THAC0 with Advantage. Genres of Fantasy Within DnD

Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is the cool side of the pillow stuffed with d20s.

There are a large number of genre’s that Dungeons and Dragons says it can emulate. Ang and Jared go through them and provide advice on what they think works, doesn’t work, and some general thoughts on how players and GMs might make them work. They also get into their campaign journal and talk about their Tales of the Valiant playtesting.

Fun Factoid

D&D has attempted to emulate genre with various settings in the past. One example of this was the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Lankhmar, City of Adventure supplement, which attempted to downplay the effectiveness of D&D style magic for player characters to emulate the more barbarian/fighter/thief focused aspects of the setting. All the spells in the game had their casting time bumped up to the next tier, so rounds became turns (10 rounds) to cast, and hours became days. That all seems like a lot of work compared to just giving the Gray Mouser the Magic Initiate feat.

• Write for Gnome Stew
• Cinema and Sorcery: The Comprehensive Guide to Fantasy Film – Green Ronin Online Store
• Brennan Lee Mulligan’s ‘Rolling with Emphasis’ mechanic via DnD Shorts