You have a life outside of DnD? Stop that! The hobby needs you! Your stuff is gold. Okay let's be serious here Daniel. Absolutely adore your channel. You're very practical, you keep things simple, and yet effective without complications. And more importantly you're into high-fantasy, the only way to play. As a first edition DVD player and second edition I say keep in gritty, keep your good advice and examples coming because there's a lot of information and draw from here.

Totally agree. Actually, when I first started I made sort of a reskin of 2nd edition ADnD adapted to a Brazilian/South American 17th century mythic setting. And we published it in 1992. I remember we had this huge list of monsters from ADnD and we would try and find Brazilian legends that fit that "role" in the game world. It's totally feasible and a lot of fun! Love to see you take about some of the genres. Good stuff

I'm here from Brazil, and your videos really help broaden the perspective for both Dungeon Masters and players in the RPG community. Some content creators use your videos as a reference. In fact, some of the rules you mention in your videos have inspired the creation of a few RPGs. I even use some of the rules from your videos in my sessions, especially the one from "OSR Skills Using Turn Undead as Inspiration." The experience is a great learning opportunity. Excellent video. Please continue sharing your insights and perspectives on everything related to RPGs. Thank you very much.

Luke Skywalker was a cleric in space... he even levels up an gets spells. But there a good advantage in finding an in genre RPG for random tables an mechanic to borrow, I.E. if your doing a two fisted or space game then you borrow the car chase or spaceship combat rules.

There's a a few pretty simple Sword & Sorcery D&D takes out there. Back when TSR still had the rights, there was a Lankhmar supplement series, followed by a Lankhmar rpg based on 2nd edition AD&D. Basic changes - no nonhuman races, multiclassing allowed for humans, and magic modified. Magic was divided into Black & White. White mages were reskinned clerics with access to all cleric & druid spells. Black mages were reskinned magic users with a tendency toward corruption at higher levels. Magic was slower to cast & less common. There was another online reskinning of BX D&D at a blog called Ode to Black Dougal. Fighters & Thieves were as is. Halfling became the base for Savages & Dwarfs the base for Barbarians. Elves became Atlanteans- less Elrond, more Elric. Clerics were more malevolent - the sort to commune with Cthulu. Magic Users were pretty much as is but with a risk of corruption. Normal healing was faster due to a lack of magical healing. Either is worth checking out for ideas.

Sword and Planet would be easy to re-favor in old-school DnD.

Yes for the space-based Hex Crawl.

I'm an O.G.DM from the 70's, recently found your channel. LOVE IT. Keep up the good work!

I'm hosting 2 campaigns, and have hosted a few others, but my favorite so far is the one for my wife and my best friend. They are playing a "buddy cop" campaign in which they are 2 gnomes. It's a detective agency in which one is a very smart wizard and the other is a brutish fighter. Kinda blurs the line between " 2 fist detective" and sword and sorcery. They're just in it to make a name for themselves, and a few gold earned always helps.

I'm more of a Agatha Christie mystery fan but I've been listening to old detective radio stories. And I keep noticing the sudden way they resolve the story. The detective encounters a series of characters, at some point in the third act it becomes obvious who dunnit, the detective confronts them. Amazingly often it's resolved with a fistfight, or... bad guy pulls a gun, maybe they 'go crazy' and jump out a window, or drive off too fast and wreck their car. It's very much Barbarian stabs evil wizard, the end. Regarding Hexes in space - Coincidentally, I'm actually doing this too (starforged). Don't forget warp-gates for fast-travel! And space derelicts are just like dungeons. If you are worried about representing 3D space on a 2D map, well... spiral galaxies can be very flat. And so can solar systems.

Yes! Please make a video on “space hexes” and hex crawling in space! 😄

Definitely like combining the cleric and magic-user spells in a Conan-esque setting. Priests and mages are basically the same thing.

I really like the idea of an exploration campaign. The Lost City of Z would be a great basis for an exploration campaign. There's enough resources out there like the Sandbox Generator and Manual of Hexterity that it would take next to no effort to set up.

Space hex-crawls... I love it. My favorite AD&D setting was Spelljammer, and one of my favorite Sci-Fi shows is Star Trek (the original series). If you have random tables for ocean hex crawls, these tables can be easily modified for space - islands become planets, reefs become asteroid belts, whirlpools become black holes. I remember an old BECMI supplement (or maybe a series of Dragon Magazine articles) that presented classes for more exotic potential player races (centaur, pixie, etc.) that can be used for alien crew members.

Space hexcrawl sounds like a very good video idea

A phrase that has come up from time to time in a variety of versions is "only the Dexterity modifier applies to armor class" . This phrase acknowledges that the penetrating power of an attack is so high that conventional armors makes little difference. It would be a simple way to differentiate firearms or beam weapons from more primitive alternatives.

before you write off demihumans and wizards in detective/noir fiction you should really read the Garrett series by Glen Cook, really delightful harboiled detective fusion with a classic "DnD-Style" fantasy

a bit late to the party but i highly recommend Fight the Power Word, Kill's article on playing OD&D/Holmes Basic in a setting inspired by medieval chinese literature like Water Margin, and how it kind of actually works better than trying to fit OD&D into like tolkien fantasy or even conan pulp fantasy (given that OD&D as a single package is a hodgepodge of influences from everywhere and lots of unique details).examples being things like clerics and their restrictions, murderhobos, spell slots etc. I personally also find that fantasy literature inns also hew closer to historical chinese jiu dian's than medieval europe's actual inns and taverns, as well as prevalence of cash, etc.

Sci-Fi in space would be awesome. Spelljammer was always a favorite of mine. Two-Fisted sounds great to try out. Thanks for the ideas.

like another guy said- an extremely underrated D&D channel. there are times you speak too quickly and mumble a bit. I'm totally guilty of that. maybe keep the pace a bit slower. we all really want to hear your thoughts. you are definitely my go-to tuber for BX OSR D&D. I'm so glad you have focused on that.

Thank you for another great video, Daniel! I really enjoy your content. I think you should totally do a video on converting Old School D&D for Sci-Fi. I'd love to hear your thoughts regarding the kinds of skills you'd give thieves (engineers?) and how you'd run a space crawl! I am very inspired by your videos. I've taken a lot of your advice to use in my games. Keep up the great work!

Hi! Love your channels, especially the one focused on Solo Play. I wanted to ask if you have some videos that I might've missed where you talk about puzzle design, for example how to make puzzles for dungeons.

Space Hexcrawls are great and absolutely fit the exploration style campaign well. It's hard to think of that concept separate from Traveler though.

BECMI and AD&D have been good for the Mythological Ancient Greek world I'm working on, since all of the monsters are already there. Magicians are rare and powerful, enchanted weapons and armor can be had if you fall into favor with the gods, and if your hero has max in three atributes, you are probably a demigod.

I'm up for more Boot Hill stuff!

Oh I love that healing for fist fights! I have rarely liked unarmed combat in most systems, then Martial Arts (and equivalents) on top often seem slightly lacking or clunky. This is a great idea, martial arts and wrestling etc can then take it up a notch to more long term damage if you wanted too. Perfect for that end boss or the Boss's right hand man/lady (or even multiples) finale punch ups where the damage is more potent and the stakes ratchet up a notch... Love it. Cleric in Sword and Sorcery, perfect, same goes for the Halfling and MU. That Exploring the lost world feel is how I always envisioned the Lustrian continent in WFRP right from first edition. This makes me want to play ALL of these. Again I would love to see you making encounters or adventure outlines for these! (Yeah I know, I'm a scratched record..)

Among your best videos to date!

Interesting topic. I remember thinking about Swords & Sorcery though only inspiration from that was Conan The Barbarian and that was mosting difficult not having other books or other sources to take from for a campaign. I do say Im okay with high fantasy as that is where Lord of Rings, D&D Dragonlance chronicles books and just the general concept around it makes it appealing to me. Though besides fantasy, I like Sci-Fi and more of FromSoftware's King's Field The Ancient City for something for dark fantasy I guess? Idk just encounter some neat stuff I read/watch as I run Old school D&D campaigns at least experimenting with what to make setting-wise. At some point I run Pits & Perils (OD&D/chainmail inspired) and eventually will learn what I can tweak to suit a different genre other than just good ol fantasy. The imagination engine never runs out unless you forgot to refill it.

The issue with D&D is that the combat system really falls apart as soon as you enter a genre where people aren't wearing armor. That's why many modern to sci-fi systems tend use armor as damage reduction and not making someone harder to hit. It makes those with little to no armor get behind cover while those with armor (like Mando himself) can go charging in knowing that they will take little to no damage because their armor will protect them. This even applies to historical eras where heavier armor had fallen out of favor and melee defense consisted more of blocks, dodges, and parry's (i.e. opposed skill checks). If it was just going to be a short low level campaign it's probably not going to be that big a deal, but for more high level play, you're probably best going with a system designed for the genre in question.

Great video mate! I think it would be cool to see you do a solo Sci-Fi Actual Play

Love your videos

My homebrew setting is science-fantasy (very dying earth where technology is magic). Works well.

My personal favorite genre to run with d&d is 1980's style fantasy anime like Lodoss War

Very relevant! I'm currently planning to modify BX or AD&D for a sci-fi campaign flavored a bit star-wars-ish. Sure, we could play a system more tailored to the setting, but I think I'll get more mileage out of something simpler, that my players are already pretty familiar with, and that is easy to hammer into the shape we want it to be.

I would really enjoy a video on how you test systems!

I absolutely would love to see some video(s) about space hex-crawling!

It's not exactly sword & sorcery (not totally, at least, but we certainly all liked the genre), but I played for a long time in a game that was very highly lethal, very dangerous, and assumed as a baseline that basically everyone, bar exceptional examples, is a level 1/level 0 character. This also went for enemies/opposition (although of course monsters are often a lot more dangerous). This meant that a lot of the time, both characters and their enemies (human enemies were a very common foe) were somewhere around level 1, with some exceptional heroic level 2-3 characters in the mix. The high lethality of the game, and the GM's merciless (not unfair or predatory, merely totally merciless and no breaks or punches pulled) attitude of hitting as hard as the opposition could meant that almost no character survived to higher levels, or a long period of time even (a level 3 D&D character is, as we all know, far from immortal, even if compared to a level 1 they're absolutely superhuman). The result of this was an extraordinary arrangement where anyone with levels was really special and felt really powerful. I haven't really experienced another campaign where a level 4 Fighter really was seen to be the Conan type who stood head and shoulders above basically everyone else and had accumulated a long list of heroic feats and war stories already. When we lost a level 3 character, it was a real, palpable loss. No character above level 1 was "just some shmuck", each and every one of them was notable and important. I'm sure it would be a frustrating game for many, losing characters often and never really "progressing" very far, except more things happening in the game world, but it was also a very unique and interesting experience. I got a character to level 3 in that campaign and retired them a winner, knowing that they'd achieved more than most people would, and were already far more impressive than almost everyone around them.

Space hex-crawl would be really fun and interesting. If you do that look at Travellers or the Cepheus system sub-sector generators. They generate an 8x10 parsec sub-sector that you can drop your group in.

Cleric in Space is called Warhammer 40k.

you have actually responded to my comments- which is incredible with 13k subscribers. really loved your post about using undead. I agree with just about everything you've posted, and have found all of it useful. have you done a video about randomizing dungeon contents? I actually play a lot of four against darkness 4AD, because I'm lazy and it's dead simple- I'm always looking for a better way to randomize room contents. thanks!

White Star RPG uses white box 0e - and Stars Without Number uses B/X - for the sci fi and space opera genre Tall Tales is a B/X western genre game Gangbusters B/X is of course a b/x depression era crime rpg Got me stumped for Explorers rpg maybe the game Frontier Scum by Karl Druid Anyway - some nice little rules lite OSR Genre games for those who know the system but want to play something else then Dragons and Swords

White Lies is a great OSR rule set with a modern day action movie theme. It also has some great rules for customizing equipment.

If you haven’t checked out White Star Galaxy Edition yet I highly recommend it as inspiration fodder for your OSR Sci-Fi game. It’s based of Swords and Wizardry WhiteBox so not too far from B/X.

Hexspace sounds like fun.

I would like a video on all of these. Also a video on a nautical themed game.

I'm always the DM, but I've played a good bit too. I'm explaining this only because I've managed to go 40 years and not play a Cleric. Until about a year ago, where I played A Cleric In Space Hahahaha!!!!!!

Reflavoring existing stuff for the win

B/X Thundar the Barbarian!

I would love if you dove deeper into all of these genres.

Night Owl Workshop cannot be recommended enough if you want to play in these genres

I am curious about things in life! ;-)

Need a video on hex space

You do know they did most of these in 2e. Superheros, space, mystery,

Why isn't the Patreon link working?

B/X Star Wars please!

Dnd as superheros. City based. The idea is more to capture your enemies., and most characters have a civilan identiy magic items are used as powers. Look up in the sky ! It's a bird! it's a plane. It's Superknight! Yes Superknight who disguise as mild mannered scribe Clarious Kentar. Lives is Meteopal. And when danger threatens dons his magic platemail gauntlets of giant strength flying cloak and gem of fire beam to fight the never ending battle for truth justice and the goodlandia way.

Film noir detectives are a lot flimsier than D&D characters. Mickey Spillane characters don't have 30 hp and can get stabbed several times a day. Level caps is a way there. The world is level 0, a level 3 dude or even a level 1 is a formidable thing. Or characters could get less hp per level, a fighter gets +3 hp while a film noir wizard gets +1, Game of Thrones d20 gave you that sort of hp. A strong fighter in that game can probably take a blow or two but no more. Reskinning a demihuman class as a human is easy, by removing or replacing some non-human trait or ability they got. Then you can have "dwarfs" without the darkvision. Investigative games start to revolve more about characters, events and hints. Chaosium got good at this sort of game, the best adventures often have several paths to the conclusion so the PCs are not stuck if they miss one thing or two.

GangBusters comes to at the beginning of the video

Cleric in space is warhammer 40k

clerics are just doctors.. duh

Curious about anything in life you say? Why are pandas so useless?