Gaming in Discworld - anyone?

[Bezzo]

Considering how popular the books are I am a little surprised how little the setting appears to have  been used by gamers. My Google searches have been pretty unproductive.

I did see some photos of an Ankh Morpork board with some nice buildings a few years back (can't remember which convention it was).

Is anybody out there usning Discworld as a location for games?

[Commander Vyper]

Considering how popular the books are I am a little surprised how litttle the setting appears to have  been used by gamers. My Google searches have been pretty unproductive.

I did see some photos of an Ankh Morpork board a few yeras back (can't remember which convention it was).

Is anybody out there usning Discworld as a location for games?

Going back at least 15-20 years now I started mapping out all the background stuff from the novels with a view to incorporating it into an inhouse RPG of sorts, ended up with about 200 hand written index cards, then lost interest.

The current range of minis are very very nice indeed and I am a little suprised that something more hasn't come out of that wonderfully flat discworld, in orbit on the backs of four great celestrial pacaderms, and a weathered old star turtle for ever more.

[Doc Twilight]

I'm also surprised, but I am told that part of the problem with the new crop of miniatures is that they are between 34 and 36mm tall, which makes them too large to use with other ranges, and that the range is not quite comprehensive enough in order to be used on its own.

-Doc

[Commander Vyper]

the range is not quite comprehensive enough in order to be used on its own.

-Doc

Yet.

I know what you mean though, suprised that GW didn't snaffle the licence up, but then again humour isn't allowed there anymore, (it says so in the Golden Demon rule book so it must be true!).

[Hammers]

My own feelings about the Discworld is that it is too wacky to be gamed properly. It is hard to explain but it has something to do with that the stories are so much based on intelligent wit rather than adventure.

[Lupus]

Didn't GURPS do a set of rules for the Discworld area..

[assi]

I'm also surprised, but I am told that part of the problem with the new crop of miniatures is that they are between 34 and 36mm tall, which makes them too large to use with other ranges,

Thats why Sam Vimes won't have a guest appearance in my D&D Campaign I love the Minis but they're way too big for the usual 28mm herioc Style.

And i highly doubt that they'll do enough Minis to work entirely on the DW Range. Its really sad that there is always a guy who thinks that standarts aren't meant for him.

[capthugeca]

Hordes of the Things includes Discworld armies so I imagine someone must have thought using that setting was a good idea.

[YPU]

Didn't GURPS do a set of rules for the Discworld area..

Something I found Hilarious. GURPS to my mind is always overly simulations and realistic, the idea of combining it with discworld is simply funny in a bad way.

I have the death model and I have used him in 28mm rpg games. He is very large but then he is Death himself, so awesome that he SPEAKS IN CAPITALS and has a horse called BINKY.

[warhammergrimace]

Discworld for GURPS is still avaliable apparently, been thinking of having a game or two with it myself. Hasslefree do a very good 28mm Barbarian which looks like Cohen the Barabarian.

[Verderer]

We played GURPS Discworld a couple of times. There were two problems with it really. It's really hard to play 'comedy' rpg. I mean, often your regular fantasy RPG may become quite funny, when people are pratting about, telling jokes etc. But we found it actually pretty hard to play 'funny' RPG on purpose, so it more or less ended up as regular RPG in Discworld setting, which is ok. The second thing is related to this, it takes a very good GM to pull to comedy side of things off. Again, the end result wasn't so much comedy as it was regular RPG in an inherently comedic setting. Would probably have taken some getting used to, our game kinda petered out. We had most fun with creating some odd and humourous characters. And although GURPS is very good for creating complex characters, the system isn't really ideal for this type of gaming, I must say. Like someone said, it's pretty dry and simulationist, and kinda takes some fun out of the gaming.

I think we've had much more humorous moments with WFRP (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay), and I would think that system might well work much better for DW too. As many of you know, WFRP setting contains some comedy elements, they're not as prevalent, but they're there. And the system is a bit more loose and relaxed.

[assi]

I have the death model and I have used him in 28mm rpg games. He is very large but then he is Death himself, so awesome that he SPEAKS IN CAPITALS and has a horse called BINKY.

I gambled with this Idea, but how do you speak in ITALIAN SPEAKS IN CAPITALS to your Players?

[Hammers]

Hammers
Got to agree with you Hammers about the intelligence on display. I think Pratchett is actually a very good author and satirist and in a bygone era would have been acclaimed as such and not written off as just "another fantasy writer".

But there are plenty of adventure aspects in some of the stories, and add in trolls ogres, vampires with Death himself an ever present factor and I can see some mileage in gaming it. Maybe with more of a RPG angle than massed minis....

There certainly are adventure aspects. I dearly love these books so I thought some more about why I see little appeal in gaming that universe. What it comes down to is that Discworld is a parody. But the jokes have already been told (in the books) and they don't get any better by being repeated a second or third time on a gaming board.

Ursula LeGuin's 'Earthsea' on the other hand...

[Red Orc]

I don't think that you have to rely on parody to get the Discworld flavour though. Sure, 'Colour of Magic' (and to a lesser extent 'Light Fantastic') is a parody of the Anne McCaffrey Pern books, Conan, and the Lankhmar stories. And I think we all know who the Sender of 7a is supposed to be. Possibly others I haven't spotted. So, don't parody those I'd say, but parody other things, then you're not using Pratchett's jokes.

The trick is to use some fantasy story that your audience knows well. The Lord of the Rings, say. How would a Discworld version work? Minas Tirith (read, Ankh-Morpork) would probably not want Strider as king, being happy enough with the mad pyromaniacs they have already, thanks very much. Invading army of orcs'n'wotnot? Go an' sell'em sausage'n'abun. Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler versus the hordes of Mordor; I know which one I'd bet on.

It's like the opposite of normal DMing; there, you try to steal plots/characters/devices without your players realising where they've come from; here, if they don't realise, they don't get the joke. There's no point in parodying something your players haven't read.

But I don't think the later books (by which I mean, 'Equal Rites' and after) are really parodies in the same way. They're more 'themed'. Say, 'Weird Sisters' ' - it's not a parody of MacBeth so much as a Discworld version of it; 'Masquerade' is Pratchett 'doing' opera; 'The Truth' is a Discworld newspaper story, not a parody of... I don't know, All the President's Men or whatever.

Any story can be made Discworldy, I reckon, and used as a plot. The important thing I think is not the story, but how the story is told* - I figure Pratchett can (could?) turn his hand to pretty much any subject and 'Diskify' it.

What would the citizens of Ankh-Morpork make of a new religion that preached poverty and tolerance, or a science that tought that the world was round? How would Llados be changed by the knowledge that the rocks they build stone circles out of were really really valuable? Political corruption in Genua? Revolution in Sto Lat? Drug production in Uberwald? Any and all of them could be plot devices. The point wouldn't be so much the story as the characters and emellishments (mostly, logical complications taken to the extreme) that give the setting.

Anyway, that's my take. Not that I know what I'm taking about, my Discworld D&D campaign didn't work. I do like the idea of using WFRPs though, that decayed German feel to it might translate better.

* ususally, with lots of footnotes.

[Verderer]

I'd agree that Pratchett started the Discworld novels as pure parody, but he's moved away from 'simple' parody. (Parody can be very far for simple.) I expect you have to do that, if you want to continue expanding on the setting, and not get repetitive. I mean, the fantasy and fairy tale archetypes are still being parodied, but now the Discworld is a fully developed fantasy world. I would describe it fantasy with a 'Dickensian' twist (pun there, I think?)

Pratchett also visits the area of satire in  describing various themes that are familiar from the real world and culture: religion, rock music, politics, firearms, war,  the press, and so on. He adds a good measure of fairy tale and folk tradition, so the end result is a kind of a gumbo with a bit of everything in it.

I find his stuff funny, witty and fascinating, but I must say I am slightly disappointed with the direction he's taken with the most recent Discworld novels. I dunno if it is that the plots become predictable or repetitive, or if it's Pratchett's attempt these days always to tell a lesson in morals of whatever the theme happens to be. I liked his postmodernist approach of the early novels, but it feels that he's reggressing back into a modernist mold in the later novels.