone got something to say about this one.

-Keep it up folks

[Ciaran]

Some fantasy mod not entirely relying on one specific universe would be really nice - you´d not have to know each and every edition of the book in every language from memory to avoid getting comments like "read the book!" in every thread.
Something like a Master of Magic mod (those who don´t remember or know, it´s an about ten year old fantasy Civilisations, and still among my all time favourites) would be perfect.

[Bwian]

It's a tricky point really.

If you use someone else's Universe as a theme for an RTW mod, it has to have certain elements. The idea of a D&D mod got little support simply because D&D was an adventure based game focusing on a small party wandering in the wilds chopping lumps out of anything that moved. It never really had any large scale combat EVER.

They invented Warhammer so the guys who had masses of lead miniatures for the game could have some wargaming rules loosely basedo n teh D&D universe ( a Warhammer mod is already underway for RTW by the way... )

Now...when you look at 'Book' based themes, again, you tie yourself COMPLETELY to the book by using it's universe as your base. I am doign a Mod based on Robert E Howard's 'Conan' books. This defines my basic world, gives me the factions and some of the units. It decides broadly speaking what should and shouldn't happen. If I tried to make the Aquilonians into 6 legged weasels, people would complain...and rightly so

If, on teh other hand, you want to make a completely fantasy mod based on astoryline of your own devising in a setting all your own, then that is possible too. I am doing one of those as well with my 'Robot' mod. There is no way people can tell me what can or can't be done here since I am defining the world/factions/background etc. and there are no sources for anyone else to quote

To use multiple sources of story, or to take elements from a variety of sources and try and merge them together is, I believe, a very dangerous thing to attempt. If you get the mix right, it could work very well, but if you get the mix wrong, then you will end up with a mess. You have to balance the whole thing up and fit stuff together for a reason You may think that Teletubbies fit OK into a Lord of the Rings scenario, but the purists would take some convincing....EEk...thats a rather scary image...A horde of axe-wielding Tinky-Winkies charging at you screaming 'ehhh-ohh' before they hack your troops to pieces...anyway...

To get to the rambling point eventually...you CAN make any mod you want. But..if you want to get an audience and have somebody else download it, either do the research and stick closely to your chosen literary inspiration, or start with a clean sheet of paper and invent your own. Trust me...fans of ANY particular book/Mythos/whatever DO NOT like seeing it messed with. If it's not something you know well, and something you are willing to research in depth...well.. you have been warned

If in doubt

a) Choose something obscure
b) Invent your own
c) Do it anyway and ignore anyone who doesn't like your version

[Omegamann]

With D&D you would first have to say which of the universes you want the Mod to be in.
But actually all of these have big factions and wars as an integral part of their background story.
Greyhawk would be nice as its geographicaly factionwise very small in scope.
Forgotten Realms would be quite hard, as it encompasses almost the whole real world with lots of different cultures. Might be doable with a specific part of the world however.
Dragonlance might be a bit difficult because of the dragon mounted knights.
Dark Sun would be very cool, with the Dragon Kings as Factions and large armies of their warriors - though the inherent Psionic Powers of each soldier would have to be done with a little bit of imagination.
Birthright would be perfect, and if I had the time and skill to mod (of both I have only little) then the Birthright Mod fpr MTW would be finished already.

But there is another great (less well known) fantasy setting that would be interresting for RTW and thats Earthdawn.
Sadly nobody had that idea already.

[Archilles]

Mmmmm....

Why must that be so difficult.

As for your joke with the teletubbies, well, we already had a rather bad joke about Harry Potter:TW. I assume you read the thread entirely.

Well, I might be some paces away, in most minds, suggesting a D&D Mod for R:TW.

As with ANY Game or mod that is beiing made, there will be always someone complaining that things are not to his liking. Don´t you think the same Bwian??? So what about a Life of Brian:TW Mod.....You see, if one has enough time, one can make bad jokes.

I just suggested the D&D Universe because it is packed full of cool creatures.
I repeat myself when I admit that in the bulk of the D&D Settings there are no big wars. It mustn´t be too realistic, since, if you let it go through your head, that Rome:TW isn´t too, realistic to the end. Imagine the gauls conquering all of europe. Hehehehe........ So lets just say that there is a war in the "Forgotten Realms".

I don´t really get it why people always mean to "correct" me in some way, some never might have a good idea of their own. You are not ment, but surely there are some who will take this pesonally.

ROME:TOTAL WAR is a GAME!!!. Most games are not as realistic as they intend to be!!!. And if we change an existing game-setting a bit....so what´s the deal??????????????

Some will like it, and some will not.

---I´m tired Bwian


!!!Ohhh, and thank you Omegamann. At least there is one that has a bit of something called "imagination".!!!

Earthdawn" is cool, I played it a bit, after "Shadowrun". There are no wars too, as I know, but it is a HELL of a setting!!!

[L'Impresario]

Actually I was an ADnD fan myself, quite on the elitist side, a campaign should be first of all drafted into a book,follow the settings details to boot and the DM should have at least 2 assistants ...needless to say even with much free time that teenagers get (or create for themselves:p) we didn't manage to play a lot, some of us turned into useless data-carrying devices heh. IIRC I must have 80-90% of all ADnD books (and even some from the 1st edition) published for the Forgotten Realms and Birthright at least up to 1998-99 - was thinking to sell them (surely worth over a 1000$ nowdays) but memories prevented me :)
I remember I liked Forgotten Realms due to the amazingly detailed universe it presented, with a mindblowing amount of interlinking tidbits, very thorough job those TSR fellows did.I think I got my first world history lessons from that setting; there was this campaign setting expansion back I got around 1996 called "The Horde", published in 1989, where it detailed the mongols' life very correctly and historical, while giving them ofc a different name (Tuigan, sp?). Birthright was nice as well, certainly has less than 10% of the material published for FR, but it was more strategy oriented, with nice basic plot line (Gorgon and the hunt for bloodlines if my memory doesn't fail me hehe).
I don't think overly exotic beasts and monsters would be very appropriate for a FR campaign as humanoids had the lion's share of plotting and military clashes,with only ther occassional "monster" working behind the scene.
(See? I haven't opened a ADnD book for more than 3 years and I m starting to have oppinions on this lol)

[Bwian]

Mod limitations have nothing to do with imagination and everything to do with what the game engine is actually capable of. Take your D & D universe, and remove EVERYTHING that isn't human in proportion. What is left is slim pickings for a real D&D mod. I have already made skeleton warriors, centaurs and a few other 'mythic' creatures, but I quickly found what could and couldn't be done. When you strip it back and start fighting large battles, all you have is Warhammer....and that mod is already being made.

Also....Achilles...read the last 3 lines of my post.

a....b....C

Build what you like, as long as you can make it work. The trouble will begin for any 'off the beaten track' kind of mod comes when you need other people to join it. The point I am trying to make above was simple. If you choose an existing work of fiction as the theme for your Mod... YOU MUST STICK TO IT. If you don't want that restriction, Invent your own world!

I have

[wlesmana]

Harry Potter got tons of interesting creatures!





(or so I heard. Never read the books)

[Ciaran]

Bwian:

To use multiple sources of story, or to take elements from a variety of sources and try and merge them together is, I believe, a very dangerous thing to attempt. If you get the mix right, it could work very well, but if you get the mix wrong, then you will end up with a mess. You have to balance the whole thing up and fit stuff together for a reason You may think that Teletubbies fit OK into a Lord of the Rings scenario, but the purists would take some convincing....EEk...thats a rather scary image...A horde of axe-wielding Tinky-Winkies charging at you screaming 'ehhh-ohh' before they hack your troops to pieces...anyway...

What an idea...
No that was actually not what I had in mind in the first place. I was more imagining what you´d call your "average" fantasy setting: a human kingdom like medieval Europe, orcs (green ones! Orcs are green, period), Elves, dwarves, some undead... you get the idea, I think. Just the stereotypical incredienzia for a fantasy world without really being based on any set universe.
Generally, I believe you should make the mods you yourself want to have, because if you like it, chance is that somebody else does so as well and if not, you still got what you like.
I´d do it if I had the three crucial recourses: Time, tools and, most important, know-how, which I don´t have.

[Bwian]

It's something I had started doing under the title of 'Mythology Mod' but abandoned. There is a MAJOR problem.

I made skeletons, I made Centaurs, I made a Giant ....no problem.

I tried to make an Ogre and a Troll...but I had some serious problems making them look like I wanted. The proportions of a normal human don't look right. You need longer arms, shorter legs, broader chest etc. And you CANNOT DO IT. Dwarves...not possible either. You end up with a half sized human, not the broad shouldered, stocky characters they ought to be. They look like children!!!

You can't make the underlying skeletons of the models change yet. It is being worked on, but cannot be done. All the pivots of the skeleton, plus the bones proportions are FIXED. When we can make new skeletons with the correct proportions for fantasy creatures, I might give it another go.

[gardibolt]

There actually is some precedent for a Total War type experience in AD&D. First off, D&D itself started as an offshoot from miniatures combat (Chainmail, etc.) so it was a natural attraction for the gamers & designers. The closest that AD&D got was the Battle System combat series from the late 1980s, which unfortunately got shut down when the 2nd edition books came out. But using that I fought gigantic battles with thousands of troops against wizards & dragons in an AD&D setting. (yes, I'm an old fart) Granted it's not the stereotypical thing one thinks of in D&D but it was definitely there at one point. There's nothing quite as entertaining as the vision of a Blade Barrier under a Telekinesis spell working its way through a horde of orc troops. Whirrrrrrrr!

[Ancient]

Sauron was originally one of the Maiar, the lesser gods. He was one of Aule's folk ( the Smith God ). He was a servant of Melkor, later known as Morgoth and followed him to Angband becoming the most evil of his followers. When Melkor was overthrown by the united forces of the Gods and the Eldar, Sauron went into hiding. He returned in the Second Age to engineer the downfall of Numenor and to set up his stronghold in Middle Earth.

For the full story of the history before the Lord of the Rings, read the Silmarillion.

I'm pretty sure Sauron's race was Ainur, of which the Maiar of Aule were just a division.

"All of the Ainur had the ability to change their form, but none held so many different shapes as Sauron. During the First Age, his accustomed form seems to have been that of a dark sorceror, commanding a host of evil things, and especially werewolves and their kind. He shifted form many times in his existence, though, especially during his duel with Huan; among the shapes he wore were:
• Wolf-Sauron. This was the monstrous wolf-shape he chose when he went forth from his fortress on Tol-in-Gaurhoth to battle with Huan.
• During the battle, he changed his form to that of a serpent in his struggles to escape.
• Finally, after Huan released him, he became a great vampire, and fled into the east, 'dripping blood from his throat upon the trees'."

For more in-depth info about Middle-Earth and it's many characters and their histories, go here:

The Encyclopedia of Arda

[Archilles]

Well, well.

You may have noticed that I wasn´t there for quite a while. In fact, my brothy had me convinced again to multplay some NWN ( Neverwinter Nights )
with him again, so I bought myself the Platinum Edition. Finally some nice "Fantasy-Setting-Slashin". ( Indeed I recommendet him to get it a few years ago, too, but it was getting dusty in some corner )

I have already begun to make NWN a bit more "strategical" in a module. You know, there is a war between the good and the evil races,....the usual.
Since my Athlon64 allows to have MASSIVE battles, well, you know the deal.... slashin as many goblinoids as possible. ( As Elven- Druid-Shifter )
Kinda Fun, I tell ya!

But its nothing as R:TW. It is great alright, but there is no sort of coop-option in R:TW so the "hot feeling of ambition" in oneself dissolves rather quickly. (SIGH!!!!!)

Im glad to see that this topic didnt swamp out too much, maybe someone may add some other post.

-Don´t stop dreamin, there is much to dream of!


So, until later mayhaps.