Dungeon Fantasy in Discworld

[vitruvian]

Was musing about this - I know the license has not been renewed so we'll probably never get anything official - but given how much of the earlier Discworld books were built on classic sword&sorcery tropes, it should be doable. Potential problems include the lack of playable elves (since elves are pretty much evil interdimensional invaders), the lack of much in the way of magic-wielding clerics, and the insanity of trying to use healing magic on Discworld even if such existed.

Still, the third note in this Pyramid article.... http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/login...?id=2919#Note3
makes it almost irresistible to contemplate.

I don't really see a way around the elvish problem, other than to put another nonhuman race in their spot. Goblins/pictsies are a little rambunctious for the role, but can take the place of gnomes and halflings.

For the clerics, one could easily have a small cabal of gods (maybe ones that haven't won admittance to the inner circles of Dunmanifestin) that have taken up the practice of actually granting specific boons to their followers in order to recruit more. It could be a sort of pyramid scheme with multiple levels based on how many idiots (worshippers) one manages to recruit or how much of one's finances get turned over to the church, kind of like Scientology except that some of the granted powers actually work (at least when the gods are actually paying attention). As for healing, either exclude those spells, or have them possess random side effects in keeping with the nature of Discworld magic.

Two initial thoughts for dungeons in Discworld (other than the Dungeon Dimensions, which are a different sort of thing) - Evil Harry Dread could easily have had a son at Unseen University with ambitions to do everything on a grander scale than his father; and more locally to Ankh-Morpork, the dwarves seem to have dug a huge network of tunnels under the city that, at least until they put the golem-powered subway lines in, could serve as a most admirable dungeon crawl.

[LoneWolf23k]

For Elves, one could introduce a race of Half-Elves to fill in the "mortal pointy-eared nature-lover" role, with a sketchy connection to normal Discworld elves..

[Frost]

I'm not overly fond of the DF concept but this sounds too much fun not to consider as a one off thing. To keep with the Discworld theme I would do without Elves compleatly. If somebody is determined to play one treat them as being of elven ancestry let them take the traditional elven skills and such and a disadvantage. I would sugest either an Unnatural Feature (pointy ears) and a Bad Reputation (elf, at least -2 with trolls and dwarves, all of the time) or Social Stigma (bit elvish arround the ears), I think that is the term.

As for Clerics, for the sake of convention maybe you could use priests of various small gods in the healer role. My sugestion would be to grant healing spells and other devine blessings with an automatic (minimal if it matters) sucess based upon a reaction roll, modified acording to any number of factors for example the clerics obedience to devine commandments and how often the cleric has called for help in the last day or so.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Was musing about this - I know the license has not been renewed so we'll probably never get anything official

I don't know where you got that information from; so far as I know, the license is still valid. The two books are still in print (and I'm still getting royalties for them).

(I'd love to do a 4th edition update for the subject some time, but that might be hard to arrange, sadly.)

Originally Posted by vitruvian

- but given how much of the earlier Discworld books were built on classic sword&sorcery tropes, it should be doable. Potential problems include the lack of playable elves (since elves are pretty much evil interdimensional invaders), the lack of much in the way of magic-wielding clerics, and the insanity of trying to use healing magic on Discworld even if such existed.

The lack of magical healing is a bind, but a competent witch can provide something of a workaround, and I suspect that any self-respect barbarian hero with a taste for extended plunder raids would take Very Rapid Healing.

[quarkstomper]

Use Headology. That's what Granny Weatherwax would do.

Do regular First Aid and then roll the healer's Headology skill vs. the subject's IQ, just like an influence roll, modified for the situation, (i.e. how much the subject believes the healer can do this). On a success, the subject temporarily gains the advantages of Fit and/or High Pain Threshold. The actual healing takes place naturally, but is encouraged by the subject's belief.

[Lonewulf]

Originally Posted by quarkstomper

Use Headology. That's what Granny Weatherwax would do.

Do regular First Aid and then roll the healer's Headology skill vs. the subject's IQ, just like an influence roll, modified for the situation, (i.e. how much the subject believes the healer can do this). On a success, the subject temporarily gains the advantages of Fit and/or High Pain Threshold. The actual healing takes place naturally, but is encouraged by the subject's belief.

Wait, how does High Pain Threshold help healing?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Lonewulf

Wait, how does High Pain Threshold help healing?

Who said it helped healing?

It just makes the victim think they're better because they're not hurting so much.

[Lonewulf]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Who said it helped healing?

It just makes the victim think they're better because they're not hurting so much.

Well, he DID say

The actual healing takes place naturally, but is encouraged by the subject's belief.

That applies for Fit (+1 to HT checks, including healing checks), sure. Was just wondering if there was some way it could apply to HPT.

[quarkstomper]

It doesn't; but I was trying to model the "placebo effect".

I was also rattling off the top of my head and wasn't entirely thinking things through.

[vitruvian]

Do regular First Aid and then roll the healer's Headology skill vs. the subject's IQ, just like an influence roll, modified for the situation, (i.e. how much the subject believes the healer can do this). On a success, the subject temporarily gains the advantages of Fit and/or High Pain Threshold. The actual healing takes place naturally, but is encouraged by the subject's belief.

Maybe roll vs. First Aid and Headology, with a success (or maybe only a critical success) allowing use by the injured party of the Flesh Wounds cinematic rule, reducing damage to 1 HP. Let the CP be expended by whichever party has one or more to spare. This would make for a powerful but sparingly used 'healing' ability.

Of course, certain heroic character types (e.g., True Barbarian Heroes) might be able to invoke Flesh Wounds on their own, without a witch's Headology to help, especially if their survival and relative health are in accord with the Narrative.