I like the idea of having horrific creatures start popping up, and it leading into something more towards the scifi end of the spectrum. Ancient automata begin reactivating and causing havoc. Maybe they are being controlled or maybe they are just running on their ancient orders. Heck you could do something a bit crazy and have the yuan ti be behind it and they are trying to reclaim their great empire with their ancient magitek or maybe something else they discovered. This could be used with darn near any race as the antagonist, dwarves, gnomes, hobgoblins. I just like yuan ti as bad guys.
Consider even taking other creatures and remaining them to more mechanical nature. Robotic flail snail was an ancient janitor, with self preservation protocols. I dunno, you have gotten a lot of awesome advice so far. Just wanted to give other options and ideas. A tour of the planes could be interesting and nifty too. Get pulled into a portal and do something like sliders, going from portal to portal trying to get home.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Science fiction and fantasy are basically the same thing when it comes to magic/tech. They're just different veneers on the same basic thing: doing something beyond reasonable human limitations.
If you can't flavour it that way in your mind to help you then maybe try a compromise option like Eberron where it's more magi-punk? If that doesn't work then forcing it is never going to work for you or for them so maybe just ask to be a player (can you enjoy playing in a fantasy game?) or drop out. It's sad but that's just how things have to work out sometimes.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
Science fiction and fantasy are basically the same thing when it comes to magic/tech. They're just different veneers on the same basic thing: doing something beyond reasonable human limitations.
If you can't flavour it that way in your mind to help you then maybe try a compromise option like Eberron where it's more magi-punk? If that doesn't work then forcing it is never going to work for you or for them so maybe just ask to be a player (can you enjoy playing in a fantasy game?) or drop out. It's sad but that's just how things have to work out sometimes.
It isn’t “magic”. It’s the fantasy tropes I find so boring. Look, it’s an elf who is good with a bow, 🥱. The dwarf hits it with her warhammer 🥱. The wizard casts fireball... again😴. D&D is solidly built on those tropes and I find them sooooo boring. Yes I could run a different system, I could home brew this world to be less predictable, but my players want plain old milk toast D&D. So I’m looking for a way for me to “get into it” without changing too much for them. I told one of the players yesterday that I was thinking about letting somebody else take over as GM. I had all the notes for this campaign if they wanted to continue or they could just do something on their own and he got super concerned. Telling me how the group would probably dissolve if I stopped running the game and that they’re all having a really good time and don’t want to stop. Considering I put this group together I feel like I have to continue.
Second that, give them a damsel in distress that plans to eat them later. Have them find a room full of wonderous treasures and suddenly.mimics try to eat them. Have the kidnapped nobleman be the kingpin of a drug syndicate that the kidnappers were vigilantes trying to protect their city.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
It isn’t “magic”. It’s the fantasy tropes I find so boring. Look, it’s an elf who is good with a bow, 🥱. The dwarf hits it with her warhammer 🥱. The wizard casts fireball... again😴. D&D is solidly built on those tropes and I find them sooooo boring. Yes I could run a different system, I could home brew this world to be less predictable, but my players want plain old milk toast D&D. So I’m looking for a way for me to “get into it” without changing too much for them. I told one of the players yesterday that I was thinking about letting somebody else take over as GM. I had all the notes for this campaign if they wanted to continue or they could just do something on their own and he got super concerned. Telling me how the group would probably dissolve if I stopped running the game and that they’re all having a really good time and don’t want to stop. Considering I put this group together I feel like I have to continue.
Well, first thing first is that if its not something you enjoy, and you just force yourself, you'll burn out.
I'm looking at this, and have a small question. From the sounds of it, your players like the regular d&d setting, including bow elves, wizard fireballs, and forge dwarves. How are you going to feel when your players make these iconic character types as PCs? You can make the world and NPCs play against expectations, but if the PCs are going to follow them, and they're the spotlight focus...
I don't really recommend trying to "trick" people by trying to forcefully shift genres while they're not looking. That's a bit dishonest - if you don't want to play that type of game, be upfront about it, rather than manipulate the group.
Though I do think you're slightly over exaggerating things a lot. Elves with bows generally only happen if they're playing an Arcane Archer (Fighter subclass) or a Ranger, and that's because those are classes that are literally made to use bows, no matter the race. There's a lot of potential elf builds beyond those two. Dwarven monks using warhammers? Literally not a thing, because its impossible to use warhammers with monk abilities. At best, you could use a throwing hammer, which is extremely unlikely due to how stats work. Your example of a player donning armor and hammer, despite being from this eastern culture, might make a lot more sense once we start looking at how they're not in the monk class.
Part of a solution might be to delve a bit deeper into the why of everything. There's a lot of detail and internal logic behind a lot of things that actually put a lot of these things into perspective. For instance. Dwarves. Default dwarves have a huge cultural background related to crafting, given that they were literally forged by their god in the fires. There's a whole thing that goes into some pretty huge depths there that you can explore that might make them a lot more interesting.
Also, if you want to make the dwarves into asian stereotypes with monks and ninja and samurai, I'm going to have to ask if you did anything to the stat block to reflect that. Now, dwarves can make alright monks, and decent Samurai, but their default stat block leans towards Forge Clerics and Barbarians, both of whom are known for using armor and heavy weapons.
Like, here's a brief overview of my setting. I decided that, in this game, I was going to start using a lot of cliches taken from the more recent fantasy novels, and play with them. There will be things like dungeon cores, xanxia inspired influences, etc. I'm a firm believer that tropes can always be interesting if, instead of just relying on something because its a trope, you actually just build off it into something that's has a lot of depth and meaning to it.
So, to start with, I decided to begin with the cliche human kingdom. Now, in fantasy stories, there's usually the cliche about humans being heavily religious, with strong influences from Christianity to make whatever fantasy religion you have. In asian stories, its the same thing, except with Buddhism and Taoist alchemy instead. Its the difference between paladins and clerics, versus monks and alchemists (a mix of house-ruled artificers and wizardry here). Further, one fun thing about xanxia stories is that those who study the path of cultivating Truth in the Buddhist style are considered to be defying the will of the heavens. Thus, tribulations and all the other xanxia cliches.
So, I went all in with that. The default human kingdom that the story takes place in is a place with a strong central european-style churches, surrounded by a lot of asain-inspired sects. This immediately creates conflict and tension between the two groups, one reliant upon faith, the other defying it. One relies on obeisance and oaths, the other on independence and self-reliance. With religion being so central, I felt that I couldn't really not include aasimar into the mix, so I made this "race" into the kingdom's noblity. This immediately creates a bit of class tension between different flavors of humans. You can't be a noble without being an aasimar as well - who generally keep all the nice relics and other magical items in family, thus making it easier to level up in different professions, making all this into a very nepotistic society. One of my favorite tweaks was the whole idea of a library of skill books (like Tome of Clear Thought) that are kept by nobles, and passed on generation by generation to use.
Why would people even put up with all of this? Well, for once thing... there's a fun little spell called Plant Growth that Nature clerics, druids and a few bards learn. Harvest festivals literally double your food production. A few years in, and people rely on priests and the like for healing and food.
And that's just a part of the human kingdom - I haven't touched on the fae (a mix of races, but mainly elves), the crafters (dwarvs, gnomes, warforged, very steampunk in flavor), the beast tribes (including orcs and tabaxi and bugbears, oh my), the fiery ones (mainly dragonborn and tieflings, but also giants). and undead, each of whom have their own kingdoms, and their own unique factions within their borders.
I say kingdoms, but really, the land-ownership is actually less based on borders like reality, and more on terrain type. There's a legend in D&D that, at the dawn of time, the gods argued over who would get where. Humans got the plains, dwarves were given the mountains, elves the forests, and the orcs got screwed over, etc. Again, I decided that, rather than fight it, I would double down on it.You can entire settlements of dwarves in the middle of an otherwise human region, because there's a random lone mountain there. This leads to some interesting complications, because this says a lot about resource distributions between the fae, the crafted, the humans. Which leads to diplomatic issues and social games, and power plays, etc.
EDIT - Anyways, the reason I bring all this up is to show how you have to fight against the tropes to make something interesting to you. You can spin things to make a complex story that you enjoy. Instead of one or the other, finding a happy middle ground is a good spot.
I like the idea of having horrific creatures start popping up, and it leading into something more towards the scifi end of the spectrum. Ancient automata begin reactivating and causing havoc. Maybe they are being controlled or maybe they are just running on their ancient orders. Heck you could do something a bit crazy and have the yuan ti be behind it and they are trying to reclaim their great empire with their ancient magitek or maybe something else they discovered. This could be used with darn near any race as the antagonist, dwarves, gnomes, hobgoblins. I just like yuan ti as bad guys.
Consider even taking other creatures and remaining them to more mechanical nature. Robotic flail snail was an ancient janitor, with self preservation protocols. I dunno, you have gotten a lot of awesome advice so far. Just wanted to give other options and ideas. A tour of the planes could be interesting and nifty too. Get pulled into a portal and do something like sliders, going from portal to portal trying to get home.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Science fiction and fantasy are basically the same thing when it comes to magic/tech. They're just different veneers on the same basic thing: doing something beyond reasonable human limitations.
If you can't flavour it that way in your mind to help you then maybe try a compromise option like Eberron where it's more magi-punk? If that doesn't work then forcing it is never going to work for you or for them so maybe just ask to be a player (can you enjoy playing in a fantasy game?) or drop out. It's sad but that's just how things have to work out sometimes.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
It isn’t “magic”. It’s the fantasy tropes I find so boring. Look, it’s an elf who is good with a bow, 🥱. The dwarf hits it with her warhammer 🥱. The wizard casts fireball... again😴. D&D is solidly built on those tropes and I find them sooooo boring. Yes I could run a different system, I could home brew this world to be less predictable, but my players want plain old milk toast D&D. So I’m looking for a way for me to “get into it” without changing too much for them. I told one of the players yesterday that I was thinking about letting somebody else take over as GM. I had all the notes for this campaign if they wanted to continue or they could just do something on their own and he got super concerned. Telling me how the group would probably dissolve if I stopped running the game and that they’re all having a really good time and don’t want to stop. Considering I put this group together I feel like I have to continue.
Tropes are for subverting....
Second that, give them a damsel in distress that plans to eat them later. Have them find a room full of wonderous treasures and suddenly.mimics try to eat them. Have the kidnapped nobleman be the kingpin of a drug syndicate that the kidnappers were vigilantes trying to protect their city.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Well, first thing first is that if its not something you enjoy, and you just force yourself, you'll burn out.
I'm looking at this, and have a small question. From the sounds of it, your players like the regular d&d setting, including bow elves, wizard fireballs, and forge dwarves. How are you going to feel when your players make these iconic character types as PCs? You can make the world and NPCs play against expectations, but if the PCs are going to follow them, and they're the spotlight focus...
I don't really recommend trying to "trick" people by trying to forcefully shift genres while they're not looking. That's a bit dishonest - if you don't want to play that type of game, be upfront about it, rather than manipulate the group.
Though I do think you're slightly over exaggerating things a lot. Elves with bows generally only happen if they're playing an Arcane Archer (Fighter subclass) or a Ranger, and that's because those are classes that are literally made to use bows, no matter the race. There's a lot of potential elf builds beyond those two. Dwarven monks using warhammers? Literally not a thing, because its impossible to use warhammers with monk abilities. At best, you could use a throwing hammer, which is extremely unlikely due to how stats work. Your example of a player donning armor and hammer, despite being from this eastern culture, might make a lot more sense once we start looking at how they're not in the monk class.
Part of a solution might be to delve a bit deeper into the why of everything. There's a lot of detail and internal logic behind a lot of things that actually put a lot of these things into perspective. For instance. Dwarves. Default dwarves have a huge cultural background related to crafting, given that they were literally forged by their god in the fires. There's a whole thing that goes into some pretty huge depths there that you can explore that might make them a lot more interesting.
Also, if you want to make the dwarves into asian stereotypes with monks and ninja and samurai, I'm going to have to ask if you did anything to the stat block to reflect that. Now, dwarves can make alright monks, and decent Samurai, but their default stat block leans towards Forge Clerics and Barbarians, both of whom are known for using armor and heavy weapons.
There are several modern / scifi settings for D&D 5e, here a post listing some of them.
http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=18326
Like, here's a brief overview of my setting. I decided that, in this game, I was going to start using a lot of cliches taken from the more recent fantasy novels, and play with them. There will be things like dungeon cores, xanxia inspired influences, etc. I'm a firm believer that tropes can always be interesting if, instead of just relying on something because its a trope, you actually just build off it into something that's has a lot of depth and meaning to it.
So, to start with, I decided to begin with the cliche human kingdom. Now, in fantasy stories, there's usually the cliche about humans being heavily religious, with strong influences from Christianity to make whatever fantasy religion you have. In asian stories, its the same thing, except with Buddhism and Taoist alchemy instead. Its the difference between paladins and clerics, versus monks and alchemists (a mix of house-ruled artificers and wizardry here). Further, one fun thing about xanxia stories is that those who study the path of cultivating Truth in the Buddhist style are considered to be defying the will of the heavens. Thus, tribulations and all the other xanxia cliches.
So, I went all in with that. The default human kingdom that the story takes place in is a place with a strong central european-style churches, surrounded by a lot of asain-inspired sects. This immediately creates conflict and tension between the two groups, one reliant upon faith, the other defying it. One relies on obeisance and oaths, the other on independence and self-reliance. With religion being so central, I felt that I couldn't really not include aasimar into the mix, so I made this "race" into the kingdom's noblity. This immediately creates a bit of class tension between different flavors of humans. You can't be a noble without being an aasimar as well - who generally keep all the nice relics and other magical items in family, thus making it easier to level up in different professions, making all this into a very nepotistic society. One of my favorite tweaks was the whole idea of a library of skill books (like Tome of Clear Thought) that are kept by nobles, and passed on generation by generation to use.
Why would people even put up with all of this? Well, for once thing... there's a fun little spell called Plant Growth that Nature clerics, druids and a few bards learn. Harvest festivals literally double your food production. A few years in, and people rely on priests and the like for healing and food.
And that's just a part of the human kingdom - I haven't touched on the fae (a mix of races, but mainly elves), the crafters (dwarvs, gnomes, warforged, very steampunk in flavor), the beast tribes (including orcs and tabaxi and bugbears, oh my), the fiery ones (mainly dragonborn and tieflings, but also giants). and undead, each of whom have their own kingdoms, and their own unique factions within their borders.
I say kingdoms, but really, the land-ownership is actually less based on borders like reality, and more on terrain type. There's a legend in D&D that, at the dawn of time, the gods argued over who would get where. Humans got the plains, dwarves were given the mountains, elves the forests, and the orcs got screwed over, etc. Again, I decided that, rather than fight it, I would double down on it.You can entire settlements of dwarves in the middle of an otherwise human region, because there's a random lone mountain there. This leads to some interesting complications, because this says a lot about resource distributions between the fae, the crafted, the humans. Which leads to diplomatic issues and social games, and power plays, etc.
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EDIT - Anyways, the reason I bring all this up is to show how you have to fight against the tropes to make something interesting to you. You can spin things to make a complex story that you enjoy. Instead of one or the other, finding a happy middle ground is a good spot.